Fan Girl Wannabe

• Woke up this morning from a pretty weird dream. My boss from 10 yrs ago was telling me to be prepared to be assigned to one of two projects happening next year in FL. One was in Pensacola, the other at Ft Bragg (which is actually in CA). But I was still doing my present job for my present company, and the region I work in does not support projects in FL. I am in the "North" region which supports all of Central US and Canada <shaking head>. So geography and personnel aside, the weird thing was that DH was really against the move, temporary or permanent, and also against me "commuting" for it. In RL, DH has stated he'll follow me anywhere at this point, as quid pro quo for the past 7 yrs. His dream attitude though was very similar to his attitude 10 yrs ago. Hmmm-maybe that's why it was the 10 yrs ago boss in the dream. In RL, the furthest away project I'm contemplating now is in Tomah (2 hr drive), so not so bad.
• Last weekend, after some shopping, we stopped at Vintage Brewing for a snack and a couple pints. I had the Schwarzfahren, a Schwartz or black lager. Very tasty, and much much better than the guest Black IPA from nearby One Barrel Brewing. That Black was an unfortunate example of what-not-to-do with a black beer.
• While at Vintage, we saw an hour or so of the FIFA Championship Cup. ( Technically safe for work, but JIC )
• Also at Vintage, I finally had what my brain has for years been telling me "White Chicken Chili" should be.  This was rich, creamy, delicious chicken meat stewed in a creamy chicken broth, with white beans, and apparently a ridiculous amount of pepper jack cheese melted in to make it creamy and thick.  I am going to figure out how to make this at home.  The bowl was $5 and well worth it (which is not really true of about 90% of the menu.  The food's mostly good, but it's always over-priced in my opinion).  Another "White Chicken Chili" recipe in this town, at a very popular retro-diner, is actually red chili with chicken breast instead of ground or shredded meat. So not what my mouth gets ready for when reading that title.
• Tuesday is the first day of my week off.  We are driving to Nashville, TN for a family reunion on DH's mother's side.  It's being held at Gaylord Opryland Resort, and I am way too cheap to stay there.  Everything, and I mean everything was ala carte.  Rooms, wi-fi, breakfast, parking, plus the usual taxes, and a $13/day "resort fee" (what's that for? the pool towels or something?").  Instead, we rented a cabin on a lake (in Lebanon, TN) that sleeps 7 for the price of 3 fully expensive nights at the resort, thinking the adult kids in SC would drive up and share.  Nope.  The girl and one of her girlfriends will drive down on Wed night arriving in the wee hours on Thurs, but that's it for the roomies.  We have tickets to hear Alison Kraus at the Grand Ole Opry one night, and two nights (Fri & Sat) are devoted to the reunion.  We plan to visit Antique Archeology, the distillery in the same building, and find super excellent BBQ while there.  Other than that, we'll be laying around the lake soaking up the sun (I hope).
• Let me ask you: if you were going on a 10-hr road trip, what time would you leave?  I was thinking, since it's vacation, and I'm supposed to be relaxing, that I would like to get on the road between 9 and 10 am, with arrival probably by 8 pm.  This would generally keep us away from any type of rush-hour traffic, morning and afternoon.  DH has announced that he wants to leave at 2 AM to arrive no later than 1 pm on Tues (Originally, I was only going to take off half of Tues).  We were getting irritated with each other this morning while discussing it, so I said, "fine, let's get the car packed up on Monday, and then whatever time you actually feel like getting on the road, we'll get on the road."  I figure it will be closer to 4 am when we leave, but we shall see.
• I am having technology issues.  Since the last iTunes update, I have been unable to get my music to update. I have new music loaded on my hard drive that I want to put on my phone, but every time it syncs, it only takes all the same music it already had.  This used to be easy.  What the hell am I doing wrong?

Last night, DH and I celebrated our 21st anniversary since our first date.  WOW.  We did our usual thing and went out to dinner.  We even went someplace semi-usual for us - Eno Vino has become our default fancy dinner place.  We love the atmosphere and the service, and the food is to die for!

So I received an email invitation, informing me that reservations had been made for 7 pm.  I went home with plenty of time to change into something nice (longish black skirt over black patent boots & a red blouse), fix my hair and paint my face.  DH was also gussied up with a fresh shave and an olive/sage shirt & slacks ensemble (love the monochrome look - it's sophisticated) topped with a black sport coat.  We don't usually go all out on the dressing for dinner, but this was the first anniversary in the past couple of years that we could actually celebrate in the style to which we have become accustomed. 

When we arrived at the restaurant we were whisked to our table, where a lovely arrangement of 3 blushing roses were waiting in a vase.  It took me a moment to realize that they weren't the restaurant's decoration - no other tables had flowers.  The card read "Dinner, $100.  Roses, $40. 21 Years of Love & Happiness: PRICELESS."  Doesn't he write the best notes?!

On to the food:  (we ordered one of each and shared everything)

Red Wine Flight - 3 oz each of a Beaujolais, Merlot and Syrah.  They were all lovely, and the Merlot was a Hogue, so now I have another wine in that family that I'll be wanting on a regular basis.

Soup:  Bisque of Cold Water Lobster and King Crab with a Brunoise of Vegetables - so butter & cream laden and luscious I could feel my arteries clogging!  Garnished with a split crab leg full of succulent yumminess and a split lobster tail of goodness.  The soup base was definitely vegetable - with tomatoes lending the soup an overall pinkness.

Salad:  Mixed Field Greens with Kalamata Olives Red Onions, Feta Cheese and Aged Balsamic Vinaigrette.  The vinaigrette was almost syrupy and very intense. The salad made a nice counterpoint to the soup as we ordered these to arrive together.

