It has been just about 30 years since Chip and I shared our first dinner together in our first apartment. The apartment was very small and if you crinked your neck way to the right, you could see the Catskill Mountains around the transformer. The furniture was all hand me down from dead relatives and siblings now married and needing space for a new baby.  My mother went to garage sales to get dishes and pots and pans.  It was magical, romantic and simple. That first night we make fish sticks and mac n’ cheese, splurging on a brand name of both.

Over the years, each and every time we moved to a new apartment up to and including our first home, we have made this very special recipe for dinner.  I still have those old pots lying in the drawer interwoven among some new pieces that I have acquired over the years.

Now that our new kitchen is done, it is once again time to take out that pot and make that “first time dinner”. While it is not a “true move”, in a sense it is. It is moving away from a part of our marriage and family that had young children doing homework at the kitchen table and moving towards a new stage of life with adult children soon to be ready to build lives of their own. Let’s begin.

What you need:
Love and the one you love.
Fish sticks- don’t be picky, they pretty much all taste the same.
Top of the line mac ‘n cheese ( whatever your preference is).
Candles

What to do:
Set the table with “good dishes” and candles.
Follow the explicit instructions from the chefs at Kraft and Gorton’s impeccably timing them to be served simultaneously.

Serve and enjoy but most importantly, remember.  Remember who you were back then, who you are now and who you want to be during the time you have here together. It’s been a good 30 years.

I love you Chip.