Someone sent me a very gorgeous dozen roses at work today.
Happy Valentine’s Day, all!
Especially you, my man. Love you!
Whoa /Keanu
Every now and then Claire will say something that blows my mind.
Today’s example occurred in a brief chat:
Claire: I think I’m going to grow out my eyebrows.
Jamey: The implications of that statement boggle my mind.
I know that women do a lot of weird things to conform to the modern ideal of beauty. This is something that I know intellectually. But from time to time I’m confronted by the shocking difference between the lives of Women and Men.
This is an excellent example. It never crossed, for one second, my mind that women controlled the length of their eyebrows. I knew that there was plucking and waxing, but controlling the length? Whoa.
The implications that I referred to above are that Claire is constantly reviewing and critiquing her appearance. This review is done to such a minute degree that she’s questioning the length of her eyebrows. My mind is immediately racing:
Does everyone do this?
How can this be important?
Are MY eyebrows too long?
Luckily, Claire interrupted me.
Claire: Nevermind. According to beauty brow experts of the blogosphere, I have good eyebrows.
Taken care of!
Whatever she’s doing works.
I think she’s great.
Anticipation
Isn’t there a song called “Anticipation”? I think there is. I need to fish around for this before I can fully post, since now I have some song that has “anticipation” in the lead lyrics stuck in my head.
Oh, now I am really lame. The version I just was singing in my head wasn’t even the original by Carly Simon…
…it was the Mandy Moore cover.
I may not be able to redeem myself.
BUT! Back to the origin of this post, and the reason why anticipation is indeed building.
Yes, we’re still getting married; yes, it’s still many months away; yes, Jamey and I do plan to adopt a puppy, but not (sadly!) yet.
We are going to be dining at Husk Restaurant in approximately two and a half weeks!
If you’re familiar with the Charleston dining scene at all, you’ll know that James Beard award-winning chef Sean Brock opened Husk last fall. To our delight, it’s not only a block and a half from our house downtown, but it’s on our street.
The New York Times captures one of Brock’s tantalizing new dishes in a review of Husk today:
And his Carolina Gold rice was served as if it were risotto, creamy and toothsome at once, with local mushrooms and an egg from Sea Island (its yolk the brightest orange), surrounded by a broth flavored with ham hocks. The dish managed to evoke the marshy salinity of the air that rises off the flats of the Cooper River at low tide, as dogs run into the water below the Carolina Yacht Club. This was the promise of Husk revealed, local cooking at its best.
The review alone makes me want to reread The Prince of Tides.
Perhaps you can now understand why my anticipation is indeed peaked. My mom will be coming in to town for her birthday that weekend, and I can’t think of a better way for her to ring in another year of her “thirties” than to experience Husk. We have been looking for an excuse to check out our new neighbor down the block, and this definitely seems like the right time to do so.
So, Mama: get ready for an all-out Top Chef dining experience. Can’t wait to spend your birthday with you!
Pork butt and dominoes
Apologies for our lack of posts around these parts; the real world has been interfering with a blogger schedule.
However, Jamey and I did manage to make time for a little dinner, games and fun this past weekend.
The pork butt and all its juicy goodness.
Saturday night, our friends Brigid and Kyle came over (and brought their new baby Connor!)
Jamey got up at 8 that morning to put a pork butt in the smoker, and arguably it was the best we’ve tasted yet with that contraption. (The pork we previously smoked was also delicious, as was the smoked chicken we worked with last week.)
Honestly, the food we put into this thing just keeps getting better and better. Our next attempt will probably involve some sort of stuffing, which we plan to mix with the mortar and pestle Jamey also got for Christmas. (I told you he got a bunch of cooking contraptions this past holiday, for which we are extremely grateful.)
We paired the meat with a side salad, some fresh green beans, a delicious sampler cake that Brigid and Kyle brought, and of course plenty of spirits.
You can read more about Brigid’s take on the night on her blog, as well as see some interesting pictures of Jamey and me. (It’s ok, we are secure in our level of attractiveness…although Kyle, Brigid and Connor’s normality may make us seem that much more ridiculous.)
But Connor chilled on our floor all night! It was more than precious.
We finished up the evening with a game of Mexican train dominoes, and I dare to say that we might have started a new board game addiction for the Hines family. (I think the Lenenskis and Monahans can truly identify. 2 a.m. domino games anyone? Dad?)
Dominoes by candlelight (and wine).
All in all, it was a stellar evening for an all-around relaxing weekend. Can’t wait to do it again.
Jamey & Claire 