I did a real interesting theme for Mr. Husband's birthday this year....Beef.
To put it simply he is obsessed with it. He has to show me other people's dinner plates on the facebook all the time if a steak is involved. If we are in the grocery store he will go the long way to the eggs so he can walk past the beef section. When watching The Simpsons he got all worked up over a CARTOON steak like it was real. All steaks, all beef....real, fake, seen in old commercials, tv shows, through the windows of the butcher shop after hours, and even cartoon ones...he drools over them.
We don't eat beef in our house much because I won't cook it. It's gross and bloody and it stinks up the house when cooking. I also don't care for the taste. This doesn't mean I am the beef nazi around here, it just means if Mr. Husband wants his beef that's his business but it better be cooked outside. Now the other side to this is that beef is expensive so that is why Mr. Husband hasn't had his beef bro-mance grilled up much, because like me he is a cheapskate.
I like to also look at this beef situation as an act of love. Mr. Husband kinda gave up beef for me.
Pulling all of this together made for a theme that really gave him what he wanted...
Beef, It's what's for Birthday!
I made this fake meat display by printing out full page beef images that I "beefed" up with 1 inch styrofoam backings, placed in a foam dish (pack of 20 for 1.25 at Dollar Quarter Tree) and covered in saran wrap. The greenery is real kale. I remember when I was a kid loving to see the plastic fake greenery in the meat display at the A&P.
Here is the table centerpiece runner display:
Mini prints of Beef Council posters, cook booklets, and beefy hunks.
Centerpiece of pre-steak and vintage meat markers.
So of course you can't have a beef birthday without some grossly expensive raw hunk of meat.
This was one of his gifts. I was on the verge of having some form of panic attack over spending that much money on less than 3 lbs of food while checking out at the store.
Here is Mr. Husband with his grilled caveman feast.
For his cake I went with a huge raw steak made out of white fondant and red candy melts. I tried to make the interior part of the cake look marbled by dying some of the white cake mix with red food coloring and gently folding it together but it didn't look all that impressive so I didn't take a photo.
I made a price tag of 53¢ as a nod to his age.
Mr. Husband liked his Beef party very much...as a matter of fact, he is right in liking his Meat party very much.
The American Meat Institute made sure of that.
"...put in the pan...turn on the heat and sniff it's steaming fragrance as it simmers, bubbles, and browns...smothered in it's own gravy.
That's hearty flavor for you."
The propaganda worked on him.
