Salutations™!!

I touched on The BCPF’s birthday, yesterday, and only slightly, but I wanted to talk a little more about it; about the whole weekend, really. It started on Friday when The BCPF and I went to Willows Bistro to eat, since we weren’t going to be there for our regular Saturday night standing rezzie. Chef Brent Andruzzi made us some fantastic pork dishes. Boneless pork chops and pork tenderloin prepared in the Andruzzi “culinary ninja” style. I have to go back to look at my notes to see what they were. That on top of four red wine sangrias made it a little hard to concentrate.

©Stacy Verner

After that, we met with The Traveling Mixologist, Jordan Keiper from the Tavern in Old Salem and co-host with me on Sipping NC: The Art of Drinking, at Wise Man Brewing where we had a behind the scenes tour and a few beverages  while Facebook Live-ing. Great night.

The BCPF and I got up on Saturday morning and we didn’t do our Saturday “walk.” It was her birthday weekend, after all. We did however go to Mary’s Gourmet Diner to have brunch and then over to Underdog Records to buy some awesome selections on vinyl. We went home, listened to a few. We met Jordan up in Pilot Mountain, at JOLO Vineyards & Winery, tasted great wine and talked with JW Ray of JOLO and Jay Raffaldini of Raffaldini Vineyards before we came back down the hill. We had time to kill before our next plan so we went to Meridian to have a few drinks before we met with our pals, the Verners, the Joneses, and Our Jim Young and Chef Mark Grohman and staff took awesome care of us at the “chef’s table.” I had the antelope and The BCPF had “the meat ball,” which is a rather large ball of beef stuffed with ricotta cheese over a pile of housemade pasta. Several libations, there.

Next phase: we all traveled back to the Verners’ house and The BCPF, Our Jim Young and I taught the rest how to play a card game called “Sh!t Boots.” Yes, it’s called that. We played that for a few hours and drank good beer and whiskey. Apparently, we drink a lot. Of course we do. It’s us that are part of the CrewTLD/The Beer Dads families. We drink. We have fun. We were missing the Lowders from the night, but they were still in the Bahamas. Can’t blame them for missing that, eh?

Next day, after the crazy time change (I wish it stayed Daylight Saving Time all year around), we went to Willows for a celebratory brunch and again were treated with fantastic Willows stuff including pork and pork belly & collards benedict. You just can’t do wrong there, I don’t think. We went and picked up 3B and went to a few open houses before doing some grocery shopping and coming home to cook and listen to records. Good times with her and my boy. So, according to The BCPF, her birthday weekend was fun and enjoyable. I did my job. I made her happy. Happy birthday week to you, still and again, my darling!

Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!

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“Sh!t! BOOTS!” – everyone at the Verners on Saturday