Birthday party

Last night we held my husband's 40th birthday party. It was a dessert party. Pretty low key, but I had a lot of joy making desserts all day! 

On Monday I was pondering which desserts I'd make and how many people we'd have turn up. I ended up making Rich Cheesecake Brownies, Orange Tart, Apple Crumble (actually David made this one) with custard and Popcorn. David's sister supplied us with some Lamingtons and chocolate sweets from Australia, which was a lovely special touch. 

And we had total of 16 guests, eight of whom were under 18. A nice sized crowd indeed.

I really do enjoy making desserts, partly because I don't do it all that often. But making that many desserts in one day tested my kitchen. In a small kitchen, you have limited equipment and limited space to store things. While my kitchen is big by Japanese standards, it still doesn't have much bench (US=counter) space, so washing up is important or you quickly run out of preparation room, if you don't run out of dishes or bowls first! We washed up five times yesterday, I think, and that was with using paper plates and cups.

The Rich Cheesecake Brownies was the big star of the day, in my opinion. I clipped this recipe out of a magazine back in March 2004, at a time when I wouldn't have possibly considered making it (I had a strong-willed, somewhat sickly toddler, and a five year old and we were preparing for our first home assignment). I've drooled over this photo ever since, but never gotten around to making it. So, this was my big opportunity. It was fiddly, no question. And the set cooking times seemed to be wrong for my oven, but I'll be trying it again because it tasted divine and extremely rich!

Setting up.

We didn't have any special party games, just the food and time to sit around and chat. It was fun introducing our American friends to some new desserts. They didn't know what Lamingtons were, nor the name "Apple Crumble" and eating it with Custard was a bit odd for them too, but they were up for a new experience. I never did find out how they use custard state-side. 

Some of our friends. It was impossible to capture everyone in a photo without lining them all up.

One cannot underestimate the joy of having friends around. Of course we couldn't invite friends or family from Australia, or even from distant parts of this country, but then we couldn't have fitted them anyway.

And some more of them.

It is a strange part of missionary life that you end up keeping up with friends who might have otherwise just slipped out of your life. Especially strange when you consider that we don't see most of our friends very often.

So, a gathering like yesterday was fun, but also a reminder that those who came were but a small sample of those who might have been able to come, had the conditions been different.