Mark's Birthday

We've had a fairly social holiday weekend, especially considering I'm in my depressed-not-sleeping-don't-want-to-leave-the-house-mode.

Wednesday night was our annual comedy show outing to see my old college friend who started off in the same major as me and ended up being a professional comedian. I was not planning to go, as I had no sleep and wasn't in the frame of mind to talk to people or leave the house. We tried to give our tickets away, but it was very last minute (a couple hours before showtime), and nobody could make it. Mark really wanted to go, so I went ahead, and as it turns out, we had a lot of fun and laughed a ton.

Thursday was a low-key Thanksgiving celebration at my parents' house. 

Friday was Mark's birthday. I hope he enjoys being 44 more than I did. He & Russ spent the entire day watching Game of Thrones season 2 (violence & porn, yay) and drinking beer. It was his request that I deliver his birthday meal of choice: shepherd's pie with spicy cashew gravy and fruit smoothies. My parents stopped by just as I was packaging the food, so they saved me from having to leave the house.

Saturday was M's birthday dinner party, thrown by our friend Julie. She is such a good cook and hostess that when she offered to throw a party for M, I knew it would be awesome and better than anything I could come up with. I try to emulate her awesome hostessing and cooking skills and always fall short. She makes everything from scratch, and it's always delicious. She would not let anyone bring anything!

The appetizers consisted of crudités, chips, crackers, and a choice of dips. Note that the silver candle had little Happy Birthday pendants dangling, and it spins when lit. There were several really good beer options as well as wine--M enjoyed the beer, but my stomach is not happy and I can't drink at this time).

The main course was pizza. She made and pre-baked the crusts when we arrived, then we each loaded our own with the homemade sauce, lots of veggie choices, vegan cheese choices, and protein choices (pepperoni, Italian sausage, salami, and the most delicious pizza-flavored fried tofu triangles, which Marina and I kept chowing on while making the pizzas). We munched on the appetizers and pizza toppings while our pizzas baked.

Dessert was a chocolate-raspberry cake with a rum-chocolate frosting. It was fucking phenomenal, of course. In addition to the crown she got him, she also had a lotus candle on the cake. I have never seen one of these before, but when the inside center wick is lit, it starts to spin, opening the lotus flower with each of the petal candles lighting, and it plays happy birthday. It was quite a show!

After eating way too much, we moved to the living room and enjoyed good conversation in front of a warm fire. It was such a pleasant evening, and we're so grateful to have a friend like Julie. She put in a tremendous amount of work in preparation. She was also very pushy about not letting anyone clean up, and it bothered Marina and I a lot to leave knowing she still had so much work to do.

It's technically my turn to host a get together for our group at some point this month. It's always hard for me to do this following a get together at Julie's, because there's no way I can match her skill.

I did my normal Sunday refrigerator clean out/organization before starting my cooking on Sunday, and was pleased to find that we have so many leftovers (good ones, too!) that I didn't need a full meal until Friday. I will throw that together on Friday. I used yesterday's kitchen time to make a giant batch of dog food and a giant batch (6.5 pounds!) of seitan. That should last us a couple of months. I cut it into small cubes, put 1 pound per freezer bag/container and freeze. It stores very well this way and retains its texture and flavor when thawed.  I use the seitan recipe from Vegan Vengeance, but this is also from Isa and is quite similar: PPK seitan. I also made some roasted red pepper hummus and a batch of my post-workout smoothies (bananas, beets, spinach, mixed berries, coconut milk, hemp protein powder).

Charlie and Tica (Oliver in the back); Charlie is more than twice Tica's weight/size!