Kaya turned one today, and we had a little party. His friend Manolya came over, and the two babies played together while Baki and Manolya’s elder sister ran riot.

I’m still not giving Kaya sugar, so I made him some carob brownies, from Cynthia Lair’s cookbook, Feeding the Whole Family. I actually really like carob, but I think that they main thing about it is that you can’t think of it in relation to chocolate. It’s just a different thing.
Since the adults were not going to be as happy to eat the carob brownies, (I mean, let’s face it — children’s birthday parties, even with a limited guest list, require something more decadent to make them worth it) I made some other treats. Chocolate was in order, so I tried Smitten Kitchen’s world peace cookies . Intrigued by Yummy Chunklet’s recent postabout a new way to make shortbread, I decided to give it a try. It is a lot of fun — you freeze the dough and grate it into the pan so that the shortbread is all pillowy. And Jell-O (except it’s vegetarian, because when I think about gelatine, I get grossed out) because you need colorful desserts for a birthday party. Kaya and Manolya were pretty colorful, come to think of it, once they got their hands on the strawberries.

I must be getting old because birthdays have started to make me morose. It’s just too much time passing too quickly. I guess I should just take the hint and enjoy it all while I can, before the boys move out and forget to call or write. Maybe they’ll have blogs…