Dinner with the Farmer

The Farmer and I went out for dinner Friday night. We went to the Iowa River Power Restaurant in Iowa City. It's the sort of trendy, spendy place that, left to our own devices, we would probably never go. But we had a gift certificate, courtesy of the neighbor's daughter, who can't tell north from south.

Back in February, when we had that big blizzard, the Farmer went over to the neighbor's to plow out their lane. The neighbor's daughter was convinced, in the way of teen-age girls, that she just HAD to go to work that day or the world would end.

The Farmer (whose wife was sensibly staying home that day, knowing full well the world would NOT end if she didn't show up at work) told her if she went north to the highway, she'd make it okay. Do not go south, he said. Go north.

Katey went south. And got stuck. And called the Farmer to pull her out. Which he did. Then she gave him a $50 gift certificate to this quasi fancy-schmancy restaurant.

So there we were.

The view is stunning, since the restaurant literally sits right on the riverbank. The food, sorry to say, was adequate. It was good but we could have gone to Texas Road House (our absolutest favoritest restaurant) and gotten more for our buck.

But it was a free meal and we enjoyed it and drank a toast to the directionally challenged Katey. It was the "Pulling the neighbor's daughter out of the snowdrift meal." Several years ago, we had the "Burying the neighbor's dead horse" meal. Different neighbor. Same idea. See what happens when you own a backhoe?

As it turned out, I was doing math in my head (that's frightening) and I knew we were close to spending the gift certificate but weren't going to use up the whole thing. So I did the sensible thing - I asked to see a dessert tray.

I ordered triple layer chocolate mousse cake and two forks.

I never order dessert when the Farmer and I go out. Never. Ever. It's a secret indulgence I hold in reserve for dinner out with the girls or when splurging on agility and obedience trial weekends. There's a whole ritual involved - the requisite ooh-ing and ahh-ing when the waitress brings the dessert, the distribution of forks, the passing and sampling, then the slow and seductive savoring and enjoying every morsel. Restaurant desserts are dang near a religious experience.

I was savoring my first delicate bite, letting the dark chocolate melt blissfully in my mouth, when I realized the Farmer was chomping his "half" down in huge bites, like he was shoveling in his mom's apple pie and was late for a fire.

Holy crap! At this rate, I'd only get one or two forkfuls!

Thankfully, the Farmer does not have a highly developed sweet tooth and abandoned the cake after a couple of bites. Or maybe it was the Hairy Stink Eye I fixed on him. (Oh dear, does that mean I'm resource guarding?) Either way, he put his fork down and I enjoyed the rest of the cake at a more refined pace. I didn't lick the chocolate syrup off the plate. I thought that showed great restraint. That cake was unarguably the best part of the meal.