This year was our celebration of the 25th anniversary of these “get-togethers”. In case you haven’t followed this adventure in the past, this event is a chance for us husbands to show a little appreciation for our wives…who mean so much to us. What started out twenty-five years ago as a single evening out is now a full weekend event.
Friday evenings have become a bit of a guys evening…often accompanied by beef and some libations. This year, as a slight change…and because of the Saturday evening menu…we did a little pork-on-pork on the grill.
The basic premise of pork-on-pork is to flatten out some boneless pork chops, smear on a little cream cheese, add roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, sliced jalapenos, and roll it up into a cylinder wrapped in bacon—that’s what is in aluminum foil in the picture. It all goes onto the grill, and ultimately it gets sliced into medallions for an outstanding meal.While food was cooking, James started some of the story-telling that is such a part of our gatherings…
Next to the grill we had a fire in the chimenea, so it was comfortable to stay out on the deck while getting the meal ready…then it was time to eat.
While we lived in Texas we continued the Valentine’s Day tradition with a collection of our neighbors in The Woodlands—growing at one point to ten couples. During one of those events we had a narrowly averted catastrophe. While carrying dessert over to the host house—a creme brulee of outstanding potential—it slipped off of the carrying basket and landed upside down on the street. Fortunately I had made a second dessert—chocolate ganache with a cream caramel sauce—that was enough to fill the void, but we began a small custom of having a moment of remembrance for the “
missing creme brulee.”In honor of our 25th year, we further remembered the creme brulee by making a more than reasonable facsimile.
Saturday morning had a slow start, but once we were all on the move the ladies went in one direction—to Hartford to tour Mark Twain’s (Samuel Clemen's) House and Museum—and the men off to Wine Nation (for some exploring), Carl’s Diner in Oxford (for a ‘huge’ lunch) and Park ‘n Shop (for last minute shopping).
The men got home in the early afternoon and started the dinner preparations. To celebrate such a milestone anniversary we asked our wives to pick a favorite main course from our many times together—typically the meal is a surprise menu. I used an on-line pair-wise comparison tool where our wives rank the relative choices against each other…and we came out with a clear favorite.
Since numbers, design and analytics were playing such a role in this year’s meal we (the men) decided on a theme of “Love Designed to Last”—combined we have over 102 years of marriage…as the same couples. To get ourselves fully into the roles we decided to dress as stereotypical designers—nerds or geeks if you’d like—with black pants, white shirts (with the sleeves rolled up), ties slightly askew, pocket-protectors filled with different pens, mechanical pencils, and pen lights (thanks Dan)…all the way down to white socks.
| Our wives wanted to keep in the spirit of 25 years, so we each found a gift package that included the ESPN 25 year collection of highlights and the Suddenly Silver edition of For Better for Worse. They also gave us individual lists of the 25 Reasons they love us. |  |
James also made a cranberry and white light wreath that goes well in the dining room decor and it fit well below the Happy Anniversary sign.
The menu for the evening was laid out on engineering graph paper in the form of a design specification with various sections and sub-headings.
It was an outstanding meal, enjoyed by all…with a little bit of elk roast and purple mashed potatoes left over for another time. After the main course was completed the clean up crew did a quick turn-around so we could reuse the plates for dessert by the fire.
We could not have had this event for 25 years without a few things having gone wrong—the aforementioned creme brulee, broken bones, career challenges, illness knocking a host from the party—but the most memorable, most remembered item was at the first gathering of the three couples for Valentines Day. There are many variations on this story, and Dan will state, “It could have happened to anyone”, and it goes along the lines of:
At the first Valentines Day dinner Dan was responsible for providing dessert (he may have had salad duty as well, but that would just be a red herring). As the event got closer and Dan’s work and Rescue responsibilities built up he found himself on Saturday afternoon without time to make the cheesecake dessert he had planned. Being industrious and fortunate to have some very good bakeries nearby, Dan went out and picked up a bakery made cheesecake.
The meal went along very well with appetizers, salad, and a main course all accompanied by some good wine. Then came dessert. Dan plated the cheesecake and we all sat back down to enjoy some final time of the evening together. We must have all been fairly full from all we had eaten previously, because the cheesecake was getting more pushed around the plate instead of eaten. Some of us even moved on to after-dinner drinks instead of filling ourselves more.
After the evening ended and all of the couples went their own ways, the conversation within each of the couples came down to basically, “That was the worst cheesecake I have ever tried to eat.” It turned out that the bakery had mixed up some proportions (most likely left out the sugar) and all of us were too polite to comment on the taste during the meal. If Dan had actually made the cheesecake the issue would have been avoided…Dan has not lived this down.
But, for the 25th Anniversary we decided to let him make some amends…
and the cheesecake was wonderful. It won’t stop us from telling the story again (and again), but it does soften it a little.
The Adventures go on…
