Feel the Love

So as you all know, today is Valentine's Day.....the day (and night) of love.  It is also the first Valentine's Day that Zak (that wonderful husband I mentioned in my first post) and I have ever truly celebrated.  But rather than try to unwind enough to let the love flow at the beginning of what's looking to be a very long work week, we celebrated it Saturday night with a four course dinner at home.

The dinner was wonderful, and I got to try cooking something new.  Fondue!  One of our best dates was at a fondue restaurant called the Melting Pot when we lived in central Texas.  So over two years later we thougtht we'd recreate the experience.  We started off with a cheese fondue, which was thick and creamy and delicious.  Then we moved onto our salads:  mixed baby greens, cherry tomatoes, purple onion, and almonds all coated in my homemade balsamic dressing.  That was the perfect cleanser before the main:  a huge steaming pot of beef broth with garlic, onion, star anise, bay leaves, mushroom and potatoes, where we cooked bites of beef, pork, and chicken.  I don't know how but somehow we found the room to share a poached pear for dessert.  Needless to say, we were full by the end of it, but the beautiful thing about fondue is that it's a nice drawn out dinner.  You have to wait for each bite of meat to cook before you can move onto the next.  So it's no surprise that we were at the dinner table for four hours, eating, talking, and laughing.

I feel lucky that for all the time that Zak and I spend together, we still have something to talk about.  We are each other's best friends and even though we've been living together for nearly 4 years now, we're still able to have (and want) good conversation.  I'm happy that our first Valentine's celebration was as husband and wife, and that we were able to have such a good time together. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Zak.  I love you.