Katie's Birthday

So a public belated Happy Birthday to Ms. Katie Kauf, whom turned 23 years young this past Saturday. It was a very nice occassion enjoyed intensely by all who celebrate it around the world. As an interesting sidenote, Katie shares her birthday with, among others, the lovely Cameron Diaz of Charlie's Angels FULL THROTTLE fame.

So Friday night began Katie's birthday at approximately 12:01 eastern time. For a sane person a 23rd birthday wouldn't really begin until the next day, like the actual birthday. I mean, on your 21st birthday you get the power hour thing going on and I can follow you there. It makes sense, you go out, get wasted in like 45 minutes as a warm up to the next night. But when you are 23 it hardly seems like a big deal. I mean, I know I attach less importance to birthdays then most people, but I really do think Katie enjoys her birthday more than the average folk (not that there's anything wrong with that). So because she had done "such a good job" not opening her presents during the week, she got to open my present to her that night.

I had gotten her a KitchenAid Artisan 5 Quart Stand Mixer in grape, a very good purple color. It really is the best mixer in the world, literally, everyone uses it, and I know Katie wanted it, but I wasn't sure that it was really a legitimate birthday present. I mean, I know she likes to make cookies and stuff, but I felt bad that it wasn't a surprise and stuff. So I added to that a J Crew sweater of her choice as a legitimate surprise. We went to sleep shortly after she tried out her mixer. We woke up early, way way too early, on Saturday and Katie opened the remainder of her presents. There were a couple cookbooks and some tank tops and some cookie sheets. A very good package overall that provides recipes for the cookies, a place to mix them, and something to bake them on.

We made crepes for Katie's b-day breakfast and got to utilize the KitchenAid mixer to make the whipped cream. You know a breakfast is solid when it necessitates making whipped cream. I mean, I like the idea of some waffles, some crepes, an omelette, some hashed browns (doubled covered and smothered of course), and a wee bit of bacon or sausage or whatev. Throw a bowl of whipped cream in the middle of that buffet style brunch and you are fucking set. Maybe some cheese sauce too and a basket of hot soft Philly style pretzels. I have never been to Philadelphia, but from the things I know them as famous for (cheeseteaks and pretzels) I think we would get along very well. I wonder if anyone in Philly has ever combined those foods, because a cheesesteak served inside a pretzel is a good fucking idea, especially if both the components are legit, not fucking frozen superpretzels from the supermarchet. The point from this was that the KitchenAid mixer was incredible on the whipped cream. You would expect a good 3-4 minutes of whipping from a hand mixer, but the KitchenAid knocked it out in easily under a minute with no effort on my behalf. It rocked.

After that tasty breakfast we headed to J. Crew and got Katie a ribbed sweater that was all cottony and nice and blue and shit. I am sure you could find it on their website, as she did the other day, if you are really interested in Katie's recent sweater-torial acquisitions. I was glad that Katie enjoyed her present, but the real highlight of that mall experience was the fact that there were these people from some sort of nature preserve hanging around in there and they had these two birds, one was a hawk and the other was an owl. Both of them were really fucking cool and pretty, but the owl rocked really fucking hard. I think owls are awesome in general, but I love it when you can get all up close to them and see their big eyes and watch them do the weird neck turny thing. I don't think owls can really turn their heads all the way around, but they come pretty close and they do it really quickly and overall they rock. I got to watch the owl for a little bit and then we were off to enjoy the Masterworks from the Phillips Collection at the Albright-Knox art gallery.

The collection really was quite incredible and I am very pleased Katie got to see it. I really enjoyed both of my trips but it was nice to go back after having already surveyed the area once. The Renoir painting that highlighted the collection, Luncheon of the Boating Party, is really amazing in person, though not so much in any representation I have ever seen. The colors and the crystalline appearance is overwhelming and not a single print of it even approximates those elements. On the lighter side of all the VanGogh's that close out the exhibition and the suicidal note that it ends on, the audio tour of the Phillips Masterworks Exhibition is narrated by Buffalo institutions The Goo Goo Dolls. Katie broke out laughing on at least one occassion when the Boy Named Goo described Picasso's differing monochromatic periods. It was pretty funny, but overall a very cool thing. It was a brilliant Buffalo afternoon so we walked to and from a nice free parking space and enjoyed one of the few bright but cool moments of a Western New York summer.

We decided that all parts of the day outside of the visit to the art museum would be dominated by food. We came home and began that by enjoying a simple hors d'oerve of summer sausage and cheese and crackers. At the same time I prepared Katie's birthday dinner, chicken and dumplings. In case you are wondering or are not aware, chicken and dumplings is a food which is primarily tasty in its blandness. I like it and all, but it is not exactly a diverse cornucopia of competing flavors. I heartily respect Katie's right to whatever birthday dinner she desires (I mean, there were years where I rolled hamburgers or shephard's pie or bratwurst or whatever) but I am not sure balls of dough floating in a stew served over mashed potatoes is hot August afternoon food. Regardless, I think I did an okay job on my first attempt at Katie's favorite meal.

While some of that was cooking I worked on Katie's birthday cake. It was a new recipe that we decided to try, borrowed from a Cooking Pleasures magazine. It is a chocolate almond mocha torte cake which was composed, essentially, of chocolate, rum, almonds, sugar, espresso, butter, and egg whites. I mean, there was a little flour mixed in with the ground almonds and some corn syrup or whatever, but it was pretty dense. People think that egg whites will make a cake or simething all light, like a souffle is just air bubbles, but especially a torte like this (one which is essentially a collapsing souffle) is pretty tightly packed. I glazed that motherfucker after dinner and we enjoyed a slice late that night. I actually think it tastes better after having a day to set, but it was very good even that night.

I am a day behind or so on this journal, so there may be more to come tonight. Nonetheless, I am starving, all I have eaten today is a salad, some cookies, and a piece of delicious torte cake.

Peace,

MB-K