“It’s the saddest day of the year,” my wife proclaimed this morning, realizing that it was 365 days until her next birthday. I tried to appease her with a reminder that the birthday dinner was actually tonight. The restaurant that she picked was not open on her actual birthday so I made the reservation for today, extending the “big day” to two days. The logic is that the longer you extend, the less you have to wait for your next one. Birthdays are not as important to me any more since I’ve already crossed the retirement age threshold. She’s still counting down, but will undoubtedly always see her birthday as the most important day of the year.

As it turns out, I get to create a new definition for the words “birth date.” Tonight it’s a combination of “Date Night” and “Birthday,” since we’ll be celebrating her birthday on Date Night. We’ll have our first Birth Date at Nomad.PDX, “a high-end farm-to-table spot with an open kitchen serving elevated New American tasting menus.” I’m not sure that their popular desserts will fit our new diet plan, but we’ll probably make some exceptions. Next year, her birthday will actually fall on “Date Night,” the term we designated for our mid-week dinner at a restaurant where we’ve never been before. Get excited – it’s Date Night!

On my run this morning, I was listening to the radio and a song by The Cranberries got me thinking about food. As is typical in my old age, I got my cranberries mixed up with The Raspberries, or maybe Strawberry Alarm Clock, other fruit bands? I’m not the foodie that my wife is, but I began to dream about Humble Pie, Cream, Spice Girls, and Cake. When I got home, I Googled “Food Bands” and came up with an article from The Daily Meal. Here are 60 bands named after food (fruits included):

1. Iron & Wine
2. The Lovin’ Spoonful
3. Black Eyed Peas
4. Red Hot Chili Peppers
5. Smashing Pumpkins
6. Salt-N-Pepa
7. Spice Girls
8. Neutral Milk Hotel
9. The Apples in Stereo
10. Clams Casino
11. Coconut Records
12. Ice Cube
13. Flavor Flav
14. Cake
15. Korn
16. Meatloaf
17. Bread
18. Cream
19. Peaches
20. Peaches & Herb
21. The Cranberries
22. The Raspberries
23. The Gourds
24. Country Joe & the Fish
25. Strawberry Alarm Clock
26. The Chocolate Watchband
27. Bowling for Soup
28. Humble Pie
29. Toni Basil
30. Meat Puppets
31. G. Love & Special Sauce
32. The Electric Prunes
33. Moby Grape
34. Sugar Ray
35. The Honey Brothers
36. Blind Melon
37. T-Bone Burnett
38. The Flying Burrito Brothers
39. Kid Creole & the Coconuts
40. Lambchop
41. The Sugarcubes
42. The Lemonheads
43. Fiona Apple
44. Chuck Berry
45. Bananarama
46. Hot Tuna
47. Blue Öyster Cult
48. Vanilla Fudge
49. Vanilla Ice
50. T-Bone Walker
51. Tangerine Dream
52. 14 Carat Grapefruit
53. Orange Juice
54. Blood Orange
55. Team Tomato
56. Stew
57. Taco
58. Taco & DaMofos
59. Jimmy Eat World
60. Fruit Bats

A tasty T-Bone, Taco, or Meatloaf sounds good right now. Pass me a Moby Grape, some Meat Puppets, and the Bread, please. Hopefully Ryan Fox, the Executive Chef and Owner of Nomad.PDX, will make music tonight and join me in singing “Happy Birthday to You.”