One Year Anniversary

Dennis & I celebrated our first year anniversary on Monday (11/19). We celebrated by going out to Nine-Ten for dinner on Sunday. On Monday, the actual day, I cooked us dinner (Garlic Bread, Salad & Linguine with Clam Sauce), which we enjoyed with the remaining bottle of wine we bought in New Zealand (Rippon Vineyard Lake Wanaka Central Otago Osteiner 2006). Over both dinners, we reminisced about the day and days leading up to our wedding one year ago.

It was a very eventful first year, full of adventures and dramatic misadventures. The adventures include our honeymoon in New Zealand, conceiving Zoe (in New Zealand - TMI?), the pregnancy, trips to Grand Canyon and San Francisco, Zoe's birth, becoming parents. The misadventures include Dennis' rather difficult transition away from academia into industry, the flooding of the house and the attendant headache of dealing with insurance, rebuilding and putting up in a hotel for nearly two months. Then, recently, there was the eye surgery to correct a detached retina in my right eye, followed by the fire, which displaced us for nearly a week. Thankfully, it has all ended well. We still have a home to come back to and my eye is recovering (slowly but surely). What a year! The highs were so high and the lows so low. Thankfully, we had one another. I suppose this year is a good start if love and marital longevity is what we are working towards. We remained pretty much chipper in spite of the troubles because we took solace in the fact that we were confronting them together. Then, if the fire taught us anything, it was the impermanence of things material and the importance of our lives, love, friends and family.

So here we are. What was two last year is now three. A family unit of three.

Linguine with Clam Sauce

1 onion, chopped
6 to 8 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped fine
5 tbs olive oil
4 cans of chopped clams
approximately 2 tbs of butter
2 to 3 tbs of white wine
Sprigs of fresh basil (optional)
Parsley chopped as garnish

Drain clams, reserving the juice. In a large skillet, saute onion and garlic in olive oil. When onion is soft (but not browned), stir in clams, half of the clam juice, butter, wine and basil. Simmer until sauce has reduced by 1/3, about 20 minutes. Serve over linguine.