My Last Birthday – part 1 of 2

It was only recently that I realized that the last time I wrote about my own birthday was two years ago. Yes, I do love writing about other people’s birthdays and parties on the blog, but my own? Not really. I admit I am shy and weird that way… 🙂

In my last post about my birthday (which you can read here), I shared my simple joys : what I had for breakfast and the couple of desserts that I enjoyed that evening. That was back in November 2012. I then consciously skipped writing about my birthday the year after that, simply because I really didn’t do anything special and I thought it was not worth writing about.

So fast forward to today, friends have been asking me why I haven’t written about my last birthday, the one that happened just a little over two months ago, and which fell exactly on Thanksgiving Day.

So here I am now sharing with you bits and pieces of my happy celebration.

For the table decor, I wanted a lot of red flowers and candles on our dining table, because the richness of this color plus the warmth and glow of the candle lights around it evoke simple elegance to me.

And this is how I’ve always wanted my home and my parties to be : simple but elegant — nothing too loud or fancy, nothing pretentious.

I also didn’t want to spend on hiring a florist, so I enlisted the help of my very artistic friend, Jo Claravall, to help me style my dinner party. I told her that I did not want to buy expensive flowers and vases because I knew they will only be used that day.

So she bought me some fresh cockscomb flowers and red roses from the Dangwa market, mixed with a couple of her own helix branches. We decided to reuse her own vases combined with my own instead of buying new ones. 

So yes, as you can see I may be spoiled, but I am also VERY practical that way! 🙂

When it came to the food of the party, I didn’t want to compromise. Even if I can cook, I wanted this birthday of mine to be more special (than my previous years) as I was celebrating a lot of milestones in my life — aside from the fact that my birthday was on the exact day of Thanksgiving. All these reasons made me feel that this birthday really ought to be celebrated!

So I got my favorite Spanish restaurant in town, Vask Manila to serve the best tapas and mains to my guests. Chef Chele Gonzales, who heads Vask Manila is a good friend of mine and he helped me plan the menu. Even though his restaurant does not normally do catering in private homes, he was gracious enough to accommodate this birthday girl’s requests. Thank you Chele, for making my birthday really special! 🙂

Here are the tapas we enjoyed :

Two kinds of Pintxos : Sous Vide Tuna with caramelized onion and Roast Beef with cheese emulsion and bell pepper.

Mejillon Tigre : Spicy and crispy bechamel Mussels

Foie Gras on Mango Toast : Caramelized Foie Gras mousse and Mango

Pulpo a la Gallega : Smoked Octopus, potato, olive oil and paprika

Crispy Shrimps : Fried crispy shrimps, Iberian ham and Emmenthal cheese with honey sherry vinegar.

(All these delicious Spanish tapas are available in Vask Manila.)

After the tapas, it was time for the main spread! Friends and family know how much I love to eat… and this passion for good food comes alive when I host at home.

Our main dishes :

Paella Marisco : Seafood Paella

Cochinillo : Roast Suckling Pig

Roast Turkey  from nawwTy’s kitchen (because it was Thanksgiving Day!)

I had three handsome chefs from Vask Manila serve my guests– much to the delight of my girlfriends! 🙂 Chef Chele stayed behind the scenes and worked in the kitchen.

Up next is the most exciting part of my birthday dinner : the dessert!

Of course being known as the “Queen of Desserts”  in my own circle of friends, the pressure was on me to serve my guests the best kind of dessert I can come up with on my special day…

So what kind of dessert did I have and who made it for me??

Click here to find out what happened next!