Best. Anniversary. Ever!

Spent at the beach, baby! It was 93 degrees outside, and gods only know how much hotter in the city (and our apartment...) and since we had an amiable and adventurous houseguest (not that we have any other kinds- we're very particular :) we decided to make a day of it on the peninsula. We aimed for the ten am swim opening times, ate breakfast, packed up our suits and towels, sunscreen, bug spray, and a picnic lunch, and headed to Presque Isle, deciding to get as much beach time in as possible before the severe thunderstorms that were forecast arrived in the afternoon. I guess the thunderstorms arrived for someone, but it wasn't us; we stayed until nearly four in the afternoon, and the weather was perfect the entire time. It was hot and bright with a strong breeze, and some heavy weather somewhere out of sight was giving the lake big rolling waves, which made it all very much like the seaside, except the water was cool, not freezing, and you could stay in as long as you wanted, or at least, until you got tired from swimming over the waves.
The weather started to close in around four, so we regretfully packed up and headed back home. Two showers later and I'd almost gotten all the sand out of my hair. :)
We then all went out to dinner at Red Lobster, and had some extremely tasty salmon- we approve of their new wood grill in a big way- and I had a few snow crab legs, as we also approve of their "pick two off this list for a very reasonable price" thing. We had intended to hit the ice cream place on our way back, but we were all too stuffed, so we settled for heading back to the apartment and watching the entirety of the third season of the Mighty Boosh.

The next day, as our houseguest had to return to home and work, we decided to have a continuation of our anniversary, at least as far as dinner was concerned, and went for candles, wine, cards, etc. It was really nice. We'd picked up a bottle of the same champagne we'd taken with us on our honeymoon- something called "Bubbling Catawba, " from one of the many local wineries- and it was very nice indeed. I used a bit to make some mussels in cream sauce, the recipe for which follows. Like all my recipes, it doesn't have much in the way of measurements, so your milage may vary.

Mussels in Technically a Cream Sauce:

You will need: two pounds of mussels, cleaned and de-bearded, an onion, preferably sweet, some butter, some olive oil, some garlic, some ginger, preferably fresh, some wine, a little cayenne pepper, milk, and flour. Also some pasta.

Heat olive oil and butter in the bottom of a large pan. Cut up onion and garlic, brown this in the pan. Grate in ginger. Add some wine (enough to provide steam to cook the mussels, not enough to drown them) bring to boiling, then dump in mussels and cover pan. Steam mussels for six to eight minutes. While they're steaming, mix flour into a cup of cold milk- say one tablespoon for the cup of milk, and one for every cup of liquid in the pan you're using to steam. Mix a little cayenne into the milk as well, to taste. Ladle out mussels into another container, discarding any that didn't open or those with cracked and broken shells. Turn heat down a bit on the pan, and add in the milk, stirring/scraping/whisking as you do so. Everything should thicken into a sauce. Carefully drain the liquid from the bottom of the bowl of mussels into the pan, and stir that in, too. Serve the sauce over pasta- we like linguini, but hey, to each their own- and you have the choice of either putting the mussels in your pasta or just nomming them alongside. Have with some of the leftover wine. Crusty butter bread is nice, too.