Birthday Dinners

October/November is birthday season in our family. For the 3 whose birthdays are in other months this might seem like an exaggeration but for those of us who are part of the Oct/Nov glut it just feels like non-stop feasting. One of Harriet's friends once suggested Harriet was snubbing her - she said "every time I ask you to do something with me you claim a family birthday". But it happened to be true. Of course there are fewer of us around these days so this year was a light season but I think Phoebe & I made up for it with the unctuousness of our feasts.

As I think I mentioned before, we have traditional birthday meals & mine is mixed paella, however with the seafood lovers out of the country I went instead for American Cobb Salad.

This is a fantastic salad which I first had about 10 years ago in San Jose. I never found a recipe until a couple of years ago & it is a firm family favourite. I found it in an issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine on American Classics, where it is described as every bit the starlet of Hollywood's Golden Age (the 1920s) as Jean Harlow & Rita Hayworth. There is a long list of ingredients -don't leave any of them out. Having said that you can prepare a separate platter for vegetarians without the chicken & bacon. This is not actually as fiddly as it looks and your diners will love you. The trick to perfecting this or any arranged salad, is to dress each component before you arrange on the platter. If you dress it afterwards you will have dry patches. So start dressing the lettuce in a bowl, then as you arrange on the platter, toss each ingredient in the dressing residue in the bowl, topping up the dressing as you go. This way you will find it is neither under nor overdressed.

Phoebe had her usual dinner of Chicken Za'atar & Fattoush which is an old Nigella favourite. This is really simple. The night before put a whole chicken cut into 8 pieces (I have done it with just drumsticks for a barbecue) in a sealable plastic bag. Pour in quite a bit of olive oil & sprinkle over some sea salt & 2 tbsp za'atar, scrunch around & leave to marinate in the fridge. When you're ready to eat, tip into a roasting dish & put in a very hot oven (220) for about 45 minutes. They should be browned & slightly crispy with the chicken falling off the bones.

While the chicken is cooking, make the fattoush which is a traditional Middle Eastern bread salad. Dice 3-4 spring onions with a cucumber and 3 tomatoes. Mix in a bowl & add a bunch each of finely chopped mint & flat-leaf parsley and 1 clove garlic, crushed. Cut 2 pitta breads open lengthways so you have 4 thin round halves and toast on a baking tray in the hot oven above the chicken for about 5 minutes, taking care not to burn. When they are cooled snip most of them into the salad, in rough triangles then toss & dress with best olive oil & lemon juice. Season with Maldon salt & taste for the right lemoniness for you. I like mine quite sharp. Just before serving sprinkle on your few reserved pitta triangles & about 1/2 tsp sumac, which is a beautiful dark red middle eastern spice.

I also made Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate cake which is so quick & turns out perfectly every time. The pink flowers are from Cupcake Sweeties at the Sunday City Market. I had left over caramel from the Spanish biscuits & left over pastry cases from the Portuguese tarts & left over icing from this cake, so I put them all together & made Spaneenish tarts. They all groaned...but I note they ate them just the same.