Candle-lit Chinese Take-Out

Last night was our anniversary. Well, one of them. It was the anniversary of when we met. 14 years ago. We had a date night in. It was interesting. We told Doris it was our anniversary and she said "Somebody going to be putting me to bed?" We haven't had an anniversary since March, and she still remembers that. She's amazing.

We gave Doris dinner and sat down with her while she ate it. She had 2 vegetarian hot dogs (Smart Dogs by Light Life) cold right out of the fridge, dipped in ketchup and mustard. She really liked it and wanted more (after eating 2 of them!) but there weren't any more. She said "Amma's going to buy some more at the store?" We served it with her favorite food - frozen broccoli, but she didn't really eat them. So I let her do her new favorite thing - pack it for lunch. Then she ate some strawberries (out of season but the girl loves her strawberries.

Then we put her to bed and I ran to Palais De Lune for some Chinese take-out. They are a local restaurant with a large selection of fake meat Chinese food. It's really amazing how popular that kind of food is. We got the hot & sour soup, fried vegetable dumplings, honey sesame chicken, and general tso's chicken. While I was out, Karen set the table with our China and candle light and crystal glass ware, and we had a fancy 4 course meal (appetizers, soup, entree, and dessert). Karen picked up some organic strawberry lemonade on sale so that was our drink. It was too much food and we have a lot of leftovers, so looks like we are having it again for dinner this week. Dessert was a raspberry tart that Karen picked up from Trader Joe's. It was pretty good but could have used more cream filling (but isn't that always true? more cream is always good.). We have a lot of dessert left, so I think we'll be having a nice evening tonight.

hot dogs: $1
broccoli: 50 cents
strawberries: 70 cents
take-out: $29
lemonade: $1
tart: $6

Total: $38.20 ($12.33 per person)

We certainly blew our food budget but we only have 4 anniversaries a year, so... At least we have lots of leftovers so that in the end it won't be that bad.