Ah, a fine holiday weekend. \u00a0Left me a bit battered but I’ll recover. \u00a0Said recovery tends to take a little longer than usual since I\u00a0passed the 1\/2-century mark, but I believe there are more factors at work there than just my advanced age. \u00a0My memory is sketchy these days too, but I’ll recount the weekend activities to the best of my ability. \u00a0Lately I’ve been given to mixing up the days during which an event occurred, much to Donette’s dismay. \u00a0Three-day weekends are particularly taxing on me. \u00a0I figure I’m doing good enough just to cover things, the time and\/or day on which they occurred is secondary.<\/p>\n
Friday, (or was that Saturday?) we kicked things off “up the hill” with our friends Michael & Alaina. \u00a0I’m not entirely clear who scheduled the events of the evening, but I don’t get too caught up in the planning phase. \u00a0I was, as they say, “along for the ride.” \u00a0The weather had cooled considerably, making for a pleasant happy hour of sorts at Chateau Davell<\/a> winery. \u00a0They have a nice patio with a great view, if you can ignore the fact that you’re looking out over a highway. \u00a0We enjoyed a bottle of wine and a nice meat & cheese tray, then moved on to downtown Placerville to check the progress at Outbreak Brewing. \u00a0They’re not officially open yet, but they sell tasters one or two nights a week. \u00a0We dropped by a while back and liked the place. \u00a0It didn’t appear to me they’d made much progress on the building but they said it was coming along; \u00a0I’ll take their word for it. \u00a0After tasting a few of their new brews, we headed out for dinner at nearby Smith Flat House<\/a>. \u00a0This was, we decided, our official “best dinner yet in CA.” \u00a0I’ve probably used that label a few times before, but I can assure you they’re few and far between. \u00a0This place also boasted the rare quality of an actual “atmosphere!” \u00a0It was a really cool historic building, it was a nice change to not enjoy dinner in a strip mall.<\/p>\n Saturday morning, Michael & Alaina joined us again for a brunch at our house. \u00a0We’ve been on something of a brunch run lately, trying the menu at several local places. \u00a0To date, we’ve been left with the general impression of “mediocre & overpriced” at all of them. \u00a0(The possible exception is\u00a0The Purple Place<\/a>, and it is perilously close to the latter of those two qualities… \u00a0But at least the food is good.) \u00a0So, I decided to work up a brunch menu of my own. \u00a0Honestly I was basing this entire idea on an urge to make eggs benedict<\/a> using my new sous vide cooker. \u00a0I’ll admit a bit of disappointment at finding out nobody liked eggs benedict, and especially with soft-poached eggs. \u00a0The most popular menu requests were biscuits and gravy and canned corned beef hash. \u00a0Hmmm, didn’t see that one coming. \u00a0Well, I can do those I suppose. \u00a0I don’t think I’ve had canned hash since I was a kid, and I must say it was a sodium-laden delight. \u00a0(I don’t know in what alternate universe the contents of that can qualify as “corned beef hash,” but whatever it really<\/strong> is was pretty tasty. \u00a0I thought it best not to read the label.)<\/p>\n Sunday the highlight of the day was a pool party over at a friend’s house in Folsom. \u00a0We went to the same event last year and had a great time, it was definitely on our “not to be missed” list. \u00a0Matter of fact I was planning to come early and help with the pre-party bbq’ing this year, but that part didn’t work out. \u00a0It was a great party once again, if you could overlook the constant barrage of country music. \u00a0Hey, not everybody likes non-stop Dave Matthews Band I guess. \u00a0Matter of fact I don’t think anybody does, but that’s what you’re getting if you come to my house. \u00a0(Say, maybe that’s why nobody comes to my house… \u00a0I’ll take that into consideration.) \u00a0Anyway, we enjoyed the day, including the great bbq.<\/p>\n For the holiday, we headed up to our friends Michael & Alaina’s once again. \u00a0They are likely tiring of our company but our other friend was out of town so options were extremely limited. \u00a0They’ve got a nice neighborhood pool, and for whatever reason it is simply not used. \u00a0This was the second time we’ve been to it, and the second time we’ve had the whole pool to ourselves. \u00a0We set up a volleyball net, fired up a grill, and had a great day of it. \u00a0Both Donette & I managed to lose track of time and are now sporting\u00a0some heinous sunburns, but other than that slip-up it was fine day.<\/p>\n\n\t\t