Thursday's child

So...we were going to have dinner tonight at The Grocery, and just cancelled that. I still sound a like a V8 and Vince thinks he feels a sore throat coming on. If it's anything like mine last Sunday, that's not funny.

It's wet. It's Thursday. And, ahem, it's my birthday. I was born on a Thursday, too. And it rained, then. It feels silly writing about it but, when I think about it some more, it feels even sillier not writing about it. Like ignoring the variegated elephant on the terrace. I'm not big into birthdays. Perhaps an inherited trait. My parents made and make little fuss about theirs, though I still remember what my mother made for some of my little-girl birthday parties (cherry cake! red, dog-shaped jelly (?)! fruit punch! snoek pate! breadsticks!).

It is a time when I wish I had a very big, very strong, very long table. And the right room to put it in. Or right tree to put it under. Or grape arbour. So that I could make food for all the people I love and like and miss and fit them all around it quite comfortably. And of course they'd have to be flown in from all the corners of our cornerless world. And from this very hood, too, of course.

But what we're going to do, is this: clear this table in this apartment, give it a cloth, or maybe just some linen place mats. Arrange Vince's flowers, light candles, rub the silver clean. And eat a sliver each of foie gras and toast, and then a good old roast chicken, perhaps with herbs and ricotta stuffed under the skin. Perhaps with wild rice stuffing inside. We'll drink Champagne with a capital C. I'll make a cake - but I'm not sure what sort yet. Perhaps plum.

And if I can find small candles for the cake, I'll blow them out, and make a wish.

Now? To make ze shoppeeng...