The Scoop on ‘Recreating the first date’

Last Friday my wife and I celebrated the fifth anniversary of our first date. Maybe it is because we met each other later in our lives, but it has always been the little things that have mattered most to us. We don’t exchange gifts on birthdays or holidays, so we make sure to stop and remember each of the milestones that have brought us to where we are today.

My wife and I met online through eHarmony and it took us more than a month to go through different stages of the process and finally meet. At the time I lived north of city, while she lived south of the city. So, in the spirit of compromise that seems to define our relationship, we met at a nice restaurant in uptown Charlotte (which would be considered downtown in every other city I’ve ever lived in).

After getting over the initial nervousness when we finally met the rest of the evening settled into a conversation so casual you would have thought we had known each other most of our lives. The meal itself wasn’t terribly memorable, yet to this day I can tell you exactly what we had, especially the creme brulee we shared for dessert.

Over the years we’ve always tried to mark the occasion, but as our life together has unfolded things have managed to get in the way. Two years ago she was about ten weeks pregnant and food understandably held little appeal to her, so we went out for a quick sandwich and grabbed smoothies. Then last year we were both still a bit overwhelmed with our new role as parents and we simply forgot to do anything.

Being that this day marked our fifth year together I was determined to do something special for her. Knowing that she prefers something I make to going out I decided that I would do my best to recreate the spirit of the first meal we shared together. What I ended up creating was an amalgam of that night and our favorite entree at this Italian restaurant that has since gone out of business.

Since all of the dishes that served as inspiration had fish as the main ingredient I decided to see what looked the best at the local market and poach it using condensed milk. This is a technique I picked up from watching countless hours of Good Eats on the Food Network and it has never let me down. I paired poached tilapia with a lobster ‘mac and cheese’ risotto and topped it off with some bruschetta and a chiffonade of basil.

We hadn’t really discussed plans for this year’s first date-iversary, so my wife was very surprised by the dinner I had prepared. At times I can be my own worst critic, but I was very happy with the way everything came out making it a great way to celebrate such a special day for us.

I know I’d normally detail the recipe in a post, but I’m saving it for my upcoming ebook ‘peaches en risotto: a dad’s place is in the kitchen’ which is due to be released November 30th to mark the first blogaversary of Real Men Drive Minivans.

Tagged as: Cooking, FoodNetwork, Good Eats, Home, Italian cuisine, Real Men Drive Minivans, Tilapia