Well, he amazed me with a 6-course birthday dinner that he prepared. My parnter is someone who cooks regularily, anyway. So that wasn't the surprise. Weeks ago he asked me to pick out some recipes I liked. So I ploughed through my Bon Appetite, Cooking Light, etc. magazines.

I had serious doubts..simply because he became quite sick for 8 days with flu.

But the surprise was:
*appetizer of basil, pine nut pesto on slices of baguette rounds.
*rice paper rolls with veggies inside, with a tomato vinegarette dip
*lettuce and arugula salad with light oil, sesame seed and coriander seed dressing
*pasta packets with baby shrimp and escargots in a butter sauce. (Wow. He had the escargots. It was a good fit)
*seafood Spanish paella with saffron jumbo shrimp, mussels, buffalo sausage (his creative touch), peas, etc. Amazingly the recipe also called for proscuitto in this melange. He threw in some white wine in at end. Very delish!
*bought raspberry mousse cake with passionfruit gelee filling.
*pear wine (which both of us bought at a vineyeard last summer. It was ok.)

I went to bed...with my stomach huring.