Sunday Blunch. With Friends.

Good times, with good friends. What could be better? Well, add in some good food, wine, and beer, and now you’re really talking.

Because we are in the country, a few times a year, we have a Sunday lunch or brunch at out place for “city friends”. Dinners can be a bit more problematic because of where we live. We are 15 minutes to the interstate, and when the sun goes down, it’s DARK outside. I mean really dark. So as an alternative to dinners, we often do brunch or lunch. They usually go from about noon to four, have a few courses and accompanying wines, and are great fun. Folks can eat, enjoy the country, and be back to DC in about an hour.

A couple of weeks ago, we did a “blunch” with a twist. We combined with another couple and, after coming up with a menu, decided to try and pair both beers and wines with each course. Cathy and I paired the wines, our friends paired the beers. We each picked some of the courses, traded recipes, and had almost as much fun testing the recipes with various drinks, as we did hosting the actual blunch. When all was said and done, we had five courses, six beers, and six wines (see the menu in the accompanying photo).

The day of the blunch dawned sunny and clear. After appetizers outside, the 20 of us adjourned into the house for the rest of the meal. As the afternoon progressed, the talking got louder, the laughter more rich, and the sense of “family” increased. There were discussions about which beer was better, why this wine worked well , and the food we were eating (“There were brussels sprout in that salad? No way – I hate brussels sprout, but loved that salad….”). Unfortunately, the afternoon finally ended and our friends helped us clean up the dishes and the house, and then make their way back to the city. The blunch was fun, we were exhuasted, and we made our way to an early bed that night.

The next day we received a thank-you email from one of our guests. His note to us:

     I think it will take 2 days to recover from that wonderful tasting event today….1 day to get over all that I ate and drank……(yes, no one forced me) and another day to let the great feelings and laughs with such great friends  subside …..thanks to you all for such great fun.

And I thought about it, and he was right. The food and beverages were good, and the reason we got together. But what made the day was the celebration of life, the laughter, the talking, and spending time with such good friends. How do you top that?

Later, we were back to cleaning stalls, walking dogs, and our usual life. But I think back to the blunch and what a great celebration of our friendships it was. Very good friends gave us a couple of beer mugs several years ago on the occasion of their wedding. There was a quote from Yeats on them:

     “Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, 

       And say my glory was I had such friends.”

Yeats said it way better than I ever could…..