A Birthday Dinner

Some thoughts on the menu and table decoration (and how to make a very special cake)

A birthday means a party. Maybe a big party, maybe a fancy party (why not?). Maybe there are balloons involved and champagne and all of the favourite things; but also maybe not. There don’t have to be. Maybe it’s supper at home with family or with a handful of close friends: that’s pretty much all of my favourite things, right there. Whatever it looks like, there needs to be some kind of moment to celebrate this passing of a year, the beginning of the new chapter. And there also needs to be cake. 

This year for my birthday, we had friends over for supper: we cleared the kitchen out and set up trestles down the length of the room to make one big, gloriously long table. Which is just how I like it. My quasi obsession with tables (generally) is well documented: A Table in Venice, A Table for Friends, A Table Full of Love, Tavola (lit. trans. ‘table’), my now long defunct blog, From My Dining Table (RIP). But I do have an especially soft spot for an especially long table: it’s joy and celebration and all good things. 

The Especially Long Table

I had a lot of fun decorating the table this year. I bought a length of sunny gingham linen which I used as a tablecloth, and then matched it up with my favourite pink and yellow frilly plates from the TAVOLA collection, alternating colours and layering pink on yellow and yellow on pink. I don’t have enough of one single style and colour of glass for a full twenty-plus person set, so mixed all the colours and all the shapes together, which I think kind of worked. I didn’t get round to writing up menu cards (too many place settings, not enough time…); but I did scribble people’s names on pretty floral place cards (a mix of these pink peony ones and these rather charming hydrangea ones) to create a seating plan. And I went long on the daffodils: all the way down the table, in a mix of glass jars, bud vases and other odd vessels. One of the best things about a March birthday is the daffodils. Lastly and for good measure, I dotted candles in these glass candlesticks (which go with everything and I all the whole time for all occasions) down the centre of the table, and added a few pink roses and sprigs of green leaves, in bud vases, to break up the sea of yellow. 

The Menu

We ate so many of my favourite things: