Had a pretty enjoyable food-filled weekend in Laguna for the big wedding. My speech went ok, although I was pretty nervous the whole way thru, and lost my train of thought halfway. But overall it was well received, and I got most of my jokes out like I wanted. One joke was actually provided by my favorite comedian, Craig Shoemaker. He’s from CA so I emailed him asking if he could lend me a joke to use to break the ice with the locals. If you want to hear the joke, you’ll have to ask Sterl for a copy of the wedding video. 😛

The weather was fantastic out there. Ninety degrees but with a cool breeze coming off the ocean so it never felt too hot except when we were in our black tuxedos. The food was pretty good all weekend, and it came nonstop. As soon as we arrived, I had lunch with J&A at a restaurant on the harbor. Between apps and entrees, we each had about a pound of seared ahi. A few hours later we went to dinner at a fantastic bistro called French 75. Live lounge music, which I totally dig, and awesome escargot, lamb chops, mussels, tuna tartare, carpaccio, of course seared foie gras (with a lovely poached white peach) and I don’t remember what else. Also had a bottle of Flowers pinot noir followed by a Cakebread cabernet. We were still full from lunch when we sat down, but the food was so good that we couldn’t resist stuffing ourselves silly. The following day we had brunch at the Ritz where the buffet featured the best Belgian waffles I’ve ever tasted. They were crispy on the surface yet ethereally light and airy inside. There were also a few different kinds of sausages that were terrific as well as some excellent smoked salmon. Brunch ran until 10:30 or so, and then we went to meet up with the girls for lunch at an Italian restaurant at noon. As full as we were, nothing jumped out at me, so I just had the crabmeat salad, a glass of mediocre house pinot grigio, and then some espresso and some black sambuca. I just asked for a shot of it to accompany my espresso, but apparently they only do one size- half a snifter full! So lunch ran until about 2p, then we had rehearsal at 3p, and then dinner at 6p! Dinner was quite good, where most of us ordered the rack of lamb, and it was indeed a full rack of perfectly cooked lamb for each of us. Still too full, I didn’t touch my potatoes, but I did finish the entire delicious rack. Had a sapphire and tonic along with a few glasses of the unspectacular house merlot with dinner. Then it turns out we were $200 short of the minimum for reserving the room, so we rounded out the bill by ordering 2 bottles of Cakebread cabernet! We drank that and enjoyed some mild cigars outside. Then we went back to the Marriot bar to have some drinks.

We all started pounding drinks pretty heavily, and I stuck with Sapphire and tonics just to be safe. And just when we thought we didn’t want to think about any more food for a while, the captivating aroma of Indian food came wafting over us from the ballroom at the other end of the hotel where an Indian wedding was taking place. So you guessed it, we ended up crashing the wedding! And oh my god, the food was absolutely the most delicious Indian food I’ve ever had. Yes, somehow it even topped the food Amar India prepared for Sonia’s wedding in Ohio. A very interesting and delicious combo of saag with corn was as rich as any saag dish I’ve ever had. Then probably the star of the show was a paneer in what appeared to be a tikka masala. Remember, we were all still not hungry because of all the eating we had done all day, but this food was so ridiculously delicious we were all scarfing up platefuls of the stuff. Even thinking about it now makes my knees weak; it was that good. Twoin was kind of pressing our luck when he went to go order some beers for us at the open bar, but luckily R had already briefed him, so when the bartender quizzed him on who’s wedding it was, Twoin was able to answer without hesitating “It’s the Gangooli wedding!”. Just like that we all got served beers. Nice. Then we proceeded to get out on the dance floor and jammed with some Indian grandmothers. If you’ve never been to an Indian wedding, you don’t know what fun you’re missing. For those of you who don’t know, I was in Sonia’s wedding party (so technically I can claim to have been a bridesmaid) and had probably the funnest weekend of my life, partying with her Sikh family. Pun intended, yes, her family is Sikh, and yes, it was a Sikh time! Everything they go thru, especially the Sangeet party is all a really incredible blast. Ah the memories. And now the Gangooli wedding will also be forever etched in my mind.

