An Anniversary to Remember

How do you do celebrate nine years of marital bliss? Stay home and make ravioli from scratch! Well, that’s what WE do, anyway.

We finally got to try out the hand-crank pasta maker that Aaron got me for my birthday over a year ago. We’d been meaning to make pasta for a date sometime, but never seemed to have the energy to start that kind of project after the kids went to bed, which is of course when most of our at-home dates start, since being kidless is pretty much a requirement for calling it a “date” when you’re married, right? I mean, going to the grocery store can seem like a fun date when you’re alone together! We dropped the kids (except Max, of course) off at a friend’s house so we could eat before midnight. As it was, we didn’t eat until 9:00 (and I had made the dough before Aaron got home from work so it could “rest!”), but the process was so much fun that we didn’t mind a bit.

As we were cranking out the pasta, we just kept looking at each other and saying, “This is so fun! This is so cool! Why have we never done this before?” We’ll be doing it again soon, for sure! We both found it strangely exhilarating and satisfying. Call us crazy, but hey, we’re unified in our craziness and that’s what counts! It was seriously the best anniversary dinner date we can remember!

When we finally sat down to eat our masterpiece, we turned on a little “Bella Notte” and savored every bite. Yes, homemade pasta is worth the taste! For special occasions only, since dinner at 9 doesn’t work too well for the kiddos! But if you come visit, we’ll declare it a special occasion and make you some mushroom or cheese ravioli. They were both simply scrumptious!

And the other exciting thing we discovered that night? We could use the pasta cranker to make Gyoza wrappers for Chinese potstickers! We haven't been able to find them here, even at the Asian market in Fairbanks! So if we start right after breakfast, we oughtta have dumplings by dinner!