Jeff’s 24th birthday is on Monday, (my little Haley Joel’s growing up!), but we’re planning to celebrate this weekend. We’re kind of weird about birthdays, we don’t really go all out and get each other presents. In fact, I think the past 2 years we really haven’t done birthday presents at all, hmm. But what we lack in presents, we make up for in good food! Jeff and I are such foodies, and NYC definitely does a great job feeding that obsession, no pun intended. Instead of giving tangible gifts for birthdays, we usually go out to a nice dinner at a new restaurant we haven’t tried yet. Or sometimes, Jeff’s cool and instead of going out to dinner, he lets me get super adventurous in the kitchen and test out new recipes with new, sometimes expensive, but very yummy ingredients. And that’s what we’re doing this weekend for Jeff’s birthday! I know that sounds crazy, but I absolutely love spending hours in the kitchen baking and cooking. It’s therapeutic. I wouldn’t consider myself a great cook, I’m still learning. But making mistakes in the kitchen is part of the process of becoming a better cook!
After work today, I spent close to 2 hours in the grocery store on my quest for ingredients for this weekend’s dinner. I love perusing the aisles and learning about the different brands of ingredients I can use for a recipe, and it’s always fun when you find a good deal too! But why did I spend 2 hours in the grocery store today? Well, a good 30 minutes of it was spent looking for things for grilled steaks and a new potato recipe that I’m super jazzed about, but the remaining hour and a half was spent in the baking aisle. I freaking love the baking aisle. Even in my semi-low stocked grocery store, there’s still plenty of baking goodies to read and discover (I once spent almost 4 hours in Whole Foods, that place is like heaven to me, but I hardly ever buy anything because it’s so darn expensive…sigh, one day).
But anyway, back to baking. Jeff’s not really into sweet things, (other than me….ooh bam!), but he has a soft side for chocolate cake. Specifically chocolate cake with chocolate frosting….that’s my boy! So, I spent quite a few evenings this week surfing the interwebs for the most perfect chocolate cake recipe and by golly I do believe I’ve found it. Ina Garten’s Grandmother’s Chocolate Cake (recipe can be found on foodnetwork.com). It’s the perfect combination of crazy amounts of chocolate along with other rich flavors to enhance the chocolate flavor (ie: coffee!).
Long story short, I’m baking this bad boy tomorrow and I’ll do a full blog post about the process….I know you’re quivering in anticipation. But humor me here, I’m really excited. And If I could, you know I would give you all a piece 
