Is mid-August just that good of a time for young couples in love? There are an awful lot of birthdays this week. It’s my mom’s, and it’s the birthday of a friend from the library in North Dakota where I used to work. I invited my daughter over to join us for dinner, and she couldn’t because it was her ex-roommate’s birthday too. I had a special dinner planned, because Friday is our old college roommate’s birthday, and he will be on a trip to Eastern Europe, so we had to celebrate early. Calculating the math leads me to assume that the old song from Grease was on the money about those Hot Summer Nights.
I got creative with food today, knowing that it was a celebratory meal. I also didn’t want to go out to the store when I had plenty of food at the house, so I intentionally used only items I had in abundance. I thawed two packs of chicken from the freezer, plus four peaches from last year’s Rotary fundraiser (I froze them whole), and used a large handful of carrots (giant Costco bag), plus other veggies and a mess of Ras el Hanout seasoning to make a fusion American-Moroccan stew to pour over rice. I made a cheesecake (again, thank you to Costco for my abundance of ingredients). I found a standard recipe on Pinterest for a lemon blueberry one, but I had a giant bag of limes, so guess what kind I made? Also, when it called for a blueberry purée, I thought that was wasteful, so I dropped four handfuls of fresh blueberries into the batter, and it turned out perfectly. The crust was almond flour and brown sugar, with just a sprinkle of coconut flour, and it did right by me too. Mint leaves from the side of my house topped it off (when my attempt at writing my friend’s name in chocolate ganache on parchment failed to peel off the paper).
I couldn’t be with every single person who I value whose birthday was this week, but I promise to all of them, they’ve been on my mind, in a good way. There’s not enough energy to go around anymore, but I still care. I hope somehow they can feel that.
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