Off to a wine dinner in a minute. A limo will be picking me up, so I can actually enjoy the drinking this time. I don't think I've ever been in a limo before.
Have a wonderful time at the wine dinner, DR John G!
It was quite spectacular. Aged wines from various cellars paired to the culinary creations of one of five chefs. My chef has a Mexican background and his food is largely Latin in nature, so that was what he prepared.
We started with a salmon ceviche in a chilled cucumber soup, followed by a several street tacos atop tortillas filled with mashed black beans (yum). A deconstructed chile en nogada had the right amount of sweet in the walnut/dried fruit sauce with plenty of savory from tart pomegranate seeds, walnut sauce and cilantro (forming the red-white-green of the Mexican flag in honor of Diez y seis de Septiembre).
The surf and turf main course was the most tender part of a strip roast and shrimp with their heads on with various vegetables in a roasted pepper. Dessert was a type of tres leches with fresh figs drizzled in honey. I ate the figs and a taste of the cake before passing it off to be consumed by someone else.
Wines were largely Rieslings with a sensational, too-young Califonrian Chardonnay (2002 Stony Hill; my 1995 Stony Hills are still about 10 years too young), a medium-aged Burgundy and a couple of Champagnes.
And the limo ride was, well, OK, because I didn't have to drive. Even though we also picked up my business partner, the limo itself was soooooo long that the driver had to take a much longer route than I would have taken in my Mazda 3. So, I read and listened to the rain come down.
