Whoa, it's almost Christmas!

Let me start by pointing out the obvious - it's December.  I'm not sure how this happened, but it did, and although it's still in the mid 80s where I live, (forgive the cliche) it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. 

Just glimpse into my world for a minute...

To Do:

1. Get a tree
2. Decorate the aforementioned tree
3. Put together a work Christmas outing/party
4. Attend a work party with the guy
5. Secure gifts for about 15 people
6. Wrap those gifts
7. Shop for my Angel tree child
8. Shop with Santa's Helpers
9. Make a homemade gift
10. Move those gifts to the appropriate parties/gathering
11. Bring pot luck dishes
12. Attend Christmas celebrations at Mom and Dad's, Coleman's Mom's, and 2 sets of grandparent's homes.

ALL of that, while going to work, catering other people's Christmas parties, saving money, and losing weight. (AAAAH!)

Feelin' the pressure?  Who's with me??

This year we can all sit around Mom's Table :)

To be honest the best part about all these gatherings is not the gifts, but of course, the food.  While I love cooking, and preparing yummy things to surprise my family, my all-time favorite part of the whole season is after all the preparations have been made, every checklist completed, the gifts unwrapped, and the main course eaten.  The time when some are eating dessert, some are drinking coffee and everyone pushes back from the table a bit and  the conversations really begin.  There is nothing like sitting around a holiday table catching up with people I don't see all year, sipping port, dessert wine, or coffee (in my Mawmaw's case Bailey's with a splash of coffee) relaxing and enjoying the company.  I love that warm and satisfying feeling of time well spent, the hubbub done, and looking ahead to a year all shiny and new in the distance. 

I've got better goal this year and that table is my finish line.  I am going to work to be so happy and full of the spirit of the holidays while checking all those things off my list and land safely at that table flanked by people I love.  I hope you've got a table to go home to.  I hope even if you're finish line is at an "in-laws" house or you've got to set that table yourself, you soak in that moment when everything is done, the anticipation is over - it was worth it!  Let that relaxation sink in to your bones.  Forget about the how the green beans needed salt or that the kids are running in and out of the room and be full of joy.  That's my goal. 

Merry Christmas everyone!  Sitting down at the table is only 22 days away!

PalletSmart made my Mom's Table.  They're having an open house December 8th

Wine Crawl

*I was given tickets to the Burleson Wine Crawl, and asked to write about my experiences there.  The words that follow and the opinions expressed are my own.

A Little Background:
Burleson Texas is not exactly my "hometown."  I'm connected with the place because it's the town where my dad graduated from high school, where the house is that I came home to, where I lived, briefly before moving a little further south to the town I would call my hometown.  I left Texas completely for college, and upon my arrival back home I came to recognize the things that were missing in Burleson.   Unless we were looking for a quick chain restaurant for a casual dinner we didn't frequent Burleson's restaurant scene, in fact, there was no "restaurant scene."  But just in the past few years that has changed.  There's been some kind of movement throughout the city to embrace the small business.  People are considered "trendy" when they find the hidden gem in what is considered the "Old Town" area of Burleson, a small, retro, "cultural district" if you will, that is found in and around the neighborhoods in close proximity to city hall.  I've heard rumors that this will be a walking district with more small businesses setting up shop, hopefully encouraging a safe haven of family friendly sidewalks and the like.  I had a restaurant there, as you know, with a focus on wine.  Maybe it was a bit before it's time....

1st ever press pass :)

You must imagine my surprise when I was asked to attend, and in turn blog about a Wine Crawl in Old Town Burleson.  To say the least my expectations were low.  I hate to admit that, but I'll just be honest, there are only a few local wineries in town, so I believed this would be a street festival with a focus on other types of vendors.  I was right about other vendors being involved, but I was surprised about the winery participation.

