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I got the day off yesterday for the first time in 34 years.

34 years, you say… and no day off? What’s that all about?

Well, I am talking about just one day of the year; my husband’s birthday. Until yesterday, I had a streak of 33 years in which I made my husband a unique lemon dessert for his birthday celebration.

His favorite flavor, as you can guess, is lemon.

I was challenged, for sure, as the years went by. I baked lemon cheesecake, made lemon tarts, lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting and even lemon pudding. The list goes on and on.

But this year we are traveling in France on a long-planned vacation. We are in the wine country around Bordeaux.

I do have a little kitchen where we are staying but it made no sense to buy all the stuff I would need to make a lemon dessert. If I were to make a cake I’d need the flour, the leavening agent, eggs and more. Just too much stuff.

So when my husband came back to the place we are staying the other day and announced that he’d seen the cutest little lemon loaf cake in a window of a French pastry shop I hatched my plan.

I could buy that cake and just make a sauce to go with it. So voila! I made a raspberry coulis sauce and topped a little piece of the cake with that and some whipped cream.  Bingo. Lemon dessert with just five minutes of work and one little saucepan to wash.

I’d call that taking the day off!

Earlier in the day, we had his celebration at a Spanish Bodega. We walked all up and down a quay where there is one fabulous restaurant after another. We read all the posted menus and I left it up to him which place he’d like to choose. He chose Malika Kafe. Here’s the website in case you’d like to read the menu. When you pull it up on your computer you can hit the translate button so it will change from French to English. Mind you, I had much more of a challenge at the restaurant with my phone translator; trying to find a fish that Chris would like. He chose the cod and had a fabulous meal.

This birthday is in books, and I hardly lifted a finger.

Cheers,

Raspberry Coulis

Raspberry coulis is often used by dessert chefs to decorate your dessert at a restaurant. They put a swirl of it on your plate or maybe drizzle it over the top of the dessert. You can be fancy or plain as you wish.