Birthday Favorites

I'm an Aries.  My birthday sometimes falls during Pesach, sometimes after, virtually never before.  Whatever the food limitations, some adaptation takes place.  My wife makes a special dinner, or sometimes I do.  This year, it falls after Pesach and on a Sunday, with very few competing obligations.  Table still set from shabbos.  I washed all the shabbos dinner dishes, not brought all the fleishig appliances upstairs from their Pesach storage in the basement.  I think I will make my own couples dinner this year.  For a milestone birthday.

First, milchig or fleishig?  Each has advantages and disadvantages.  I bought a slice of salmon for Pesach, but did not use it.  Even frozen, it can still be poached.   Milchig expands the options of birthday cake.

Instead, though, I opted for a meal of my personal favorites.  Always start with the centerpiece.  Briskets and steaks become available at Trader Joe's for Pesach.  Good Stuff.  Before Pesach, I bought a Kosher for Passover salami, a bullet salami that I've not seen in a kosher deli case for years.  What I do not have is pastrami.  That would have made the main dish.  I think I will go to TJ, see what beef did not sell out during Pesach and then decide.  If both remain, I could get a steak for the birthday and a brisket for later when we host dinner guests.

What goes with it?  I like knishes.  Also kasha varnishkes, tzimmes, shlishkes, glazed carrots, leczo, roasted beets. All the things I need to make these sit in my fridge or pantry, overpurchased from Super G produce prior to the Festival.  I think I'll go with shlishkes.  They are of Hungarian origin, one of my maternal grandmother's specialties.  Not very hard to make.  Boil a potato, chill it, mash, add flour and an egg and knead, then chill some more.  Roll it out, cut into bite size cylinders, boil, dry, then pan fry gently with matzah meal in olive oil.  

As much as I like leczo, and have ample unused bell peppers, it is hard to limit the quantity for a couple's dinner.  Though maybe I have a small can of diced tomatoes.  Glazed carrots have the advantage of ease.  They also have a sweetness that will serve the other ingredients.  Tzimmes is a variant on this, but making sweet potato and mashed white potato at the same meal seems problematic.

Pareve cakes.  I made nut torte for Pesach and don't have enough nuts left over.  Don't have pareve strudel dough or enough apples.  Don't have phyllo, and baklava seems too painstaking, though maybe I could buy some.  Instead, I mostly have what I need for fluden and for stuffed monkey, with dates that I have replacing candied peel that I don't.have.  My fluden had never come out well, but it is easier to make than stuffed monkey.  Passover cakes go on clearance.  They are not my favorites.  And while I like apple cake and honey cake, I eat them often enough that they have become less special.

There are soups.  Chicken soup with matzah balls have become universal favorites.  Same with mushroom barley soup.  Or I have herring that can be served as a starter.  I don't want to boil a frozen gefilte log.  That goes better with shabbos.  And I have falafel mix, but save that for another time.  They are among my favorites, though.

And salad.  I bought greens, bell peppers, celery.  Tomatoes need to be replaced as they spoiled before eating.

Wine has accumulated in excess.  White and red.  Put a bottle of white in refrigerator, separated a bottle of red, which may be preferable with beef.

Much of this effort involves choices, organization, less imagination if my starting point is established favorites.  Joy comes later, at a table, with my wife, maybe with phone calls from my kids.  Effort enhances enjoyment.  None seems overly taxing, appropriate to my advancing age.

And when all done, a Happy Birthday to Me.