First off, it was billed as a local event, and didn't disappoint with  all 3 local wineries (Sunset, Lost Oak, D'vine Wine) there to serve and participate alongside a couple out-of-towners (Barking Rocks and Times Ten Cellars).  I have to say, the fact that there were 5 wineries in attendance really made the vendor/winery ratio exceed my expectations. 

My special helper :)

We were presented with "passports" and allowed 10 tastes of wine. Now, every taste was "paid" for by offering a tiny ticket from the passport and we were encouraged to visit the vendors as well.  For full passport participation (10 tastes and a visit to all the vendors) we were entered into a contest to win prizes.  I brought my sister (also known as my special helper), and we dove headstrong into diligently tasting through 10 tickets.  We make a pretty stellar team!

Santa's Special Label

We kicked off the evening at Sunset Winery's booth. Here we decided that in the future the crawl needs a faster distribution method, I'm not sure what that solution will be - more people pouring at each tent, maybe?  But for this year the lines (though long) moved pretty quickly.  I tried a "Santa's Special" red blend from Sunset that was a sweet blend with little character.  Not a bad drinking wine.  I will admit on this type of wine adventure some of the wineries have styles that I do not prefer, but that doesn't mean they don't have a target market that they know and embrace.  This red blend is a staple at Sunset Winery during the holidays.  The label- featuring a local guy dressed as Santa -  has a unique picture each year, making this almost a collectors item for Sunset customers.

Bruce, the wine maker at Sunset Winery

Local musicians were featured on a main stage, and the music added to the ambiance and seemed to make the wait time in the lines go by faster.  There were also food trucks beyond the featured winery and vendor booths that unfortunatley I didn't get a chance to sample as I was going to dinner with a group after our tour through the main attraction.  The addition of the food trucks was exciting to see and was a great draw for others because all the wine tasting kicks up an appetite!

Tiberia was a great sport taking a picture with me

From there we popped over to Barking Rocks where I was delighted to chat with Tiberia, the
winemaker there, who introduced us to the selection he chose to sample at the Crawl! Tiberia is the real deal.  A winemaker who is involved in his craft and who not only makes the wine, but tends the tasting room and shows up to events like this to educate his patrons on the wines he's made.  I enjoy his enthusiasm, his engaging approach, and his wines.  I tasted a couple at this one - a roussane that was a delicious medium bodied white with some tropical fruit, the rose that had an effervescence that I didn't expect, and I followed that with the merlot which had an almost startling coffee aroma that blended over into the palate very well.

Some of the Lost Oak Wines

I do frequent Lost Oak Winery here in town, so I was less sampling, and more re-visiting some of the wines at the next booth.  I will say tasting these with my sister and a new blogger friend I made at the Crawl was fun because I got to experience them through their eyes.   The Red Roan was top on my list to try again, but my sister and our new friend Emily chose the riesling as their favorite.

Times Ten Cellars from Fort Worth had a great selection, unfortunately they were already out of my first choice (Sauvignon blanc) but the pinot grigio was very nice, it had a peachy aroma along with some citrus that was pleasing.  I did end up sampling a zinfandel they were pouring and a tempranillo as well - hints of caramel and raisin made this one of my favorites of the evening.

D'Vine Wine was also represented.  This is another winery that does well in Burleson, but the style is just not for me.  That doesn't mean, as I mentioned before, that they don't know their market and serve them well, it just means that I'm not in that market.   While they do use some traditional varietals, their biggest sellers, (and the wines they were pouring at the Crawl) are fruit flavored wines.  These are wines that are made in stainless casks using juice that they purchase and then flavor with, from what I can tell, fruit extracts.  I'm no D'Vine Wine expert, but I feel they are a more loose interpretation of a winery than the other wineries in attendance.  I knew to think about these wines in a different way than I had the others, so when I tasted the blackberry merlot I thought it was a great little wine, probably marketed to people who enjoy an easy drinking very fruit forward wine without complexity.

