Happy Birthday Gramma!

Yes, today is my mom's birthday. It is also my friend Nina's birthday and Regina's wedding anniversary. Its a big day.

For Nina, I left voicemail; for Regina I shouted Happy Anniversary as she walked into her office and for mom, we went to the Peninsula last night for dinner. I have three words for you to sum up our dinner, the new chef and the new menu: Tofu Tasting Menu.

Seriously.

Tofu.
Tasting.
Menu.

Dude, I understand you're trying to capture a younger crowd. I get that. And you should. When my mom and her best friend are younger than everyone else in the room (except me) by 30 years, you've got an old crowd. But, tofu tasting? Yeah, not so much.

I had the scallops, mom had the salmon and Eleanor had...what did she have...some small bird off the side dish section of the menu. And, don't get me wrong, it was all quite tasty and the portions were perfect. But, here was the conversation over our desert to sort of help you with the tone of the food for dinner:

Waiter: How do you like your desert?
Eleanor: Its different. I've never had a carrot cake like this before.
Waiter: Its organic.
Eleanor: Oh.

When we ordered the cake, it said organic carrot cake. When the cake came, it was a very different consistency than other carrot cakes. I liked it, mom didn't and Eleanor was sort of lukewarm. But, here's the thing. I understand the importance of organic but really, "organic" is not impacting my cake. The recipe and the time it cooked impacted the cake...not that the carrots were grown by a loving farmer that read poetry to his crops every day. I know what goes into a carrot cake and if mom used all organic ingredients in her cake, it would not taste like that did. It would be carrot cake and it would rock you. It wouldn't be a carrot cake with an odd consistency.

I'm just sayin.

Happy Birthday Mom!!