Anniversary at the 11th Hour

No one in Payson, Utah had ever seen anything Jewish.

I feel like I haven't been blogging that well for awhile, not keeping up with Lara.  Tonight I wanted to do a big corny anniversary post, because well, I was married 17 years ago today, and to say that makes me sound really old, because I was old for Utah, old for my cultural heritage, when I did finally marry.  It was only when I moved to NYC did I realize I had actually married youngish.  

I got married in Payson, Utah in my grandma's backyard.  My grandma (who died in 2009) was/is Mormon, as is my entire family, but I married a Jewish man from the East, so we had a chuppah, as you can see.  Chuppahs are pretty when made with prayer shawls and branches, but they can get super fancy, fancier than this chuppah.  Like I'm sure if Tom Cruise ever marries a Jewish film star, she will demand a chuppah covered in fresh expensive flowers or some such thing.

My dress was made by a young single mother friend of mine who sewed costumes for the University of Utah ballet.  She made me this ginormous and heavy tulle veil that fell to the floor.  Sometimes I wish I had at least gone wedding dress shopping--just to see how something from the '90s-era wedding industry would have looked on me, but I was too snotty for that at the time.  Plus, I was busy and poor:  still in graduate school. 

The event was catered by this catering company my grandmother found. I told the catering company to make pad thai, but they didn't know how.  I rode my bike to the SLC public library to get a Thai cookbook and photocopied the recipe for the catering company.  What they came up with wasn't that good.  I wish I had had Lara cater my wedding.  As you have probably read here, she is a master at it. 

My grandmother had LOTS of arguments in the weeks leading up to the wedding.  For example, she wanted me to play Englebert Humperdink at the reception.  But I made a mix tape filled with Bob Dylan and '70s-era Elton John and Herb Alpert and Joni Mitchell and Jimi Hendrix.  I wish I still had those mix tapes.  

I tried to post more pictures here  (more photos of photos), but Twitter wasn't cooperating.  

Tonight we took a ferry from the South Street Seaport to Williamsburg and ate at Reynards in the Wyeth Hotel.  Like your Communal, Lara, they use only locally grown produce and their menu changes everyday.  We had the cucumber rhubarb soup and the roasted romaine and mint salad (a special), plus the roasted olives and trout and pike.  

We ate to music by the Kinks.  Our waiter was a young. adorable gay man, reddish hair and short shorts and a plaid shirt.  It was one of the best meals of my life.  I love that I can keep saying that.  It stuns me sometimes how great food can be and how much I enjoy it, especially with A.