Well Marc and I had our inaugural dinner party (OTBN) at our new home. It was actually supposed to be a month earlier, and then we decided to move so that changed things a bit. It was also the opportunity to break in our new dining room table, which we ordered from an outfit in Georgia called Primitive Folks. Danette clearly takes much pride in her work and I would not hesitate to recommend her and her company.
As you can see from the pictures, we had a great time and consumed massive amounts of food and wine. Some people managed to do some work over the evening - crazy. Rebecca and Patrick, can you write off the food and wine since you guys were talking shop? :-)
The highlight of the evening for me was the fact that Patrick and Dina both made seafood dishes that Marc actually ate. In the picture below, you will see an empty plate in front of an empty chair. That chair belongs to Marc and his plate is pretty clean. Patrick made a starter dish that consisted of crab meat, and a host of other wonderful things. Dina took advantage of the fact that halibut season literally starting yesterday and made some wonderful halibut cheeks with some polenta and tomato coulis. YUM!
Everyone had to come and present why their wine was selectd for the evening. We had everything from: - "sticking it to the man" - Chris and Shelly
- "going through phases of spending thousands of dollars on wine a long time ago and this is part of the last case" - Sharon and Ralph
- "the wine we had on our first date 6 years ago and OTBN is on that anniversary" - Rebecca and Michael
- "found it in some shop on the Champs-Elysees" - Patrick
- "was part of the winemaking process one year" - Laurie
- "discovered Piedmont wines on a recent trip to Italy and now I'm hooked" - Dina
- "the wine that made us decide to get married in Healdsburg" - Marc and Jill
But the best story was from Maureen and the story of her family unexpectedly inheriting a winery with Concord grapes and being absolutely clueless on what to do. So basically they knocked on a neighbor's door and asked for some help. "Hey, you got some sugar and by the way, how do you run a winery?" That makes this entry fall into the YCMTSU category.
What a fun time - and as expected, I'm writing this from the couch. Time for some leftovers. YUM!