Well I guess Fall is here, and I’m sick right on cue.\u00a0 Fever, chills, the whole bit.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 It really cut into my weekend entertainment, although I gave it a respectable try.\u00a0 Friday we had a friend over and grilled some pork chops, which managed to come out decent.\u00a0 I am definitely a fan of brining the chops…\u00a0 Huge difference.\u00a0 They were fancy-brand meat too, that might have factored in.\u00a0 Other than the brine, I just put a little Jack Stack rub on them and threw them on the gas grill.\u00a0 Throw a salad beside it and call it dinner.\u00a0 After that we retired to the patio because the temp was so nice outside.\u00a0 That’s probably how I got sick;\u00a0 Can’t spend countless hours in a 6×6 cubicle every week and then expect to sniff the great outdoors without some negative consequences.<\/p>\n
Saturday we had a day of wine tasting planned, but given my sketchy health we skipped the afternoon session.\u00a0 Truth be told, I’d have skipped the entire day but I’d made reservations for dinner at the evening spot and felt kind of bad just no-showing on them.\u00a0 Beside that, it was a free event and I’m not sure I could ever actually be sick enough to pass up a free dinner.\u00a0 (And to qualify, it was “free” for wine club members…\u00a0 Nothing in life is free, and that goes triple for wine clubs.)\u00a0 Anyway, this was the annual “appreciation” event at one of our favorite local wineries, Baiocchi<\/a>.\u00a0 All the clubs we belong to have a similar function, but all with a nominal (and in some cases, not-so-nominal) price tag attached.\u00a0 We’ve never gotten around to attending any of them, not even at Baiocchi. This time I actually noticed the email and thought, well the price is right so what the heck. The dinner was actually at his house out in the country, and it was no small event.\u00a0 By my “tables x chairs = people” formula, there were roughly 60 attendees.\u00a0 A local chef came out and fixed a multi-course meal and talked about it all, and the wine pairings, all outside in some fantastic weather.\u00a0 I even talked to strangers.\u00a0 Truly a wacky night out for us.<\/p>\n Sunday was a day of football and couch time, as Sundays are probably likely to be for the foreseeable future.\u00a0 I was still just a bit under the weather, and didn’t want to push my luck by exercising or anything crazy like that.\u00a0 Some friends in the neighborhood did ask if we wanted to come over for homemade chicken enchiladas, to which I readily replied “heck yes.”\u00a0 Again, don’t pass up free meals.<\/p>\n\n\t\t