B-Day Dinners and mushy carrot haters
Nothing puts you under perfectionist pressure like cooking someone a dish for their birthday.
Sometimes we have to recreate something their family made years ago that you’ve never experienced, or it’s a dish they’ve always wanted to try that you’ve never made. Or maybe they’re craving something that is pure comfort food —but birthday wishes are birthday wishes.
Birthday dishes usually require a special amount of planning, thinking ahead, and specialized grocery shopping for ingredients you normally don’t have. And then all is said and done you just pray to the food gods that it all comes out…
For most of us who grew up in the analog era, and from looking at a lot of your feeds, it seems everyone is having a nostalgia craving and wanting to go back to the 1990s.
Birthdays were just more simple. You got to pick out a movie of your choosing from the video store, ask for pizza to be delivered, or get a six-piece Happy Meal. You enjoyed cake and gifts with your family. Nothing was curated to have over-the-top decor, catered food, or a photo booths.
If You were lucky Enough someone in your class handed you a handwritten invitation for a pool party, and you knew that day was going to be epic. Full of Pepsi, Doritos, and your first time being exposed to ranch on pizza.
(I actually blame the MTV show my Sweet 16 For being mostly responsible for changing how most of us try to treat birthdays) curated and over the top.
Now, as fully grown adults, the birthday menu looks light-years away from Doritos and Pepsi, but pizza parties are still a possibility. So is filet mignon with a Frank Sinatra impersonator or a high-end sushi joint slamming sake bombs.
In this household, our favorite birthdays are homegrown. Filled with friends, potluck, wine, and conversation.
Now, coming into September with the excitement of fall around the corner and the start of some cooler temperatures, it’s also my husband’s birthday. Someone who never wants to be the center of attention and would rather I forget it altogether. We all know that isn’t going to happen.
So every year, it’s the same question:
“What do you want to do for your birthday?”
Which is mostly met with, “I don’t know.”
So then I give him a plethora of things to choose from.
This year’s choice was just the two of us at home on a Wednesday. Slow-cooked pot roast—without vegetables added. Whoever likes mushy carrots and potatoes with a baby-food consistency, you can keep them.
But let me offer some alternatives.
Gratin Dauphinois as the potato side dish, roasted carrots with dill, and then glazed with hot honey.
All three components in one bite truly are meant to be, Savory,Salty,Spicy and Sweet. but they become even more magical when paired with a 2023 Cavaletti, Rio Vista Vineyard Chardonnay.
What??? Not a red wine?
Yes, you can have white wine with red meat. It always comes down to how the meat is prepared.
Now I am not saying the right red wine wouldn’t also work, but here’s why this Chardonnay worked so well.
It had the right amount of acidity to help cut through the richness of the dish, but it also had enough lactic acid, or diacetyl—the same compounds found in milk—to give the wine a creamy, buttery component.
Our dish is also buttery and creamy, so the wine and food begin to mirror each other. Then the acidity cuts through the fat and richness, bringing everything back into balance.
And there you have it. You’ve just had a mild science class.
Now, let’s move on.
Now, if you don’t have the time or patience for Gratin Dauphinois, I honestly will take a baked potato, add the pot roast on top, and eat it as a loaded baked potato.
However you like it—even with the mushy carrots and all.
These specialized dinners have nothing to do with oneself, but everything to do with the loved one you care enough about to spend those hours in the kitchen for.
