Foodie heaven

As I noted in a post a couple of months ago, one of the huge benefits of working where I do now is that we get to take five free classes in continuing studies a year. This works out well for the foodie in me, since they have a culinary arts program. I blogged about my sushi class before, but last night I went to a new and absolutely heavenly (and free!) dinner through the program called Second Fridays Wine and Dine. It's a fabulous, fancy, multi-course themed dinner with wine pairings held once a month. All I can say is, WOW.

Last night's theme was buy local, eat local, so most of the food (about 90%) was bought locally within a day or two of being served to us. That which was unavailable locally mostly due to seasonality was still predominantly purchased along the east coast within a state or two (Maryland, North Carolina). The wines were from a Virginia vineyard called the Philip Carter Winery, and they were there to tell us about all the wines as we drank them (the wine master was 25 years old! how do I get THAT job?).

Dinner started with a social hour. There was a lovely selection of cheeses, including a hyper flavorful bleu, a manchego, a brie and something else I can't remember (a harder white cheese). Accompanied by kalamata olives, artichoke hearts and a summer sausage, this was a great start while we mingled and sipped the first wine of the evening, a Chardonnay. It occurred to me to snap some pictures of the food as we sat down for dinner, so no pic of the cheese offerings, sorry!
We began with a seared scallop appetizer, elephant trunk scallops that were huge and so sweet. Flash seared on each side for about two minutes, they were tender and soft and delicious. Served over locally grown and processed grits with roasted corn, topped with fried pork belly (omg, pig heaven!), I could have eaten this all night long. A light clarified lemon butter topped it all and it was served with a white wine that was a blend of Vidal and Seyval varietals called Falconwood. It was a nice, crisp, fruity light wine and complemented the scallops nicely.

Course one had me flustered enough that I totally forgot to take a picture of the salad course! It was locally grown Hanover tomatoes (right down the road from me) and fresh mozzerella, also local. Drizzled in a balsamic reduction and a little olive oil, dusted with chiffoned basil, and served with some fresh fancy lettuce, this is definately one of my favorite combinations of flavors.

The entree was a grain-fed, hormone free filet mignon from a local farmer who raised and slaughtered only about 30 head of cattle a year for the public. It was lightly salt and peppered and was served with sauteed fresh oyster, shitake and baby bella mushrooms (amazing!), sauteed zucchini, yellow squash, white eggplant, vidalia onions and garlic, and a lightly fried gold potato. The nice thing about most of the food we ate last night is that the ingredients were really respected. Everything was lightly seasoned with salt and pepper, cooked with good olive oil and mostly allowed to let the flavors come through. This is my favorite way of eating, but it's definately reliant on having good quality ingredients to start with. This course was paired with a Cabernet Sauvignon.

Finally, we ended the evening with a dessert course from a local place that makes their own dairy products, and our selections for the evening included raspberry and cantelope sorbets. I'm not that big on sorbet usually, but these were so sweet and creamy and tasted just like the fruits they had in them. I never would have considered making sorbet out of melons, but the cantelope one was just delightful. Served with a plate of fresh fruit on the side, including red raspberries, blueberries, some of the biggest and plumpest blackberries I've ever seen, watermelon, and cantelope, it was the perfect combination making a light dessert that ended a summer dinner nicely. We were served a sweet dessert wine called Late Harvest with dessert, which I'd say was just ok, but I'm not really big on the super sweet wines, so I'm not a great judge of that one.

I really wish we had more than five classes a year because I think I'd do this dinner every month if I could. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is just another reason I LOVE living here!

Another long day of unpacking and I'm beat. I'm backing up in the spare bedroom, holding a large box on top of the stepstool because I'm too lazy at this point to move them separately. I misjudge the placement of the bed in the new space and end up falling backward in what feels like slow motion, landing square on my ass, hitting myself in the face with all the stuff in my arms. I'm sitting there kind of stunned, assessing the damage. I have all my teeth and they aren't through my lip (though they feel like they should have been), glasses are intact, ankles are not broken. The kidlet is asking me frantically if I'm ok... if she can do anything.

I am overcome with giggles and ask if she has any spare pride or dignity.

Hehehe. Damn I love this new place.

So the move is done and we've been in the house a week now, and I have to say, it already feels like home. We're pretty much living in what feels like a box fort, but the essentials are unpacked (we can eat, shower and sleep) and we're slowing digging out all the other stuff. Ran into a few issues, like the boxsprings don't fit up the staircase (we cut one in half and fortified it to get it up there and plan to do the other next week) and the sofa is so big and deep that it is so close to the fireplace we can't really use it (I'm trying to sell it and buy a smaller one). Other than that and a few issues regarding "where the hell am I going to put all this stuff?", the house is a wonderful fit. The neighborhood is nice too, an older one (my personal favorite) with nice folks and good upkeep. Super close to all I need too, less than two miles from Ukrops, Target and a bunch of other useful places.

