Anniversary #2

So, I tried my best not to be the worst wife ever. I made Isaac a little gift certificate to head to Eastern Market this weekend and pick out a monoprint by Jonathan Blume, an artist both he and I really, really like. He had his eye on a long, skinny duck awhile back, but the guy that sells for Jonathan told me he got some new pieces last weekend, so I'm sure he'll be able to find one he likes. He was really excited about the present, so I don't feel quite so bad anymore. I figure paper contains cotton, so it still fits the traditional second anniversary gift of cotton.

As for me, here's what I got:


Don't know what that is? (Some of you should!) It's a fondue pot! Just like the ones we used at the chalet after Carolyn and Brian's wedding. He even went to the store and bought the 3 kinds of cheese we needed, a loaf of french bread and baby new potatoes. According to Brian, the fondue bread expert, the bread should be day old and a little hard. Well, since my husband is a genius, he artificially aged the bread by leaving it in the hot car all day yesterday. The artificial aging worked quite well! My gift also sort of followed the traditional anniversary gift guidelines (or whatever they are - why do they even exist?). I've read that the modern gift is cotton and the traditional is china. China, cast iron covered in enamel - close enough in my book!

After a quick trip to Whole Foods for truffle oil (Isaac really wanted it) and kirsh from the wine store next door, we were ready to roll. We used some dry old champagne that we had in the fridge.

Here's what our dinner looked like before we gorged ourselves on cheese.


We were both stuffed and never got around to making the crunchy cheese. But the cheese was certainly well on its way to becoming crunchy.


There is definitely going to be many, many more years of fondue in our future. It was so delicious. I'm proud of us too for making it so good from scratch!

This last picture is both a picture of our new mattress (not exciting to anyone but us) and the aftermath of the present opening.


Isn't my husband cute?