Five Years and Two Goals

Friday, July 26th marked five years of marriage. Five years! I can hardly believe it’s already been that long. Crazy!

Since we joined Ian’s work for camping on Friday night, we reserved Saturday night to celebrate our anniversary in style. We got all dressed up in fancy clothes and headed out to dinner in Denver.

For the past few years, I have been intrigued by an event called Outstanding in the Field. The concept is to reconnect people to their food by hosting a one-night restaurant at a local farm. A well-known chef comes in to make the meal using all local ingredients, many of which come directly from the farm. A table is set in the field (hence the name) and guests are given a tour of the farm and treated to a pretty fantastic meal. I love the concept, but every year the price has increased more and more. This year, there are two events in Colorado: one in Edwards at Copper Bar Ranch and the other in Boulder at Munson Farms (Boulder is already sold out). The price tag this year is $200-$220. Yikes! That would be at least $400 if both Ian and I went. As much as I want to do this event, I just can’t constitute spending $400 on a meal, especially since I don’t eat meat ($200 for veggies seems a bit steep).

So, I altered one of my 30 Before 30 goals to make it a bit more reasonable. To celebrate five years of marriage, Ian and I ventured over to a local restaurant known for its farm to table concept. Potager is a pretty popular Denver restaurant. Their vision is to use locally available ingredients, so the menu changes frequently, sometimes even weekly. The food is fresh (obviously) and the atmosphere is delightful. Ian and I sat at a farm-style table with another group of ladies making the experience even closer to Outstanding in the Field, without the crazy price tag!

We enjoyed a fresh summer salad with Aspen Moon Farm beets, cucumbers, black olives, red wine vinaigrette and goat cheese mousse crostini. It was probably my favorite dish and one we hope to replicate at home!

Ian had the Teton Waters grass fed strip steak which was rubbed with oregano and garlic and came with a side of slow cooked cure farm green beans and fried onions. I opted for two small plates instead of a big meal. I enjoyed the Peekytoe Crabcake and corn tossed with crème fraiche and a salad of chopped corn, green beans, peaches, fennel, onion, cherry tomatoes, basil and almonds. It was remarkable! The other dish I tried was the Munson Farm corn and mascarpone ravioli with Stonington lobster, corn juice, raw corn and marjoram oil. I was disappointed with the ravioli because I misinterpreted the menu and thought the ravioli was stuffed with lobster. Instead, the ravioli was “stuffed” with a few corn kernels and a mascarpone sauce and topped with a few very small pieces of lobster. Oh well! At least the salad and crabcake were delicious!

In addition to dinner, my gift to Ian was a love letter. I have never written him a love letter and figured it was about darn time! It is also one of my 30 Before 30 goals, and our five-year anniversary seemed like the perfect opportunity to complete the goal and scribe my love for Ian.

I made a card with five little envelopes on front, one for each year we have been married. Inside each envelope was a note with a memory from that year. (I got the idea from Pinterest…of course!) Inside the card I wrote my love letter, the content of which will be kept a secret for Ian’s eyes only! He really enjoyed reading the letter and I had a wonderful time reliving the past five years of our life together in preparation for making the card!

Another one of my 30 Before 30 goals is to “Go all out for our five-year anniversary.” While this weekend was certainly filled with lots of fun, love, and adventure, we have a bigger trip planned for the end of December. We really want to finish the kitchen before we take off on an extended vacation. So our big anniversary getaway is postponed for a bit. But that’s life, and it is pretty darn exciting to be able to spend the next few months looking forward to a relaxing trip. 🙂