The kidlet seems happy with the move. Though she's just hanging at home for the summer and helping out, and I know that has to be a little boring, she's already looking forward to her new high school and meeting new friends. She looked pretty pleased to see the high school skater boys in the neighborhood yesterday too, though she'd never actually admit that. Hard to believe she's 14 now. We have some fun times planned for later this summer once we're settled in more. :)

And let me tell you how nice it is to be done with the rediculous commute I've been making since January. I'm now saving a hundred miles and an hour and twenty minutes every day that I was sitting in the car for over the last six months. Looking forward to seeing the gas cost savings too in a couple months once we get out of the hook up fee phase (I swear, utility companies are running such a gimmick with that).

It's super nice being back in a city after all these years in small towns. I guess I can say nice things about living in small towns, at least the ones out on the east coast (sorry Illinois, I never really fit in as a midwesterner) like they were good places to raise the kidlet and safe areas to live in, but I've always been a city girl at heart and I'm thankful to get back to that. Being able to do things like go to shows in the town I live in, hang out at cool bars and eat at awesome local restaurants, easily making daytrips to places like D.C. for museums and whatnot makes me very happy!

I have to say, in spite of the general chaos that seems to have ruled our lives for the last couple years, I feel like this is a great opportunity and that there are some really good, and eventually much easier times ahead. The positivity is almost overwhelming!

Some general thoughts on stuff to wrap things up:

1. Even when you add about 300 sq. ft. more space to your living environment, your 150 pound dog will still be underfoot at every turn, particularly if you're carrying heavy boxes.
2. Old houses are built for midgets. The counters and doorknobs in my house are very low, except for the one on my closet door which is unexplicably way too high.
3. I love (LOVE) the way my patio is coming together. The tiki bar development is in full swing and the torches are up, signs are hung, chairs and table are out and the fire pit is ready to go. My best friend, who is quite the handiman, is building me an actual tiki bar complete with tin roof(awesome!) and some adirondack chairs and we got some nice paper lanterns the other day. It's going to be so nice once it's done. And as they say, good fences make good neighbors so I'm digging the 6 ft. privacy fence! So peaceful back there...
4. Can't wait to get to the beach again over the July 4th weekend. It's so nice to be an easy drive from the beach house and nice to have my folks so close down there. I don't have the time or money for a real vacation this summer (for the third year in a row), but the long weekends in NC (yay for flex time) sure do help.

Sometimes I think I'm being tested. After all I've been through in my life, all the chaos and unbelievable situations, with moving day in two days and me doing it all by myself...

Sure, why not throw in a cancer scare just to keep things interesting? I sure wouldn't want anything to be too easy.

Some other notes and pics from the Atlanta trip (I really must go back there, soon perhaps).


This picture is from the top of my hotel. It had a lovely bar where we sipped frozen mojitos and watched the city lit up and bustling.


This is from the top of the Westin on another night. The bar was on the 72nd floor of the hotel and rotated around so you could see the whole city. It did a rotation once every 35 minutes or so. Yes, you could feel it was moving. It reminded me of getting on the raging rapids rides at the amusement park when you had to step onto the spinning platform. And no, the sense of movement had nothing to do with the peach and lemon drop martinis consumed. :)

I went to the Coca Cola museum, since this is the home of the company's headquarters. Lots of weird random Americana stuff in there. The coolest thing was a Willy Wonka-style tasting room where you could try every one of Coke's products from all over the world and throughout history. I think there were nearly 100 selections. Some were awesome (thank you appley fizzy Japanese concoction!) and some were ick.

I went to see the Atlanta Braves vs. the Chicago Cubs and had awesome seats right on the field. The Cubs are right there next to us, see them in their "bull pen"? The Braves guest pen is a riser with folding chairs. I kid you not. The Cubs were up 5-0 at the beginning of the 9th inning, but the Braves came back in a 12 inning overtime to win. Very exciting game! There were probably more Cubbies fans than Braves fans there. And I got my annual summer baseball game footlong hotdog and ballpark beer. Yay!

We found a cool brewery (Max's) a couple blocks from our hotel too. As usual, I had a hard time making up my mind, so I just tried them all.Totally worth it.

I sure took full advantage of my time in Atlanta. Makes me realize how much I miss regular travel. Rest assured, that will be increasingly remedied once we're settled into the new place. Moving day is Friday!