The "FIRST" beat goes on...

I guess Zach's recent post made him reminiscent of our FIRST date.  Last night he brought the India Garden http://www.indiagardenonline.com/ home to me, he made Chicken Tikka Masala  without http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPCwH8uJawA the chicken and Veggie Samosas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUA4g874WUs  with Raita (recipe below).  It all was fantastic but still trying to figure out where the vegetarian meal came from...for those who know him it's very out of character.

(Three posts later I think we have beaten the dead horse that is the FIRST reference, I promise, it ends here.)

RAITA 

(Zach typically makes some version of the recipe below, the chemist in me is learning to embrace his less than precise approach to cooking)

Ingredients

2 cups low-fat plain yogurt

1/2 cucumber, grated

1 teaspoon cumin powder

1/4 teaspoon red chili powder

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1.  Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Let them sit pretty in the serving dish (preferably glass) getting chilled for half an hour or so.
3. Sprinkle a bit of cumin powder& red chili powder on the top to add a riot of colors to the dish just before serving.
4. Serve as an accompaniment to Indian dishes.

The Beauty and the Scamp(i)

Since we’re talking about FIRSTS, I feel I must interject a FIRST culinary story of my own, so long as I don’t have to keep capitalizing FIRST.

For our first date, I took Jamie to the India Garden Restaurant (http://www.indiagardenonline.com/) in Blacksburg. This was very out of character for me, but I figured the choice would prove me to be unique; you know, one-of-a-kind—a complete bad ass. It did. She liked the Indian experience, probably not as much as I love Indian food, but well enough that we’d visit many times in the future. Whether it was the curry or just my sheer awesomeness, she agreed to see me again. But this time, this time I planned on cooking for her. I needed to further impress the one they called Jamie, so I fell back on the only dish I really knew, shrimp scampi.

I’d begun my training in the scampi arts down the road from my childhood home, at the Gorman Culinary Institute (my friend Jeromy’s parent’s house) back in my adolescent years. Mr. and Mrs. Gorman cooked often and well; the latter trait being one my household didn’t so much possess.* One day, after yet another extraordinarily prepared dinner down the road; my first taste of shrimp scampi, I sat comatose in a state of euphoria. I’d had shrimp before, but it was usually fried. What was this new way of cooking? And what was that new flavor still radiating from my mouth…for hours? It was that fateful day I began an undying affair with garlic—a wonder drug deemed taboo in the Jahn house of my childhood. To this day I don’t know why. Oh, and I also learned how to cook shrimp scampi.

Having now a half decade of scampi experience under my chef’s hat, I was a seasoned veteran. Knowing my sidekick garlic would never fail me, I stood undaunted at the counter and commenced the creation of a masterpiece.

Note: pictures used are from a technical writing project back in college, don’t ask. I just wanted to prove I didn’t actually document our first at home date…psycho.

I placed all my ingredients before me and proceeded to cut, chop, season, and pour when necessary.

Some stirs and shakes here and there.

A beautiful layout on the plate. Add garnish. And…

Heaven.

Years later we were married. Did the first scampi experience have anything to do with that? It’s been requested countless times since. So you tell me…


*MOM DON’T READ THAT WRONG, YOU’RE AN AMAZING COOK.

Many Firsts...

As my sister celebrated her FIRST wedding anniversary yesterday it made me reflect on ours.  Zach and I spent our FIRST anniversary in Lexington, VA at our friends Heather and BJ's wedding.  That Sunday, we wrapped up the wedding festivities and headed to
Barboursville Winery http://barboursvillewine.net/winery/ with Amanda and Scott where we spent the day wine tasting and touring the ruins.  We made our way back to Richmond for dinner at Joe's Inn http://www.joesinn.com/Fan/ a favorite Fan restuarant of ours and then Zach and I had a night cap of Dom Perignon, a FIRST for both of us and the traditional 1 year old piece of frozen wedding cake.  The Dom was a wedding gift from Cole (BIL)...thanks Cole and perfect for that special occassion but being the champagne lover I am I'll have to go back to my $20 or less bottles. Oh! and the cake was terrible...luckily we planned ahead and stopped at The Cheesecake Factory for backups!  

My FIRST blog, my FIRST wedding anniversary and my FIRST time trying Dom.