A Special “Ruby” Birthday Dinner, Part I
Mrs. MM and I usually don’t make a big deal of our birthdays, and at most we have a small dinner for say 8-10 people, including ourselves and perhaps another family or two. Sometimes we just go out to eat at a restaurant. Mrs. MM’s birthday several weeks ago was a low key affair, and the next two or three posts describes how you can do a fairly elegant and special meal without a whole lot of brouhaha. Sometimes special meals come together with very little planning whatsoever. While you could put me in the ultra OC category of humans, I sometimes let things just organically come together; I think it is a mellowing that comes with advancing age, and a comfort with the knowledge that a decent meal and good company is enough for a wonderful celebratory evening. This dinner started out with a trip to the flower market for two reasons — to obtain flowers for Mrs. MM’s birthday present, which would also serve as a centerpiece for a dining table… I actually didn’t even go to the wholesale market myself… I sent my trusted assistant in charge of plants and flowers and gave her some guidelines about colors and budget. And in this day and age of camera equipped cell phones, there is no reason why someone at the markets can’t check with you first, before buying in bulk…
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the year, the flame trees would lose most of their foliage and were instead covered in the sharpest hues of orange and red blooms. I distinctly remember an early helicopter ride from Manila to Bataan to visit an Esso (Exxon) refinery (before it was forcibly expropriated by the Philippine government and became Petron) where I was utterly mortified sitting in the front seat of the company chopper with my father, wondering how fast the craft would plunge into Manila Bay if the rotors stopped functioning, and I only began to feel safer as the landing drew closer and the green landscape below us was dotted with intense bursts of orange from blooming flame trees. I once read somewhere that as Magellan hit this part of world in his famous voyage (where he was slayed by a distant relative of mine in Mactan, according to my grandmother), he spied the same flame trees in bloom on the coastline of the Marianas (or was it the Philippines?) and they looked like the forests were ablaze or in flames… and this was written into the chronicles of the voyage… Hmmm, I wonder if that is true…
a pleasure to stroll around the market early in the morning (we tend to get there at 7:30 am or so) while the vendors are still setting up to see what they have to offer. Get there a little later at 8:30 or 9:00 and the place is crawling with people. I have been going to this market since it was set up in the late 1980’s and it is amazing how much it has grown and how many New Yorkers now patronize it. On this recent visit, I noticed an inordinate amount of plants and flowers. Perhaps this is seasonal or possibly because the folks that shop at the market would rather take home some flowers rather than food that they would then actually have to cook… So here is a market album of the flowers/plants on offer… Up top are some red or pink dogwood flowering branches which also come in white. They were spectacular. In our shopping cart in the second photo are several types of lush tulips in a phenomenal array of rich colors. Next, some lavender lilacs…
Central Park, attempting to overcome jetlag. A vigintillion is a number 1 followed by 63 zeroes or equivalent to 1,000 decillion, if you don’t subscribe to the American numerical system (e.g., you are European). Sounds pretty yucky, huh? Then take that vision further, and your body, now aware it is being invaded by airborne sperm, creates special antibodies to fight the intruders. Then as a result of the antibodies, your body releases histamines into your system, causing itching, swelling, congestion, nasal drip, loss of smell, scratchy throat, rashes, etc. that results in a wicked case of hay fever. Hay fever is actually an allergic reaction to the inhaled pollen (sperm) of grasses, trees and flowers. It does not affect everybody nor does it strike with the same vengeance from year to year. In many cases, its severity is linked to the pollen count in the air. And when I arrived in New York in early May, every frigging grass and tree in the Northeast United States must have agreed to spread their seed (sperm, yes the phrase is literal) at the exact moment after I cleared customs and immigration at JFK airport…
just had to take a walk around the property or physically explode. The home that we were visiting that weekend has one of the best private gardens in the Philippines that I have had the privilege to see/experience, with seemingly endless vistas, centuries old trees and masses of plants everywhere. One of the types of plants the homeowner is extremely proud of are these lotus plants. I don’t know much about them except that they grow in water, the blooms have some fantastic transformations and they come in many different varieties. In fact, on a trip to Bangkok a few years ago, together with the friends whose family own this weekend home, we came across some rather unusual lotus plants at a market and they decided to take some home for their mom. After we purchased several plants and snuck them back to the hotel, the question was how to keep them happy until we flew back to Manila!
and we were unable to attend. Instead, we promised to cook them a special dinner once they got back. Another couple and also good friends, who were also unable to attend the wedding, graciously offered a superb weekend home as the venue for the dinner, which turned into an overnight calorie packed trip. So the next few posts are from that particular weekend but they have all the makings of a terrific weekend for your mom, spouse or someone special. This was an extravagant weekend by most measures, so if that bothers you, skip the next 4-5 days worth of posts rather than leaving me nasty comments… First off, how can you celebrate a wedding without some flowers? I didn’t have much time (flying in from Cebu just hours before leaving for the venue) to hit the wholesale flower market so I just went to the FTI Saturday market, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best…