The celebration of eating...and more eating

If you think you've been spotted, don't panic. If you react straight away it is very obvious that you have been rumbled. To escape from the situation, look at your watch or pretend to check a text message, then loudly exclaim, "Oh no, I'm really late!" and run past the person you are tailing rather than away from them. This looks far less suspicious.

- The Girls' Book: How To Be The Best At Everything by Juliana Foster

The problem with having so many birthdays in close proximity is that there is a lot of food consumed...a lot of cake, a lot of going out for dinners, lunches, brunches, a lot of snacking, a lot of licking of the spoon and taste testing the icing or cake mixture! We've only just begun the birthday season and yet I've still managed to eat so much cake I felt ill!

Next on the birthday agenda after J's birthday on Monday was, well, mine! To celebrate we did a heck of a lot of eating...

My Mum came into town to visit me and we wandered round until lunchtime when we met J and my lovely cousin D for lunch at, you guessed it, Raw Power! I couldn't decide what to have so ended up going with the baked kumara again. As usual it was delicious. D experienced her usual menu order envy (basically wanting what everyone else ordered!) as our dishes arrived but once tucking into her thick and creamy looking vegan leek and potato soup she looked quite satisfied!

Dinner, well, neither J nor I felt like cooking so we ate one of my favourite fast foods...Burger Fuel! Lime Soy Malt Shakes (okay, they're huge so we shared the one), kumara fries and the Combustion Tofu Burger (minus the aioli of course). I love it how big the burgers are and how they make them with wholemeal buns. I could almost kid myself they were healthy!!!

You'd think that your birthday only lasted for one day each year but J seemed determined to take me out for brunch on Saturday morning and as I walked into the living room as we were about to leave I found out why. Sitting on my couch was my best friend B and another of my good friends E. I was so gobsmacked I had to walk out of the room again and come back in! You see, B lives in Christchurch and although I'd talked to him the week before he'd said nothing...those cunning boys!

So off we went to try out a cafe I'd heard a bit about in Kingsland, Roasted Addiqtion. I ordered the Vegan Tofu Florentine and it was superb. Words do not describe how delicious it was so I'll just post a photo instead and you can make up your mind (hint: it was awesome).

Sitting in their counter display was a mouthwatering slice of vegan chocolate cake so despite us all being full I decided we would all help devour this slice of cake...and it went down very well!

If you were thinking that was my birthday cake or wondering whether I even had room for cake after all these birthday celebrations that week well the birthday cake was still to come. Early on Saturday morning I'd got out of bed and whipped up the cake part of the Boston Cream Pie from The Damn Tasty Vegan Baking Guide and in the afternoon whilst the boys were immersed in SmashBros Brawl (??) on the Wii I made some cookies and cream frosting as we had some cookies that needed using. Together it made for a very successful and highly delicious cake.

It was so good in fact that at the end of the night there was none left including the off cuts from the top of the cake!

This is not the last birthday within the astrological sign of the Leo this year though so there are plenty more birthday cakes and celebrating to come. Almost everyone I know seem to be Leos which makes it a bit of wonder we all get along considering the typical nature of the Leo. Supposedly we are ambious, materialistic, great extroverts, power hungry, leaders etc. Hmmm...