Ellavate your Birthday
I LOVE birthdays!! I know that a lot of people don’t really care about them, but in my opinion it is a day to recognize yourself or one of your friends/loved ones. Personal birthdays are a great time to be proud of your accomplishments and celebrate life. I take it as a day to do exactly what I want, when I want, and be with who I want. I like to celebrate with multiple groups of people throughout the week before and after my birthday.
When I celebrate other people, I put my wishes and wants aside and make the whole day about them. I think it serves as a reminder to cherish those around you and compromise. In this post I wanted to provide a few ways to Ellavate your birthday and how I Ellavated my 18th this year.
My first tip is, of course, be authentic to yourself. What do you want to do? What sounds fun? For my birthday, I wanted to make a five-course Italian feast in which I called “Ella’s Elaborate Extravaganza.” This is not what most people care to do for their birthdays, but it is exactly what I wanted.
Next, do something!! You don’t have to make some crazy party, but put some excitement into your life. Gather with your friends or family or even just yourself. Set aside time to have fun, whatever that may mean for you. Maybe do something you never have the chance to do. Try a new restaurant, watch a movie with fun snacks. Take to Pinterest and go nuts.
This is also your reminder that you don’t have to wait until your birthday to celebrate your life or yourself. Spice things up. If you have been craving an activity, I encourage you to try to fit this into your schedule in the next week or weeks. It could even be taking a nap, going to the pool, or ordering your favorite takeout.
As I stated, I cooked a gigantic feast, so I want to share all of the recipes and the background for how this occurred. I have been on a rampage of reading cooking memoirs. My family and I are huge foodies, we love every type of cuisine. We love to cook and we use food to bring is closer together. I got inspired by world-renowned chefs and decided to plan and create my own meal. When cooking, my mom always tells me to come up with a theme so that everything is cohesive. I immediately knew I wanted Italian food, because obviously it’s delicious and I had a few Italian dishes in mind that I was dying to create.
I wrote out the courses: Antipasti, Insalata, Primi, Secondi, and Dolce. When I first planned this, I went a bit over board, so I needed to streamline in order to complete everything in a timely manner and also make sure that I didn’t kill my parents in the process! They were a bit overwhelmed…
Planning the menu:
I got my ideas from Instagram, online searches, cookbooks, websites, and dinning experiences. I love to mesh recipes to create the ultimate flavor I am going for. I typically use Instagram to spark my ideas. Then, I take to the internet to find each piece of the dish that I am looking for. Make sure you read reviews and take the advice offered into consideration.
I immediately knew I wanted to make focaccia because many years ago my family and I took a cooking class in Italy where we made the fluffiest focaccia. A few years ago we tried to recreate it following the recipe the company had given us, and it tasted like stale bread, probably because we don’t have the same ingredients as they do in Italy. I was determined to find a perfect recipe that would take me back to the pillowy texture and delectable flavor I had previously experienced.
I racked my brain for menus I had tasted and memories of experiences I previously had so that I could create something similar, with my own spin. At my favorite Italian restaurant where we live, they always serve their focaccia with olive tapenade, and I have become obsessed with olives so I put olive tapenade on the menu. When we were in Spain and Portugal, we had the most delicious whipped brown butter. It tasted nutty and had a hint of caramel flavor, so I would put this on the table as well. The last “dip” with my focaccia would just be olive oil. Don’t underestimate the power of a good quality olive oil. On our travels this past summer I tasted the best olive oil I have ever had. The brand is Ermedas and I highly recommend getting yourself a bottle of this heaven.
Before bread, I thought it would be fun to do a charcuterie board with drinks because I wanted the bread to be a course in itself just like at a restaurant when you sit down and eat bread first. I knew it was going to be a heavy night full of carbs, so a light and bright salad would help balance out flavors.
Cacio e Pepe was one of the main reasons I wanted to make the menu Italian. My favorite thing about authentic Italian food is how delicious yet simple it is. Fabulous dishes are made with just a few good quality ingredients and a thought out recipe.
Duck was calling my name with its incredibly yummy gamey flavor. I called about 7 different stores to ask if they had duck… and they did not. I was going to switch to rack of lamb or lamb ossobuco until I remembered one more butcher shop I could call. I was so thrilled because they had it so I put duck on the menu. I wanted a fruity sauce to pair with the duck to keep it decadent, balanced, and not too rich. Duck and cherry sauce goes together like peanut butter and jelly. I didn’t know what sides I would put with the duck. I didn’t want it to be just a piece of duck with sauce on a plate, however we were already having pasta in the previous course. While I was at the store I saw perfect baby carrots and super skinny asparagus. I wanted there to be onion jam on the bottom of the plate because I love it, and it would add the perfect extra umph that I needed.
