Happy Birthday Baby!

Varian's birthday was on April 3. We celebrated his birthday in two parts.
Part I:  Day of nothing but movies, relaxation and fine foods
Part II: . Australian Adventures

This entry started getting crazy long so I'm breaking it up into two posts. So here's part one: 


His birthday was over Easter Weekend, so for the most part the whole weekend was a celebration. So the day before Part I- I cooked my head off in between taking care of Jaren who was almost 3 months old, but at this point believe it or not, was very much underweight and getting extra meals to see if we could fatten him up. So it was pretty intense to get things ready. I wanted to make huge meals of Varian's favorite things. Here was the menu:

BREAKFAST in BED:

Claire's mighty meat crepes, soy and linseed toast, fresh squeezed orange juice

LUNCH:

Potatoe Salad (like his mom makes it), Deli Sandwiches

DINNER:

Lemon Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Garlic Beans

DESSERT:

Carrot Cake with Creamed Cheese Frosting (I made 2 actually, initially to be a double layered round cake, but instead served one that night and one the next day for Part II)

I am a slow cook and am still learning. I was recently inspired by the movie "Julie and Julia" in both blogging and cooking  - but I kept reciting to myself "never apologize" which the famous chef, Julia Child, says in that movie. This struck home with me because I do find that I'm often apologizing when I cook food. "Oh I think I added too much of this, or too little of that, or overcooked this"....etc. I also keep thinking of that conference talk Elder Uchdorf gave a few conferences ago about how the thing he cooked best was burnt toast and how his wife who was a gourmet cook would often apologize and criticize her cooking.

 [This is a picture of us in front of JULIA CHILD'S KITCHEN at the Smithsonian Museum in DC - cool, huh?!

I didn't leave a stick of butter]

So going into this day of crazy cooking, knowing I'd have to get it all ready around nursing and taking care of Jaren and trying to spoil Varian, I knew that some things may not work out perfectly and that it shouldn't matter and I should just serve it and be positive. NEVER APOLOGIZE! (At least in the cooking sense).

And for the most part things did turn out quite lovely. And in the end I kept my promise to myself and didn't apologize. I never apologized that the sausages I bought were the nasty Aldi's one that tasted like lamb, that the lemon chicken recipe (first time I've ever marinated meat) turned out to be so lemony that your face puckered and he happened to get the biggest piece that sadly was a little pink in the middle, or that the garlic in the beans slightly burned. Nope, no apologies at all. :) But I have to admit that overall it was a pretty delicious and amazing food day and the fact that I pulled it all off again whilst taking care of the baby and spoiling Varian I think was quite monumental. :) [ps: isn't "whilst" a great word?]

I didn't take pictures of the food I made (do you find yourself wanting to take pictures sometimes just because you know you'll want to blog about it?) except for the cake as I was getting it ready. And oh my heavens it turned out divine!

So Spoil-Varian-on-his-Birthday-Part I worked very well. Stay posted for Part II.