whine & dine

And my bunny is no different. Today’s her birthday, and since I’ve made a habit of baking something on Mondays – my off day – I decided to let her pick what I’d bake this week. I had hardly finished asking her when she immediately squeaked, “CAAAN WE HAAAVE CARROT CUPCAKES? WITH THE LITTLE BABY CARROTS?”

She was talking about these little sugar decorations that we’d chanced upon while in Sydney over my birthday, which I’d conned her into buying.

When we first moved in together, Bunny and I would go out for a nice dinner at least once a month – “date night” we called it. Date Night was really just our excuse to go out and splurge on ourselves. Ever since we moved into our current apartment that came with a nice kitchen that I’ve since fastidiously decked out, instead of going out to spend time together, we now love nothing more than being able to have a quiet night in, just the two of us, over a meal that I’ve cooked for her. Since I’ve started work, we obviously can’t eat together – whether at home or dining out – as much as we would like. As such, I thought I’d not just bake cupcakes, but cook dinner for the two of us at home. On the menu were Pork Chops with a Mustard Sauce (from Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries, a book that’s bursting at the seams with oodles of thoroughly English recipes), a beautiful orange sorbet from the same book, and – as requested – Carrot Cupcakes.

I know many people (my age) looking in would imagine that she and I lead rather boring lives – we both go to work, we hardly see each other till after 11 at night. We don’t even get weekends together. When we have time to spend together, instead of going out and painting the town red, we opt to stay in and lie in each others’ arms, just enjoying the quiet silence of each others company. Yet, there’s nothing more that I could want in this world. Nothing gets me through those days where I spend 12 hours standing in a hot, humid kitchen, assembling starter and dessert after starter and dessert than knowing that at the end of the day, she’ll be there for me to climb into bed right next to and fall asleep with, and that no matter how smelly I am, and no matter how loud I snore, she’ll be here by my side.

Happy birthday baby. I’m so glad I’ve been able to spend the last 3 with you, and I look forward to the next 50 together.