vip in the city

Nice cupcakes

Belated celebration for DK’s birthday tonight. After some back and forth, SYB, HH, DK and I finally came upon a date for which all of us were available. (All except LK, who passed on the festivities.) Dinner in Sunnyside!

These birthday gatherings are something of a tradition, though at various times, we have been lax in scheduling them, missing a couple of dates in the interim. But we still try.

SYB generously offered to prepare a home-cooked meal for the occasion, so I was tasked with bringing dessert. HH and I considered a few options (Mini-cake? Little pie? Beard Papa’s cream puffs?), but finally we decided on cupcakes. Who doesn’t like cupcakes? I made the trip to Crumbs Bake Shop after work. So many varieties….!

But, as we all know by now, DK does not eat nuts: no peanuts, no cashews, no almonds… as he put it: “nothing with ‘nut’ in the name,” which includes coconuts. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, one in 200 Americans has this peanut or nut allergy; approximately 50 to 100 people die every year after accidental exposure. (As a result, almost all airlines have stopped serving peanuts on their flights.) Remember the crazy story about the Canadian teenager who suffered a fatal anaphylactic reaction after kissing her boyfriend, who had eaten a peanut-butter sandwich hours earlier?

The strict nut ban cut down on some of the dessert choices — no Reese’s Peanut Butter or Fluffernutter cupcakes — but there were still plenty of elaborate and tasty-looking options. HH and I had our eye on the Red Velvet Cupcake; SYB placed his vote for the Cappuccino.

I made it to the glass counter at Crumbs, just ahead one dour Upper West Side matron, to find the bakery sold out of Red Velvet. Well, it is their best seller. So instead: Cappuccino, Oreo, Blackout, S’More, and Cookie Dough.

HH and I met at Grand Central and arrived at Chez B to find the cooking in progress. The menu tonight made full use of SYB’s and my organic vegetable share: Smothered Pork Chops with Spicy Collard Greens, Mashed Potatoes with Leeks and Orange-Glazed Carrot Ribbons.

After setting the pork chops and collards to braise on the stovetop, we caught up on some television. Actually, a lot of television. I probably watched more television that night than I had in the two weeks prior, combined. First: Celebrity Jeopardy — Law and Order edition, featuring stars from all three current L&O franchises — which was filmed this season in New York at Radio City Music Hall. The obviously dumbed-down questions always remind me of the Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy sketches — there have been 13! — featuring the hilarious, and entirely fictionalized, feud between Alex Trebek (Will Ferrell) and Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond).

We zipped through the new-to-America game show 1 vs 100 with host Bob Saget (verdict: eh) and caught up on episodes of The Office and How I Met Your Mother — all in full HD glory. HH apparently had never watched The Office before (!), so we made a new convert that night. SYB should be earning a commission from NBC for all the new viewers he brings in.

Dinner was delicious, and afterwards, the five of us split up the enormous cupcakes, which the boys seemed to enjoy.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
(the less I seek my source)
The closer I am to fine
The closer I am to fine

— “Closer to Fine,” Indigo Girls (as sung by Jim “Big Tuna” Halpert and Andy Bernard on The Office)