April 22, 2005

A Polish birthday celebration.

Nina writes that in Poland, when she was growing up, it was the person with the birthday who provided the food to others, who apparently were doing their part just by dropping by with good wishes. So we were happy to play along with that tradition. She set the table with her best hand-painted Russian plates:

Nina's birthday

Mmmm... the layers there are, from top to bottom: caviar, sour cream, smoked salmon, potato:

Nina's birthday

This borscht is homemade, as is that puff pastry:

Nina's birthday

And there's a whole story to why there's already a slice out of that cake -- a story of drunkenness and karaoke:

Nina's birthday

Nina's got her own account of the party, from which I'm going to snag this picture of me trying to get another photograph:

7 comments:

nina said...

Your photos are great, Ann. I'm already getting requests for the cake recipe from readers of your blog.

Ann Althouse said...

People love cake. Cake is good. I had some of it for breakfast. Don't you think cake for breakfast is as appropriate as a danish or a croissant? It's all cake!

Ron said...

I like cake for breakfast; I think people have a problem with all that frosting for breakfast...not me...


that last picture...was that Ann...Coulter?

Just Checking!

Ron

Ann Althouse said...

The frosting on Nina's cake is a lot like the chocolate one sometimes finds stuffed inside a croissant. Very chocolate and not too sweet. Much more breakfast-y than the glop on a cinnamon bun.

And I'm still waiting to get on the cover of Time magazine, with or without body parts distorted.

Ron said...

Ann, time to get Nina to photoshop your Time cover! Your lead story could tie a couple of interests together....

"Simon's right to keep and bear arms: the least loved American Idol judge fears the wrath of the losers."

Rick Lee said...

The color in your photos is always so clean. Are you using the Auto White Balance all the time, or do you set it manually... and what is the camera? Just curious. I am fairly happy with the tiny Pentax Optio 4i, but I think I might have been happier with the color if I'd gotten a Fuji pocket camera. (I am always comparing the color and sharpness to my $2500 Fuji S3, which of course, is in another class altogether.

Ann Althouse said...

Rick, I'm using a Sony Cybershot. The main thing I do is hit the "enhance" button in iPhoto. I also usually turn down the brightness a tad and turn up the contrast a bit. Nina has the identical camera by the way, but she doesn't use iPhoto, so you could compare our pictures to see what's the result of iPhoto. I think she does some Photoshop Effects things.