Date Night

The magic of last night continued well into the night because we had a babysitter for the evening! Yep, we're much better about scheduling our monthly date night. And so, last night, the kids were thrilled to tell their beloved babysitter all about the faerie village and the pizza/train restaurant and we left way before bedtime--it's such a treat that someone else can tuck the kids in without any trouble!

And what did we do? Grocery shopping! But not at just any store: we went to Balducci's and Whole Foods. Yep, fancy grocery shopping. We love wandering the aisles of upscale markets (and as granola as WF tries to be, the prices are upscale) and seeing what there is to buy (and laughing when we find strawberry fluff at one and snack pack rice pudding at the other). At Balducci's, we were fascinated by the truffle popcorn--that's not chocolate, folks, but dehydrated truffles which lent an earthy sophistication to the moviehouse treat. And I got a big jar of bitter-sweet marmalade, even though I was strongly tempted by all the specialty chocolate bars (well, not the bacon chocolate!). We also picked up some Icelandic strained yogurt and some Australian grapefruit-flavored yogurt, which turned out to be very, very soft, almost drinkable. We gorged on gouda and barbecued chorizo samples while considering what we would take home. I wasn't particularly tempted by all the oils and vinegars, but I did pick up some rosewater and orange blossom water for cookie making this holiday season. We almost bought, but didn't in the end, get any gourmet gelato.

Then off we went to Whole Foods, a store we used to visit on date night in Chicago (back when, without kids, every night was date night!! Remember those days??). We almost changed our dinner plans and raided the paneer and tikka masala at the buffet but decided we weren't ready to eat yet. So, we spent time studying the tea--oooh, rose petal black tea!!!--though in the end I opted for hot chai chocolate. And we also enjoyed looking through the cookbooks (Moosewood Restaurant Desserts or Baking Illustrated, anyone?) and rummaging through the organic cotton clothes. I almost got some caper and olive chips, with garlic, but they were corn not potato chips, which didn't sound right to us. And then there was a chickpea salad with edamame, bell peppers, and . . . cranberries?! Mama doesn't like fruit in her savories so we skipped that. I was also interested in an Amy's orange pound cake in the frozen section, at which point we realized it was time for dinner.

So we headed to our favorite vegetarian restaurant and had a wonderful light dinner, light in that we didn't each get one of each course! Instead, I got a creamy Czech mushroom and potato soup, with oatmeal bread, and a salad, while Mama had the pastitsio with a great cinnamon flavor. We finished dinner with a pumpkin tofu custard, which is one of my favorite desserts there. We even talked to one of the women about how she makes it, since Sis loves pumpkin: they use hubbard squash. Well, I have a sugar pumpkin and canned puree, so I'll have to use one of those to make it.

Food and fun, oogling and eating. A great date night.