Hey Susannah Dot Com

Gotta love when your birthday falls on a weekend.

Friday: Family dinner. Growing up, I had a pretty predictable birthday menu of fried chicken, sides from Rattlers (the local BBQ joint), and chocolate cake. Recent years have included meals out, brunch foods, Philippe's during Chinese New Year, but this year I felt like going back to basics. We got tri tip and sides from Rattlers and my mom made the amazing chocolate layer cake with cream cheese frosting. Some things are classic for a reason.

That E.T. has been on every birthday cake I've had for probably 27 years.

Saturday: My actual birthday. I'd been compiling a list of "dream birthday" activities and it included brunch, the planetarium, and trying a scallion pancake for the first time. The day was cloudy with patches of sunlight, but I decided that the planetarium and observatory would be best on a beautiful day so we skipped it. We placed an online order for Home State, walked past the long line, and took the bounty next door to Bar Covell. It was our first time trying the breakfast tacos at Home State and they were outstanding, though heavy on the egg. We hung out at Covell for a fair bit then stopped into Wacko, and bought a cute seahorse jewelry holder. We headed down the block to the Silver Lake farmers market, browsed Barkeeper and bought some mixers (and got samples from the nice proprietor), and finally had a scallion pancake from Pine and Crane. Then we ran a couple of errands, went home and chilled before dinner.

Edward gave me my gift before we headed out. I was pleased to see a jewelry box from Blue Nile and open up a beautiful amethyst necklace. Giving "the wife" jewelry for her birthday may seem cliche to some, but this was actually the first piece of jewelry he'd given me (besides the engagement ring)... or that anyone had given me, now that I think about it. I was just never a jewelry person, other than as a very little girl, like in elementary school. I remember being obsessed with my mood ring, getting a purple stone ring from a gumball machine on the Monterey pier, buying costume jewelry from Claire's. But I guess I grew out of it. Never wore jewelry in high school, college, or adulthood. My grandma (who passed away a couple of years ago) wanted to get me a birthstone ring as a college graduation present, but I was incredibly uncomfortable with someone spending that kind of money on me when I wouldn't even use the gift. The possibility that I could one day be someone who *did* wear jewelry - or even that I would treasure a gift like that forever - didn't really cross my mind.

It wasn't until we started going engagement ring shopping and I spent a lot of time on jewelry websites that I caught the jewelry bug. Now I notice and appreciate jewelry on others and have ideas for pieces I want someday (or sooner).

So, with my new amethyst necklace in tow, we headed to dinner at... The Bazaar. Hooooooboy.

What do you say about a place so iconic? Nothing that hasn't been said, but some experiences are worth paying for once. The restaurant was much louder and trendier than I'd imagined, especially at our table (one of the few non-communal tables, which had this neon Tron-esque pattern on the tabletop). Some of the highlights:

The deconstructed olives, which exploded with olive juice flavor
The caviar cone and foie gras lollipop. These are arguably iconic Bazaar items and are both $18 for 2 bites of food (1 bite for each person).
The cocktail cart (Edward ordered a caipirinha, which came with tableside presentation)
The croquettes, served in a glass shoe for some reason. We eventually realized that the reason no one was taking the shoe away was that there was a last croquette in the shoe which we'd missed.

It was a great dinner and I'm so glad I've finally gone.

It's this dude's job to go around and make cocktails with liquid nitrogen.

Sunday: I had a few people over for brunch - something I'd been wanting to do for ages. It's nice to have something going on in the daytime and still have enough time to do things later. I made a hashbrown egg bake, tons of bacon, fruit, canned cinnamon rolls, and a mimosa bar with a variety of juices from Trader Joes. I discovered that champagne with lemonade is like a simplified version of a French 75!