Sur La Table Date Night

I asked Eric for a 'special' date with him for Christmas--anything from rock climbing to pottery to dancing--and he came up with a wonderful gift! We went to a date night cooking class at Sur La Table! So we asked our dear friends John and Tricia to watch our girls (actually put them to bed, whoo, that's a pretty big favor round here!) and prayed that their first experience with a real sitter (not family) would go well while we headed off to Easton.

We got to wear stylish aprons, but I think we still look pretty happenin! :)

Of course we were usually too busy cooking and then eating to take time for photos of the food, so it is kind of sad that those beautiful plates aren't going to make an appearance on my blog. But take my word for it, everything was aesthetic... and SOOOOO delicious!

We opened with wild mushroom risotto

(which was the menu item I was most eager to learn how to properly prepare),

followed by butter-seared asparagus with a caramelized shallot-red pepper relish,

then the entree was pepper-crusted tuna pan seared

(but still delectably raw in the middle, only the edges getting the crust),

with goat-cheese chocolate truffles for dessert!

Oooh, it was all tantalizingly delicious!

wouldn't you know I'd be the only one in the entire class to cut myself? LITERALLY right after I asked the chef if anyone ever gets cut. How embarrassing. But pretty cool SpongeBob bandaid. Gwen complimented it the next morning first thing. :)

getting that perfect sear on the tuna.

My handsome man who made the whole evening possible!

Final assessment: the food was amazing, the date was a blast, but I think as far as cooking instruction goes, the only thing that really was awesome was the risotto. Nothing like hands-on instruction for something like that. So was it worth the dough? That's debatable. The risotto portion earned its keep, but the rest was more a collection of delicious recipes that we got to chop and saute. Nothing too challenging. We're definitely not sorry we went, but it probably won't be a repeat date because we want something more than awesome recipes with instruction. Next time we want to know how to gut and prepare lobster.

(that is a joke)

so there you have Sur La Table date night!