The most important Birthday Cake of my life.

 Today is my 29th birthday. Although we definitely have done some celebratory activities, it has been a rather strange weekend of house hunting and running around.  We decided we would spend the night in San Francisco last night, crash at our friends place, go to a nice little restaurant for dinner, and relax from the hectic day of searching for our new home.
  However, there was the small detail of the birthday cake. In the Island (meaning back home in the Dominican), birthday cakes are of order for any one's big day. They are usually the same type of cake, with the same type of frosting (fabulous meringue that stays moist and silky close to the cake itself, yet dries a little forming an almost crunchy crust on top), and the filling varies from prune jam, to guava jam, to almond cream and a few others. Some traditions remain an intricate part of our lives regardless of how much time has passed or how much distance separates us from the place of their origin.  To me, the birthday cake is one of them.
 Usually, if we are home for my birthday (meaning wherever we might be living at the time) I will make my own cake, enjoy the process, and wait until the candles are lit, Happy Birthday has been sung and everyone is ready for cake, before I cut it.
 However, we were going to be tired and at someone else's home for this one, so I decided to stop by the renowned Tartine Bakery, stand in line for a bit of an unreasonable time, and buy myself a cake.  I chose a passion fruit lime genoise, covered in coconut flakes. If I couldn't get the real Dominican cake, then I could at least have some island flavours.
Our friends were at another friend's birthday, and my husband went to get a haircut while I got ready for dinner, so I ended up by myself at their Russian Hill flat. We were to meet at a fabulous new spot for cocktails. As I perused the web for possible rentals (my main occupation these days) the monster awoke.     For those of you who don't know me that well, I am almost always hungry. There is actually a book with that title, and every time I see it I feel robbed. My husband named the phenomenon "the monster", because we will eat the same meals, at the same time, on any given day, yet I will be so hungry my stomach will growl and I will start to feel lightheaded, just a few hours (sometimes less), after one of our common meals. As a matter of fact, I am pretty hungry right now.
Once the monster is awake, it has to be fed.  Waiting is not an option, as it will take over my body and soul and a new persona will emerge. A much angrier, edgy, not so nice persona.
 So I searched our friend's kitchen for some food. There were ingredients to prepare a meal (eggs, vegetables, grains, beans....) but no snack items at all. Not a piece of fruit that would be filling enough, no chips, no cheese, no nuts... I gave up and continued to get ready. It started getting upset with me for ignoring it, and I started to get a headache. Fuck! Well, there was the birthday cake...
As I debated cutting my own birthday cake, a day early, by myself, I realized that if I didn't, because of some romantic idea of the birthday celebration and the meaning of the cake, I would be going against my core belief, that we should view food, first and foremost as nourishment, then as pleasure. Not that genoise with passion fruit mousse is that nourishing, but it would put the monster to rest until dinner time, it would make the headache go away, and it would prevent me from getting drunk from cocktails on an empty stomach. It would also prevent me being a bitch to my husband for no apparent reason. So I sliced myself a small piece, sat down on our friend's comfortable suede couch, and savoured every bite of my birthday cake.
Some people don't like their birthdays. They claim that it is stupid to celebrate them as it is just another day. Other people feel that birthdays are for the friends and families of the individual, it is their day to celebrate and honor the person. My husband once got yelled at by a loved one for deciding to throw his own birthday party instead of going to some other party that was being held the same day (even though said party was not in his honor!).
 I believe that birthdays are important, as it is a day to celebrate someone and their past, present and future, but I strongly believe that you should do whatever the fuck YOU want on your birthday, whether that involves your friends, family, significant other or not.
So as I sat by myself in someone else's home, in my beloved city that is somehow still my home, I felt blessed to have a birthday cake, to have thought about taking care of it when I did instead of waiting for it to magically take care of itself, to have a few minutes to myself during my birthday/house hunting weekend, and to be wise enough to feed the monster, even if it meant cutting the cake a day early.
Later at dinner, my husband asked me if it had been sad to have to cut into it to prevent the strike of the over hungry monster. It really wasn't, instead it was grounding, in making me realize how much more flexible of a person I am now, at 29, than I was before.
 When it left the case at the bakery, my birthday cake had no idea what was in store for it. It turned out to be more of a hero than a clown. It wasn't just going to perform an entertaining, pleasurable luxury at someone's party, it had actually saved me (and my husband) from a very unpleasant night. So, Happy Birthday to me, and kudos to my delicious cake!
P.S: As I proof read this, I am having a snack.