Beer Pairing Dinner

R and I attended a beer pairing dinner last week at a local restaurant.  We enjoy small town living and we are lucky that there are enough events to keep us interested...this evening in particular was amazing!

The night started off with a small sample of the brewery's summer witbier.  It's my favorite out of all the choices.

 First course was a salad with watermelon and seared scallops over baby greens served with a watermelon beer.  They used the beer in the salad dressing - I could have had a jumbo portion of this as my meal.

 Second course was an open faced reuben with carraway havarti cheese served with their famous rye beer.  It was an easy crowd pleaser.

Delicious third course!  Braised short rib and carrots served over creamy polenta.  This dish was paired with a mildly hoppy Black IPA that was also used in the gravy.

 To polish off the meal a fudgy stout brownie with ice cream and ganache glaze served over raspberry jam.  I loved the beer - it's dessert in a glass, a chocolately stout that can't wait to use in my next cocoa based dessert,

There is a rumor that there will be more beer pairing dinners in the future and I will be the first one signed up for it.  The chef came out at the end to receive a round of applause which he deserved -this meal was beautifully thought out and I still dream about that brownie!

Quick Update...

...I'm under the weather.

R and I went out of town for a friend's wedding this past weekend and my parting gift was the stomach bug from Hades.  The disturbing symptoms lasted from early early Saturday morning to early Monday morning and I completely missed the wedding.  R took me to Urgent care on Saturday and picked up some medication that knocked me out all afternoon.  R was able to be in the wedding and even snapped a picture of the lovely bride in her dress so I could see her.  It has not been a fun few days though.  I promise blogging will resume soon.

Honeymoon'n

I was looking through my May posts and realized I never blogged about our honeymoon.  I don't want to bore my readers so I'll keep it to only one post and hit the highlights.  On March 25 we drove down to Savannah, Georgia and stayed at the beautiful Kehoe House - the same bed and breakfast Tom Hanks stayed in while filming Forrest Gump.

It is notoriously "haunted" and I did actually have a paranormal moment on my first night there.  I was wearing my Bucky sleep mask and I had just put it on (my eyes were wide open under the mask) and I heard a distinctive little boy's voice laughing at me.  It sounded like he was was standing right beside the bed.  Of course when I lifted my mask there wasn't anything there.  It. Was. Weird.

On to more romantic adventures - our honeymoon highlights:

• Bonaventure Cemetary

• Tybee Island and the famous Crab Shack

• Private Carriage Ride before dinner at the Olde Pink House
• Sweetwater Day Spa
• Leopold's Ice Cream
• Strolling down River Street listening to music
• City Market Shopping
• Moon River Brewery

• Jen's and Friends Martini Bar
• 17hundred90 Bar

• Gryphon Tea Room for tea and scones

• Forsyth Park

We relaxed quite a bit in our luxe B&B and ate fancy meals complete with after dinner drinks.  I wish we had more time to explore such a beautiful city but I couldn't have been happier anywhere else.  The old Southern charm set the perfect backdrop for our honeymoon.

I met several local artists and brought home a painting and two pencil sketches for our home.  All three now live in our bedroom and and bathroom.  We also purchased a book of Savannah photos from one of the museums for our guest room.  We wanted to bring a little Savannah back with us and we can't wait to visit again!

Car Quest

About a month after we were married we found ourselves in our first crisis as newlyweds.  One Friday I was traveling my normal commute home and the vehicle's transmission overheat alert lit up.  I pulled over and asked R to come meet me so we could figure out what to do - I was only about 20 minutes from home.  He called me about a half hour later to tell me that his vehicle was making noises and he had to pull off on the side of the road, then it wouldn't crank.  We were on opposite ends of town completely stranded.  I was able to make it to him and we were able to get the vehicles towed to a safe place, thank goodness, but we had to rely on the generosity of our parents to lend us a vehicle until we could buy a new one and get one of ours repaired.

oh my.

Three weeks of car shopping later I am now driving one of these:

We were planning to buy a new car this fall and we had started to compare cars for safety and efficiency.  We compared the Passat, Jetta, Camry, Sonata, Altima, and a few of the hybrid versions but decided on a Honda Accord EX-L V6.  It is one of the most common cars I see on the road so obviously it's a popular choice - it tested well in reliability, safety, and customer satisfaction.  We are planning to start a family in the near future (not right away) and this is a car that I feel I can trust.  I drove it off the lot last Tuesday and I've been extremely happy with it so far, though I'm not learning the features nearly as fast as R has, I have figured out the air conditioning and the radio.

The moral of the story:  Just when you think you have a plan, God throws you a curveball.

PS - I've named the car Gracie.