One More Meal Together

There were royal icing, sprinkles, gum drops, Tootsie Rolls, Necco Wafers, and a dozen other ingredients all over my kitchen when Mama and I left the kids with Gommie and Pop this evening. They were decorating the graham cracker gingerbread houses I had pieced together earlier today (which was followed by my disgruntled phonecall to Kraft/Nabisco who say they had manufacturing problems, but seem to have intentionally shrunk the size of their Honey Maid graham crackers, which are now too crumbly and taste like cardboard to be good for anything, much less constructing delicate gingerbread houses. So I called and got my money back!). Including one hexagonally-based lighthouse. And they were all having a ball!

Mama and I had our own kind of ball, celebrating my 39th birthday and our first wedding anniversary at a fondue restaurant. And it was perfectly charming, especially because we got one of the secluded booths aways from all the rowdy celebrants elsewhere and there were cards on the table when we got there, one for my birthday and one for our anniversary (we'd made reservations). Our server was attentive and informative without being suffocating or officious. And we just got to eat some fun food: a Riesling spritzer with lemon and elderflower and a blackberry-sage lemonade; hunks of bread and crudites dipped in a blue-cheese tinged Wisconsin fondue; vegetables and surf and turf boiled in a coq au vin-inspired burgundy/garlic/mushroom/spices broth; and, best of all, pound cake, Rice Krispies, brownies, strawberries, cheesecake, and marshmallows dipped in our own selected dark chocolate-Grand Marnier combo! All that we kinda cooked or prepared ourselves in a big pewter pot with these handy-dandy colored-coded sticks. And the waiter comped the dessert as a gift! (and thanks, Miss D, for the gift card!)

After our indulgent two-plus hour meal, we drove home leisurely, reminiscing about other great or interesting meals: tea at Fortnum & Mason and the Palmer House and the British Tea Shoppe and Polly's in Marlborough and Betty's in York and Alice's Tea Cup and Silver Tips; ice cream at Wilson's in Door County and another old-fashioned parlor in some small town in WI that I can't recall (frozen custard too), the dairy farm in CT, Edie's (NYC), Margie's (Chicago); amazing locales such as the cafeteria-crypt at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields and the Cheshire Cheese, rebuilt after the fire of 1666 and Randall's Ordinary, a 17th-century inn, and City Tavern in Philly; and just fun or good meals at Berghoff's in Chicago (German), all the places in Andersonville in Chicago from the Middle Eastern to Japanese to Swedish to lesbian hangouts!, Davis Street Fish Market and the Cajun places and BBQ joints in Evanston, everywhere we went in New Orleans, Ethiopian at Lalibela, Vegetarian at Bloodroot; and all the small or nameless places on our travels that stick with us because of the fried pickles or lemon fish or Beef Wellington or fried cheese curds or shrimp po'-boys or Grape Nut Pudding or microbrewed root beer or samosas or shabu-shabu. That's not all we've enjoyed or even all we remembered tonight, just all I can recall right now. But it was fun to add a new experience to the list and to reminisce about almost 16 years of meals together.

And many more . . . . I can't wait to see where we go next!

(many thanks to Gommie and Pop for making the night possible with the free babysitting!)