Birthday dinner: Broiled salmon, steamed broccoli, parsley mashed potatoes, and avocado mousse

My birthday was Friday. We've been having camera problems today — largely an artifact of my running out of disk space because I've been keeping all my photos on my laptop (I've decided to buy a new computer just for photos and mp3s) — so I don't have pictures to show you. Suffice it to say, B cooked me a dinner that was both beautiful and delicious.

For the main course, B baked thick fillets of salmon, which he had topped with some minced garlic and parsley. He baked the fish for 22 minutes, and it came out divine: cooked all through, but only just, and still tender and moist. Meanwhile, he reduced red wine with some more parsley and garlic on the stovetop, and used used it as a topping for the fish. As sides, he steamed broccoli above the pot of boiling potatoes. The broccoli he served unadorned, and the potatoes he mashed with butter, parsley, and a little garlic.

We finished the meal with red wine and a salad dressed in a "vinaigrette" made with salt, olive oil, a clove of garlic, and a touch of the red wine we were drinking, not the cheap stuff that went into the reduction.

For dessert, which we ended up saving until the next day because we were full, but it would have paired wonderfully, B made a phenomenal avocado mousse. You might not think "avocado mousse" would be a good idea, but it is. We first had an avocado mousse at Red Agave, a Latin American and Spanish fusion joint in Eugene, where we went for B's birthday last January. It is, in fact, a very Spanish dish: it's a foam. In any case, B made the mousse with avocado and vanilla, and egg whites and cream and sugar. Mmm hmm.