I AM 30

I AM 30. Well, 30 years and one week, if you want to get technical. In reflecting about what that means to me, all I can conclude is that I've done a lot of cool things and I have a lot to be happy about. So, in short, life at 30 is spectacular. Plus, I don't feel a day over 20.

Here's how the celebrating went down.

Friday morning my friend, Morgan, and I went to breakfast at my favorite neighborhood spot, The Fat Hen. I met her last October when she and her husband and son moved into our ward. Only a couple weeks ago we discovered that we were BIRTHDAY TWINS! We were both born on March 3, 1982. I think I'm several hours older. GET OUT. Seriously. I've never met a birthday twin (although there are two other men in our ward who share the March 3 part), and it was perfect timing to have met mine. She loves all things food related (just like me!), so I thought it would be fun to have a preliminary birthday celebration by eating good food. Heeeeeere's Morgan!

Here's the hot chocolate, a spoonful of ganache mixed up in warm milk.

She and I split two dishes. Here's the bostock, or brioche French toast topped with almond paste and sliced, toasted almonds with a side of whipped cream and orange marmalade.

Here are the remnants of our baked egg dish that boasted tomato sauce, pork sausage, mushrooms and eggs. Kill me now.

Here she is saying, "30 year old Martha is sooooo much funnier than 29 year old Martha." Psst, we don't turn 30 until tomorrow, Morgan. (Can you see some of that decor? I want to live there.)

And here are the smiling almost 30 gals. Food makes us happy. Especially when enjoyed sans kids.

Speaking of which, here are they. Thanks be to Adam the babysitter!

And then there was the birthday DAY. My two desires for this milestone birthday of mine were: (1) To feel free, and (2) to eat more good food. A friend babysat during my least favorite time of day, 3:30 - 7:30 pm, and Adam and I got our free on! I've been wanting to rent scooters for awhile, and I knew this was the perfect time to go for it.  We planned on renting two scooters but Adam forgot his driver's license, so we scooted Dumb and Dumber style. I was the only authorized, legal driver, so that left Adam scared for his life! Cue evil laugh: bwhahahah. But, nice, trusting husband that he is, he did not confirm that he was indeed terrified until our hour was up and we were back on safe ground. 

We drove to the Magnolia neighborhood and enjoyed the beautiful view of the Puget Sound and the downtown skyline (you can kind of see it in the distance in the picture below).

It was a gorgeous day for a scoot. It was sunny but windy and chilly. Hey, if it's not gloomy and rainy, we are not complaining.

Adam actually did drive for half the time. It was nice to be on the back and take in the view instead of worrying about not falling over on turns and using my blinker and changing lanes.

We had a funny moment at the very end when we had to go fill up the scooter with gas. We were running out of time and getting stuck in impossible traffic, so we got off the scooter and Adam walked it on the sidewalk and across several cross walks to get to the gas station. No shame! Just a couple of scooter novices trying to wrap things up and hurry back to the rental shop without being charged extra. And now, I really want a scooter. Like really, really bad. Next birthday?!??

Adam planned dinner to be a surprise. Love that! We went to a little place in Phinney neighborhood called Stumbling Goat Bistro. It has a big focus on local food, so it took our server a ridiculously long amount of time to describe everything on the menu because he had to mention which farm everything came from. It made us laugh and reminded us of this Portlandia video. Locavores: they are real. And they exist all around us.

This cheese plate was fabulous. That little spoon contained a tiny dollop of heavenly honeycomb, I believe from a closely-guarded beehive in Puyallup. And that tiny apple that I pushed apart is a Pink Lady, possibly from a farm in Tukwila. The crackers were house-made little wonders, and the almonds and walnuts were candied somewhere nearby, perhaps in their very own kitchen! We were getting fatigued listening through all the cheese facts, but I do know the one on the right is called Little Boy Blue because I've had it before at the Phinney farmer's market. Maybe I'm a locavore and I didn't even know it!

The lighting was terrible for pictures of ourselves, but here we are anyway.

I'm holding a tiny wedge of the tiny apple that was bred, born, and raised in the loving arms of a farmer in Tukwila. Oh, how I love this tiny apple wedge.

I forgot to get photos of our dinners, which were out of this world, so I shall describe them in as much detail as possible to make you feel as if you can see them with your own eyes and taste them with your own lips. My dish was braised wild boar ragu on house-made fettuccine. Do you need me to repeat that? I ate wild boar!! Wha?????? That's what I said. But I was trying to decide between that and the wild mushroom risotto and the server told me that the ragu was, hands down, the way to go. He was right. Wild boar actually tastes a lot like slow roasted beef. And in a ragu on house-made fettuccini. Gah! It was amazing.

Adam had sturgeon on a bed of miniature black beans with a brown butter sauce. It was good. But I think mine was better.

Our dessert was probably one of the best I've ever had. I don't even know what it was called except that it had the word Frangelico in it. Does anyone know what that means? Me neither. It was like a chocolate dome filled with Bavarian cream and whipped cream that lay on a nutty, nougaty crust topped with a blood orange slice and blood orange sauce.

MMMMMM.

As you can see, it was a great birthday.