For my actual birthday dinner a week ago today, Dave and I went to Chef Martin Picard’s world-famous Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal, Canada. Au Pied de Cochon which translates to “The Pig’s Foot” was famous even before it went into the stratosphere of “famous” after Anthony Bourdain featured it on his show over 2 years ago. The entire video is quite fun to watch, but if you want to cut to the chase, go to marker 9:05 to watch the “duck in a can” being served to Mr. “already stuffed beyond imagination” Bourdain.

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My gorgeous friend forever, Laura, and me – Happy birthday to YOU!

Before I get to the details of the surprise party mentioned in yesterday’s post; I want to send birthday wishes to my dearest friend, Laura Heffron. Laura and I (pictured above) have been friends since high school, when we discovered our birthdays were only one day apart, added together, we have been alive for 100 years!  Laura was my maid-of-honor 25 years ago and is Marissa’s godmother. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding and am godmother to 2 of her 3 sons. Happy Birthday, Laura! I love you!

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Today is my birthday. Normally I wouldn’t make a special note of it (yeah, right!) but today is a big one. I’ll let you figure it out from the picture above. It’s already been a week-long celebration. My sweet sister, Sloane, took me out to a very special dinner at Elements at The Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain.

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I call these A++ BLT Biscuits because we have both avocado and arugula. No actual lettuce to be seen. Although we need the “T” because if I was to call them BAT, no one would know what I was talking about… but say BLT, and it brings a smile to almost every face! My plan was to serve these as an appetizer at a party I had last Friday. As the time approached and I still hadn’t cleaned the house or even taken a shower… this was the recipe that was sacrificed. I replaced it with something I had in my freezer but I still have all the purchased ingredients in my fridge.  What to do? Make the biscuits sandwich size instead of appetizer size and serve them for dinner to Dave and Marissa. Perfect, and both of them had smiling faces and tummies! Click on the chipotle mayonnaise below and it will take you to a previous post with the directions to make it. Lastly, I don’t know if my gorgeous niece, Raina, reads this blog… but even if not, I send out a huge Happy 25th Birthday to you, Raina! xoxo

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This was Dave’s birthday cake. Since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it seemed a pink cake was in order.

As many of you know, I am a past chair of both our local American Cancer Society gala, The Jewel Ball, and the Key To The Cure fashion show, benefiting breast cancer research, so pink is already my favorite color in October.

Several things coincided to make me think pink for Dave’s cake. First, I found a gift pack of those cute little Anthon Berg chocolate liqueur bottles at Costco and thought they would make perfect stocking stuffers and gift toppers in the coming months and also wondered how I could incorporate them into a recipe.

Next, I saw my friend, Larry Fitzgerald’s, PSA about breast cancer and how real men wear pink (Click HERE to see).

Finally, I remembered that I had blood orange juice in my freezer that I’d squeezed earlier in the year. So that is how the cake came to be and now you know that real men eat pink cake too!

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Happy birthday to my husband of 25 years, David! As is our tradition, I will be taking him out for a birthday dinner at a “surprise” restaurant. Since I can’t say where that is yet, I shall post a few pictures instead. The one above is Dave with two of his favorite people in the world, Connor and Marissa. The first one below is from October 1985, the first year of our marriage.

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Sometimes a proud mom just has to brag about her children. Today is one of those days, so please bare with me. The picture below is from Connor’s 18th birthday (he is now 19  1/2 years old) and he had just blown out the candles from his favorite kind of cake, which would best be called “chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate!” I am posting this picture and the recipe for the cake, not because we celebrate half birthdays around here,  but because I want to tell you how proud I am of my son.

Connor will have a weekly comic strip in The Lumberjack, Northern Arizona University’s newspaper! So very cool! His older sister, Marissa, who recently graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Arizona, wrote for her newspaper, The Wildcat, and now Connor will be published too. Marissa is equally proud of her “little” brother, as you can see by yesterday’s post on her blog, as seen HERE.  Yes, she beat me to it, and that kinda makes me doubly proud of both of them. xoxo

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Today is my friend, Larry Fitzgerald’s, 27th birthday. Larry and I began cooking together when he was only 22 and I was exactly twice his age (ouch!). He was a star wide receiver even then, beginning only his second season, but now – well, now he’s a superstar. Deservedly so! He’s beyond talented. Larry has an incredible work ethic and is as humble as can be, one of the nicest and most genuine people on the planet. It would be hard for the average person to imagine being as humble as he is after you watch this amazing video from ESPN Sport Science.

Dave, Marissa, and I attended the Second Annual Larry Fitzgerald & Friends Celebrity Servers Night to benefit The Carol Fitzgerald Memorial Foundation and The Larry Fitzgerald First Down Fund, last night at Morton’s. My favorite thing about the photo of us above is how I’m looking at my camera that Marissa is holding, and Larry is looking at the camera that his professional photog is holding. So neither picture turned out well, so typical!

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Yesterday was my dear friend and mentor, Barbara Fenzl’s, birthday. Our tradition is to take each other out for a birthday lunch. I’m taking Barb to Modern Steak today for her celebratory lunch. So while we’re enjoying that, here is a couscous salad for you to enjoy. The picture above of my sister, Sloane, Mark Tarbell, me, and Barb was taken at a party a couple of years ago at Tarbell’s restaurant. The party was a fundraising event to celebrate after Mark won “Iron Chef America” on Food Network.

Happy Birthday, Barb. I love you and love all our time cooking together! xoxo

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