Altogether I'm so proud of Burleson for not only putting an event like this together but for inviting wineries from other areas to compliment the ones we have in town and make a great event fabulous.  I am so looking forward to next year's event and watching this city embrace cultural growth in this way.

Postscript: Know of any wine related events going on around you?  I love to travel and would get a kick out of more festivals and tasting events like this one!

Good vs. Evil

I got the news early in the afternoon Friday that I would be able to go to a local, and stunning, performance hall and see a couple inspirational characters perform.  I was floored, and naturally invited the only person in my world who could appreciate this situation the way it should be - my Mom.

When I was in the 6th grade, I believe, I read Anthony Bourdain’s book (unbeknownst to my mother) Kitchen Confidential.  If you’ve been following along in my blog, you know that when I was in the fourth grade I decided to become a chef, so by the sixth grade I can tell you this choice was pretty firm, but between the charismatic storytelling of Anthony Bourdain and the PBS cooking shows I was taking in on the weekends, I was sold. If you read KC because of this post, please don’t judge me based on the filthy dialogue and/or the R rated scenarios you’ll encounter. Note: the only single thing my mother has ever sold on ebay was that book. 

Recently we’ve become big time No Reservations fans.  Mom and I are foodies, and adventurous women, and well, we fancy ourselves as the types who’d eat off a street cart in Bangladesh without giving it a passing thought - if we ever found ourselves in Bangladesh...with hand sanitizer lol.  From this you should gather that we’ve grown to “know” Anthony Bourdain over the years, and were thrilled to be able to see him live.

Because we’re HUGE nerds, we decided to go to a restaurant before we got to the performance hall, but not just any restaurant, one that neither of us had been to before and also one where we could order things we’d never heard of, anxiously await their arrival to the table, and eat commenting on each dish as an ode to the good (I’ll use that  term loosely) man Tony.

Shinjuku Station in Fort Worth was were we landed, and with only an hour and a half before the show, we were afraid we couldn’t soak in all the goodness the place had to offer, but boy were we wrong.  Our service was outstanding, when they heard we were pressed for time (and where we were going) no one made us feel inferior, they assured us there would be no reason for tardiness and everyone worked together to make our night enjoyable (shout out to Jered our server). 
The food was impeccable.  We had an array of dishes (made to share) beginning with Chile Garlic Edamame and ending with Okinomiyaki, a Japanese pizza type thing made with pork belly, napa cabbage, tempura batter, citrus aioli and all things good and wonderful.  I should mention here (not to imply that the food wasn’t beyond ridiculously good) that Mom and I are playing a diet game, to which a friendly wager has been applied, with some of our friends, and we’d taken this night as our first night “off.”  One of the caveats in the diet game is no wine, let me underscore that, I CANNOT DRINK WINE WHILE PLAYING THIS GAME.  It’s tough.  But at Shinjuku station, we had the night off, so wine we had.  The list was concise and most of the wines I knew,

but we chose a wine, well, Jered helped us, that was very unusual.  Marketed as a “wine to drink with sushi,” Oroya is a blend of grapes native to Spain that are blended to create a wine with a soft structure but vibrant citrus flavor and a hint of peachiness.  We thoroughly enjoyed.  I will tell you, but only you, that we had these mussels in a yuzu butter that were so very tasty that we couldn’t bear to leave the pot liquor on the plate.  When we asked Jered how we were supposed to walk away from the dish he promptly brought us spoons and a side of rice (some people just “get” you, ya know?) it was awesome. 

From the restaurant we stepped into beautiful Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort Worth, where Christmas was in full swing.  We did a quick bathroom break/wine stop then shopped through beautiful silent auction displays before getting our seats. 

