Last weekend, Cath and I were in Chicago for a Bordeaux Dinner. There were seven of us eating and drinking together for about six hours. It was amazing.

Our good friends Tim and Renee have had this dinner every year for several years, but this is the first time we’ve been able to make it. We’ve always had some sort of conflict, but this year they scheduled it about nine months ahead of time, and we vowed we wouldn’t miss it.

The whole weekend was about friendship, eating, and drinking. We arrived Friday around noon. Dave made it down from Wisconsin Friday evening…. Sushi from a local Japanese market for lunch….wood fired pizza at a wonderful restaurant for dinner…… We generally behaved Friday night and didn’t over serve ourselves. We were looking forward to the Saturday night Bordeaux dinner – Six courses, and several bottles of champagne and wine are not for the faint of heart. You don’t want to go into that kind of dinner not being at the top of your game….. 


Prep work went on for much of Saturday, while dinner activities started around 6:00PM when neighbors Paul and Val joined us. The champagne and fresh oysters were a great way to begin. Renee had the oysters flown in from Massachusetts, and made several accoutrements – Guinness Granita and Radish Mignonette were my favorites. Four dozen oysters and a couple of bottles of champagne later, we adjourned to the table for the serious eating.

Tim started us off with Bourdain’s steak tartare, and the first bottle of Bordeaux. The tartare was everything you could want. Flavorful, complex, and raw. I could have stopped right there, and not eaten anything else, but we moved on to a palate-cleansing salad of baby greens.

A pause, and the hosts disappear for a bit. Then, they return….Braised duck leg with mixed vegetables. I’m in heaven. The duck is braised in Armagnac, a couple head of garlic, and a few other things. Could life be any better? More wine…the conversation gets louder and more engaging. Politics, religion, Chicago weather, food, wine, the Sox, other people we know. Nothing off limits and it’s the kind of conversation that just flows.

We pause a bit, and continue talking. Dishes are cleared, and the cheese course arrives. Six cheeses, including two blues. Time is getting a bit blended now. Not quite a fog, but at this point it’s been over four hours of eating and drinking. We are enjoying life, and appreciating the evening. 

Finally, the last course arrives- Chocolate Truffles. I don’t know where they came from, but they are awesome, and the perfect end to the dinner. We talk a bit more, drink a bit more, and glance at the clock. It’s around midnight now….time is speeding up, but we are slowing down. Cathy and I eventually say goodnight to all, and go to bed and a deep sleep….

The next day is a slow day. Doing dishes, then brunch and some mimosas. Dave heads back to Wisconsin, and now it’s just the four of us. We are in the family room and trying to decide whether to go anywhere, or do anything. Lethargy wins out and we stay put. Talk, catching up, some bad TV, more talk, leftovers, more mimosas. It was the perfect end to the weekend. The kind of weekend you need a weekend afterwards for recovery. I hope we are invited back for next year.