The BonomOlympics

Friday night we had a birthday party for Richard Bonomo, and the theme was the BonomOlympics. The BonomOlympic Committee consisted of Kathbert, Luxuli, her husband, Catzookz, her boyfriend, and yours truly, with some input from Travalon and Miss Heartsong. We had a goodly crowd of seventeen people enjoying the international themed potluck, including Luxuli’s delicious beef stroganoff to symbolize Russia, and Catzookz made wonderful (or so I hear) sesame noodles, but I was too full to try them. There was so much food! I brought pizza from Trader Joe’s to symbolize Italy, and we ate it as an appetizer, plus there were French cheese, Canadian crackers, Caesar salad, and wings – those must symbolize the USA. Kathbert made a yummy black bean soup which could symbolize many different countries in Latin America.

After we were completely stuffed, we had the BonomOlympic Games, or maybe I should say Game: who could wear a short-sleeved shirt for the longest time in Rich's minimally heated house? Some people refused to play, and I was out within five minutes, but Kathbert and Travalon stuck it out for the rest of the party. I had found gold-wrapped chocolate coins (not easy to do this time of year; they are seasonal around Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day), and we awarded Rich the gold medal in Heavyweight Hugging, Winter Bicycling, Subaru Salt Rusting, and I have already forgotten the other category. If I remember, I’ll put it in the comments. I gave everyone a chocolate coin for participating, and Kathbert had the brilliant idea to give Rich the rest of the coins so he could give out medals in any category he liked. He proved to be really good at this, coming up with a category for each person and fortuitously having just enough coins left. My medal was for thinking of so many creative birthday party themes over the years, though I cannot take a lot of credit for this one. Travalon’s medal was for his excellent taste in women. How cute is that?

After the games, we had dessert: the chocolate cake I made and the cheesecake Cecil Markovitch brought, which was made by his coworker’s husband. He put very potent brandy cherries on top. I had tried to decorate mine with the name BONOMO as sort of interlocking rings in the Olympic ring colors, but my frosting ran a bit, and I had lots of black left so I outlined the letters, and then it looked like a cartoon word or a bit of colorful graffiti. I will try to post a photo at some point so you can all enjoy the sight. I will never say a bad word about a cake decorator again! It is some HARD work! Luckily, everyone raved about how good my cake tasted. It is a recipe called Black Magic that has a touch of coffee in it, and it is our go-to recipe for birthday cakes. Probably all of the cakes I have posted pictures of on this blog, at least the ones decorated by me, were Black Magic cakes. They are so good! Everyone wanted a piece of cake, which is a first for me – usually someone turns it down – and everyone raved about it. Someone suggested I just make Black Magic cakes for my wedding cake. It’s tempting…

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