Good vs. Evil featuring Anthony Bourdain and Eric Ripert began with an interrogation of sorts.  Each of the guys took turns sitting in the Hot Seat on stage while the other strolled past asking insightful/sarcastic questions that revealed hysterical bits and pieces of their pasts - Erik’s storied, Anthony’s sordid. 
Throughout the show we laughed inappropriately, applauded, became appalled, and then surprised.   
After the interrogation portion of the evening, the chefs sat down, cracked open a couple beers, and chatted about things that really matter to them, and I wasn’t expecting what I heard.  The message was clear: no farms, no food.  Of all the whirlwinds these guys have been through in their pasts it all came back to food.  Food is what drove these guys to work, to travel, what inspired them in their creativity.  Eric cooks with his son on Sundays, and Anthony would probably point out that cooking brought him to and eventually turned him away from drug abuse, it gave him something to write about, and even moved these two onto a stage in Fort Worth, Texas where they sat before at least 2 women who felt connected to them because of food. 

Before they opened up the floor for questions I listened to a couple renowned chefs talk about mistakes of their pasts where they’d unintentionally aided in the demise of species of fish and fowl, and how they felt about these things.  They spoke candidly about using ingredients responsibly now, serving sustainable seafood, standing up for the way crops are grown here in the US, and how they deal with waste and surplus by supporting inner city food distributors for the less fortunate.  They made points about the changes in our culture where food is concerned - diseases that affect so many - hormones, antibiotics, and chemicals used in our food supply. 

When I walked out of the beautiful space and into the real world, I took inventory of the situation:  Mom and I had a fabulous evening, we were well entertained, but more than that, I was prompted to think about food in a way I had previously neglected.  I’m hoping it wasn’t just me in that tremendous crowd that left feeling a responsibility for protecting our farms and our foods.

News and Events!

I know I mentioned this in the previous post, but I'm very excited to have been invited to participate (as a blogger) in an upcoming local wine event.  The Second Annual Burleson Wine Crawl is going on November 10th, and actually has 5 participating wineries!  I know we have 3 wineries here locally, and a couple are coming in from out of town, but the variety looks fabulous. 

I'm planning to update the New Facebook page I have associated with The Everyday Sommelier throughout the entire Crawl.  I'm hoping you find all this very official and now see this blog as somewhat more put together than it really is.  I'm truly honored to be participating in anything with an official "press pass" so please go with me on this one!  Speaking of, you could actually GO with me.  Just click this link and get your tickets to the Burleosn Wine Crawl.  We may even bump into each other!

It seems I need to brush up on the grapes that do well in Texas, I think I'll start this weekend with a trip to a winery, yes, maybe even one that's on the list of participants. I'm sure you can never have too much of a good thing.  

BTW - Thanks for reading my blog.  It means a lot to me, and I hope you'll follow along as I embark on this - the new adventures of a semi-professional blogger extraordinaire - wait, was that too much? Haha.  Get your tickets and crawl with me on November 10th, oh, and "like" my new Facebook page to stay up to date!
 

Days off go something like this...

From the last blog post you may remember that we had a pretty super amazing experience with some fresh sausage.  To those of you who thought I would never venture into sausage making when I causally mentioned recreating that moment at Contigo in Austin I proudly say: “ I told ya so.”  And to those of you who will finish reading this post and realize that I failed to create that romantic nostalgia I was going for even though I did sweat in a kitchen for 4-6 hours I say: “Touchet.”

Here’s how this all went down:

I wrote a blog post about a great weekend getaway.
I wrote a blog post about a great weekend getaway BEFORE I ate dinner.
I got a great idea to recreate a great weekend getaway dinner.
I went to lunch with my mom at a fabulous local grocery store where she inspired me.
Enough said.

The beautiful food for thought:


As I mentioned before I went to lunch with my mom, and this picture in my head.  I then made a list of all the ingredients and equipment I would need to get in order to recreate this meal.  I decided to make a fresh dried cherry and ancho chile pork sausage.  Sounds simple, right?  Ha!  Adventures to follow.

After talking things over with the butcher at Central Market, I ended up across town at a Hispanic grocery store and using hand motions and broken Espanol I secured 4 lbs of cubed pork butt, about a pound of pork fat chunks and a package of hog casings. 

