"RIP" news and stories

16 candles. Photo: Michael Brunk, NWlens.com

It's a well-known fact that writer-director John Hughes, who died Thursday at age 59, was a master of capturing teenage ennui (not to mention a master of setting too-high romantic expectations for a generation of women raised in the '80s.)

What's less remarked upon is his fascination with food and the way American culinary rituals define adolescence. There's the lunch scene in the detention hall of "The Breakfast Club," in which Molly Ringwald snottily articulates the concept of "sushi" to an incredulous Judd Nelson and "bad girl" Ally Sheedy demonstrates fantastic Coke can catching skills before creating a sandwich out of Pixy Stix, butter, bread and cereal -- which she proceeds to devour like a raptor.

Then, of course, there's Samantha's forgotten birthday in "16 Candles," which ends with that mesmerizing kiss over the cake.

We're stuck on a loop of John Hughes memories, but this photo of a different 16 candles -- a snapshot taken by a father of his rosy-cheeked son "caught in the glow of his 16th birthday cake" -- caught our eye.

It's a tribute to the maestro that any cake teeming with candles will always make us think of him. So to paraphrase one of his own characters, "May we admire you again today?"