A decadent weekend!

April 3rd came and went, and I’m now officially safely into the 30s (a lady never reveals her true age). We had a great few days with tons of social activities, great food & wine and company. Good thing I managed to run a little here and there too – with age comes slower metabolisms unfortunately!

A faculty member at the Nicholas School of the Environment hosted a dinner party at his place on Thursday for the speakers of a water markets symposium he & his students organized. Marc was a speaker and I got to tag along (my response when Marc asked if I was interested in joining: “Oh, so I won’t need to cook and I’ll have time to squeeze in a run after work? I’m in!”) Actually, I also know the hosting faculty member from when I worked (we were in the same research unit and often chatted about Duke basketball in the break room), but had not seen each other in 8 years, so he was a little surprised when he saw me walking towards his home with Marc – it is a small world. At any rate, in addition to the fun socializing, it turns out one of the masters student was Cordon Bleu (Sydney) trained and had put together this superb meal. Appetizers included bacon wrapped shrimp with BBQ sauce, sweet potato fries, crackers & cheese. The entrée spread comprised of honey-sage cornbread, Meyer lemon and garlic collard greens, slow-cook chorizo stuffed pork tenderloin, and a colorful red and golden beet and asparagus salad. By the time dessert arrived (a choice of a berry crumble or pecan pie), I was stuffed silly. So much for that run I squeezed in a few hours earlier – I definitely went into positive caloric balance.

On Friday, Marc & I went to Magnolia Grill for a wonderful meal that involved the following:

• Octopus salami with roasted red pepper tapenade & lemon aioli, arugula & radicchio salad with sheep's milk feta & tasted almonds (I thought this was such a creative dish!)


• Spring carrot bisque with beet tartare, creme fraiche & black truffle toast (the toast was amazing!)


• Pan-roasted Carolina guinea hen breast on toasted pecan spatzle with early Spring vegetables & Rapini, gold potato & navet puree, ruby port jus (the jus was a little salty for my liking, but everything else was great, especially the pecan spatzle)


• Grilled Artic Char on Citrus Risotto with Grapefruit & Mascarpone, Valencia Orange & Arugula salad, San Remo Tomato Bouillon with Bermuda Onions (wow! Amazing how well citrus pairs with fish!)


• Chocolate Souffle cake with Mandarin orange and whipped cream


• Peanut Brittle Tarte with Caramel Ice cream

The funny thing is that Marc might be getting sick of dining at Magnolia Grill as he’s been there 3 times for dinner over the past 6 weeks (me, only twice), but really – what a tough life.

Thank goodness I got to do some gardening on Saturday and both Marc & I got to get runs in! I met up with Marc at the end of my run in Carrboro and proceeded to ‘cool down’ at the Weaver Street Market spring wine show (>30 wines to taste!). Over the years Marc & I have worked out a strategy to handle both the volume of alcohol and the crowds. We each get different wines from each table, taste half and swap with the other person, and we do the whites down all the tables first then repeat with the reds. We score each wine out of 5 once each of us has a taste and have a short discussion about each, and then we move on. Consequently, we are usually able to get a taste of all the wines, decide what we like, put in our orders and lug the wines to our car all within 45 mins. This year we went a little crazy and ended up buying 21 bottles of wine – our wine rack is almost completely full now. As you can imagine, I was rendered tipsy halfway through this exercise given the fact that it was not long after a 9.5 mile run!

Once home, we showered and get ready to head to a church member’s house of yet another dinner party! Earlier in the day, Marc (with some help from me) had baked a Chocolate Hazelnut torte which doubled as dessert and my birthday cake for the gathering (me on the other hand cringed at the thought of having to measure & bake and took the easy route of just ordering a giant carrot cake for his birthday back in Feb). It was a lovely evening that featured Coq au vin, among other great sides, and of course a very decadent dessert :)

After church on Sunday, we went to yet another Duke faculty home for brunch (these Duke faculty sure know how to party!) By Sunday afternoon, I was ready for a slower pace on my actual birthday to just chill and sit out on our porch in the 70 degree weather listening to birds, watching a squirrel eat all the new birdfeed I had put out for the birds, reading and doing a crossword puzzle.