A blog by Cameron and Shannon

As you are probably aware, Shannon and I share an affinity for Florida, and venture there on a fairly regular basis to visit her family, hang out with friends, and satisfy our need to occasionally locate ourselves next to a gulf and/or ocean of some sort.

We attempted (and succeeded) at all of the above. I just unloaded our car (yes, it always takes us a few days to unpack; my suitcase is still open on the floor of the living room), and the following items were in our trunk:

• A copy of the 1977 board game Dungeon Dice
• A handpainted ceramic R2-D2
• An Apple Keyboard II (brand new in plastic)
• The Rolling Stones’ “Out Of Our Heads” vinyl LP
• A deer pelt

Pretty run-of-the-mill for a Florida trip, really. We also ate like kings, finished a fair amount of our vacation books, went to the beach, visited with some Indians, and successfully completed Ed & Barb’s Donut Challenge. Read on!

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I didn’t originally set out to roast a chicken for this meal - I set out to make an Anthony Bourdain recipe of some sort. But let’s review: I’m a decidedly average (some may say “ridiculously unexperienced”) cook, while Bourdain is a 30-year veteran of French cuisine — and in his Les Halles cookbook, he isn’t about to cut you any slack. Ever. And he’ll call you impolite names every three pages. It’s rough.

Nevertheless, since I haven’t dropped the $35 necessary for his book yet, I googled “Bourdain recipe” and found Nick Kindelsperger’s entertaining Poulet Roti experience on The Paupered Chef (which, by the way, appears to be a real cooking blog, check it out). Hooray! A reasonably simple recipe with reasonably simple ingredients!

So, I set to it. Time to roast my first chicken!

Mise in place, sort of.

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I’m something like 6 weeks late telling you about this, which is a shame, because it’s awesome.

Shannon and I aren’t big fans of Valentine’s Day. Granted, back when we were dating, I used V-Day as an opportunity to flawlessly execute all sorts of fabulously romantic plans with … wait, actually, we started dating in June and were engaged by December, so February as a whole never really came into play until she already had the ring. So, never mind.

Last year I got us a reservation at the ridiculous 2-story Maggiano’s in West End, where we had to wait 30 minutes for a table anyway and turned out to only be 1 story (the bottom story is restrooms and a VIP something-or-other).

The point is, Valentine’s is lame. Not that I don’t like arranging romantic evenings or whatever, but I feel no need to time my romantic arrangements on some sort of a national scale with the rest of society. Plus, all the good restaurants are crowded.

This year, Shannon had a brilliant idea. She offered to fix us a seven-course dinner. I was speechless. Seven courses! Even better: She wanted it to be a surprise! (Translation: I didn’t have to do anything!)

Seven courses, by candlelight, for me … I mean us.

Ultra-brilliant! Smashing! Awesome! Here’s how it went.

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