Side note: you don’t even want to imagine the hand motion/broken Spanish combination that I had to convey sausage casings!

I rounded out the afternoon with a trip to a hardware store and a household goods store yielding 2 different meat grinders (one had a sausage stuffer, but was a hand crank, the other fit on my kitchenaid mixer, but alas, had no stuffer).  It seemed I was swimming through this sausage adventure, so I decided what the heck?  I’ll throw in that home made sauerkraut too!  (Glutton for punishment!)

The dinner was a surprise for the boy, so I hauled my haul (you like that, right?) up the stairs and got to work.

I was so amped up about all this.  I started with the kraut.  It was beautiful, and had a tangy deliciousness that filled the house (exit neighbors lol).  Once I had that bubbling away, I began mixing my meat/fat/spices and freezing all my equipment.  From here things get a little gummy.  

The Hand Cranker

 I tried the hand crank grinder first.  I kept assuring myself that “anyone can grind a 100lbs. in an hour!” Just as the box stated.  I ground roughly a 1/2 cup before my weak little arm gave out, the thing gummed up, and I ran downstairs to fetch the easy, breezy, beautiful Kitchenaid attachment.  What a life altering experience. This is also the time the wine came this whole meaty shindig. I’m not quite sure who can actually grind 100 lbs. of meat in an hour with a hand grinder...if you find that person send them to my brother’s house, I’m

The star of the show...

Minor set-back we'll call a learning experience

sure he’ll be wanting to make sausage after he reads this post!  I ground almost all the rest of the meat with the kitchenaid attachment.  It still took longer than I expected.  The wine helped.

After making the sausage I rinsed my casings - there’s something I never thought I’d say out loud! This process was easier that I first thought would be, and also, didn’t smell.   The pleasant surprises end here.

My stuffer didn’t work, so I kind of “funneled” the meat into the casings.  Needless to say after this misadventure I realized I was supposed to dry these sausages for a day or so before cooking them.  I ended up throwing caution to the wind and tossin’ them on the grill pan.  Not a good idea.  The casings burst open!  Interestingly, after 4-6 hours of working on that sausage I didn’t cry.  I didn’t shed a single tear.  Those of you who know me, know this is unusual.  I simply told myself that this was a good first try and I would try try again.  I think I’ll consider that growth.


The boy assured me it tasted better than it looked.  Since then, I’ve decided to order a proper sausage stuffer.  And some better casings.  I’ll be ready next time I get in the mood for a sausage adventure!

The wine I paired with this sausage is a bargain bin special.  Palacio De Bornos is a wine from Spain made using the Verdejo grape.  The grape is native to north Africa but has a very nice expression from Spain as well.  Usually they use to it make sherry, but it’s becoming more popular in French styles nowadays.  It’s usually paired with fish because of it’s lemony characteristic, and most of the time it’s blended with sauvignon blanc, so that lets you know why I enjoy it.  This particular wine is very fruit forward on the nose.  Meyer lemon comes through on the palate with candied pineapple and mineral qualities.  I think it’s delicious, and probably is very nice with fish.  Because I sensed a bit of a sweetness to it, I decided that it would play nicely with the pork and the ancho chile.  Now the sour cherry in the sausage was probably too much, but all together I enjoyed.  I also used this wine IN the sausage since the recipe I modified called for a white.

Locals:  This wine is on sale at HEB.  You. Are. Welcome.  :)

BTW - I've been invited to blog about the Burleson Wine Crawl, which means I get to give away a free ticket!  Comment on this blog and tell me something you love to cook that has wine in the ingredients and I'll choose a lucky winner to go to the Crawl on November 10th!

A Visit to A-Town

We decided we're a bit square for Austin - check out this art :)

Sunday morning we woke up late (ah, the good life), called the hotel to move our check in time back, packed up and got on the road.  I will say that the 3 1/2 hour drive to Austin was nice.  We hooked up some nerd devices in my little car and piped in a podcast (talk radio, only the nerdiest for us) and just drove.  After a couple hours I had to speak up to get a bite to eat on the way down because SOMEBODY could just drive all day without nourishment, but all together it was a spectacular day for a drive.

