Lucky 13

Mo's thirteenth birthday was today, and an eventful day it was.





We started with a pizza party, but it's not what you're thinking: I didn't make the pizza, it was a little get together with a couple of Mo's friends from school at the local Pizza Slut.





Back at home, I frosted her cake (another Chocolate Mayonnaise, I gotta branch out) with cream cheese frosting. I tried to make the frosting red with yellow piping, that was what Mo seemed to want, but even with a whole tube of red gel in, it was more pink than red. I asked her if she preferred pink or purple, and when she said purple I added some blue.







So we had a mauve birthday cake with yellow icing. Yellow turns out to be much easier than red (or purple). I could have kept adding blue, but it seemed likely it was going to end up closer to gray than purple if I did.



Then I cooked eleven pounds of chicken. It took a little longer than I thought it would, about three hours using three pans. Yeah, there are leftovers, but not as many as you might expect. Three grandparents, an aunt and uncle, plus me and my two daughters did some serious damage on the fried chicken front.



My Mom, who makes awesome fried chicken (and I generally stick to her recipe) seemed to think my oil should be hotter and that I should be able to turn the chicken around faster. Turns out, she covers hers before the first flip, and I guess that helps it cook faster without harming the crisping. When I've used hotter oil, I get it very brown on the outside while it's still undercooked inside, so I've just operated on the assumption you can't rush fried chicken.



I guess I think I learned to make fried chicken from Mom, but really, I didn't pay attention when she made it for us on what seemed like a weekly basis when I was growing up. We had it so often, I didn't even think of it as special until I was out on my own and got a jones for some fried chicken. Then I called and asked for advice, so what teaching she did was mostly by telephone fifteen to twenty years ago.





I did deviate from Mom's recipe a bit: for part of the chicken, I tried buttermilk instead of water before the flour dredge. This turned out to be my version of Extra Crispy, you get a more pronounced breading than just wetting with water and dredging.





I think I can taste just a hint of the buttermilk in the breading on that version, too.



The fam coming down brought sides, and we had a jolly little feast, complete with salad, green bean casserole, biscuits and baked beans. And I found a use for my pizza pans (I haven't used them since I started hand-tossing and cooking on the stone, but they're great as enormous fried chicken platters.



Then came presents and cake and ice cream.



I got the candles that spell out 'Happy Birthday' because there's thirteen in the package. I got them last year for Em's, and I forgot what pitiful candles they are. The first one is melted to nothing before you can get the last one lit, there's just nothing to them, and they drip lots of paraffin on the cake. They're cute, though.



Mo added to her fleet of Valentine's themed stuffed animals. You can't even see her bed for all the bears and frogs (and a big pink dog) she sleeps under.



I can't believe both my daughters are teenagers.