We sipped the Beaujolais with the first course.

Next:  we tried to order Grilled Breast of Pheasant with Truffled Fig Risotto, and Chestnut-Honey Jus, but they were out of it, so we substituted Seared Foie Gras, Apple Tart-Tatin, Spanish Sherry Vinegar Reduction, Truffled Greens.  OMG!!  This was fantastic - the sherry reduction was dark red, almost black and we couldn't stop dipping it up.  I still would like the foie gras to be a little crispier and cooked more thoroughly, but the flavor was excellent.  The apple tart is a wonderful accompaniment to the foie.  I think the greens were more for decoration - I wouldn't have missed them.  We sipped the Merlot with this course, and it paired very nicely.

Third:  Grilled Double Lamb Chops, Roasted Fingerlings and a Minted Winter Vegetable Ragout.  We totally agreed that the lamb could not have been prepared any better than this.  The entire dish was excellent, but the lamb was awesome.  The perfect outer salty crunch and a tender, succulent middle, hot all the way through and not quite medium.  The roasted fingerlings had some blackened edges, and the vegetable ragout consisted of baby carrots, asparagus and zucchini, with shreds of fennel for garnish.  All this was served on a long rectangular tray, in a pool of what must have been pan gravy.  There was no description, and the jus was not completely thin, so it was finished with a touch of cream or butter.  So So Good!  And the Syrah, with it's spicy notes was brilliant.

We could have hurt ourselves easily, by ordering another full course, but we decided to settle for dessert:  
a warm cinnamon chocolate fondue (in a pot, over a candle) with cubed buttermilk panna cotta (delish!), homemade marshmallows, chunks of strawberries and bananas and blackberries, blueberries and raspberries.  I stuck a blackberry in my glass of Prosecco too.  In 21 yrs, this was the first time we'd ordered the super romantic chocolate fondue for two.  Go figure :)  We didn't actually finish all the dessert, which was kind of sad, but we were plenty full of good food and good feeling.  Also - solstice buds take note - the fondue is quite generously sized and would split well between 6 ::hint hint::  B tried to roast a marshmallow over the candle, but only managed to darken a corner.  Our waitress confessed that she too had tried that trick and had ended up with the marshmallow stuck in the candle holder and burning in flames. LOL

Our conversation for the evening included a lot of reminiscing of that first date and all the subsequent fancy date dinners we've had.  We're pretty sure that Eno Vino has been the most consistently wonderful place we've patronized and we look forward to many more special dinners there.

The roses are currently lending their fragrance to our bedroom from their perch on the shelf above the bed.  And the girl brought us a bouquet of flowers too - all autumnal colors of roses, lilies and suchlike.  They're in the dining room.  It was a truly wonderful celebration of "The Long Run."

We arrived yesterday without incident, and with only minor turbulence on the second leg of the flight (MSN-DTW-BWI).  After locating our hotel and unpacking, we stopped at the hotel restaurant's bar for a snack around 5:00.  I had a Yeungling Lager and DH had Sprite (pout).  The lager was okay, and way better than a Bud or Miller.  We also had the "Seafood Potato Skins" which was 4 skins topped with a creamy combo of shrimp and crab and buried under melted cheese.  This dish totally satisfies any craving that includes creamy, cheesy or salty, but otherwise was a bit bland.

After the snack, we set out for the Inner Harbor.  Yay!  We walked around in the most touristy section, perused several gift shops and checked out all the seafood restaurants' menus before deciding to grab carry-out from Phillips.  We must be true Wisconsinites now, because even out-of-state we had to do the Friday Fish Fry! LOL.  My sampler basket ($9.99) had 3 mini crab cakes, 6 butterflied fried shrimp, 3 grouper fish sticks and 4 crabby mini spring rolls, plus tartar and cocktail sauces and a lemon wedge.  DH had the harbor platter ($12.99) which included a crab cake sandwich (roll, lettuce and tomato, which he skipped), 6 butterflied fried shrimp, a handful of very tasty hush puppies, and fries, plus tartar and cocktail sauces and a lemon wedge, AND a miniscule helping of slaw.  He ordered a soda, I got a pint of the "house" Amber Ale and we headed out to a bench on the water to eat.  The food was of course, very fried.  The crabcakes were tasty but over-browned slightly, the slaw had a strange aftertaste.  There was way more than either of us could eat.  The amber was actually on the pale side of the style which suits my taste perfectly, and is more in line with a west coast recipe than an east.  All in all, a very satisfying dining experience, even though I generally don't eat fried seafood.

Today we headed for the light rail and back down to the Inner Harbor.  A day pass is only $3.50/person and all-day parking down there is $18-20. You do the math.  We probably walked more than we should have, given DH's stamina issues, but we rested a lot and managed to duck into air conditioned spaces frequently.  We toured the visitor center, the Civil War Museum, thought about the National Aquarium but decided $24/person was a rate designed for a full day tour, and then we headed back.  We happened past another restaurant McCormick's & Schmick's (ETA: corrected the name) and decided to have lunch.  If you define lunch as a platter of raw oysters and a glass of vodka!  Seriously, we did the large sampler - 2 each of 6 types of oysters for $20, accompanied by a hunk of sourdough, a virgin mary for him and Ketel with lemon for me.  The Beausoleil oysters from Novia Scotia were tiny little slurps of sweet delight!  So we had two more orders of just those brought for $7.80 each!  Heaven!  

Now we're heading out for a local version of Low Country Boil with all DH's baseball buddies.  We've decided that when you're in Baltimore, you can never have too much seafood.