Sorry, a little sarcasm accidentally snuck into my title.  It couldn’t be helped.  It was actually another in my long streak of safely mediocre weekends, which is OK.  Friday, Donette came home from two weeks straight in Chicago so we decided to go enjoy each others company at some new, exciting venues.  We selected the Brooksider, and after that became tiresome we tried a place down the street called “Jalapenos.”  Nothing wrong with a little familiarity.  It might be a bad sign that I could tell the name of every single staff member I interacted with, at both places.  Or it might be good, I don’t know.

Saturday we had chores to do.  Stuff around the house, doggie school, stuff like that.  We did go out for a bona fide Date Night for our evening entertainment.  We really don’t get to see each other too much lately, so we decided to hit the town a bit.  We had a nice dinner at the Savoy Grill, which was awesome.  Top notch, if a bit out of my price range.  After that….  Well I’m not sure how to best describe the next outing.  It had been so long since we’d gone out, I actually thought it sounded like a great idea when she suggested Le Miserables at Music Hall.  Really, I did;  I was honestly looking forward to it.  I think it was about six seconds into it when I realized “Holy crud, this is the show I renamed “Phil Miserable” after we saw it at Starlight.”  Yep, the same.  Except this was inside, with no bats to watch for  diversion and worse seats.  What can I say, I just don’t think theater is my thing.  I tried to gut it out, but I’m not sure I put on a very good front because she mercifully suggested we call it a night at intermission.  I don’t think she was liking it too much either really;  We were too far back and couldn’t see very well.  A nice evening out though, it never hurts to try new things.  Well, maybe a little bit.

Sunday I spent the better part of my day trying out my super-duper new dutch oven.  I made a massive pot of turkey gumbo with all the turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving.  (Yes, Food Safety Majors, they’ve been stored safely frozen since then.)  It came out OK I guess.  The new pot performed admirably, but I didn’t get my roux dark enough.  Ran out of patience, again.  Geez, if a nice dark roux can really be made in 20 to 30 minutes like all the recipes say, I’d sure like to know how.  I gave up at 50 minutes, and it wasn’t near dark enough.  I was just tired of stirring.  It cost me in terms of finished product though;  Just not quite as much flavor.