A Celebration Meal

For this week's NON question and contest, I ask readers to comment on what a celebratory meal would include for them. I've actually be giving this a lot of thought lately, since my birthday is today.

Usually a celebratory meal includes a dessert of some kind, in this case, cupcakes. Also, I usually have wine (though not with the cupcake!). But for the real meal, the main course, I don't have a favorite. Childhood favorites of pizza and mac & cheese have fallen by the wayside now that I've given up dairy. I almost always am ready to eat Mexican food, so that's a possibility. Same with Italian, though there are surprisingly few dishes without both pork and dairy, so that's also slipped to the side. Having been reading In Defense of Food, I am leaning more toward veggies at the moment. A nice salad sounds good, though not particularly celebratory.

I've been running this circular track in my mind for nearly a week now, and the one conclusion I've come to is this: the food doesn't matter. I don't remember what I had to eat for my last birthday, and I suspect I won't remember what I eat at this one a year from now. The company, however, is far more important.

So perhaps my final answer is this: my celebratory meal is something tasty eaten with good friends and family.