Family Style: Celebrating 90 Years

Last week my grandmother turned 90 years old. Quite an accomplishment by itself, more amazing when I found out she's the first female in my family to reach 90. My parents and my aunt and uncle, as well as cubes, took her to Skate's on the Bay in Berkeley to celebrate.

As my gram has pretty much everything she needs, my mom and aunt came up with fun gift ideas. The first was a Rose corsage (from the same florist that used to make the corsages I wore to my high school proms). There were 8 flowers: 3 red roses for each of her children; 4 yellow roses for each of her grandchildren; and 2 pink roses for her great grandchildren.

The other idea was an adult version of an Easter Egg hunt. We all gave my aunt and mom bills in various denominations. They then filled a gift bag with plastic eggs. Some of the eggs had chocolate, others had bills folded in origami shapes, and others just had a neatly tied roll of bills. My grandmother was super excited as she'd had her eye on a pair of new shoes.

Service was done with a flourish. They did a tableside plating of their New England Clam Chowder (cubes said it was very flavorful) as well as their Chocolate Indulgence Cake.

As usual, more photos are on Flickr. (This morning's somewhat regular column Ingredients will appear later this morning; I couldn't wait to share my gram's birthday celebration.)

Bon Apetit!

Eden

Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for Recipes for the Good Life.