Cafe du Monde

Nestled in a quiet secluded neighborhood of Historic Leesburg is a small restaurant known to only a handful of lucky residents (currently 3). Renowned as much for its ‘shabby elegance’ as for its eclectic menu, those who wish a table are advised to plan well in advance as the dining room is open only one evening per year.

And that, dear reader, was the opening to menu my husband created for the gourmet dinner. Dinner was:

Appetizer

Ahi Tuna Cucumber Rollups with a Ginger Wasabi sauce

First Course

Spicy Black Bean and Roasted Squash Soup with Crème Fraiche Swirl
Wine Pairing - Willm Riesling

Second Course

Roasted Beet & Goat Cheese Salad withOrange Hazelnut Vinaigrette
Wine pairing – Parallele ‘45’ Cote du Rhone

Entree

Roasted Squash & Mixed Wild Mushrooms Over Crispy Polenta
Wine pairing – Parallele ‘45’ Cote du Rhone

Dessert

Chocolate Chip Cherry Cookie
With choice of
Mango Sorbet or White Chocolate Rasberry Ice Cream
Wine pairing – Chateau Bastor-Lamontagne Sauternes

Everything was soooo good...he really outdid himself! I must say that I've got the best husband in the world. Leigh brought over a bottle of wine and a bar of fine Belgian dark chocolate (73% pure cocoa). Dark chocolate is my favorite.

Next cooking adventure? I was challenged by a friend to make a cassoulet. Cassoulet dinner date--March 13. It should be...um...interesting, given that I've never eaten cassoulet. But that's never held me back before!

In knitting news, I made progress on the cat bed, until I ran out of yarn. I've got a skein of Lamb's Pride Bulky in orange, but given that the colors are light gray and dark charcoal heather, I'm not going to use it. I pinned the back and sleeve of the cable sweater to the blocking board and need to steam it to uncurl the edges. It isn't looking too bad, but I'm going to have to unknit a couple of rows on the left front to make it match. I definitely have to work on my tension on the purl rows. When I was knitting using the throwing technique, the tension was fairly even. I switched to continental and just can't seem to keep the tensnion consistent on the purl rows. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. I might experiment with using continental for knit and throwing for purl.

Unfortunately, the price for last night's dinner was a migraine, probably brought on by a combination of red wine and fluctuating hormones. I've been staving one off since Friday, but it finally got me. And Excedrin Migraine isn't doing much for it. So that's it for now.