Tuesday marked my 3-year wedding anniversary. It also meant it was time for a tradition that I find hilarious, but my wife finds increasingly gross and ridiculous: thawing out a remaining slice of our wedding cake and eating it each year on our special day.

When I heard about the tradition of eating a piece of wedding cake on a couple's first anniversary, I knew this was something I could sink my teeth into, so to speak. Fortunately, we had a cheesecake, which apparently freezes very well. And more fortunately, my mother-in-law had the foresight to wrap this hunk of cake extremely well.

On our first anniversary, it tasted good as new.

I thought the cheesecake still tasted pretty good on our second anniversary, and that's when I proclaimed that we would enjoy a slice of this cake, ever shrinking, once a year for the rest of our lives. My wife just rolled her eyes, probably assuming I'd forget by the time our third anniversary rolled around.

But I did not, though I secretly feared that freezer burn may eventually put the kibosh on this new Tarnoff family tradition. And lets just say the wife was more than a little skeptical.

Tuesday night, as we prepared dinner, I pulled the frozen brick from the freezer. The wrapping certainly smelled freezer burned. But as I peeled off layer upon layer of protective covering, the cake actually looked and smelled OK. I cut off a thin slice from the unprotected edge and gave it a taste. Not exactly fresh, but not inedible. I hoped that an interior slice would be a little better.

After the cake thawed, I cut two slices. My wife grinned and beared it, choking down about half of her piece. I, on the other hand, ate the whole thing, and not just because I'll "eat any dessert," as she says.

That cake wasn't perfect, but it was just fine. And you'd better believe I plan on eating a little slice each year. My wife, for her part, pledged to take a bite every anniversary, too, even if it's more or less inedible in the next decade.

According to the FDA's Web site, freezer burn doesn't make food unsafe, just a little unpleasant.

Which seems like a perfect time for a marriage metaphor: With proper care, that cake will last forever -- occasionally we'll need to look past the bitter and smelly parts, because, together, we'll find that the cake is always sweet and wonderful at the core.