We now celebrate BirthWeeks!!!

This is Bruce's birthweek (does he read our blogs???), so I have a little ode for him - a story, actually. Bruce is a baker of cakes and other confectionary delights.

My birthday cake, as long as I can remember, was THE culinary highlight of my year - right up there with the chocolate bunny in my Easter basket, or the lobster roll from the little stand on the way to the beach on summer vacation. Birthdays were the exception to the few and far between treats rationed to me during any given year - on my birthday I could have any kind of cake I wanted, no matter what!

I could choose any cake - traditional, or dreamed up and never tried before, store bought or homemade. Most years I went for chocolate with vanilla icing. Chocolate can be debated - what are the finer points of devil's food v. german chocolate? Plain vanilla icing could include marshmallow creme - plain, yet treading ever so lightly on the exotic.

Birthday cakes are more than just something to eat. They are a cultural tradition.

The decision making was at least as pleasurable as the actual consumption.

But, the really important thing is not what kind of cake it is, how perfect it looks or even how good it tastes, but that the main ingredient is love. Love is what the birthday person feels in the glow of the candles and the taste of the sweet frosting.

This isn't about me, it's about Bruce: our baker of cakes. Whether or not he knows it, when he bakes someone a birthday cake, even if he doesn't know them, he's mixing up love in a pan for someone else to pass along on a day of celebration.

I celebrate you, Bruce. Happy 50th and many, many more.