Resolutions No. 4 and 9 collide - gnocchi and a dinner date

When I started my resolutions last year, I thought some of them would be harder to complete than others. I thought making gnocchi (resolution No. 4) with my aunt would be easy enough. I told her I wanted to learn the recipe about six months ago and I mentioned it when I saw her for family gatherings throughout the year. But as the holidays rolled around, she has been busy with work and when she made gnocchi for a cousin who was home from marine boot camp, I happened to be out of town that day so I couldn't help. But she's promised to show me the recipe in January so I'll still get around to it.

But I did make gnocchi this year even though it wasn't my family's traditional gnocchi recipe. And strangely enough the gnocchi-making was tied to another resolution. I made a resolution to go on one date this year (No. 9.) And this is one of the resolutions I thought would be hardest to complete since it required someone else to make it happen.

I had a couple "was it or wasn't it a date" experiences earlier in the year and though my coworker insists that if the guy pays, its' a date, I didn't agree. The whole dating thing just seemed like a lot of work most of the year as I asked my friends to set me up on blind dates and tried other ways to meet people.

I needed something clear cut to clear the resolution. So when my sister's girlfriend asked if she could set me up on a blind date I agreed. I met the guy for coffee, and since it was a short 30 min. meeting at Starbucks, it didn't really feel like a date. But we followed up with dinner, so I figured that must count as a date. The thing is, when dinner was over after an hour, I was ready to go.

But a few weeks later, I made plans with another guy. We had lunch together, and when lunch was over, I wasn't ready to go. We walked around Santana Row. And when we'd walked around there for a while, he asked if I wanted to rent a movie and hang out some more. And I found I did want to spend more time with him. And after I left, I knew wanted to make plans with him again.

So a couple weeks later when he offered to make me dinner, I knew it was a date. And I really knew it was a date when I arrived and he was preparing to make homemade spinach gnocchi instead of pasta from a box with a jar of sauce (which is what I expected.) If he was trying to impress me, it worked. He did most of the work, though I offered to help. The gnocchi recipe is not much like the one my family makes which uses potatoes since it used spinach, parmesan cheese, flour and eggs to make the gnocchi. The only thing that was similar was the shape of the dumplings. I had a hand in putting in a few of the ingredients into the gnocchi mixture and I helped roll them into dumplings, though he did most of the work. I brought garlic bread and a bottle of my favorite wine. The recipes are definitely ones I would use again and it was nice to share a meal with someone else on what was clearly a date.