Weekend Wrap..

Probably not really riveting reading, but it is what it is (as "they" say)...

A lot of the weekend was spent in recovering (it always takes longer than you wish) from the cold that downed me the latter part of the week. A hoped for attendance at a Thursday night cooking class over in Leonardtown (at QualityStreet) fell victim to the symptoms. I was looking forward to it as it featured (among other things) a home made blue cheese dressing for iceberg wedge, a dish that I am increasingly fond of. The staff was kind enough to save me a plate of everything however, which served as a lunch on Saturday. Somehow, the recipe for the salad dressing didn’t make it into the notes, but that’s being worked. I’m a sucker for blue cheese dressing. You can have your dainty little vinaigrette, gimme the earthy creamy chunky blue cheese. I think it's particularly suited for that crunchy snappy iceberg. Kind of acts like a binder on the more delicate greens.

After spending most of Friday recuperating, the first social foray consisted of attending a fund raiser for the Hospital on Friday night. Although a nice selection of wines and appetizers were offered, the taste buds were still unable to discern any flavor of liquid or solid food. Sigh.

At last feeling more normal on Saturday, I spent some time on John Deere and with the weed whacker returning the digs to a more presentable condition. Then some couch time (a medical necessity) watching various college football games, suffering yet another national exposure of a bumbling Spartan team as they once again were too little too late. When does roundball start?

Rallied myself to go out Saturday night to that lecture at Calvert Marine Museum. It turned out to be not what I expected, and instead of speaking about historic sailing on the Chesapeake, it recounted a journey from Europe to the New World on the same route that the early colonists would have taken. Except this was on a luxury 5 masted sailing ship with gourmet meals. The presenter used some historic navigational equipment, which was generally able to match the GPS data from the ship. Entertaining, just not what I expected. A takeout from Ruddy Duck with a couple of pizzas finished the evening.

Yesterday we had some friends over for lunch, and I prepared a frittata served with thick sliced bacon. Only negative was that it was left under the broiler just a few seconds (time to go get a sip of beverage) too long, but still was edible. Given the early hour I figured that something bubbly would be appropriate and stumbled across a nice find. It was an ‘05 “Sparkling Rose” from Kluge Estate in Charlottesville in Virginia. It had a pleasing pale pink color with nice effervescence of tiny bubbles. Although the sniffer wasn’t still in it’s “A” game, I did detect some yeasty aromas. I thought it had (watch out) a nice mouth feel, sort of silky with a long finish. Whew! Enough wine speak…anyway it went well with the smoked gouda and MFO’s cheese crackers. It once again proved how nice a leisurely lunch with good friends and food can be.

Of course we eventually degraded to watching the “Skins” allowing Detroit to end their three year winless streak. I don’t know how the Nation’s Capital can have such inept pro teams (except the Caps – thank goodness). I also caught the end of the FedEx cup coverage. It was interesting to me how all season long, the networks had promo after promo about “the playoffs”, close ups of folks like Emmet Smith emoting about the importance of “the playoffs”, on and on. I think in every sport I know of if one wins the final “playoff”, that person is deemed the “Champion”. Makes sense. There must have been some fast thinking yesterday when Phil Mickelson beat Tiger by 3 strokes, and second place in “The Playoffs” takes the Fedex Cup. So immediately they started yapping about the Cup representing “consistency of play throughout the season”, and Lefty merely won “the tour championship”. I think they have a ways to go. Maybe they can talk to the BCS folks, they have it right…. Oh, wait…..

ADMIN NOTE: this coming Saturday, MFO and I are leaving Pax to attend our 50th High school class reunion. The Bottom Feeder will be on the road, but it will be a new experience in the blogosphere. In preparation for this odyssey, publication this week may be sporadic. But in no case should you not

DFD