Corey writes:

Yesterday I sipped Bacardi like it's my birthday, because it was. Twenty-nine. On the verge. Last chance for a nose piercing.

As with every other holiday here in Koraput, the celebration centered around eating. The main event was a carrot cake worthy of Carrot Top himself. Gina used our new (used) blender to grind up the carrots to a perfect size. The chunks were big enough to see and taste, but they were perfectly cooked and surrounded by eleven herbs and spices and flour. Just look at it:

The cake took about 2 hours to bake in our EZ bake oven. During the 2 hours both Gina and I were electrocuted by the oven. We need to have a sign: "PUT ON RUBBER SHOES BEFORE TOUCHING OVEN".

Gina initially planned to make two cakes, us eating half of one cake on my birthday. Half a cake quickly became one cake. Our coworkers are lucky there's any left of the second cake.

I made a Spanish tortilla for lunch. This was something we ate a bunch of on our honeymoon in Spain. Happily, the little shop across from our front door carries all the supplies: eggs, potatoes, onions, and a bunch of oil.

Then, this morning we went to the Raj Residency for breakfast. When we first arrived in K-put, we lived at the Raj for a week. During that time I became hopelessly hooked on their masala dosas. Today I fed that monkey on my back.

Finally, today at work, we brought the carrot cake to work to share with coworkers, since it’s customary to bring sweets to office for any personal celebration. At the last minute, Gina thought to purchase Indian sweets from the market to supplement the carrot cake. Since the carrot cake has eggs, it’s not vegetarian by Indian standards and the majority of people at work are “veg” some days and “non-veg” other days. For various reasons, today was a day for most people were veg, so the Indian sweets were a good idea…plus it meant carrot cake leftovers for us!

We also celebrated with non-food things too. Gina gave me my gifts: tongs (YES!!!), a whisk, coffee, and three of these certificates:

I think they're too pretty to use.