Since I couldn’t be with my family for my actual birthday, it was decided that I should celebrate a belated birthday in Arizona. So two days ago, I was wined and dined once again - only this time, the "wine" part consisted of icy margaritas, and the "dine" part consisted of an enormous platter of sizzling shrimp fajitas from La Casita. After the fajitas, I dove into a bowl of warm, chewy sopapillas swimming in cinnamon whipped cream while a trio of mariachis serenaded me with a traditional Mexican birthday song.

And as if that weren’t enough: when we returned home, my mom disappeared into the kitchen and suddenly reappeared bearing an enormous, chocolate-glazed cake. And this wasn’t just any cake - it was a six-layer chocolate doberge cake shipped from Gambino’s bakery in New Orleans, the city where I was born. The last time I had a cake like that, it was on my first birthday, when I was too sick with the flu to eat any of it. So 29 years later (and despite having downed those sopapillas just half an hour earlier) I made up for it by devouring a piece of the moist, chocolatey, absolutely scrumptious cake - and then vowing never to eat again.

I’ve had to do a lot of swimming to work off that feast, but it was worth it. Thirty - the birthday so nice, I celebrated it twice!

Further reading…