I have to tell you about my sister’s birthday dinner. But before that, I have to tell you about my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.

We had a small celebration on Cape Cod—the big one will be in a couple of months—to mark 50 years of wedded bliss. Kidding. This is the real world! But seriously, they’re a pretty awesome couple, we should all be so lucky.

Shane pretty much commandeered dinner, my mom did the decoration, and I made the cake (natch).

We ate homemade pizza, meatballs, roasted cubanelles and salad, on the beach by the fire pit at dusk. So not-bad. So very not-bad at all.

The meatballs were lamb and pistachio from the Polpo cookbook, and the cake was a Lemon Pound Cake with Poppyseed Icing from Joy the Baker. See photo captions for more details.

Happy 50 M&D xoxo