RDC left for Florida this morning. We have not (I think we have never) done anything for Valentine's Day together but when he left I called AEK and ask her for a dinner date.
We ventured to Something Else, a new Sean Kelly restaurant (he is one of Denver's big-name chefs). It's where Claire de Lune used to be, a restaurant that I am sad never to have tried (it was painted a very pretty blue). Kelly drops the g from the restaurant's name so I am deliberately "mis"spelling it. They don't take reservations, and during the day the host I spoke with said they didn't anticipate a crowd, but when we arrived there was an hour wait and no bar. Therefore we retreated to Sparrow, on Seventh, which AEK had thought was a boutique, and there is a shop called Sparrow on Seventeenth. We had calamari tempura and bided our time, then returned to Something Else with what the host called perfect timing. We shared fried plantains and broiled mushrooms, and then she had a lobster bouillabaisse and I Moroccan-spiced lamb ribs.
It is the first time I have hung out with AEK on our own, and as nice as neighborhood bookclub or a weekend in the mountains with bookclub or Thanksgiving with a few people can be, one-on-one conversation is also great.