One of my best friends is Connie and another is David and they happen to be married to each other. Couple friendships don’t come along everyday. And this one is the cream of the crop. We started a tradition years ago when we realized that David and my husband Dave had birthdays 10 days apart. I love birthdays! I love finding ways to celebrate and honor people on their special day of the year. Well, Connie and I knew that the best way to celebrate these Daves was to cook them a yummy dinner. So, we spent an entire afternoon in the kitchen, attempting several new recipes, creating an elaborate dessert and treating our husbands to a great meal. The added benefit was that Connie and I got to spend all those hours in the kitchen together, which we love and rarely get the chance to do. It was a success and became an annual tradition that has carried on for over a decade now! "The Celebration of Daves" is what we call this.
It has changed a bit over the years, as we now have to recruit babysitters for
our 6 kids (collectively) and we have pared down the number of new recipes per celebration for the sake of simplicity and stress reduction. But a few things are constant: the meal is always a pleasure to prepare together, the Daves are thrilled to consume it, there is always Bruschetta for an appetizer and a great dessert to end the meal.This year we went with:
bruschetta appetizer (as per their request)
grilled fish tacos with avocado & mango salsa and tangy slaw
red rice and black beans
homemade salsa and chips
and for dessert: sour cream pound cake topped with fresh berries, peaches and whipped cream (and a good cup of coffee)
at the end of dessert, my Dave said, "this was Ridiculous!" (in a good way) and David T. said, "that was amazing...both times" (referring to both servings of dessert he had just consumed)
Here’s to traditions!