February 5th, 2005

February 5th was our third wedding anniversary. Jack spent the night at Grandma's house, Aaron came home from work early, and we got lobster juice and chocolate frosting everywhere. I love this picture of Aaron; I think his eyelashes are so cute. And his sideburns.

I made a cake for dessert that was a miniature version of our wedding cake, only I made it with chocolate frosting. It was a recipe from Cook's Illustrated, a Christmas present from Tristan that is quickly becoming one of my favorite resources.

Trudy Wheeler(Briana's Mother-in-law) made our wedding cake. I sent her a picture of a white cake with rose petals on it, and this is what showed up at our wedding. It doesn't look very big in the picture, but it was at least two feet high. Amazingly, it was not only stunning to look at but it was also the most delicious cake I've ever had. People called me after our wedding to ask if they could have some of the leftovers. The top part never made it to the freezer for our first anniversary.

With a small nursing baby, dates are sort of out of the question. So to keep things exciting we do date nights at home, and for special occasions we have just one rule: we cook something together that neither of us has made before. Inspired by Central Market, we chose lobster. She weighed almost three pounds and was thrashing around vigorously when removed from her tank, flapping her tail so loudly it sounded like someone slapping two pieces of wood together. We were a little afraid to try stuffing her into our biggest pot as she seemed too long for it, and it seemed wise not to anger her unless she was going to perish in a timely fashion. The idea of being chased around the kitchen by an angry, red-hot lobster seemed like it would spoil the romance. Aaron came up with the idea of using our next-biggest pot as the lid, which worked beautifully save for the fact that it dripped lobster juices all over the stove. She was delicious.

Since we were sharing the lobster we thought we should round out our meal a bit so we made Steak au Poivre, roasted new potatoes and French green beans sauteed with shallots.

Here is my miniature wedding cake with chocolate frosting. I thought white frosting would have been prettier with the red roses, but once I put it all together I think the brown and red are a pretty swell combination. It was very, very good. The first ingredient the frosting recipe called for was 2 1/2 sticks of butter.

I thought the inside was pretty too.