Birthday Prepping

I took J on a little culinary tour this morning of an Italian market and one of the fancier schmancier grocery stores in Austin. We were on a mission to get ingredients for B's birthday dinner tomorrow night. The old man turns 33. As he puts it, he's 1/3 through with his life, which when he told me that, I freaked out on him for being so half empty. I mean, who thinks about dying on their birthday anyway? He followed up with, "Look how much I've done in 1/3 of it. Imagine what I can do in the next 2/3." Okay, you're excused. Good point.

J and I encountered some happy people for a change. One was a counterperson at the market who didn't charge us for the single sesame seed cookie I was going to buy to give to J. It took such will-power to get just one and then to give it to my son and just take a teeny tiny nibble! This place smelled like heaven. There was a hint of garlic in the air-- not the overpowering kind you get at a wanna be Italian restaurant. The bread area smelled so fresh that I wanted to bring every loaf home with me. J cracked me up the entire time by yelling, "Mar-ket!" down each aisle. I think that's what won us the free cookie.

We also scored some free toppings from another little ice cream shop. I'm making ice cream cupcakes and was on a hunt for crunchies from my childhood ice cream cakes. When I found them and asked if I could buy some, the salesperson just gave them to me. I consider that my reward for waving on all those people who don't thank me back! B is not a gigantic dessert eater and requested an ice cream cake for his cake. But, I know he will complain that there is just too much left and he doesn't want to eat it all, so I thought about making a smaller version. I thought I was being all creative, but then I found out that some of the ice cream stores have begun stocking them wtih their ice cream cakes. I thought about buying them, but decided to have some fun. I can't wait to try them.

We're cooking Pennette Ala Vodka for dinner, which should be interesting. It's a recipe from Rao's Italian Restaurant (famous in Harlem and now also found at Caesar's Las Vegas.). It calls for a quart of heavy cream reduced in half. That should be fun to do with a toddler running around. I hope I can avoid burning it or everything will be ruined. I can't believe B wanted some thing so rich, but we'll give it a shot and see how it goes.

Oh, this should get me the bad mommy of the year award. A few days ago I was getting dinner ready. J loves when I chop things. He runs around slapping his legs when I smash garlic, or he yells, "Chop, chop, chop, cut, cut, cut". I decided to let him practice cutting too. He has a play knife that came with his play basket of fruit and I only let him use that when he is strapped in his chair (don't want to give the impression that running with knives is okay). I gave him an onion to "chop". Usually he peels a couple of layers and puts it in his pot and that's it. Today he decided to bite it a few times (and was a little surprised at what he got). That wasn't the worst part. After peeling way more layers than I realized, he touched his eyes. The minute I saw his hands go up to his face, I knew. And then the tears came, followed by, "Eyes! Eyes!" I felt so horrible. We scrubbed his hands and washed his face. I distracted him with some bubbles and he was fine. We all know that onions can burn, but can you imagine how it probably felt to him? I felt so bad. Well, next time I will give him something like a potato or celery.

I'll be sure to let you know how dinner goes and post some pics of the old man on his birthday.