2009 Wrap-Up

This week's blog is designed as a little grab-bag of minutia: A few thoughts that may not have enough content for a full post, but are still worth sharing.

When Heather and I exchanged Christmas presents this year, we discovered that each of our main event presents were suited to the over 21 crowd. I had purchased Heather a one-year membership to the New York Times wine club. Heather and I both love wine and because the wine club is run by the New York Times, we can be sure that each bottle will be erudite and elitist--just our style. Every two months she will be mailed a new bottle with food pairing suggestions and a corresponding review from the Times' dining section.

Heather got me a beer brewing kit! I'm sure I'll be blogging about that in more detail later, but suffice it to say, I'm very excited about it. She even got me ingredients to make an IPA and a book that helps me make sense of this whole process. Heather may regret her decision soon when she walks into a apartment filled with boiling wort and asks, "What smells in here?" and I respond, "That's the sweet scent of malted barley and hops. Get used to it." Hopefully I do it right and the fermenter bucket doesn't explode in our study and cover all our books in yeast. This marriage probably won't last long.

Speaking of my marriage partner, Heather poked me emphatically when she saw an article a couple of days ago in the New York Times singing the praises of Benedictine. I love to discover things before they become a craze so when I read the article, I smugly assumed that it was because they read my blog post about it. Let me tell you folks, self delusion is a real ego boost.

We used the holiday season as a weak excuse to replenish our somewhat depleted alcohol supply--Bourbon, Rye, Cognac, Vodka, Frangelico--as well as a few new things like Lillet and Peychaud's Bitters. This month our credit card bill included four bars, three liquor stores, two wine shops and a partridge in a pear tree. Admittedly the partridge was a frivolous purchase, but he has been great company so far. With all of the time consuming hectic-ness (if it's not a word, it should be) of the wedding and Christmas, we are determined to use our January to live as hermits. We will leave the apartment only to keep our jobs and forage for food. The liquor purchases serve that goal.

Hopefully our anti-social behavior for the month of January will give us some time to try new things in mixing and cooking, fail at those things and blog about them in a humorous manner. And in the end, isn't that what blogging is all about?