Party indiscriminately…

The one you’ve had is not the one you’ll miss!

Number 15 has a habit (some would say bad, I say GOOD) of partying for no reason: say it’s Monday and raining – good excuse to cheer ourselves up; say it’s Tuesday and sunny – let’s celebrate the fact; say it’s Wednesday and we just got the latest DVD in one of our favorite series – let’s do it; say it’s Thursday and nothing bad happened – time to celebrate; say it’s Friday and we just solved a problem or managed to finish a project – good enough reason; say it’s Saturday and we are having a quiet weekend in – what better reason to party; or say it’s Sunday and there’s nothing else to do – party anyone?

You get the idea.

Sometimes though we even celebrate for a reason – in this particular case it was an unforeseen birthday celebration for R. First of all his birthday had fallen during his absence; secondly he had originally planned on returning via Perpignan later in the month (D-L’s episode in ER brought him back earlier and via number 15), thirdly a birthday – be it belated – is always worth celebrating.

Pretty party table

I did think to text him to find out if he wanted anything particular (on top of what we were planning), but he could only come up with the “usual”, i.e. champagne and popcorn.

We managed more, but after the disappointment of not finding the cute cupcakes when I was in town earlier that day, I was very pleased to find an Angel food cake mix instead: didn’t have the appropriate bundt pan so made do with a flat pie tin – interesting, but actually worked and just as delicious.

We did include the popcorn, but lacking pretty bowls or any other adequate individual serving dish, I came up with the idea of “popcorn Bechers” (German for cup). These will probably become a staple in our serving ideas. To S however belongs the honor of the “popcorn toast”: that kid has some of the coolest ideas!

Toasting with Popcorn "Bechers"

Angel food cake done differently

Party over, but not forgotten and there is surely another in the future for some reason or absolutely no reason: something we do well at Number 15.