We arrived in A-town about 4:30, checked in with Rose, our concierge and then proceeded on a tour of the property in which the highlight for me was the little butler’s pantry where coffee service would be delivered in the morning (!).  Anyway while I lounged about the boy chatted up Rose and found a cool little locavore spot they thought we would enjoy for the evening.  How that conversation must have gone, “well, she’s really into food...and I like Diet Coke.  What kinda place seems real pretentious and serves Diet Coke in a cool glass bottle?” lol

I was told to wear what I had on, so my traveling jeans (you know the ones that I’ve worn once already and have reached the perfect amount of “stretch”), my t-shirt and I fluffed our hair, put on chapstick, and headed for the door.

Contigo. Was. Perfect.  It was basically in a playground, no really, there was pea gravel and everything.  I love when Texans describe a place as having a “beer garden” and what they really mean an elementary  school style playground with picnic tables outside that serves adult beverages.  Very different from the gardens in Germany, but a cute irony.  Anyway, we entered the completely open air restaurant and were greeted with signage stating that dogs and children were acceptable to bring with you.  We didn’t have either, but we had a great time watching other people with theirs :) 

Love me some people watching!

We had heard that at Contigo they make everything on the menu and they even have a garden area where they grow their own seasonal vegetables to include on the menu which had me super excited.  We started off with something called “face bacon” which happened to be all the parts of a pigs face ground up, seasoned, cured, and then sliced (I was thinking more of a warm, bacony situation, but I was mistaken) it was served like salami with some pears, arugula, and roasted peppers.

Face Bacon

The boy liked the bacon, very silence of the lambs!

The flavor was good.  The texture was not.  I ate one slice, and was seriously disappointed in myself. I thought I could be like what’s-his-name on the Travel Channel, and completely take my mind out of the situation, eat parts of a pig’s face all mashed together, then comment on the delectable “cartilage” that most people just “don’t appreciate.”  Sadly, I’m one of those (for lack of a better phrase) uncultured swine. 




Ok, enough about the face bacon, did I mention the wine? 

 

I selected a prosecco as a nice “welcome to the restaurant” for myself, and it was delicious.  Even though I didn’t particularly enjoy the appetizer, I do believe that the small bubbles and slight minerality in the sparkling Italian wine lifted the salty flavor in the bacon.  Leave it to the vino to save the first course!

Looking ahead at the menu I saw what the boy would choose a sausage made fresh daily with a baguette, dijon mustard, and housemade sauerkraut.  His was served with fries and Contigo made ketchup that was served in an adorable old school milk bottle.  I chose a chicken dish that was recommended by our sundress clad server gal that was served with a demi glace, fingerling potatoes.  when the sausage arrived, I knew I’d been out ordered, the sausage of the day was dried sour cherry and ancho chile!!  I would have loved it, luckily the boy let me sneak a bite (amazing).  He’s been talking about that sausage so much since then, that I’m actually thinking about re-creating it! 

Water in an old wine bottle, and housemade ketchup!

The sausage that stole the show

My chicken

There is something to be said for a simple chicken dish where every component is fresh and thoughtfully prepared.  I won’t get on a soap box about all the processed foods we eat clouding our palates with fakey fake fake imitations of real flavors right now, but you do notice these things when you eat a fresh chicken breast with demi made from real bones, and stock, paired with a salad of freshly picked greens and a warm garlicy vinaigrette.  I can’t say enough about the things Contigo does right.  I paired my chicken with an unoaked chardonnay, that I actually enjoyed (I know, you don’t believe me).  Chardonnay is obviously not my thing, but this one was unoaked, meaning there would be no woody, heavy oak flavor, so when I ordered I took that into consideration.  Malolactic fermentation had taken place in this one, so the wine had a creamy, lightly buttered mouthfeel that was balanced by a lemony acidity.  The wine played beautifully on the chicken with the rich sauce, and the vinaigrette.  It was a fun game where every time I tasted my food/wine combinations I noticed different layers of flavor.

