Last Sunday, after weeks of denial, I celebrated my 30th (some say twenty-tenth) birthday.  I normally don’t have anything big during my birthdays, except for that time when I turned 7 and the entire street had to be blocked off because we had too many guests.

Anyway, because it was THE 30th birthday, I decided to celebrate and invited 9 of my friends/colleagues for a birthday lunch.  David and Janet were not considered as guests as they helped me prepare everything David was the chef and Janet and I played sous chefs.

The night before the lunch, I wanted to greet the new decade with the blowing of the candles.  And for this occasion I made a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, known to the rest of the world as Black Forest.

Nice huh?  See those sparkling things at the back of the cake?  Those are not glasses of champagne or prosecco.  Those are glasses of Apfelschorle :-)

As for the lunch itself, here’s the menu :

Appetizers
Tofu Sisig

First Dish
Asian BBQ Pasta

Second Dish
Twice Cooked Adobo Chicken Breast on a bed of Green Beans
and Mini Salad with Sesame Raspberry Vinaigrette

Dessert
Chocolate revel bar with mango cream and raspberry coulis

I will be posting about the recipes (because David’s too lazy to do so) one by one during the coming week in chronological order starting with the Black Forest.

The lunch was a huge success, with most plates cleaned out (except for one Weichei who couldn’t handle the chili – Hi Nabil!)

We were exhausted afterwards; David and I fell sick the day after.  But nevertheless, it was a fun weekend of chopping, mixing, braising, baking, and aging.

David and Janet, from the bottom of my cold heart, thank you very much for making my twenty-10th birthday special.  *icicle tear*