Made birthday dinner tonight. I don't recall clearly when this tradition started -- sometime in the mid-'90s, although I must have missed a year or two along the way. The early ones were meant to give me a chance to explore interesting cuisines in some depth, usually with a dozen or more dishes. This one was just based on the recollection that I hadn't had mariscada in green sauce in quite some time. That's a Spanish dish, so it was tempting to pile on the tapas. I usually fix potatoes with it -- fried is what I'm used to in restaurants, but I usually slice them thin like chips and roast them. I wound up fixing rice instead -- felt like it would be easier than fried and better than roasted. Originally thought I'd fix green beans as a side vegetable, but they looked awful, so I picked up some asparagus and mushrooms, figuring I'd find a recipe. Thought I'd have a chopped or mixed salad, but didn't get to either. Did find a jar of piquillo peppers, a chunk of rather tough chorizo, and some manchego cheese, so tried to work them in. The recipes come from Penelope Casas, mostly from Delicioso! The only new ones for me were the asparagus and mushrooms. Menu looked like this:

• Clams in almond sauce -- augmented with shrimp, scallops, lobster; green with parsley
• Saffron rice with pine nuts
• Asparagus in almond sauce -- this one is red with tomato
• Mushrooms in sherry sauce
• Roasted vegetable canapes with anchovy/olive paste (toasted garlic bread, garum, escalivada)
• Garlic shrimp
• Piquillo pepper salad with raisins and pine nuts
• Cheese pate with walnuts and peppers -- chevre and gorgonzola
• Sliced Spanish chorizo and manchego cheese
• Orange yogurt cake

I'm way behind in updating my recipes section, but half or so of these recipes are posted already.