Davis at 16

Back in the '70's, there was a TV show titled James at 15. Does anybody else remember that? And when the show went into its second season, the opening credits started out with the title James at 15, but then it crossed out the 15 and wrote a 16. That's what I wanted to do with the title of this posting. But as far as I can tell, Blogger won't let me do that. So just consider the following the title of this posting:


Davis at 15. Nope, 16.

In this house, birthday boys get to pick their dinners. And according to the votes of my readers, birthday boys get to do so, even when their mother is on a two-month roll making delicious meals with no repeats. The readers agree on a birthday exception, so we add one more rule to the Remler menu guidelines: Birthday meals don't count.

Davis chose Calypso chicken for dinner, and for the recipe, I'll just refer you to the original posting from January. Fortunately, Davis did stick around for the meal this time, maybe because he knew he was getting presents and a swell cake.

Now, I've made Davis some pretty darn good cakes before, but not until this year did I have to make maroon frosting. You see, Davis's high school colors are maroon and white (well more like maroon and eggshell, but let's not get picky). Eggshell, of course, was no problem, but I went through I don't know how many batches of icing trying to turn white icing into maroon. Whenever I put the maroon food color in that white glob of sweetness, it just turned pink. More maroon food color would turn it purple. Where was the maroon?

And then I heard a little voice in my head--the voice of my hair stylist, Tina Warbington. Tina said, "Remember your color wheel. Red plus white makes pink." Of course it does! That's when I realized with white icing I'd never get the maroon I needed. So I called Stephen, who, thank God, was on his way home from Davis's lacrosse game and happened to be just around the corner from the Kroger. I asked him to please swing by for two cans of chocolate icing, which he did.

The chocolate did the trick. Maroon food color in brown icing makes maroon icing! Well, more like a brownish maroon, but it wasn't purple! So Davis got his famous BC Cadets birthday cake with military star candles.

And Lawson took the extra batter and extra icing to make his own cake, which he topped with little army tank candles. When it was all finished, it looked like a battle atop a human brain.

Happy birthday, Davis!