The day of the wedding I think all of our stomachs needed a break. We just did breakfast at Denny’s. I had the sausage sampler, and me and K were guzzling carafes of OJ and grapefruit juice because we were so dehydrated from the night of drinking. Then we were all able to chill for a little bit, all of us needing some private time to drop deuce, or as I coined it, dropping Gangooli, aka pulling G’s.

We got to Sterl’s room at around 1:45 and watched golf for a couple of hours. I lost a $1 bet to Twoin when I picked Morgan Pressel and he took Birdie Kim who amazingly holed out from the greenside bunker on 18 to win the US Open. He then offered me the same bet when Furyk and Harrington were tied going into the 18th, so I took Harrington who in eerily similar fashion made just as improbable of a shot to close with an eagle for a win. It was a 65 foot putt where there was a hump about 4 feet from the cup. It was perfect speed to the crest of the hump and then it had perfect pace and line to go right into the heart of the cup. Sweet.

The wedding coordinator Barbara was pretty amazing. She kept everything precisely on time and moving flawlessly. Us groomsmen also got off pretty easy as far as photos were concerned. I’ve definitely been in weddings where we had to pose for twice as many photos. We even had time to kick back in lawn chairs poolside for about an hour before the ceremony! The wedding itself was nice and brief. Then onto the cocktail hour where there was some pretty awesome apps served, the best of which were the lamb chops. I stayed sober at A’s request. She wouldn’t let me drink until after my speech. Since it was her day, I complied. Then came the dinner and a series of speakers. A’s dad is a great speaker and he gave the introduction. Then a series of dignitaries and politicians and whatnot. Then salads were served and A’s maid of honor H went up there and said a few words and did a terrific job, ending all choked up with emotion. Tough act to follow. I just went out there and did my best. I give myself about a 6 out of a possible 10, but it seemed to go over well enough. Just like after I did my toast at Crouchy’s wedding, some people came up to me and said I could be a comedian because of my delivery style. But hells no, I could never do standup, just because of the nerves alone! I was a little extra nervous because I made a last minute decision to scrap my originally rehearsed ending with an improvised one in order to make sure I honored Sterl’s parents because it seemed like they were being mostly overlooked by the whole event. I wanted to make sure this was as happy a day for them as it was for S&A. Although I’m sure Sterl’s dad couldn’t understand a word of what I was saying! But I know his mom did. Later in the evening, I made it a point to dance with his mom too. I think I danced with my own mom maybe only once in my whole life, also at a wedding, and I know I always felt it was a shame I was too young and stoopid to have taken the opportunity to do it more while my mom was still alive.

Back to the food, the pacific lobster tail I had was ok, but the filet mignon was mealy, so I only ate the lobster. Seemed like mixed reviews across the board; some had good filet and bad lobster. The sorbets at the end of the meal really hit the spot though. Just what I wanted after so much eating all weekend. Then A’s bridesmaids R&C went up to say a few words, and C punked me at the end by saying “we’re gonna end it here because we don’t want to be as long as Stevie!” 🙂 She gets big props for that dig. I really like both R&C. Both were majorly entertaining all weekend long. Hing was slacking in the entertainment department towards the latter part of the weekend because I think he was getting sick, so having R&C there to keep the laughs coming was clutch. They’re both cute too, and totally the kind of girls who would make great drinking buddies. All the bridesmaids were actually really attractive, but R gets bonus points for being a shameless boob-grabber and C gets extra credit for her blunt sense of humor. K was pretty too but kind of quiet so I didn’t get to know her hardly at all. And H I knew from NY, so I knew she was cool. Definitely neat to see the wide range in personalities amongst A’s bridesmaids. It’s good that A has such diversity in her close friends because lord knows we’re a motley bunch too.

And that was that. The final day we of course finished off with brunch buffet at the Ritz again before flying out. It was nice sharing a pleasant morning-after meal with S&A, K&R, and J&A. My good friends, great weather, and of course, those amazing waffles…