I looked and looked for a decadent Italian dessert. I’m not a fan of tiramisu or any type of pudding or creme brûlée. I found a few ideas of individual hazelnut, caramel tarts however they were extremely complex and I already had a lot going on. I can’t have a birthday without my Reeses peanut butter cake, so I decided to make it for this dinner although it wasn’t Italian.
Research:
I was all in, and by all in I mean I was ready to go big or go home. I wanted these recipes to be the best of the best, super authentic, and well reviewed. For this process, I looked through many different recipes and websites to determine which I wanted to use. The focaccia was probably the hardest recipe to find because I immediately found one by Samin Nosrat who is a famous chef and author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. I planned to use her Ligurian focaccia recipe, but after reviewing it I realized that if we wanted to eat the bread at 7:00 p.m. I would have to wake up around 3:00 a.m. (because of the timing of the proofing and rising) which was not about to happen so, I went back to the drawing board. Down below I will post each of the websites I used in the process. For some of the recipes, I modified, used my judgement, and/or created something new so what was produced isn’t exactly what the recipes show.
Focaccia: https://alexandracooks.com/2018/03/02/overnight-refrigerator-focaccia-best-focaccia/
Duck with cherry sauce: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016469-duck-with-cherries-and-red-wine-vinegar
Notes:
For the focaccia I added rosemary and shallots on top, and also use instant yeast as it is significantly easier. I cut the tapenade recipe in half and it was plenty. The spice on the duck is literally the best thing ever. I would possibly recommend adding less vinegar to the cherry sauce. For the onion jam maybe add a little less vinegar and sugar. As for the cake, I always double the frosting because your girl LOVES frosting and I doubled the chocolate ganache. I would buy at least one large package of Reeses cups, depending on what you want to do with the design.
Shopping:
From the links, I went through all the ingredients and wrote down the ones I didn’t already have. If you do something like this, prepare yourself because I can pretty much assure you that one trip to the store will not cover it. You may think you have everything, but you don’t lol. I also personally believe that it is super important to get fresh ingredients, because the flavor pops so much more. This is also your reminder to buy organic and buy local if possible. For the charcuterie board, I went to our neighborhood cheese shop and they helped me pick out the best cheeses, meats, and more.
Executing:
To properly execute this extravaganza I needed to plan out every detail. I talked with my parents and discussed the order in which we would bake and cook everything. Our dinner party was on Sunday, and although I didn’t bake the cake on Friday like I had planned, I would highly recommend it. At least bake the layers of the cake so that you can put them in the fridge to cool. The cake won’t go bad if you store it in the fridge for a few days, so it is nice to just get that done. You can also make the frosting and ganache ahead of time. I would recommend making the sauces and dips at least the day prior. This would include the cherry sauce, onion jam, olive tapenade, and whipped brown butter. The focaccia can rest in the fridge for 12-36 hours so you can do it whenever you see fit, but remember the that it must rest again for 3-4 hours and then bake. The charcuterie board should be arranged and displayed right before your guests arrive so that the cheese and meats stay fresh. Be creative and have a good time decorating it the way you want. The pasta and protein must be cooked a la minute, but prep all the ingredients and read the recipes. For example, I grated the cheese and grinder the pepper for the cacio e pepe.
Tips:
Read through the recipes fully before you begin so you don’t miss any details.
In a charcuterie board, it is suggested that you have various types of cheese. Include some soft, some hard, and some in between. I had a goat, blue, soft, hard. If you can, taste your cheeses as you want a myriad of flavors.
Plan ahead!
Have fun. Be in the moment and enjoy the process.
The full menu:
The night began with a beautiful charcuterie board full of all different cheese, a Fig and Pig terrine, honey comb, salami, cornishon, prosciutto with melon balls, a fig and nut bar, and crackers. Next was rosemary and shallot focaccia with olive oil, olive tapenade, and whipped brown butter. The salad was butter lettuce, fennel, celery, shaved parmesan, and roasted hazelnuts with a lemon, hazelnut, mustard vinaigrette. Cacio e pepe was next up with bucatini. The last savory dish was duck with cherry sauce, onion jam, asparagus, and baby carrots. The night finished off with my gorgeous Reeses peanut butter cake.
Reflection:
This experience could not have been more fun. I had the best time cooking and eating and I am definitely going to do this again, not just for my birthday. Looking back I feel so proud of all the time and effort I put in and it ended up tasting better than I ever expected it would. I was super nervous about how it would turn out because I wanted it to be amazing, but it was even better than amazing.
Other ways to Ellavate your special day:
My best friends threw me the best surprise birthday party ever. It made me feel so loved and it was a great way to bond and have fun. If you have someone special in your life, throwing a surprise party is such a fun idea. You can curate the party to what they love. On this night we did a “powerpoint night.” This is a TikTok trend where you and your besties create PowerPoints about pretty much any topic. For example, I did reasons why we would die in the Hunger Games and I correlated it to each of my friends, but I also did rating the places I have cried. It was hilarious.