Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
I hope everyone had a nice New Year’s Eve. We did. A funny one, but it was nice.
I kept telling people all day that I can stay up past midnight every other night of my life, but when it matters, I would surely fall asleep. Yup, I was woken up six seconds before midnight by a, “Bob, wake up, we almost missed it.” Bob is my nickname. Bet you didn’t know that.
At least I wasn’t alone in dozing off. Seinfeld put us both out.
So what was on our New Year’s eve agenda? It was simple and fun. The plan was to go out and grab some Chinese food, sit down in the toasty warm basement near the pellet stove and watch some episodes of Lost. When it got close to midnight, we would flip on something “New Yearsy” and watch that. We did that, but during the day, I got this crazy urge for Tiramisu from Whole Foods. Last week, I had the best Tiramisu ever and had to have more. It took me about 15 seconds of contemplation before I bolted out the door on my way to the store. Of course when I got there, they were out of Tiramisu. I got some weird milk cake and banana cream pie instead. I will write about the banana cream pie later.
The really exciting event of the evening was the pink champagne that we purchased a few days ago. There is a certain someone who has always wanted to try this type of champagne. I’m not sure why, but hey, if she wants to try pink champagne, who am I to argue? It’s not like she wanted to ride a pink billy goat down the street.
Since I had never seen pink champagne before, I didn’t know if it was going to be hard to find. I guess it’s more popular than I thought because the liquor store across the street from Whole Foods in Glastonbury had a few different brands of it. They varied in price from $14.99 to $18.99. I think the one we got was $16.99 and is called Vilarnau. The only reason we got the one we did was because we were fairly certain that what was inside the bottle was actually pink. We didn’t know if the other brands just had pink bottles.
Let me tell you, pink champagne tastes just like regular champagne. Two half glasses and we were done. The rest we will use for Mimosas. I have actually only had good tasting champagne once in my life and it was Asti Spumante. I liked that because it was sweet. I don’t get along well with dry drinks.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all made good New Year’s resolutions!!!
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Champagne bottle cork
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Vilarnau pink champagne – sparkling wine
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Pink sparkling wine in air bubble glass
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Friday, December 5th, 2008
I have been meaning to do this for a while, but have been too busy being stuck in my little world.
Ever since our little episode up at the Red Lion Inn over Thanksgiving, my job has been not to only find places to eat, but to also find out what people are saying about those places.
I am happy to report that I have located two very helpful online resources:
1. Zagat
2. Tripadvisor
I am sure there are about a million other resources out there, but these two suit my purposes well.
I use the above websites for two reasons; one, to actually locate the places we want to visit for whatever reason, and two, to see what the rest of the world thinks of them.
I did a lot of reading through these sites a few nights ago. I found that many people’s reviews are quite helpful, but a lot of them need to be taken with a grain of salt.
The first type of review that I learned to be weary of is the “nothing is good enough” review.
A while back, Laura and I ate New Year’s Eve dinner at the Hudson House in Cold Spring, NY. It was the absolute best meal of our lives. If I could catch that chef and persuade him or her to come live with us forever, I would. Really, it was perfect…well, for most of us.
About half way through dinner, two young gentlemen sat down at the table next to us. There was nothing particularly interesting about them, but after they ordered their drinks, the complaints began. “This is too cold, this is too hot, this is just right, but I still don’t like it.” When the actual food arrived, forget about it. I am not even going to discuss that scene. What was strange about the whole thing was that the restaurant menu was fixed that night. We were all eating basically the same thing and stuff was flying out of the kitchen like crazy.
There was an important lesson learned that evening regarding various types of diners. That lesson was; we all go out for different reasons and we all vary greatly with what we think of where we are.
The other type of review I learned to watch out for is the “cheapo” review. It goes something like this, “Hoity-toity…extremely pretentious…must be an outpost for New Yorkers.” That is an actual review I picked up from Zagat. Out of 37 really very normal reviews, there was this one stuck in the middle. I told you about those Bermuda shorts people…
Armed with my new review filter, I have been able to pick up a few seemingly nice inns located up in the Woodstock, CT area. I was hoping to visit one of them for lunch this weekend, but my better half was non-compliant. She may need a bit of a nudge, and by nudge, I mean holding on tight as I throw her over my shoulder.
I am planning a nice Christmas dinner and will be sure to take lots of photos and tell you all about it.
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Monday, December 31st, 2007
No, this isn’t about drinking, but I knew you would think that.
I have this pillow case…and decided to use it on a certain someone. I had to find someone who wouldn’t care if I shoved their body in it. I found that someone in Simon. Yes, he is a good cat and was a good sport this New Year’s Eve. I took a picture of him after I got half his body in the pillow case.
You see? Simon is half in the bag.
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Friday, November 23rd, 2007
Wow, what a night. Laura and I had a great Thanksgiving dinner at the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, MA.
This is becoming quite the tradition with us. I while back, Laura and I decided to start a new tradition of going out to eat at different inns and restaurants located in different parts of…the area. Apparently, we have developed a few favorites.
I remember the first one we went to. It was New Year’s Eve. We went to the Hudson House in Cold Spring, NY. Since then, we have been to the Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, MA, the Village Inn in Lenox, MA, Old Drovers Inn in Dover Plains, NY, Fife’n Drum in Kent, CT, Bar, Barnaby’s in New Paltz and a few others I can’t remember. We really like the tradition.
Last night’s dinner was great. I was so nice to see the entire dining room full of people all dressed up. Of course, Laura and I looked marvelous, as usual.
Here’s a picture of the Inn at night…
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