Bagel Bites with Smoked Salmon

Fun fact: August is the only month without a holiday. So you’d think Leos would reap the benefit and get the extra attention they deserve for their birthdays. But we usually don’t. August birthdays are odd. Everyone is always traveling, getting in their last vacation before school and normal corporate working life picks back up again.

After I turned 10, I stopped having birthday parties. From ages 11-16, I was at sleep away camp for the summer. Then in high school, I never really had a large enough friend group anyway who I’d want to throw a party for. I’d rather just go out to dinner with my family. Obviously in college everyone went back to their hometowns for the summer. I had a couple college friends in DC yet still no group big enough for a party.

Then there was the covid years. My 21st birthday *cries* in 2020. I actually did have a “party”. That is, if you consider my parents, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and one high school friend social distancing in our backyard, battered and splattered with mid-Atlantic humidity, and with almost 0 alcohol, a party. I actually don’t even remember what I did for my 22nd and 23rd birthdays. An intron in my time and memory.

When I moved to New York at 23, I finally had the sensation that I could actually throw a birthday party for the first time as an adult. But for my 24th, I was still building out my friend group, so it was a small friend dinner at Momofuku Noodle Bar. And my 25th, I was traveling to St Louis. Lo and behold, my 26th birthday is my first birthday as an adult where I actually could throw a party.

And clearly I wasn’t going to hold back. I had been waiting 15 years for this moment. People called me crazy for wanting to cook my own birthday party dinner. But why not? Where else can I have 25 of my friends over and eat the food I want without over-paying? And thankfully I had my incredible, stellar cousin Lily staying with me who was able to be my catering assistant, verbal punching bag when it got to crunch time, and camera-woman.

Originally I wasn’t going to have a birthday party theme. It seemed unnecessary and superfluous. The theme is me, duh. Then I considered that a theme could actually be useful for crafting the dinner, dessert, and drink menu. My favorite drink being a martini (gin, not dirty for god’s sake, with a few olives), so it seemed a natural theme.

The menu then came naturally. A large platter of pickles. A dirty martini XXL focaccia with olives, rosemary, and juniper. Lemon martini “punch” (just a vodka martini vat with some agave to hide the fact people were basically drinking vodka + vermouth + lemon juice). A bakery-bought lemon olive oil cake (from) From Lucie in the East Village. And the piece de resistance, a towering espresso martini croquembouche. Oh, and two pork shoulders served Bo Ssam style with little gems and ssamjang—this had 0 relation to the theme, I just wanted to eat this. Oh oh, I also made bagel bites with PopUp Bagels that I topped with whipped cream cheese and Petrossian smoked salmon. Now I’m done.

The second awful thing about August birthdays is the weather. For the first time possibly ever, I had the most stunning day of the summer land on my birthday. Walking to the farmer’s market in the morning, I started tearing up. I felt blessed. That I was actually going to have an edenic birthday party with all my friends in New York on my apartment rooftop with food that I’m making and everything would be right.

8/8 apparently is the lion’s portal in astrology, someone was telling me the night before at a Wishbone Kitchen dinner event. A day of great opportunity, manifestation, and luck. In Chinese, 8/8 is an exceptionally good day because 8 is also the number of good luck and fortune. I couldn’t help but feel there was some truth. I felt absolutely honored to be with so many of my friends on such a beautiful night.

Cheers to Leos,

Ryan