Tonight is the big Cookbook Happy Hour. In the next week, I’ll post recipes for the drinks and appetizers we enjoyed; including drink recipes for those infused vodkas I made at the end of July. It’s this blog’s 2nd Blogiversary!  So how about a little rundown of the blog birthday official numbers…

2 years
730 days
668 posts
577 recipes
1,508 comments (Thank YOU!)
11,876 spam (what the heck?!?)

Enough reflection – time for recipe #578.

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Les Petites Gourmettes Blog 2-Year Celebration
Cookbook Happy Hour
Tuesday, August 16
4:30 – 7:00 PM

RSVP: leave a comment here or email me at lpgourmett@aol.com to let me know you are coming – and I will email you back with directions.

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… is the 2nd birthday of Les Petites Gourmettes’ blog. And we are going to celebrate!

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I’ll be on Channel 12 Valley Dish today at 3:30 making a memorable Memorial Day Turkey Slider Bar with fabulous toppings. Tune in if you can, if not, the recipe will be posted here tomorrow…

Instead of a traditional birthday cake, I made Connor cupcakes this year. Since we were going out to dinner instead of eating at home, it seemed easier to pack up a few cupcakes to have at the restaurant rather than an entire cake. Connor’s favorite ice cream is Cookies ‘n Cream, so that was the inspiration for the cupcakes. It is unanimous – these are winners!  It takes about 1 1/3 package of Oreo cookies to make 2 dozen cupcakes.  If your family is like mine, no one will complain about the 2/3 package of extra Oreos hanging around.

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Yesterday it was red velvet waffles, today we have banana waffles. The red velvet just about hopped out of the waffle iron themselves, the banana waffles stick a little bit because of the fresh banana in the batter, so be patient while getting them out of the iron. Just pry them a bit with a fork and they will come out in one piece. And if you waffle iron doesn’t have a light to indicate that the waffle is cooked through and ready to remove, just wait until the steam stops, that is another way (the old fashioned way) to let you know it is ready.

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Happy Birthday to my handsome, talented, kind, caring, loving, and wonderful son, Connor! I am so proud to be your mom and I absolutely adore you! (this sweet picture was taken last month at my Dad’s 80th birthday party by Sloane’s friend, professional photographer Robert Westerman.)

I woke up early to make Connor his birthday breakfast and thought, “My baby is no longer a teenager, I feel so old!”  But then I realized that I really don’t feel old at all! That is just something people say and then for some stupid reason you automatically say it to yourself.  What I actually feel is happy and proud to have raised two cute and innocent little children into such amazing adults – that doesn’t make me feel old – it makes me feel privileged and lucky.

Instead of the traditional homemade birthday dinner of his choice, Connor requested a birthday breakfast, specifically, waffles.  So I made two waffle varieties and served them with bacon, melon, and juice. Waffle #1 is red velvet, the recipe is below. Waffle #2 -banana waffles – will be posted tomorrow.

Before we get to the recipe, I want to share some “waffle tips” with you. This applies to waffles of all flavors, not just red velvet, and banana.

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Before I get into the recipes for soup shooters and grilled cheese bites, I want to say Happy Anniversary to David, my husband of 26 years. xoxo  And I want to tell you the story of the cute shooter glasses I found.

I was in Pier 1 Imports about a month ago and saw a great display they have up with a wide and wonderful assortment of mini glasses for a “Tasting Party”. They have mini cordials, mini parfait, mini trifle, mini wine, and mini martini glasses. I was immediately in love with the whole concept and had to hold myself back from buying at least one set of each. Part of what prevented that happening, was the price. Most of the sets were $29.95 each. That would not have been a “mini” amount to spend! So I resisted and just purchased one 24-piece set of mini parfaits to use as soup shooters.

Once I got home, I looked more closely and saw that the 24-piece set was actually only 12 glasses and included 12 mini spoons. Darn it! That meant I’d just spent $2.50 per glass. But this mistake leads me on the hunt for comparable mini shooters at a reasonable price.

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Here is another of the recipes we served at my Dad’s 80th Speakeasy Party, representing his birth year, 1931.

In 1931 The Joy of Cooking was privately printed and distributed from the home by Irma S. Rombauer of St. Louis. It is one the most-published cookbooks and has been in print continuously since 1931 with more than 18 million copies sold. Mrs. Rombauer was struggling emotionally and financially after her husband’s suicide in 1930.  She had 3,000 copies of Joy printed by A.C. Clayton, a company that had printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine, but never a book.  In 1936, the book was picked up by a commercial printing house, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.  Joy is the backbone of many home cooks’ libraries and is very often found in commercial kitchens as well. The illustrations were done by Irma’s daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker.  This recipe pays homage to one of the many famous recipes from the iconic cookbook – baked macaroni and cheese.

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Above is my favorite picture of the night from my dad’s 80th Birthday Party. Marissa with her Papa, so cute. It was taken after the majority of the guests had left and a few of us were sitting around relaxing and reflecting on the day. I am still cleaning up, two days later, but I wanted to get up some pictures and the menu. Most of the recipes are already posted here on the blog and by clicking on their names, you’ll be taken to the post containing the actual recipe.

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A huge Birthday Shout Out to my baby sister, Sloane. Her birthday was yesterday, the same day we threw the big 8oth birthday bash for our Dad. So, she gave up her special day for him, what a selfless and beautiful daughter and sister she is! The ironic thing about me posting her birthday wish today is that when she was little, we used to think her birthday was on May 1st.  You see, all four of us (Sloane, our two brothers, and I) are adopted and for whatever reason, our parents thought her birthday was May Day. That was when we celebrated it, up until the day they dug out her birth certificate and saw that she was actually born on April 30th.

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