For our anniversary this year we took a drive to Salt Lake City, mainly just to get out of town and change our scenery for a few hours.  I made us a dinner reservation at a place called The Copper Onion.  I believe that the stars just did not line up for us that night though, and it did not have anything to do with the food at this restaurant.  The weather was off.  We had our two year old with us.  The restaurant was crowded (which is a good sign) but ironically unpleasant.  The decor did not seem to live up to my expectations, but I do not know what I was expecting.  I just could not relax and enjoy myself but I do not think it had anything to do with this restaurant or its food.  In fact, I believe the food was really “all that”.  I just could not get myself in the mood for it. I was too nervous about my two year old being a two year old, and I was too nervous about the restaurant being too uppity for my husband.

Ben would go with me to any restaurant on this planet.  But he is not fond of, what he describes as, small food restaurants.  But he will go to these with me to make me happy.  But then I am nervous because I think that he is not enjoying himself.  I know that this is all in my own head, but I just can’t shake it.  These feelings are then compounded by my two year old. Because, I am positive he would rather be lying sideways on a soft couch sipping a bottle of whole cow’s milk while simultaneously watching his favorite cartoon “Mickey Mouse Club House” and thumbing through his “Ten Wriggly Wiggly Caterpillars” book.  Yes, I am positive he would rather be doing this, than sitting up to an adult sized table in a hard wooden high chair being told “no” repeatedly for trying to make a drum out of the table by beating it with the utensils I thought were out of his reach.  Poor thing, he actually did really well.  I am sure that the people around us were not even remotely aware of him.

But my favorite part of the trip though, was our drive there.  It was really good to have a real conversation with my favorite human with only minor distractions.  No TV, no chores, no work.  Just us, on the road, talking about how good we are together.  Ok, I know, enough of that.  Happy anniversary baby, I Love You!

Now, about that restaurant, “The Copper Onion”.  My favorite part was the cheese and meat tasting part of the menu.  Since “cheese” is my very favorite food group next to the food group “sugar”, I wanted to try every single one of them! But that would have probably wiped out our entire dinner budget.  So I ended up asking our server to bring us her favorite two cheeses and favorite two meats. She brought us a ½ cow’s milk ½ sheep’s milk soft Robiola and a firm cheddar goat cheese. I honestly cannot remember the names of the meats, but Ben said that they were gran biscotto and a mortadella. We also had the mussels as an appetizer.  The sauce the mussels were cooked in was very unique. I tasted it over and over until it was gone trying to figure it out.  For dinner Ben had a NY strip steak with wedge cut fries and I had wagyu beef stroganoff with homemade pappardelle.  Everything was prepared well and with noticeable care.