Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words. -Plautus

Yes! Today is my birthday!
And what did I do to celebrate? Nothing too spectacular, besides NOT eating at the dining hall. And any time I don't have to eat there, my life becomes a little brighter. Instead we went to an off-campus place: Plato's Diner. Picture a college town diner, with a light infusion of Greek food. Sounds good to me! I got a yummy stuffed eggplant dish. I had never ordered it before, but it was really very good. Picture moussaka, but just baked in a piece of eggplant. Followed, of course, with a desert of baklava.

But we started the birthday celebrations by baking a cake yesterday. Keep in mind, when I say that we "baked a cake" it might not exactly be the picturesque vision you would want to see. First, we had to find our way into the only public kitchen on this side of campus. Second, take notice of the term 'public kitchen'. Available for anyone who can figure out how to get in there. Once we began, we suddenly realized that we had no mixing bowl, no measuring instruments, no mixing utensils. Luckily, it was a Betty Crocker just-add-water mix. With our genius intellect, we just dumped the mix and water into the tin foil pan, and began stirring with plastic forks. The mixed batter looked quite a bit questionable, but we baked it anyways and it turned out looking and tasting okay in the end.

There was only one problem, discovered upon taking the first bite. I am not a huge fan of Angel Food Cake. Even with funfetti baked inside. Oh well. Twas an adventure in any case.

My friends got me a stir-fry cookbook for a birthday present. I told them that when I sneak an electric skillet into our suite next year, I might try one of the recipes. As long as the outlets don't explode from too much flowing energy from the (technically-illegal-to-have-in-the-dorms) skillet. Oh well. That too will be yet another good story to share from my wild adventure of cooking in my non-existent college kitchen. Can't wait!

Good night, and happy birthday to me and any other April 17th babies!