An Eclectic Gourmet Birthday

The other day I had my 29th birthday … again. One of my birthday wall comments on Facebook said ?Hope your day is filled with gourmet food!?. Well, it turned out that it was a gourmet day starting in a very unexpected way. About 8:30AM, the doorbell rang and my dog Scooby, barking furiously, insisted I get to the door quickly. To my surprise, it wasn?t a UPS or Fedex delivery but my golfing friend and neighbor Joni. The day before we had played a golf match together and at the end of our match, I mentioned how much I wanted to attend an olive oil tasting event at the club that night but probably wouldn?t be able to fit it in my evening (thinking to myself: because of my misguided devotion to my motherly duties).

Given my love of Italian olive oil and previous posts about it, I really should have left the kids without food and gone to this American olive oil tasting but I didn?t. Joni to the rescue. Turns out she went to the club and bought me the book associated with the event: The New American Olive Oil by Fran Gage – autographed and all. I have to say it was one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me. It?s possible that it even made me cry.

On to lunch: I met my parents at Steamer’s in Los Gatos where I enjoyed one of my favorite foods that I never make at home – fish tacos. And it was followed, happily, with an “engraved” happy birthday plate filled with calorie free espresso ice cream surrounded by brownie, chocolate sauce, and toasted hazelnuts. My dad and I suffered through it together. The ice cream and hazelnuts were OMG! Yummy.

For dinner – a most unusual and delicious meal put together by my husband and daughter. What was so unusual – well, two things. First of all, seeing my husband and daughter cooking. Secondly, the side dish my husband made – it was stir-fried broccoli sweetened with a bit of sugar served over uncooked spinach tossed with mandarin oranges and cranberries. The hot broccoli wilted the spinach and what is really amazing, is that it worked. Really, it was yummy. The main course was lamb loin chops with lemon pepper coating finished off with some lemon juice and olive oil (Italian) after being taken off the grill. All in all, pretty amazing considering they did not plan ahead or shop for anything (don’t know if that is a compliment or a commentary on something but it’s the truth).

So I did have a gourmet day, all be it a little non-standard. Can’t wait to show some Foodie Nationalism and talk about American olive oil and share a recipe or two from my birthday book. I?ll of course give credit to the source — Fran Gage, the author. But the real credit goes to Joni for taking the time to buy me the book and make my birthday a little bit extra virgin special.