Finally doing birthdays right
Baltimore pit beef, broiled oysters drenched in herby butter, and a very good key lime pie
Historically, I haven’t been great with birthdays. I want to be the sort of person who has them all marked in my calendar so that I can see them in time to send flowers or a card, to plan a party. But even when it comes to my own, I just don’t think much about them. Birthdays weren’t a big deal in my house growing up, and I’ve come to believe that you either grew up in a family that went all out for birthdays or you didn’t. And I did not.
I realized this after I moved to Napa in my early twenties. I was living with my new friend Ashley, whom I’d cooked with in Chicago. We’d worked at a restaurant that had what I now understand to be a very unique work culture—one where the team spent a lot of time together outside of work. By the time we both realized we were moving to Napa, we’d hung out many times in a group but never one-on-one. We didn’t know each other all that well.
We had only been living together for five months when I came downstairs on the morning of my 24th birthday to find that Ashley had transformed our kitchen into what can only be described as a birthday shrine—for me, her relatively new friend. She was a pastry chef and, without my noticing, had baked me a multi-tiered, elaborate birthday cake. It sat on the kitchen table, surrounded by confetti, a present, and a card. She’d hung streamers to flank a "Happy Birthday" sign, and balloons dotted the ceiling. I was shocked.
Ashley, it seemed, had clearly grown up in a "big birthday" family. She told me that for her and her siblings, their mom decorated the house like this every single year for each of their birthdays.
I have many wonderful friends, and my family loves me—like, a lot. But this was something I had never experienced before. Growing up, birthdays were celebrated with a present and a cake or dessert of your choice. You got to pick what we had for dinner, but they weren’t eventized in this way. A few years ago, my parents found a journal of mine from elementary school where I had written, “Today was my birthday. Tonight is Dad’s dinner party.” We were simply not a birthday house.
My parents are the sort of wonderful people who read my Substack every week because, as aforementioned, they love me very much. And for that reason, I will reiterate: We did have birthday parties. My mom did the whole party-at-the-Y-with-a-Mulan-cake thing when I was little, but this was mostly for milestone birthdays. As we grew up, parties turned into dinner, which turned into “What do you want for your birthday?”—and that worked perfectly well for me.
But I will tell you, when I came downstairs on the morning of my 24th birthday and found that birthday bounty, it felt good. Like, really good. So when Ashley’s birthday rolled around a few months later, I did the only thing I could think to do: copy exactly what she had done for me. Without a lick of personal touch, I hung the streamers and bought the balloons. Instead of a cake, I made a breakfast spread and got her a gift and a card. In the morning, I felt like a puppy who had just performed a new trick, waiting for her to be as surprised and delighted as I had been when I first saw my own birthday set up—the one that mine was so clearly derived from.
And she was. Because whether the birthday genes naturally run through your veins or not, it’s fun to be celebrated.
I haven’t thought about it much since then, but this year, Collin turned 35, and I knew I wanted to make a big to-do about it. Having just moved into a new house that makes hosting significantly easier and more satisfying than when we lived in a tiny walk-up apartment, I set out to throw a party.
He determined the theme—a bull and oyster roast. After a quick Google search, I learned that it’s a social event popular in Maryland where oysters and pit beef sandwiches are served. We could make that happen. So I made invitations, sent them out, and set about researching how to make pit beef at home. Pit beef is a barbecue specialty specific to this area, where top or bottom round is grilled over charcoal until rare in the middle, sliced paper-thin, and served on Kaiser rolls with a creamy horseradish sauce and raw onion. It’s delicious and, as it turns out, pretty easy to make. I procured the oysters (about 100 of them) from our seafood purveyor, ordered the beef, and bought ingredients for French onion dip. I asked a friend to bring dessert.
The party was a hit. And just as it did 8 years ago when I recreated Ashley’s surprise, it felt good (like, really good) to go all out for a birthday. Maybe this will be the new birthday tradition. Keep reading for all the recipes.
