There is no better way to usher a new year than being in the company of great people and amazing food. Speaking of which, we had prime rib two days in a row, so life is definitely good!
Prime Rib 1 was during New Year’s Eve. We normally don’t celebrate it but 2015 was especially awesome, it’s but fitting to send it off nicely. It was definitely the year when both the dreams and the dreamers became one. We have been so blessed, it makes a cry. So I wiped my tears and made my show-stopping Prime Rib. Click on the link and it will take you to a primerib adventure and there’s no going back.
Should I commit a felony and sit on death-row, I will request this as my last meal. Look how nice and red it is in the middle and golden on the outside.
Prime Rib 2 is at Steve and Ginger’s house. We headed to San Antonio on New Year’s Day. There are no words for this prime rib.
Here’s an idea I picked up. Roast garlic underneath the prime rib. The garlic becomes buttery soft as it absorbs all the yummy drippings
Steve gave D his belated birthday gift. It’s a dealer’s poster of D’s Porsche!!!
I don’t know how Steve found this. He is that person who can find anything online. If there’s anything that he can’t find, then it must be in another planet.
As usual, D went nuts on Steve’s motorcycle. This time, weather was perfect so he prepped for it. Check out his outfit for this ride. They are going riding while the food was cooking.
Pretty spiffy for a 3 mile ride. If you’re not interested in riding, go and take note of the two Christmas trees on the background. Ginger is fancy.D is ready to go. He is loving this. I wonder how many months it would take before this will end up in our garage.Prime Rib is done. Cooked to perfection. D is the official carver.Something tells me I have to drive us backButter cream pie for dessertAu Gratin potatoes.
What a great way to start a brand new year! “Optimum Venturus Est” — The best is yet to come. That is so easy to say but it always starts with one’s own personal initiative. To relate these words of wisdom to my food blog, “good food is not going to cook itself”. For the “best” to come, you gotta start peeling those potatoes!
This has been an amazing holiday season. I can’t wait to get back to the grinding and see what all my efforts can get me in 2016. If it will be anything like the past year, then this should be another fantastic one.
This is my favorite wedding pic. So casual, simple, fun. After having been wed in front of 350-plus guests, only to have the union go belly up in two years, I decided that my second wedding would be anything but that. So I got an off-the-rack(!) Vera Wang number, D got his from Brooks Brothers, picked up our rings then jetted off to Vegas!
This is the fanciest part of that day. We saw these in Montblanc and thought “wouldn’t those make awesome wedding rings? Let’s get married!” Hey, I’ve heard crazier reasons to wed. Great jewelry won’t even crack the top ten.
Fast forward today, a day before our anniversary. Technically, we got married on the 31st, but we always celebrate it on the 30th, day after D’s birthday. We were out in the patio, having coffee, enjoying this view.
This leads down to the hiking trail that ends up to “our” river
Me: hey, tomorrow is our anniversary since we signed stuffs to stay together. Shouldn’t we be out celebrating or something?
D: Sure. We need to go out and buy mustard anyway. We can go after we hike, weather is perfect.
Me: Oh. I was thinking of walking around Main St. and see if can get anniversary stuffs, that’s still hiking….
When a man will look you in the eye and agree that shopping is the same as hiking, he’s a keeper.
We were so sick of the left-over food in the house so we decided to have brunch at Peach-Tree Restaurant. They have awesome salads.
I got a steak salad, which turned out to be heavier than I wanted it to be. It was yummy, though.D got his usual grilled chicken salad
Properly nourished and caffeinated, we headed for shopping and hunted for mustard.
Das Peach Haus is a farm house from the 1800 that has been converted to a tasting room and B and B, since the owners have established Fischer and Wieser Specialty Foods. They specialize in high-end condiments, rubs, marinades, jellies, etc.
This is their picture-perfect rustic store.
Like every adventure we have at places like these, we always end up with more unexpected but delightful things. It’s all about the set-up really. They have an array of opened jars for you to taste, you like it, drop ’em in your bag, then get swipin’.
My loot included Champagne Honey Mustard, Truffle Honey Mustard Seeds, Savory Fig and Onion Spread, Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce and Black Raspberry Sauce. And because I don’t have enough cookbooks, I had to grab their very own, Fredericksburg Flavors, too.
Clearly, we got more mustard than what we originally planned for. But wait…aren’t those bottles of wine? They have wine too??? Of course they do. They feature selections from Oberhof Wine Cellars. The honey wine is to die for. It’s made of a variety of flowers and honey. They have their own version of gluhwein too. Naturally, I added this to my haul.
2 bottles of Honey Wine and a bottle of Gluhwein. Also passed a shelf with Smoky Mustard Seed and Bourbon Cerise Jelly. Had to have those too.
As I got back from the restroom, leaving D to pay for the haul, I realized that he is still in the counter, chatting up the 85 year old lady. Turns out, she’s related to a family also named Naples, who just moved into the area. This is Frederciksburg in a nutshell. It’s slow, laid-back, no one is in hurry, people will chat you up for hours. Back in Houston, I would have thrown a fit for taking too much time to check-out my stuffs. I had to take a deep breath and smile, remembering that this is why we love it here. There is more to life than just being in and out in 20 minutes.
Finally, we’re in Main Street to do some shopping. We were thinking of getting anniversary boots. Unfortunately, our favorite store Headquarters Hat, had no new inventory on their Lucchese. Bummer. True to our “hiking” plans, we continued towards the end of the street till we reached Linens n More. Here I found the most adorable apron.
“I cook with my boots on!” So true…
We came back home, planning to just light a fire and open a bottle when Beans saw us and asked why we weren’t heading out for celebratory dinner. “You had anniversary lunch???” He was judge-y, I’m telling you. Although I think he just really wants us out of the house because his Aunt Ginger and Uncle Steve gave him an electronic drum set for Christmas and he can’t play it out loud when we’re at home. Smart boy.
So we drove to Cabernet Grill, to grab some quick celebratory dinner. Turned out to be a good thing. They had new stuffs on the menu.
warm goat cheese topped with roasted garlicfrozen peach-a-rita, party has begun!D had surf n turf—lobster and filetI had lobster topped chicken fried steak with chile green gravyWe shared dessert- blueberry chocolate mouse with homemade peach ice cream
This is a long post because it has been a long day….But if there’s anything we learned about staying married is that it DOES require a lot of time and hardwork. The Beatles sang it well, “the love you give is the love you get”. We both never dreamed that we would have a second chance, but here we are, happy with our second marriages. This may be the anniversary of the day we “legalized” our union, but the truth is, even without those papers, we still would have CHOSEN to be together.
