Celebrating 70

I received a little bit of flak from my family this weekend for not posting to the blog. But what better reason to get back to it than my dad's 70th birthday?

Betsy, Susie, and I came up with a bunch of different ideas to celebrate, but in typical Dad fashion, he picked the one that was easiest for all of us and came up to Chicago for the weekend. We had an amazing dinner at a restaurant called goosefoot -- be sure to check out the photos below.

I can assure you that the food tasted as good as it looked! One of the nice things about this restaurant was that it was BYOB, so the owner of our favorite wine shop in Evanston, The Wine Goddess, was able to take a look at the menu in advance and pick out our bottles of wine for the night.

Overbeys and O'Gradys

Diver scallop/lemongrass/coconut/lobster

Susie posing with our smoked maitake soup/marsala gastrique/potato/thyme froth

Nina's pasta/perigord truffle/parmesan/pecorino

Winter angus beef

Susie posing again with our palate cleanser - yuzu/apricot/naartjie/olive oil

goosefoot vanilla/matcha tea/truffle/rose hip/pink peppercorn

Last course: elder flower/meyer lemon/coffee/fennel ... with a candle for birthday cheer.
Happy birthday, Dad!! 

March is a big month for birthdays on my side of the family. In addition to celebrating my dad's birthday last weekend, we also met up at Dave & Buster's to celebrate James turning 6. Poor Sean was a little neglected, but he also had a bday over the weekend. Don't worry Sean, when you turn 40, we'll mark the occasion in style! And Betsy has her birthday in just a couple of days, though she will likely ignore it until after tax season :)

That's it for the big March birthday wrap-up. I'll try to write again before too much time goes by!