I turned 37 this year and had a great birthday. I love baking cakes and decided I wanted to bake my own cake this year. Dave usually picks one up for me but I like my own cakes better so I called him at work and warned him. I'd been fantasizing about a couple of cakes for several months. First, the coconut cake from Bobby Flay's Coconut Cake Throwdown but also this cake that my friend, Melissa, blogged about a few months back. The Chocolate Pumpkin Cake sounded easier so decided to go for that one. I baked it while Chloe napped and it smelled divine.
When Dave got home from work he and the girls took me to my absolute favorite restaurant, Rue Dumaine. The food was amazing. Just a few short weeks after this dinner Chef Anne Kierney was announced to be a top 5 finalist for the James Beard Best Chef Great Lakes region award. We're lucky her restaurant is 5 minutes from our house! She's the only chef outside of Chicago selected. I suppose that means I have really good taste. ;-) Check out the menu!
They don't have booster seats at Rue Dumaine and we brought one but then decided we'd be ok without it. Chloe disagreed. She was sort of a handful and didn't want to sit in the booth. I finally let Dave take over and he had her taking a pretend nap and then flipping through pictures on his phone.
Hi Mommy! Here's the plan. I'm going to try and look cute so I can then act like a little stinker. What do you think?
We ordered lentils and spinach ragout for the girls but they were so good Dave and I wanted to eat them all!
After dinner we returned home, smiled for a picture, and then chowed down on cake. Dave served ridiculously enormous pieces. But did we leave any on our plates? No. Thanks Mel for the awesome recipe. I just might make that again!
2 comments:
Ok...It's 8:27a.m. and now I'm hungry for cake! And...it's a non-workout day, so I have nothing to do but clean house and eat! HA!
That menu looks divine! I'll take the seared scallops, please. Thanks.
Chloe looks so much like Solana in the "I'm going to look cute" pic. It's the most similarity I've seen so far! Thanks for the post! You look great, as usual! Miss you guys!!!!
I almost didn't look at the menu you posted because I remember looking it up online when you told me you were Birthday, Cynthia!!!" on the menu? That's super cool!
I still don't understand why you didn't bake the coconut cake??? It only looked like it would take 2 days to prep for it. hahaha. The chocolate pumpkin cake sounds divine. You must share that recipe! Have you baked the guiness cake yet?
Looks like Chloe did a good job sticking with her plan. haha. She's such a doll. Oh, and did Solana actually share her ragout? She looks pretty excited about it in the pic.
Still trying to figure out a way to see y'all this summer. Maybe we can visit that restaurant!
Post a Comment