Cliff’s birthday is

on Wednesday. I’m making him a checkerboard cake. Nothin’ says lovin like somethin’ from the oven, haha. But Carolyn just called and she wants to bake the cake, even better.

Her cakes are always better than mine. We’ll be at the beach enjoying the All-American Family Reunion.

Cliff’s family walks, talks, writes, and dreams about food. We start emailing each other weeks before our reunion full of excitement and preparation. This is serious business. We all have “our days” in the kitchen. Its been thought out. Elizabeth brings her personal cookbook with her very own recipes, no Barnes and Noble cookbook for her. Her recipes are neatly organized in their own clear sleeves. We drool and dream thinking about her day(s) in the kitchen. We wish she was in the kitchen the whole time. Sarah comes with her red, white and blues and enough music to keep us going for the week. London broil and fried rice is what you’ll get with Sarah and you better damn well like it. She won’t put up with any of your nonsense. Carolyn usually pops in and out in her jag, looking fit and fabulous. I think anytime you say “fit” you must say “fabulous.” The fit part is that she’s thin and the fabulous part is that she has a chef's coat with her name on it. She also cooks the most fattening things.

Best cookie to date was some kind of double-decker peanut butter filled concoction number that called for your bottom jaw to become unhinged like a rattler to eat. We all gladly unhinge. Cliff and I have eagerly joined in the fray, when it’s our turn; Cliff pulls out the big guns. Lobsters flown in from Maine seem to always be a favorite. The bigger the better and the hell with sides. Racing them on the terrazzo floors before boiling them to death seems cruel in a civilized world but we watch enough National Geographic to know we’re pretty mild. The kids when they were younger struggled between enjoying the races and being grossed out at their upcoming fate. Brings back memories of Christmases past and roasting pigs, but that’s for another day. Someday I’ll tell you about that. I’ve told a few people, always gauging whether they would think it was funny or incredibly disturbing. So far, the reaction has been mixed.

Anyway, that’s our reunion in a nutshell. If you don’t see one of us at Publix then it’s not our day in the kitchen…just look for us near the big grey house on the north side of New Smyrna, we’ll have settled in, umbrellas and beach chairs, books propped just so, and thermoses filled with whiskey sours…