Birthday Love

My husband hates birthdays.

Mostly, he hates the attention. And the singing; he is not much of a singer.

But this was the first birthday that we have spent married and the more he insisted that celebration was unnecessary, the more I wanted to make the day a special. And so I focused on the food.

Using the maple syrup that we totted down from Vermont ourselves last month, we ate breakfast of whole wheat pancakes and drank tea from Dublin, Irish style. (cream and sugar, please?) After lunch with friends, we spent the afternoon carefully crafting a lattice-topped blueberry peach pie (and filling the sink with sticky dishes to be washed). It took longer to bake than I expected, but I finally  pulled the bubbling creation out of the oven before carefully set it on the window sill to cool. (And is there anything more house-wife-like than placing your fresh-from-the-oven-baked-from-scratch-with-fruit-you-bought-at-the-farmer's-market pie on your windowsill to cool?)

In the evening, friends joined us and we drank freshly-blended (and sieved) strawberry lemonade spiked with tequila, laughing as we enjoyed our company.

The gifts were simple and we did not sing, but we celebrated in the best way I know how.