Joyeaux Anniversaire!

I realize that I'm technically still 22 for another 24 hours, but time is funny in Madagascar and we celebrated Brennan's (July 19th) and my (July 20th) birthdays yesterday, on the 18th. Partly that was because we'll be leaving for Ranobe tomorrow and partly that was because the delicious cake bakery, the Italian Gelateria, is closed on Mondays.

With no offense to Mom's baking (I love your chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and chocolate chips sprinkled on top!), this was the best cake I've ever eaten. I don't even know of a place to buy comparable cakes in the States. Brennan and I chose a Nocciolina (hazelnut) cake: two layers of super moist, light cake and hazelnut-flavored pastry cream, with a lightly sweet frosting on top. To complete the aesthetic, chopped hazelnuts covered the sides and six cream puffs sat on top. Chocolate icing spelled out "Joyeaux Anniversaire Brennan et Claire" in fine flowery script. Because the cake had to celebrate two birthdays, we had ordered an 8-slice cake, so we each had 2 giant slices to eat. We couldn't finish it, though, so I now have a small slice waiting for me in our landlord's fridge. :)

Yum!

Actually, the whole meal was delicious. Before the cake, I had spinach ravioli from the Italian restaurant Le Jardin (paid for by my World Cup bracket winnings--thanks Patty and Olivia!). To cap off the meal, the waitress at Le Jardin treated us to guava rum on the house. Normally I'm not a fan of rum, but this was so good--mostly like guava juice! Quirky Le Jardin serves their digestifs in baby bottles, though, as seen below:

And to make the day even better, our landlord Patrick had taken us out for a Sunday lunch buffet (result of him losing a bet with Olivia over the winner of the World Cup final). Although "buffet" doesn't have quite the same all-you-can-eat connotation that it does in the States, it was delicious and satisfying. There was a table of fresh vegetable salads, warm, doughy bread, and other elegant appetizers. Then each person could order one main dish from the grill: steak, chicken, or calamari. I had the calamari, which came skewered with tomatoes, onions, and green peppers, with a side of ratatouille and french fries. The calamari was flavored so well! I will definitely miss the seafood when I come back home. For dessert, we were all given a small plate of fruit salad (papaya, guava, pineapple, and banana), chocolate tart, and a cheesecakey tart with orange slices on top. We had fresh orange "jus natural" to drink, and somehow it tasted more like orange soda than any orange juice you'd find in the States.

So the moral of this story is 1) don't make bets with us about the World Cup results or you will end up paying for our meals, and 2) there is really delicious food to be found in Madagascar if you have an ex-pat guide you around. As much as I appreciate rice and beans and fried dough, Malagasy food has not won me over yet.