Tripartite 1st Anniversary

It is really hard to believe that a full year has passed since Aviva and I got married last May 31st, mostly because the year has really sped by and so much has happened. I mean, we got married, bought a house and moved, I published a paper, got my grant and got a promotion, Aviva finished classes, got a part time job and got her 1st choice internship at the Montrose VA, we went on our honeymoon to Thailand .... it's been a hell of a year.

So to commemorate the year, we decided that instead of having a big, elaborate (and expensive .. we are currently redoing the kitchen after all) celebration of our first year together, we would have a series of smaller fiestas, just the two of us.

So about 3 weeks ago we attended a cooking class focusing on spring at the Natural Gourmet Institute in lower manhattan, where we learned to make edamame cakes, a ricotta salata salad, a variety of moroccan style main courses (chicken, lamb and cod, I think the chicken was probably the best suited to the course, although I still like the lamb better), oven baked ramps & asparagus and some kind of raspberry crumble thing I did not pay attention to. It was a great time ...

Next, on our actual anniversary (which was memorial day this year), I took off from work early, and picked up some lobsters and peonies ... Avivas absolute favorite flower is the peony, which fortunately for me only blooms for about 3 weeks a year :) After I got home we gardened together for a while, then ate the lobsters and watched a movie, for a peaceful, wonderful night.

Finally, last night, we were lucky enough to borrow Aviva's parents timeshare in Manhattan for the night (the Manhattan club on West 56th, very nice) and we went out for dinner at MacBar in SoHo. I thought it was a full restaurant, but in fact it is just a tiny hole in the wall place, painted yellow and in the shape of a macaroni noodle, which serves only different types of Mac & Cheese. So of course we got five small dishes of lobsta Mac, margarita Mac, Magic Mushroom Mac, Duck Mac and Cheeseburger Mac ... it was great, and filling and very, very cheesy. So from there we walked back to the Manhattan club, stopping at Haagen-Daaz and Max Brenners for dessert. Back at the club we watched the second half of the Lakers-Celtics game (messy game but great energy, good one to watch) and eventually went to sleep. This morning, we packed up and hit up Norma's for a fantastic brunch (the arepas and chorizo I had were superb) before moving on with the day.