I’m still feeling a bit down because of work-related stress and of course Seth, but other than that, it’s been a pretty good day. I got flowers delivered at work (¡qué romántico!) and we have a nice evening planned. I still have lots of crap to do before ICON Day and before I leave for London, but tonight is just for relaxing with my sweetheart.

We’re having butternut squash ravioli with hazelnut brown butter sauce, which I’ve posted the recipe for before. We’ll have it with a pear salad with bleu cheese, walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette. These items I’m comfortable with. For dessert, though, I made my very first cheesecake.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I’ve never made a cheesecake before. I think it’s because I never had a springform pan before. I still don’t have a big one, but I got some individual-sized ones as a wedding gift. So I made two little cheesecakes. I halved the recipe for a regular cheesecake, which made a little more filling than I needed. I filled the mini-pans to about an inch below the top, but they still poofed up to gigantic proportions. There was no leavening! I don’t know how it happened! I guess it was the eggs. Anyway, after they cooled, they sank to more normal levels.

They do have those cracks that cheesecakes aren’t supposed to have, but I’m not going to be too uptight about it. Hopefully by the time dessert comes around, we’ll have had enough champagne that we won’t care.