Culinary discoveries to wind down the year

It's been a whirlwind of excess these past few weeks with big car bills and insurance bills in the mix. Enough to make fiscal conservative wonder who got hold of their checkbook. But hey, 'tis the season, and you can't take it with you, right?

Among the recent and probably singular events was an invitation to the holiday gala of the Indianapolis chapter of the Commanderie de Bordeaux. Our friend/Renaissance man, Dennis Trinkle, invited us because he thinks we know a lot more about wine than we actually do. It was a seven-course dinner prepared by a James Beard contending chef, and I had to Google what one of the ingredients was - any of you know how to prepare celery root? Did you even know there was such a thing? And that if you puree it, it's delicious? I did not.

THIS is what it looks like in its natural habitat 👉

THIS is what it looks like after an actual chef gets jiggy with it 👇and creates tongue-in-cheek with quail egg, plum and celery root puree.

I can't describe how great it all was. 

I did think to myself that my father-in-law would not have approved as he was a devout hater of all things celery. Had he not know what it was, I think even he would have liked it. 

The tongue part, well, that did give me pause, and yes, it was tongue. I don't know how many days that took to prepare (The chef actually explained it but there was also lots of wine with each of the seven courses) but the Wagyu beef (with bordelaise, foie gras and fondant potatoes) took three days.

Here's how great it all was: the dessert was a 50-layer apple pastry with a dollop of what was in the ice cream family but not anything you can get in a store or Indiana ice cream shop. Yeah. 50 layers. Anyway, that tart was so good when Dennis left his plate unattended, his seat-mate to his left swiped the remainder from his plate. And no, neither Reed was seated next to Dennis.

I was envious of that guy, I'll tell you that. And he had zero remorse. We had just as much business being at that dinner. It was just down from the house, so we walked down for the 6 p.m. start. We got home around 10:30. 

We started with champagne, and each course had at least one wine paired with it. I'll be thinking about that experience for a while.

We had similar but different fun the previous weekend when we traveled down to Nashville, Tenn. to celebrate Keaton Stringfellow's birthday where we were surrounded by 30-somethings. Many of them are embedded in the local craft beer community. For you non-beer drinkers, craft beer has about 17,987 times the alcohol in it compared to your average lite beer. We were there for three days, and I remember most of two of them. My friends Niki and Shelly have advised me to revisit my FaceBook journal entry about it, but I have yet to do that.

It was fun, though. We went to a Colt's game - #HorseWins - and, of course, celebrated Keaton and got to have dinner with John Bendel-Dimmick. Another highlight was this example of Savannah Kunze's amazing vocal ability. Savannah is Keaton's better half and a wonderful hostess. She should totally be on the Nashville circuit.  

In the past couple of weeks, we've been treated to awesome outings with the Arrive team, a client that treats me better than they should on many occasions.  My TechPoint teammates gave me a trophy and we'll end the year well at ReedRight Communications.

 This month's Book Club was another show of force with awesome women, discussion and treats. Later today, I'll be with the Showgirls fantasy football league and next week, I'll be with the Bunconians.

The Captain has a full plate, as well as new cocktail recipes, and our champagne closet is ready for New Year's Eve. If you're in town, please drop by.

Alison has finished up a successful first semester in grad school, and we'll see her in 12 days and spend a week with the whole Reed family in what I hope to be the first of many warm Christmases together.

I know November is the grateful month, but I'm extending it through December. My liver might give out and I may not be able to wear any of my clothes, but that's a bridge I'll crawl over later.

I had a moment back in September or October when I had made a plan to cut back to be in better shape for our Christmas in Florida. I will not be meeting that objective, so plan to avert your eyes, Reed family.

There's always next year to get back into shape.