Sisters Birthday Dinner

Dear Mom,

Today I’m making dinner for your other two daughters, Suzanne and Ruthie. It’s kind of a tradition we started, who knows when, where we take turns cooking a birthday dinner for each other. It’s Suzanne’s birthday dinner tonight, and yeah, her birthday is in November, but life is busy. We fit it in when we can.

I plan to have my version of Julia Child’s Potato Leek Soup and Elizabeth Berg’s recommendation of homemade Honey Wheat Bread. Ruthie is the bread maker in the family, but I’ve finally attempted (again) after many failures. I think I’ve mastered it. It’s not as good as Ruthie’s, and no one on earth could match yours. I wish I could pick your brain to find out the secret of your bread.

Dessert will be (Berg’s) Wickedly Delicious Chocolate Cake with homemade Vanilla Ice Cream, and then we will relax in the hot tub and gab.

One year I was depressed and didn’t feel like making a dessert, so I headed to the store to buy ice cream. If you’re depressed and unable to make up your mind, I don’t recommend this. I opened my freezer door and told my sisters, “Here’s dessert.” Sitting inside were 14 different pint size flavors. We each grabbed one, got in the hot tub, ate some of the flavor we picked, passed the container, ate, passed the container. I carried those in and picked three more out of the freezer and repeated the process.

Sisters and ice cream help depression. I love my di-di’s.