Birthday Month

It’s my birthday month. I say this sarcastically because the word “birthday” has the word “day” in it and literally explains how it should not be a longer duration. However, millennial women in the U.S. keep saying “birthday month,” so here we are.

            Watching my daughters experience their birthdays during June and October has me incredibly jealous. How wonderful it must be to celebrate outside with friends and family.

            Growing up, February wasn’t the most ideal month to have a birthday. I should be thankful I wasn’t born on a leap year. Although joking that “I’m only eight and three quarters old” this year would be right up my alley.

            While not born on a leap day, my birthday does happen to often fall on President’s Day. In my early career days, I didn’t have the luxury of enjoying this delightful day off work. When working on President’s Day/birthdays didn’t bum me out, my many friends leaving town for ski trips or beach vacations did the job. Then there were always the epic snowstorms that made it difficult to connect with friends on my birthday too.

            Before you feel sorry for me, there’s one major shining hero for birthdays. No matter where it falls on the calendar. FOOD. My older brother also has a February birthday and with our birthdays nine days apart, we’ve had many joint family birthday celebrations over the years.  

            Unlike most millennial women, I’ve loved joint celebrations with my brother. I’ll always be grateful for his pick of restaurant where we almost always dine in or get takeout as a family — Adam’s Taphouse and Grille, formerly named Adam’s Ribs. Their barbecue is delicious all times of year, but especially delicious to me on a frigid February day.

            Now onto the MVP of birthdays — cake. Those who know me well, know that I live for dessert. In honor of my favorite color, every year (yes, even still in my 30s) my sweet mother bakes me a vanilla cake with glorious purple icing. The shade is lavender to be exact. She uses food dye, and I know that it’s not flavored, but I swear it still tastes better than regular vanilla icing. A few times, she put M&Ms on top, and somehow my perfect cake got even better. The most delicious part, is that I’ve continued my childhood tradition of eating cake for breakfast the day after my birthday.

            To anyone who needs a pick me up, and let’s be frank we all could use one during this bitter winter and continued pandemic, here’s the easy and affordable recipe below. I say, “let them eat purple cake.”

Lavender Cake

Ingredients: Vanilla cake mix, Vanilla frosting (Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker work well for mixes and icings) blue food coloring, red food coloring and M&Ms

Instructions:

1.) Bake cake according to mix. Let cake cool for at least 30 minutes.

2.) Put frosting in a bowl. Add 3 drops of blue food coloring and 3 drops of red food coloring. Mix together.

3.) Frost cake as you normally would.

4.) For my serious sugar lovers, add M&Ms on top!