“He proposed in Rome.”
That’s pretty much all you need to know about the theme of
this DNI. Ashley writes of her then-boyfriend’s proposal on the Spanish Steps
in Italy. She writes of knowing the whole evening he was going to propose (as
we girls are wont to do), and plotting out exactly where she wanted him to do
it. Someplace perfectly romantic and memorable, but nowhere that would draw too
much attention.
In the same vein as Ashley, I let myself get carried away
with how this DNI would go. We would eat on the anniversary of our engagement,
in mid-December. We would enjoy a wonderful Italian dinner, slowly sip Chianti,
and reflect on our own special night 9 years ago. It would be incredibly
romantic, with a crackling fire, shooting stars, and the Ratatouille soundtrack.
I should know better than to map out every single detail in
my imagination. We don’t even have a
fireplace, for pete’s sake. The less I get my hopes up about something the
better it is. And the more I blow something up in my mind the more likely I am
to be disappointed. So it should be no surprise that we didn’t even HAVE a Date
Night In last month. There were about a million Christmas concerts, and ten
consecutive nights that I put the boys to bed myself. There were gifts to wrap and
cards to send and cookies to bake. Which, admittedly, was a lot of fun, but became
increasingly lonely.
And it shouldn’t have surprised me that, instead of a night
we looked forward to for a few weeks, we decided after grocery shopping
yesterday morning that we should just get it over with. And, thus, it came to
pass that A Rather Impromptu Roman Engagement occurred last night.
Except dessert. Because that needed to freeze overnight. We
thought about it, but we’re both kind of overly-desserted from the holidays and
agreed we could postpone. (I offered to let Roy make it while I was at work but
he glanced at the recipe and decided that it wasn’t worth the risk…there was a
lot of carefully-timed mixing involved.)
So we ate:
·
Carciofi
Fritti
·
Kale with
Apples, Currants, and Warm Pancetta Vinaigrette
·
Cacio e Pepe
with Parmesan Frico
I shall now translate. Carciofi Fritti are fried lemon
slices and artichokes. I was skeptical. First off, deep frying. We’ve TALKED
about this. Not my thing. Secondly, if I’m going to deep fry something, how
about a nice pastry or hunk of meat? I dipped a LEMON SLICE in oregano-flavored
batter and fried it. And ate it.
Who comes up with these ideas?
It was OK. It was better than I thought it might be. But it
wasn’t amazing. The artichokes were about on par with the lemons. I think next
time I would slice the lemons even more thinly so it wasn’t So. Much. Lemon
(but I can say fairly definitively there isn’t going to be a next time).
Roy worked on the kale salad. He quickly discovered that we
had some issues. Firstly, we couldn’t find dried currants anywhere. We didn’t
drive to Mt. Wegmans, but its sister peak in Webster offered no help. (We
substituted dried cranberries.) Secondly, he purchased prosciutto instead of
pancetta. Oops. Italians we are not.
So we substituted salty meat strips for salty meat chunks.
No biggie, right? The salad was...good. Ashley claimed that the warm
vinaigrette would slightly soften the kale, making it easier to chew. I don’t
think this happened for us. I’ve been enjoying kale this winter, but I sauté it
first to make it more palatable. This was a great-tasting kale, but it was too
chewy for me.
I was holding out for the main course. PASTA. I had made
Parmesan Frico earlier—take freshly grated parmesan cheese, form a disc, bake
it for a few minutes, then take the disc and invert it over a bowl to create “the
best cheese cracker you’ve ever had.”
See how pretty it looks in the bowl? Now imagine delicious
pasta on top of it.
The Cacio e Pepe was delightful. It was the simplest dish
perhaps in the entire cookbook—just four ingredients, but it came out
beautifully. I mean, look at that.
 |
| Who's ready for more? Pick me! |
I admit, I couldn’t finish the Frico. It was a LOT of cheese,
even for me. But I had no problem devouring the entire quarter-box portion of
bucatini, butter, pecorino, and pepper.
There was no fireplace, no shooting stars, and we barely
touched on the topic of our engagement. I even forgot to put on the background
music. We sipped Chianti and instead spoke of the boys’ antics that day, of
church work, of upcoming concerts. And that was fine, because it was us and we
like to think our conversation is pretty satisfying and special.
“Suddenly, I didn’t
care about where we were and the crowds of people that rushed around us. My
thoughts drifted to us, and in that instant it was as if I caught a glimpse of
our forever. Images of us old and together warmed me on that cold night in
December. It was a new beginning. The promise of forever with each other. And I
couldn’t have been happier.” -Ashley
Rodriguez, DNI, p. 208
Today’s 1%: If I had a dream last night about going running,
does that count for anything?
