We started off by enjoying dinner at the Chart House restaurant. It was delicious! I ordered the crab cakes, which were superb. Not to mention the Molten Lava cake. Really no anniversary meal is complete without a chocolate lava cake. Fantastic!
We spent the remainder of our evening at the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Cooking for Solutions - Party with Alton Brown. With a little prodding, I convinced the hubby to come take a picture with me and Alton.
More like I said - I'll wait in the line and you get some drinks! So very cool! We spent the rest of the evening tasting different organic sustainable foods and drinks. An even bigger plus was that there were only about 700 people there, so we could wander around the aquarium looking at the fish and not worrying about the 40 other people trying to look at the same tank as you. Sadly, the new tentacles exhibit was closed off - I guess once they get those cephalopods on a schedule you don't want to mess them up.
The next day we wrangled the kiddos up for yet another trip to the aquarium. This time for some cooking/drink classes. I had an absolutely fabulous class with James Beard award winning chef John Ash. There were just under 30 people in the class. He showed us how to make a grilled pizza. He told us that it is probably the best way at home to imitate those huge wood burning ovens because the surface of the grill does in fact reach the 700 degrees that is obtained in those ovens. And yes, we did cook the dough right on the surface of the grill. Yummy grill marks. I am set to put this on my meal plan calendar for next month (then I'll share the recipe!).
Chef Ash then mentioned that we had extra time - so why don't we make some crab cakes?!?! I thought - major score. I just had the great crab cake last night at dinner, now I'll know how to make them myself. Holy macaroni, I was so surprised at how simple the process was and how few ingredients created a super tasty cake. I actually think the crab cake I made was even tastier then the one I had the evening prior. Yet another recipe I plan on trying next month.
Creepily, there was a photographer there for the aquarium - so I am a little weirded out there may be photos of me cooking/enjoying wine at the this class. I might try to do some searches to see if I find them. I can't imagine they look great.
We passed off the kiddos and the hubby attended a class on pairing beer (Sierra Nevada) with food. He said it was pretty good. They let you sample food and beer.
I didn't take many pictures of my experience but I did walk away with these:
Given this army lifestyle, I am now a believer in if you can take advantage of an experience - do it. You may not get another chance too.
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