Speaking of birthdays...

We threw an awesome birthday bash for my sister two Friday nights ago.  And by saying "awesome", I'm being only slightly modest.

Since my sister loves Hawaii, and since my nephew has been begging for the return of theme night Shabbat, I hatched the idea of doing a Hawaii theme night.  Did I mention it was awesome?

It was a total family affair.  My mom and I shopped for decorations, my dad made salted salmon (his specialty) and purchased some key ingredients, and my brother-in-law had to keep everything a secret and covertly obtain for me their friends' email addresses.  The plan was for the whole family to come to my house for Shabbat dinner following my nephew's and niece's summer camp play, and then my sister's friends would join us for dessert at 9 pm.

We decorated the house and put the little kids in hula skirts we borrowed from a friend.  My husband borrowed a Hawaiian shirt from the same friend, and I popped into Goodwill Friday afternoon and fortunately found a Hawaiian shirt for myself!  We were set...

The best part, of course, was the menu.  We started with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.  Everything began with vanilla challah, followed by lomi lomi salad, mahi mahi fish, huli huli chicken, pineapple kugel, pineapple quinoa, mango green beans, and dessert was pineapple truffles, upside down pineapple cake, and coconut milk ice cream (yes, parve!).  The friends came at precisely 9 pm and thoroughly surprised my sister.  Everything was just perfect.

Did I mention awesome?  Did I mention tasty?  Did I mention awesome?