Valentine's Day

I've written before about the Valentine's tradition in our home. This year I remembered my camera to share pictures with you. One day last week at the dinner (translate: lunch) I asked David if he was taking me out to supper for Valentine's day. He replied that normally we went to this nice, cozy, basement restaurant and wondered if it was still opened. By this time, as you can imagine, all five children are smiling and squirming in their seats just a bit (they knew that we knew they were planning something we just wanted to know what and when). So David decides to "call" (translate: pretend to dial a phone at the table) the restaurant. Nathan answered the phone telling us that yes it was open and that our reservations were for 6pm and in response to the question of what the special was, he replied, after coaching from Hannah, "Italian Surprise."

Then on Friday we got this "in the mail."

I love how they even put the postmark and canceling of the stamp on the back.

Sunday came. Everything was pretty relaxed. David and I napped while the children watched a favorite movie, then we watched part of the NASCAR seasoning opening race (translate: the Daytona 500). By this time the children would not let us in the kitchen and about 4:30 they kicked us out of the basement in order to decorate. To pass the time, David and I sat and watched Castle and Psych on Hulu in our office.

As time drew near, we then dressed for dinner and were led by the host and hostess to our table. Once again they had done a tremendous job of cleaning the basement, decorating a lovely table and providing mood lighting. As we were seated, on our places at the table were these lovely hearts:

If you can't read it, it says,

"Sous La Maison

Fine Dining at its best

Your Italian Surprise is....

The Food isn't Italian,

Enjoy!"

And then our menu was put onto the table,

It was to be a German meal!

a bottle of Riesling brought and our Vorspeisen:

Kasestangen:

This was a very tasty cheese bread that complimented the wine and salad wonderfully.

And Gruner Salat mit su-saurem Dressing (which I forgot to take a picture of ) A delicious salad with a sweet and sour dressing they had made - very yummy!

Once again the wait staff was very attentive to our needs and always checking to make sure we weren't in need of anything, and clearing our dishes as soon as we were finished.

Next was the Hauptgericht: Schweinebraten, Karoffelpuffer mit Apfelmus

I think David's and my mouths dropped open when we realized they had made a pork roast. When we tasted it, we were even more amazed. It was succulent, wonderfully seasoned, and so good. The Karoffelpuffer was an absolutely outstanding potato-onion pancake. It was so good, we asked for seconds - and they obliged making a fresh one for each of us.

Here is David enjoying the food and a glimpse of the table. Originally the candelabra was in the middle, but we couldn't see each other well, so we moved it to the side.

After our delicious main meal came dessert. On Saturday the kids had baked and decorated heart-shaped sugar cookies, I thought that would be our dessert, but I was wrong. According to the menu we would have:

Schlupfkucken

Another mouth-watering yummy, yummy food. It had apples in it with a lemon flavored cake crust. It was very, very good.

David and I kept wondering where did they get all these recipes and after our meal was ended we asked them. Hannah and Ellie replied, "From the library," and brought down the books they had borrowed and showed us the recipes.

We took a picture of the staff at Sous La Maison (which means "under the house" - they used our google translator app on the ipod to translate all the words) and thanked and hugged them for a wonderful evening.

They then asked us what movie we wanted to watch, and we offered them to watch with us, but they wanted to play Nancy Drew on the computer instead. So still dressed for dinner, with full bellies and happy hearts, we sat and watched McClintock starring John Wayne.