Weekend Cooking- The Birthday Excitement Continues....

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When our children were young, it seemed that birthday celebrations were neverending. Between bringing in cupcakes for classroom celebrations (this was back in the day when that was allowed) to family parties and then the parties with friends (we had various parties for our sons at a Single A baseball games and professional hockey games, among other places), it often went on for a week.

As you get older, your birthday is relegated to one day- a nice dinner and a cake if you are lucky. This year, my birthday celebration was a multi-part event.  (I felt like the sultan of a faraway country, the only thing missing was paying a million dollars for an American celebrity like Britney Spears to appear and sing Happy Birthday to me!)

It started with my sister-in-law, who also share a birthday with me, coming to NYC to spend the day at the Macy's Flower Show and wandering the city doing fun things. (See last week's post here.) So I had a fabulous lunch at Butter and then dinner at Quality Italian. (And too many drinks for a weeknight!)

On Thursday, I came home from work and found that I received a HUGE bouquet of gorgeous flowers from my husband. (They were so big, I couldn't carry them, a porter had to bring them up to my apartment on a cart!)

Friday was my actual birthday, and I had planned on cooking dinner, but my wonderful husband took me to dinner at my favorite neighborhood restaurant, Lusardi's. Since it was a Friday during Lent, it was lucky that my favorite meal there is a pear salad and spinach-filled tortelli. We shared a fantastic bottle of wine, and it was a fabulous evening.

Saturday I worked at the Book Cellar, and we always have a nice lunch break, where the volunteers sit and chat. We finished our lunch (I was good, I had a yogurt and cranberry orange bar), when I turned to get up from lunch, I saw Dorothy carrying a cake with a candle on it that read "Happy Birthday Diane". That was such a surprise!

There was the traditional singing of Happy Birthday, with customers joining in as well. (Who needs Britney Spears?) It was so unexpected and sweet, and the cake was my favorite Strawberry Shortcake from Agata & Valentina.

We wrapped things up with a family dinner at Trattoria del Arte, located on 7th Ave. near Central Park. My whole family was there- my wonderful husband, my sons and their girlfriends. We don't get to see each other very often at this time of year (tax season), so it was especially nice.

And so ends the Birthday Extravaganza of 2017. It must be officially over, as I just tossed out the beautiful flowers, but the memories will last much longer.