Papa Crunk Turns 57!

Today (April 3rd) was my daddy's 57th birthday! Does this man look damn-near 60 to you?

Yep, thought not. He may be old, but my dad's still a total bad-ass. He rides a Harley, hangs out at juke joints, and he wants a skull tattoo. A freakin' skull tattoo?! I couldn't have asked for a cooler dad because there's no one cooler than the one I already have. In the above photo, daddy's showing off his new Harley skull baseball cap, a gift from my mama. I got him an insulated Harley cooler bag.

As per tradition, we lunched on what we like to call "Carb Sandwiches" for daddy's big day. They're actually French Fry Po' Boys, which we first tried in New Orleans at the Verti Marte on Royal Street a few years back. Who can resist steak fries on a hoagie bun, topped with Daiya cheese, vegan dijon-mustard spread, bell pepper, tomato, onion, and ketchup?

On the side, we had more fried carbs! Yep, we had sweet potato fries with our French fry sandwiches. Oh, and chips with mama's secret recipe guacamole (okay, you twisted my arm — the secret's actually a little squeeze of fresh orange juice along with the traditional lime). If there's one thing we Phillips folks know how to do, it's cram as much naughty foods into one meal as possible.

Oh, but we didn't stop there! Daddy requested some sort of coconut cupcake for his birthday cake, and I settled on these Coconut Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World:

I didn't have any coffee extract for the frosting, so I mixed a tablespoon of instant coffee into a wee bit of soymilk and used that instead. The result was a super-charged, coffee-flavored frosting that perfectly complemented the chocolate-coconut cupcakes.