Okay, so I’ll never be a contender for the Betty Crocker award for cake decorating, but at least I keep trying.  Two out of three guests recognized what the cake was supposed to be – a BEER MUG. If you kind of squint and look out of the corner of your eye, can’t you see it too? Sort of?

Today we began a two-day celebration of my son B’s birthday. At right you can see what the cake was supposed to look like. I wish I hadn’t made the handle green, that kind of throws you off. He seemed impressed that after all these years I actually attempted to bake a birthday cake.  Every year up till now I’ve taken the easy way out and ordered the cake.

I never knew cake baking was such a messy job. The first cake broke into pieces as I attempted to remove it from the pan.  That was pretty discouraging.

I doubt anyone will ever actually EAT the cake.  We’ll just shellac it and use it as a bookend or chew toy for Sally, his golden retriever. Let me know if you want the recipe – I can tell you what NOT to do.

We headed over the the Dooey for an afternoon on the veranda eating crawdads and fried green tomatoes.  Bart Wood  did a great job of cooking up the crawfish with potatoes and corn, spiced to perfection. It was beautiful  day once the storms moved east.

Barry Wood sent  us two slabs of ribs in observance of B’s big day. Braddock has saved him from computer disasters many times.

To make the day even better, my youngest son William drove down from Nashville to help his brother celebrate.  It’s now 8 p.m. and they’ve gone out honky tonkin’ while I clean cake up off the floor…and feed the rest of the fried green tomatoes to Rebel, Lucky Dawg and William’s 14-year old retiever Abercrombie. ( We’ll be up all night letting them in and out of the house.)

Braddock above with brother William enjoyed their first crawfish of the season compliments of the Little Dooey.  B has been sporting what I call the “unibomber” look since he moved into his cabin in the woods this spring.