Great Food+Great Wine+Great Friends=Terrific Times!

Is there any better way to start off your week than with a thrilling dinner party on a Sunday night? Of course not, that's why the week got off to a thrilling beginning last night. Amanda and Kevin were kind enough to have Katie and I as well as Noe and Amy over.

We started the night with some delicious appetizers. Katie made some homemade hummus and baba ganoush. Amy brought a baked brie with some sweet onion jelly and pastry. And Amanda made her amazing artichoke and spinach dip. But in all honesty, it's really just a spinach dip ;). Actually it's fantastic and may be it's own food group. Batting lead off for wine was Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough in New Zealand.

For the main course we had grilled pork with green beans and bleu cheese mashed potatoes. The potatoes were a hit, and so rich. I'm not typically big on mashed potato variations, but these were delicious and would also pair really well a nice juicy steak. For our second wine, Amy also brought Conundrum to follow the Nobilo. Conundrum is a proprietary blend white wine that never reveals its exact composition each vintage. This vintage had an intriguing spice to it, and as Kevin will tell you, mineral notes with a soft texture.

Desert was amazing home made lava cakes with Michael's Dairy ice cream. A terrific way to end the meal, and make a mess of my shirt. We also drank the Domaine Houchart Cotes de Provence Rose that we found at Thames River the other week. We also tasted the XYZin 10 year old vines. XYZin makes three Zinfandels from different age vines, 10, 50, and 100 year variations. The 10 year was very light bodied for a Zin but showed some terrific flavor.

Overall it was a fantastic evening, even with Guitar Hero substituting for Cranium. For another run down of the kick ass dinner party check out Amanda's Blog! Till next time..."Sounds like a case of the Mondays."--???