Sunday, May 9, 2010

Mother's Day Brunch

Mother's Day along with Easter and Valentines Day make up the holy trinity of eating out holidays. Rather than brave the crowds, we did brunch at home.

First course: warm cranberry scones (Mom likes them with butter, Debbie likes them plain and I like a little strawberry jam).


Second course: stuffed French toast (with ham and cheddar) and sauteed apples.

Only coffee and tea this morning. Saving the champagne for later!

Happy Mother's Day!





Sunday, May 2, 2010

Todd's Visit to France

Our April wine tasting was all about Todd's first visit to France in late March. This tasting was like the others in that we had a lot of fun and drank some great wine (1 sparkling, 4 whites and 1 lonley red). However, it a first for us in two ways ... we had 24 attendees (plus Mom, Todd and I) ... a record for us and we had an audio-visual presentation ... Todd shared some of this photos with us.

As usual, Todd has several one-liners (we call these "Toddisms") and lots of great stories to tell. Since I was drinking too (and had very little to eat), I will do my best to recap some of the highlights of the evening and his trip.

Todd and his GF Margaret in Sancerre

Toddism: "It takes a lot of beer to make good wine"

Todd estimated he gained 5 lbs on this trip. I think this has something to do with it ... a restaurant that served over 100 savory crepes plus another 40 or so dessert crepes. Yep, he ate the whole thing!
Toddism: "Rolling up in our European Mini-Van"
Seems the guy second from the right is a real wine stud ... 28 years old and owns his own vineyard. Too bad he's married with a couple of kids.
So while the other guy is a wine-stud, this is the Man's Man of wine. He has his own vineyard and chateau with a courtyard and a big dog laying in the courtyard.
Le Cav
Members of the Natter family ... who were awesome hosts and shared some of their oldest wines with Todd and his group.
Nice hat!
Rocks that are native to the Loire Valley
Bad Habits!
P.S. None of the wines we tasted were date wines! ;-)