Tasting Your Memories

Later this year my husband and I will celebrate our 35th anniversary. We started dating, got serious, and were married all in 1977, so I’ll be celebrating 35th anniversaries of major events in our relationship all year.

Last month was the 35th anniversary of our first date. No one remembered it but me. My husband was out of town, but how much of an excuse is that?

It’s an easy date for me to remember, because it is also my mother’s birthday. He doesn’t have any such easy mnemonic. But I still expect him to remember. He’s always embarrassed when I get him a card or otherwise recognize the date, and he has forgotten.

This week is the 35th anniversary of my first birthday with him. I was twenty-one in 1977. He took me out to a wonderful restaurant in Palo Alto, California, where we were going to law school. We ordered wine – I was finally legal. (Well, I’d been legal in Vermont where I lived when I was 18, but I was finally legal everywhere.)

I don’t recall what I had for the entrée, though I’m sure it was good – it was a fabulous restraurant. 

But I do recall the dessert – Strawberries Romanoff, a confection of fresh strawberries and whipped cream soaked in triple sec liqueur. I’m not sure I’ve ever had better strawberries. I can taste them still – the berries and cream so sweet they melted in my mouth, and the alcohol burning a slow warm path to my belly.

Does this brief anecdote raise a memory of a favorite meal or dish you have had? Write about it.