Tom & Alissa

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary yesterday! I had to work, of course, but we had the evening free. We exchanged gifts before dinner; I got Tom a small checkers/backgammon/chess set in a nice leather-bound box, designed for traveling, so we can take it to coffee shops and other places where one might enjoy chess. He, being awesome, got me the Complete New Yorker hard drive, with every issue of the New Yorker in digital form from 1925 to 2006, with extra space for upcoming years. I’m excited about reading profiles on basically anyone who matters, on demand, and as Tom put it, “We can read the review of Citizen Kane - from when it was released!” Too fun. I’m totally geeked out.

We dressed up went down to Applewood, which we crowned “the best meal we’ve had in Brooklyn, and possibly in New York City”. We had intriguing cocktails (a tarragon Tom Collins for me and some kind of cucumber-infused thing called “Slopeside” for Tom) and a shrimp risotto to start. I ordered a duck breast over wild rice salad and Tom had a hake, and it was all very excellent. Small, succulent portions.

We dropped by Cocoa Bar to pick up truffles and then came home and had truffles and chardonnay over a game of chess. Lovely evening, lovely anniversary.

On an only vaguely related note, the Times book section ran an article today about e-books that’s really interesting, detailing the new e-book readers coming out this fall. I really don’t think anyone’s going to easily convince me to give up my paper books, and Tom, who likes to write in books, will never be convinced, but it’s interesting all the same. As the article points out, they’ve been trying to work on this for years. I just like books as physical objects - especially, as I’ve lately discovered, books published by Picador, which not only tend to be excellent but are exactly designed to attract people with my exact aesthetic.

And that’s that.