Post Thanksgiving Birthday Celebration

Bill Fieldstead, Trudi & Dave Syferd, Dianna Fieldstead
and Ken Hatch

As part of the post-Thanksgiving weekend celebration, we were so pleased to be able to celebrate our "old" friend, Trudi Syferd's birthday along with her husband, Dave, and other long-time friends, Bill and Dianna Fieldstead.  Trudi will no doubt take issue with the adjective "old" used above, but she will have to admit that she is at least one year older now!

We began the evening with Dungeness Asian Crab Dip and a version of Turkey Gobbler cocktails made with cranberry vodka.  The menu featured our traditional post-Thanksgiving homemade turkey soup which I make each year by simmering the turkey carcass for over eight hours to get the flavorful turkey stock which serves as the soup base.  But prior to the soup course, we served something that we had not made in over 20 years.  Ken had brought back from Costco (for some unknown reason) a full bag of fresh garlic heads and it seemed like it might be a good idea to roast them and serve them with cranberry-orange relish and toasted Baguette slices.  I quite liked the smoothness of the roasted garlic flavor juxtaposed with the sweetness of the relish and will have to do this again.

Trudi, the Birthday Girl

Dianna arrived bearing gifts not only for Trudi, but also for me since my birthday is coming up later this month.  The gift included beautiful, fragrant candles.  But the best part of the gift was this incredibly delicious and addictive caramel popped corn which was like eating air, but much more flavorful.  Trudi and I both quickly realized that we did NOT want to share our treat with others and surreptitiously ate one piece of caramel popped corn after another when we thought no one else was looking.  Unfortunately, the cellophane bag crinkled each time we dipped into it, which made it more difficult to be selfish.

I raved so much about this popped corn that following the dinner, Dianna took pity on my and brought me a couple of bags of the special popped corn that has to be ordered by the case from the midwest so I could make a batch of my own.  Today I finally made a batch and found it very hard to get it into an airtight container since I kept wanting to access it myself!

We ended the evening with chunky apple pecan cake served with apple cider glaze and whipping cream which was the perfect place to add a giant sparkler so we could sing and wish Trudi a very happy birthday.