Ninah Mae

In my husband's grandpa's family, there was a semi-famous cow (yes, cow) (OK, only famous to the family) who will be annually remembered and celebrated by yours truly, because she was born on, and named after, the date that was to become my anniversary.  Now, I don't know if her name was spelled "Ninah Mae," or if it was ever even written down, but I think that spelling suits a cow.  Don't you?

Although we managed to get a babysitter and to get away from the kids for an hour or two, young parents never truly escape the toddler influence.  Our restaurant of choice this year was LuLu, which is what we often call Curie (her middle name is Louise, just in case you think I'm crazy).  (I am certainly over-using parenthetical phrases in this post.)

I have never had such attentive service.  Not even close.  Nick had mentioned our anniversary when he made the reservation.  When we arrived, everyone in the place knew about it and congratulated us.  As we were seated, they brought us complimentary champagne to celebrate (awkward!  ... we don't drink).  The bus boy (man?) circled like a vulture waiting for us to finish anything.  Between each course, he would clear absolutely everything off of the table, wipe up, and bring out all new place settings, silverware, salt & pepper, etc. Now, maybe this is generally done and I just don't get out much, but I hadn't seen that before.

The food was awesome.  This is officially Nick's favorite place we have eaten here.  The hostess came by to chat about our anniversary and to put us in a good tipping-mood by telling us how young we look for being married so long.  Nick told her that we have a daughter that we call LuLu, so she promptly got a souvenir menu and a copy of the restaurant's cookbook for us to take home.  See what I mean about the attentive service?

Just after that little convo, we ordered the beignets for dessert.  Not only did they throw in an extra serving of panna cotta (which was amazing), our beignets came with a tall candle and a little "8" lemon rind inscription!  That little hostess told our secrets!

Hold on!  It just occurred to me why we got the star treatment.  They must follow my blog and wanted a post!  I am like a celebrity food critic!

Riiiiiiiight...

Happy Anniversary, Nick.  And happy post-mortem birthday, Ninah Mae.