Today is my best friend’s birthday! While we aren’t able to celebrate together in person this year, I’m having a great time looking back at some beautiful memories from her 30th with us last year (hashtag Maggie’s West Coast Birthday Weekend #MWCBW). California’s Central Coast has grown to become a place close to my heart for the wildflowers, the gnarled Live Oaks, the morning mist, and the sometimes sunny oceanside afternoons, and we were so blessed to have the opportunity to celebrate Maggie against that backdrop. In honor of May 3rd, I’m sharing my favorite photos from a magical few days one year ago in which Levi, Maggie, inner circle friend Wendy, and I attended the Cambria Ollalieberry festival, drank rosé on Gaviota Beach, sung from booklets made for the occasion around a campfire (and outside a tipi), witnessed strangers’ bachelor and bachelorette parties collide at a sour beer pub in Morro Bay, picked samples of aromatic wild plants while trying not to get blown off the cliffs at Montaña de Oro state park, enjoyed the kitties, doggies, horses, chickens, and parakeets on our AirBnb host’s Arroyo Grande acreage, and just generally basked in the delights of long and real friendships.

Maggie and I made a Grape and Fig Pie to bring with us on our glamping* trip. The olive oil crust we decided to use in order to make the pie completely vegan for our friend Wendy was a plot twist that turned out to really enhance the strong Mediterranean flavor of the pie and I would make this change again without hesitation. A few other notes about this pie: it’s made using dried black mission figs but fresh grapes, and is recommended (by Ken, officially, as well as by myself) to be served with sweetened mascarpone cheese (recipe also from the Pie cookbook).

Here, then, are a few photos of the pie, and many more of #MWCBW. Maggie, have the best 31st ever! You know how much I love you.

*If you’re intrigued, I can’t recommend visiting Ben and Laura’s property enough. Here is one of their AirBnB listings!