Thanks to all of you who came down to Union Square Wines on Saturday to support my friend Eric with his new book. You were all of course well rewarded with all the free Allan Scott wines and free sake in the back room. I know I rewarded myself plenty that afternoon, hahaha. Annie was supposed to come too but alas she had her hands full. I stayed for the whole afternoon, bought a mixed case of Allan’s wine (half sauvignon blanc, half pinot noir), and headed over to Rog & Lisa’s for poker. Oh and as I was leaving the wine shop, to say thank you, Eric gave me a package of D’Artagnan wild boar bacon. Do my friends know how to gift or what? 🙂

We played poker until midnight, Gar being the big winner, and then I went home to get some sleep because we were playing golf the next day way down in NJ. It was a return visit to Eagle Ridge Golf Club near Point Pleasant, and we had 3 foursomes set to play a scramble format with a dinner bet riding on it.

The weather was absolutely perfect for golf- temperatures in the 70’s with a pleasant breeze. My foursome with Kat, Rick and Tom was the hardest working scramble team in golf, needing to salvage pars from everywhere. We even had to play a few shots from the sand because our approach shots were consistently poor all day. Good thing Kat and Rick had gone to a training facility to practice bunker shots recently; their bunker play was markedly improved since the last time we played. My putting was on, but that was pretty much the only thing I felt confident with. But like said, we made a ton of hard working par saves, eventually getting around the course in 2 over par. Not good enough to win free dinner unfortunately, but one stroke better than the Twoin/Ken/Tzo Ai/Lisa team, so we at least didn’t have to pay out. Yes, Gar’s team won. Shocker. Oh, and the random funny moment of the day- when we finished our round and the club cleaning guy asked Kat if she shot a good score, she must have been a little distracted or something because her reply came out as “oh, we were playing scrabble.”

So our original plan was to go to Red’s for dinner because we loved it so much the last time we were there, plus it was BYOB and we had plenty o wine from the day before. Unfortunately there was no way Red’s could accomodate a party of 12, so we ended up eating down the road at The Shrimp Box and having to leave our wine in the car. While it was no Red’s, it was still a very enjoyable meal. We got two lbs. of steamers to start and they were terrific with the refreshing bottle of Hogue riesling we ordered. For my entree I couldn’t go wrong with the Alaskan King Crab legs. It was a generous amount of nice meaty legs served with some very mediocre french fries. Kat ordered the plain lobster which looked barely legal in size but still undeniably delicious. For dessert, the key lime pie was not sour enough and the graham cracker crust a little too soft, but that’s just nitpicking, because it was still certainly pleasant to eat. Overall, not a bad dinner. I would have liked to have had some of my Allan Scott sauvignon blanc with that crab though…

Monday night I decided to try some of that wild boar bacon that Eric gave me. I fried some up, used the rendered fat to fry up some red onion (sliced into petals, not rings or diced), waited for the onion to get translucent and just slightly browned on the edges picking up some of the bacon caramelization from the bottom of the pan, and then threw in some cooked farfalle to get coated in all that glorious bacony goodness. It beats red sauce, that’s for sure! The wild boar bacon has a satisfyingly deep rich meaty flavor accented with just the perfect amount of saltiness. Extremely delicious.