An evening of bitters

As usual, yesterday my best-laid plans were derailed. I planned a thoughtful, romantic dinner, attempting to recreate a dish I tried in Italy: tagliatelle with shrimp & arugula, with a light cream tomato sauce. I started the evening with Campari sodas and a bowl of potato chips, which, again, I copied from a cafe I visited. I've been told that Italians love bitters, and so do I. Campari is my favorite apéritif (technically in the "aperos" family of bitter drinks), and I love arugula.

All was going so well, until Griffin called out from the bathroom about a lost roll of toilet paper. I thought he meant he needed toilet paper, but it turns out, he needed the toilet paper roll fished out of the bowl, because he'd dropped it in there. You don't even want to know -- it was a visual that I will need to erase from my mind. So Troy and I argued over whose turn it was to do "that" kind of a job, and I lost.
We scowled at each other for a while and then managed to (kind of) like each other again by the time dinner was ready. The salad was good.

The pasta sauce was just okay, not a great replicant, and then everyone -- right, because we weren't alone, we had our romantic dinner with four boys running in and out of the area -- was exhausted.

So the planned affogato for dessert was nixed. Foregoing the espresso/caffeine, we had vanilla ice cream with chestnut honey and pine nuts instead, and then soon called it a night. So much for my execution of Mannix's concept of dating in. Next year I'll hire a sitter and run like hell.

Good riddance, St. Valentine!