Dessert. We chose a Marshmallow for dessert and were pleasantly surprised! 

Trying to figure out how they did this.  That marshmallow cream was stupid good!

Chocolate cookies filled with a dense marshmallow cream that was toasted, and alongside the sandwich was a raspberry thyme coulis.  I don’t even have the words for this. We fork fought over the last bite. 

Thyme Raspberry Coulis = A win!

No Joke. 

We sat under the stings of white lights listening to the conversations around us (hearing servers offer wine pairings, children running through that gravel), and we chatted about how “easy” it would be to make a place like this, what things we would do to create this ambiance, and how everyone we know would love this. What a delightful evening.

Eating the Worst is Sometimes the Best!

This weekend (the first I’ve had 2 days off in a row for 3 weeks) was a weekend for celebrating!  Not only do I have two days off, but the boy and I have been together for a whole two years (!).  So, we decided to get out of town even if we did only have 1 night.

leading up to this you all know that work has been downright crazy, so I was pretty excited when I discovered that going on a mini vacation was a possibility.  Naturally I over reacted (in a good way) and booked a getaway to a cute little boutiquey hotel in Austin, TX, and I spent all week looking forward to the trip! 

If you know me, and of course you do, you know that this whole vacation hinged on the food.  This is the story of a weekend filled with food so good I would consider it bad...maybe even dirty.

I got off work on Saturday afternoon around 4 and we began our weekend by attempting to visit The Woodshed, a restaurant popular in our area due to a “celebrity” chef named Tim Love who opened it in conjunction with our city (somehow I find this unfair, but I won’t get into that as I work for a municipality myself...).  At any rate, we attempted to go there, but were unwilling to wait 2 hours to dine (at 8pm), so we ended up at one of my former employees’ restaurants just across town.  I will say my old place (Wine Down) does live on through menu items I find when I visit the “kids” from my past at their new restaurant jobs.  
Exhibit A:

These shrimp and grits look awfully familiar!

 Didn’t Mom always say that imitation was the ultimate flattery?  I think so :)

The wine was great at the restaurant we went to for our celebration.  Our wait was long so I started with a...drum roll...Sauvignon Blanc (you knew that was coming, right?).  It was deliciously crisp with tropical pineapple notes that rounded out the mouth. I chose a pork osso bucco for my entree that was served with a wild mushroom risotto, so I chose a pinot noir to go with dinner.  The earthy notes in

Crazy huge pork Osso Bucco with mushroom risotto

the wine paired beautifully with the shitake mushrooms in the risotto.  Have you ever noticed a “piggy” flavor in pork when you eat it?  Maybe that’s just my farm-raised roots coming through, but sometimes I do. I characterize the flavors I find in pork the same way, leaving me thinking “piggy” instead of “porky.”  Either way, I think that piggy taste was complimentary to the strawberry jam I smelled/tasted in the California pinot noir.  We finished the dinner with a healthy slice of coconut cream pie to which I added a glass of tawny port.  Now, Tawny port is one of my favorite ways to end a meal, and I will concede that this was NOT a great pair necessarily, but I thoroughly enjoyed the port, and simultaneously enjoyed the pie, leaving me one happy gal even if the two things did not play on each other perfectly.

The “kid” we visited, my former chef at WD, is now an Executive Chef at this place, making me one very proud previous employer.  I also got a visit from the chef at my table (super cute).  This night was a perfect precursor to our out of town vacation that began the following day.  

I hope you’re all having a nice week so far.  I’ll continue reminiscing about my weekend as our week progresses, and you’ll be able to see how the C-man and I have the best time because we know just how to eat the worst!