Dinner & A Show

We returned from Yellowstone to Matthew Fritz cooking dinner in our house. Now, that's not an unusual local custom where chefs just show up and cook to delight you.  Since it was Carol's birthday, I had worked with Sarah to arrange for a private chef.

Matthew ("call me Matt" he said, so I proceeded to call him "Mike" by mistake all night and he was so gracious he didn't correct me) was the most engaging private chef we've worked with -- interesting to talk to as he was preparing food and I was catching up on work emails.

While he served us dinner in the family area, we watched the Olympic swimming on Maddy's iPad, using mine as a back-up for when her's would go blank.  That system worked well, and it was another great night for USA Swimming.  Maddy DiRado wins the 200 backstroke gold in stunning fashion.  Michael Phelps ties with two rivals for the silver in the 100 fly, as Joseph Schooling wins gold for Singapore!  Katie Ledecky swims like, well, Katie Ledecky and crushes her own 800 world record.  Anthony Ervin and Nathan Adrian go one, three in the 50 free.  (The Olympic 50 free is an amazing race -- because of the thrashing in the water, I can never tell the medal winners until their names flash up.)

I think Matt was amused by our enthusiasm for the Olympic swimming.  If not, he's got a good story to tell his local buddies about the weird family he cooked for.

And the food was fantastic.  The starters were plenty of dumplings and poke tuna, then a Caesar salad, followed by perfectly done (medium rare, of course) bison tenderloin.  Dessert was fabulous as well - a very tasty carrot cake with stuff to spoon over top AND ice cream for the a la mode!  

Later, after Matt kindly cleaned up and then left, we hit the hot tub under the Big Sky stars.  A perfect day -- Carol really enjoyed her birthday!