The Former Baker: Year One

Monday was our anniversary, the big one year! We decided to start the celebration this past Saturday (well Andrew actually decided because he was planning our date) by going to Restaurant Iris, easily considered the best restaurant in Memphis. The dinner was one of the best I've ever had and also one of the best times we've had all year. The food was genius. Classic dishes topped with elegance and wit. I had the shrimp and grits, while Andrew devoured the surf and turf-- a NY strip steak cut in half, stuffed with fried oysters and blue cheese sauce. We had the whole restaurant experience; drinks, appetizers, main course and dessert.

For our actual anniversary, I decided to cook dinner. Since I love to cook, I also thought it would be nice to start an anniversary tradition... here is the background to that tradition. For our honeymoon we went to Kiawah Island and stayed at the Sanctuary. Twice we left the island and headed into Charleston. We fell in love with Charleston, especially with Magnolias, one of the restaurants we dined at. As my souvenir for the trip, I purchased the Magnolias cookbook, which I love, but rarely use. For our new found tradition, I decided to incorporate one of the recipes from the Magnolias cookbook into our anniversary dinner-- a new year, a new dish! Hopefully I can keep this going.

I've included a variety of pictures in this post. I don't think anyone ever saw any pictures from our honeymoon (we took maybe ten on Andrew's phone, mostly awkward solo shots), so I'm posting a few of those. I also added pictures from both anniversary dinners and the wedding. Thanks for all the texts and phone calls on our special day!