La Belle Vie! Joyeux Anniversaire a moi! Well, almost. As usual, the celebration - of, in this case, the end of my 41st year - involves more than one day. Which I love! Yeah, it rather sucks to have a birthday so close to Christmas...the combo Christmas/birthday gift totally bites - and yet, it does somehow stretch out the celebration into something long, slow, and mellow, and I can't one bit complain about that.

So tonight, two days early, the celebration began in earnest, in the stunningly elegant bar at La Belle Vie, just John and me, YES! Bling (including a beautiful new bracelet from Suz), frites (it's no birthday sans frites), langoustines (fried shrimps), vino (Cote de Rhone), and chocolat (in several forms, with a lovely birthday message!) made for a fabulous beginning to this all-about-my-birthday (wink) weekend.

Stay tuned... I plan to celebrate quietly, yet nicely...

Anniversaries. I don't go overboard for the required celebrations (other than my 40th birthday, ha). Oh, John and I saw an amazing movie (Into the Wild), followed by a lovely dinner tonight, in the bar at La Belle Vie (always a winner) to celebrate our 5th annivesary. But the forced part of it, that this should be an amaaaazing night, better than all others, meh. Rather unromantic, I know. But I'm not that uber-romantic girl. I don't love surprises. Plus, romance requires a certain amount of sentimentality, don't you think? And I'm too practical to be terribly sentimental. The day-to-day is where the pedal meets the metal! Our weekly Date Nights are really fun to me, because they're not forced, we just go with what sounds good. Spontaneity that I have a say in, much more my (sometimes cranky, often controlling) style, ha.

So...sorry to have been absent for more than a week! Sheesh! Not cooking terribly interesting things - the Good Calories Bad Calories book has me thinking - a lot - about grains and sugar. Hmmm...especially in light of diabetes in my family, and other health issues, just a lot to think about. A bit of an awakening, perhaps. Doesn't change things terribly much, but while I'm all contemplative and such, I tend to withdraw. Hmmm...

Hope all is well with you!

Back to La Belle Vie, woo hoo! Man I love that place, love putting on 4-inch heels (that make me no less than 6'3", no lie, good thing I like being a giant), dressing up a bit (sometimes it's just time for a bit of cleavage, even if it's, uh, rather minor), and hanging in the chic bar, eating fabulous (fab-u-lous!) food, drinking lovely wine... Love. It. Especially while eating lamb burgers - again - I couldn't help but raving to John about how much each of our dads would love the La La La Belle Vie Lamb Brrrrger. Both lurve lamb, so both would mightily appreciate this seriously lamb-y, tender-tasty smokin' hot sandwich, topped with a spicy pepper (more heat, hoooey!), with plenty of cool-n-creamy yogurt sauce, in a toasted buttery-crisp bun. Dang. Dang. Dang. It's obscene, that thing, really. There are few things that I just need to close my eyes to eat and that friggin' burger is one of them, I can't stop thinking about it. Rarrr...

Well, perhaps I could stop thinking about it to appreciate my new necklace, the one I bought at the Edina Art Fair... The one Suz fought off the pushy-bitch-shopper for... The one that I get multiple compliments on when I don it (gotta love a piece that always garners the 'pliments...) Hey, if you, like I, aren't to-the-manor-born, then buy the (perhaps fake) jewels yourself! In moderation, of course. Yeah, baby!

Have a sunny weekend!

Dinner in the bar at La Belle Vie? Va va voooooom, my friends, sensual delights galore. Whew, I'm still recovering. We sat right at the elegant, candle-lit bar, watching the bartender do her thing. Beautiful drinks, one after the other, with fresh fruit purees, freshly squeezed juices, and clever combinations. I, who rarely order an actual "drink," fell for a Cuban - muddled mint, sugar, and rum a la a mojito, but with a splash of bitters and topped off with champagne instead of club soda. Tobacco-hued, complex, and refreshing - gorgeous to look at and sip. Off to a very good start.

And oh yes, we did order food! Lots of food. They graciously let us open with the soft-shell crab offered on the tasting menu (in the bar you can order off the restaurant's tasting and a la carte menus, as well as the bar menu), perfectly crispy-fried and resting in a spicy-cool pool of curried yogurt, garnished with shaved fennel. Giggling like schoolgirls, tee hee, we next devoured a salad and goat cheese tart - yes, could be the overplayed version at every restaurant these days, but no, 'cuz this is La Belle Vie. Perfect greens, perfectly dressed, with creamy-whipped goat cheese between layers of crisp pastry. And then, a bowl of three handmade (but of course!) pea tortellis in a truffle broth. Bright green and creamy, I damn-near licked the truffly bowl, that broth was so fragrant and salty and delicious. And there's more! (Each of these courses is small, thankfully, plus we shared each...). Skewered crackling jumbo shrimps, smokin' hot and served atop a dollop of zingy mustard-caper-mayo. And last, the creme de la creme, my friends....lamb burgers. Appetizer-sized, on fresh, soft, homemade buns, toasted crispy in butter. Juicy, lamby, tender, decadent. Ohhh so decadent. Served alongside a pile of spicy olives, you can achieve taste-sensation-perfection by savoring one of those olives between each bite of lamb burger. Rich. Spicy. Rich. Spicy. I can't stop thinking about those damn burgers, I could even eat one right now, at 9:15 in the morning. Rarrrr...

And so. Date Night was a big, BIG success, we basically had a blast. Back to moderate (ahem) reality for the weekend, and that's OK. A little dose of fantastic can take me a looong way - I'll ride that La Belle Vie wave for at least, like, two weeks. Ha.

Date Night! John and I are goin' out, just the two of us, and it's about time! OK, OK, yes we've snuck in a couple of fabulously romantic La La Lucia's lunches - but dinner, alone, not in a long while. So tonight's the night, baby, time to pin up my hair (this rain, oy, I have no choice but to pin it up) and throw on heels, a little bling, a smudge of black eyeliner, lots of gloss, and head out on the town (sort of, ha). Couple of options, but the most likely to win is the bar at La Belle Vie. Elegant, little funky, downtown, and the food is to die for. Yeah, sounds like a plan. For a full report, stay tuned...