Interlude: Happy Birthday to Me

It took me a long time to feel confident and secure in the fact that I prefer to spend my birthdays on my own. In the time before COVID, I would deliberately go on vacation for my birthday, holing up in a remote inn or a cabin in the mountains and decompressing. Now, I am not yet comfortable with the idea of traveling. I don't know the future of COVID, and steady inflation at rates not seen before in my lifetime have me skittish about spending too much on luxuries like a week at a cabin. I hope my next birthday won't be in my own apartment. But if it is, I am at least assured that I am good company.

To begin with, what a birthday needs is cake. And just as I did the past two years during my birthday week, I made a decadent, lots-of-trouble cake for myself, which I then proceeded to eat over the course of several days. It's one of my favorite birthday rituals, but I can thank COVID for that--on the road I wouldn't have had that joy. When traveling, I just buy something somewhere, and it is rarely as good as what I make myself. The consolation prize of not traveling is the pleasure of having decadent cake. This year, I made German chocolate cake from the recipe at Nora Cooks.

I cut the recipe in half but I still wanted a layer cake, so I baked it in two 4-inch cake pans and put some of the leftover batter into some silicone molds. German chocolate cake was something we used to only have on my favorite uncle's birthday, and we didn't make chocolate frosting for it, just the caramel coconut pecan topping. We also just made it in a 9x12 pan and it definitely wasn't a layer cake. I could have done that, but I went all out here. I was having a birthday, darn it, and it was going to involve me pulling out all the stops. My uncle may have been content with a square of chocolate cake covered in that crunchy caramel frosting--I mean, it was delicious--but sometimes we need more.

I do not have words for how delicious this cake was. It was the best cake I'd ever eaten, vegan or otherwise, and I've eaten a lot of delicious cakes. If you have never had German chocolate cake, you have been missing out. It is not German, but it is typically made from German chocolate--which is also not German, but named after a guy named Sam German, who invented the kind of baking chocolate in question. But this cake doesn't have any German chocolate in it, and it doesn't matter; it is rich and delicious just from the cocoa powder and everything else.

There is extra caramel coconut pecan topping left over, which I anticipate using as a dip for apples or just eating straight out of the jar with a spoon, because it is that good.

Of course, I can't live on cake alone, even on my birthday. Among other things, the heavy wallop of carbs and fat without enough protein to balance it out totally wipes out my energy. (I hate this about adulthood.) Having a big glass of soy milk with the cake helped, but I wasn't done. Nope, not one whit. Because I decided I also needed to throw myself a vegan tea party for one. I saved that production for my actual birthday, when I'd already been enjoying cake for a few days.

I used a tiered serving tray and pulled out my little teapot and (soy) cream pitcher and everything. I didn't really notice how wrinkly my napkin was; please ignore that if you can. I had plenty of leftovers for later but I will be happy to eat them, so it's all just fine.

Tea service included:

Tofurky-veggie pinwheels. I made a spread of Miyoko's non-dairy cream cheese, Hellman's vegan mayo, and Tofutti sour cream, then mixed in shredded carrot, sliced scallions, and finely chopped red bell pepper. I spread all that on a tortilla and topped it with spinach and smoked Tofurky, then rolled up the tortilla, let it refrigerate to set, and then sliced it into pinwheels. These are excellent for tea service, if a bit richer than your average tea sandwich.

I bought white bread specifically for this tea service--I don't buy white bread anymore and haven't in who knows how long--because you need it for a cucumber sandwich. This has thinly sliced cucumber on bread spread with margarine and sprinkled with fresh dill and salt and pepper. Cucumber sandwiches are kind of the ultimate luxury food, as they're not really needed for nutrition and are just there for the joy of it.

Another favorite sandwich I haven't had in ages: Mushroom-walnut pate with cornichons and Dijon mustard. This is more strongly flavored than a lot of tea sandwiches, but every bit as much fun.

I still had a few left in a box of tomato-flavored Triscuits, so I made a small assortment of canapes: Finely shredded carrot mixed with vegan mayo and salt and pepper, then topped with finely chopped cucumber; a star of Violife provolone topped with a black olive slice, and non-dairy cream cheese with a cucumber heart and a spring of dill. Some of these were just a way of using extra ingredients, but I enjoyed all of these (you have to eat cracker-based canapes right when you make them--no leftovers allowed for that).

I still had one of the cranberry-pistachio Linzer cookies I made for Christmas in my freezer, so I pulled it out for this occasion and sandwiched the two halves around some Bonne Maman strawberry jam. I was too full to eat this so I saved it for later, but I can attest that these cookies freeze well and taste great with tea.

Off-brand Ritz crackers provide all sorts of scope for my imagination in this mode; here I spread one with almond butter and put some blueberries on it. It's not the prettiest thing here but it tasted good.

I'm not sure if I'd ever mentioned this, but I went to a friend's home for her birthday a while ago and we made these gluten-free vegan sugar cookies. She insisted I take most of them home so I stuck them in the freezer. As with the other cookie, I was too full to eat it, but I can attest that these cookies froze well and taste good with tea, so I look forward to having it later.

I probably wouldn't make this to serve at a tea party with other guests, since this experiment had some flaws, but here we have an off-brand Ritz cracker spread with non-dairy cream cheese, then topped with orange marmalade and a few slivered almonds. Tasty, but a bit messy because the marmalade wanted to run off the cracker, and it will leave your guests with sticky fingers.

I didn't make scones because I really don't like scones as much as I like other things, though I would of course make them for other people. I don't know if we will ever be having tea parties again but when and if we do, I'm ready. And even if we don't, I will know that I can make a satisfying celebration for myself.

This was kind of a hard birthday. It's not easy to say this, but I think life was actually easier in total isolation. It had the feeling of stasis, like I was just waiting for something else and I was assured things would change. Now things are changing but in ways that are often disheartening. I know things will still change again, but there is something that feels more permanent now about the semi-isolation I live in now. But I'm glad I made a point of taking care of myself and making my birthday special. It did help matters.