Of Swans And Birthday Cakes

I have never used this blog to write about my birthday which is tomorrow. Instead I've dedicated my birth day blog to another 21ster, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Early Romantic poet and Shakespeare critic.I've written about scones and clotted cream, and after ten years of lauding the fruits of Devon, maybe it's time for a change. No surprise there.

What was a surprise was in tomorrow's New York Times Sunday Magazine (delivered the day before) was the recipe for my Mom's signature dessert  cream puff swans.These are airy confections that she first got out of a recipe from one of my Seventeen Magazine when I was in high school or college.These were tear drop shaped puffs of the always impossible to make choux pastry. She had to pipe the necks which were thin exaggerated question marks. To give them that cygnet look the domes of the puffs were sliced off and cut in two to make the elegant wings. My Mom made a simple vanilla pudding , boosted with Cool Whip (I think) to complete the light airy, taste. This was spooned into the empty shells. The necks were inserted as were the wings, the last at an angle to show a swan preening. Then there was the dusting of powdered sugar to bring the elegance up another layer. They were like eating clouds. They were fun. Everybody in the family instantly fell in love with them, from my grandfather's cousins to my own, younger ones. They were the requested pastry at graduations and parties. The necks were always eaten first, followed by the wings and then the bodies.I hope Gabrielle Hamilton's recipe for them gets the same kind of love and adoration.

I miss those swans. I miss those days. Tomorrow is my first birthday without my Mom It doesn't feel like a celebratory day that deserve the mini birthday cakes I always bought from the Acme or Stop & Shop. I don't know what it feels like - maybe a recipe without the flavor - yes that's it. I'll be in New York on my special day, I'll go to a fun bakery and get a quartet of cupcakes (not too much - this food writer is on a strict diet.)They'll be chocolate ,for sure, with buttercream icing - not as good as mine though.Still, it's not the same with her not here physically. Birthdays for all us used to be fun. It was either our favorite meals made  (mine was risotto Milanese , the saffron drenched risott from  Italy's Lombard region) or a trip to the city for lunch or dinner at a favorite restaurant. We celebrated with a variety of different cuisines, from Belgian to Mexican to Japanese. Different dishes were ordered and shared. Gifts given and opened. Dessert then appeared and we dug into everything from creme brule to matcha ice cream. I miss those meals and the laughter that came with them

Birthdays are always with us.So are good food memories. I'll always cherish those of my Mom's choux swans  and of our birthday get togethers