Well I guess Fall is here, and I’m sick right on cue.  Fever, chills, the whole bit.  Sigh.  It really cut into my weekend entertainment, although I gave it a respectable try.  Friday we had a friend over and grilled some pork chops, which managed to come out decent.  I am definitely a fan of brining the chops…  Huge difference.  They were fancy-brand meat too, that might have factored in.  Other than the brine, I just put a little Jack Stack rub on them and threw them on the gas grill.  Throw a salad beside it and call it dinner.  After that we retired to the patio because the temp was so nice outside.  That’s probably how I got sick;  Can’t spend countless hours in a 6×6 cubicle every week and then expect to sniff the great outdoors without some negative consequences.

Saturday we had a day of wine tasting planned, but given my sketchy health we skipped the afternoon session.  Truth be told, I’d have skipped the entire day but I’d made reservations for dinner at the evening spot and felt kind of bad just no-showing on them.  Beside that, it was a free event and I’m not sure I could ever actually be sick enough to pass up a free dinner.  (And to qualify, it was “free” for wine club members…  Nothing in life is free, and that goes triple for wine clubs.)  Anyway, this was the annual “appreciation” event at one of our favorite local wineries, Baiocchi.  All the clubs we belong to have a similar function, but all with a nominal (and in some cases, not-so-nominal) price tag attached.  We’ve never gotten around to attending any of them, not even at Baiocchi. This time I actually noticed the email and thought, well the price is right so what the heck. The dinner was actually at his house out in the country, and it was no small event.  By my “tables x chairs = people” formula, there were roughly 60 attendees.  A local chef came out and fixed a multi-course meal and talked about it all, and the wine pairings, all outside in some fantastic weather.  I even talked to strangers.  Truly a wacky night out for us.

Sunday was a day of football and couch time, as Sundays are probably likely to be for the foreseeable future.  I was still just a bit under the weather, and didn’t want to push my luck by exercising or anything crazy like that.  Some friends in the neighborhood did ask if we wanted to come over for homemade chicken enchiladas, to which I readily replied “heck yes.”  Again, don’t pass up free meals.