Things That Have the Number 52

* Weeks in a year
* Cards in a deck
* White keys on a piano
* Parallel (degrees North) that passes through Lower Saxony, Inner Mongolia, and Alaska
* Atomic number of tellurium on the periodic table of elements
* Country code for international calls to Mexico
* My age

Yes, today is my birthday and I am fifty-two years old. Not young. Not old. An in-betweenish age.

For my birthday outing, we went to the Phoenix Art Museum to see a display of Giorgio di Sant' Angelo’s brilliantly colorful clothing designs from the 70s and 80s. I recognized many of my favorite styles: caftans and embellished robes, gypsy looks with multicolored skirts and uneven hems, wrapped dresses made of yards of hand-painted silk chiffon or velvet.

There was even an example of Sant' Angelo’s Chameleon Dress, a slinky knit maxi with long, attached sashes that could be wrapped in many different configurations, much like the modern infinity dress. More about Sant' Angelo and the exhibit here.

And what’s a birthday without cake? We have cake and more cake. I asked for an almond-flavored cake, and the Piemaker outdid himself.

The first was a dense, flat cake made in a round cake pan.

recipe here

It looks like a plain yellow cake, but it is just bursting with almond flavor. It tastes more like marzipan than cake, actually. The recipe suggests a raspberry sauce, but we found that although the sauce was good, it was unnecessary.

The second one was a Dutch Almond cake, made in an 8 x 13 baking pan.

recipe here

This one also looks quite plain, but it’s poured in three layers before baking: cake batter, almond filling, then cake batter. It’s an excellent combination with the sweet almond custard middle sandwiched between the buttery, crisp edges of the cake.

We can't decide which one is better!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Katrina