Harper night at The Corson Building

We just had one of the most enjoyable evenings of our lives with ~ 20 friends. If you haven't been to The Corson Building for a fresh 'Farm to Table' dinner, don't hesitate another minute to share it with family and friends. It was awesome.

Matt Dillon, the chef extraordinaire, is a big meat fan, and he's not afraid to use it! We had five different meat species and the one vegetarian in the group turned meatatarian for the night. That's how good it was.

We pre-funked at the studio with a few drinks and then walked over around 6:30pm. They greeted us with wine and we pretty much took over the whole restaurant. The first course was smelt cooked in what seemed to be in a ceviche style. It was dee-lish! I'll be saying that a lot. The next course was pig heart and kidney. Also very tasty. Never had it before, but would definitely eat it again. The third course was Japanese eggplant with clams. Another flavorful dish. Followed by that was rabbit loin with foraged porcini mushrooms and then arugula salad with mint. I loved the rabbit. It was so tender. The main course was pork loin and pork skirt with squash, chanterelles and onions. I already had a food high at this point, but this dish sent me over the edge. There was no coming down off of this one for quite some time. Dessert consisted of pecorino with baked apples and candied walnuts. Each course was perfectly paired with an exquisite wine by Mark, The Corson Building's own sommelier.

Thank goodness Laura had the sense to write down everything we ate. I poached her list and the Corson photo for the blog (with permission of course). My food high kept me from thinking logically and all I did was eat, drink and chat. I did take a few photos though. As sketchy as they are, you can tell everyone had a great time.


After our fabulous dinner, most of us headed back to the studio for post-funk. It was a 'school night' so a few folks headed home. We had more beer and wine and celebrated Mickie's birthday with dee-lish-us cup cakes. The party finally broke up around 1:30am. Needless to say, Thursday was a real challenge to stay vertical all day. I was still drunk on food or wine or lack of sleep... maybe all three. However, there was comfort in knowing that I wasn't alone in my day of delayed response times.

I think we are going to plan on doing this once a quarter. Friends who are interested, send us an email and we'll put you on the list.

Blogtoberfest

We recently had friends come visit from New Mexico and we did a weekend trip to Leavenworth, WA. Jeff is Earl's college room mate and Jen is his lovely wife.

We went to Costa Rica with them back in February and boating the San Juans a few years back. On both of those trips, we encountered near death experiences, but that's another story. Needless to say, I think we all were a bit hesitant about this one. But how dangerous could Leavenworth be? Jen's running a marathon and we're drinking beer as she runs by. It is Octoberfest you know.

Here is the marathon start line. Jenn is in there somewhere. The guy up front won it I think. Jen did awesome! The weather was pretty good; cool, sun breaks, a few showers early on. It didn't stop her from running or us from cheering.

After the race, we had to rest a little bit. It was exhausting watching all of those people run and then cheering for them at the same time. I mean, we had to stand in one place for awhile and then jump in the car and relocate to another spot so we could see Jen run by. We finally got some chairs from the condo so that we could cheer properly.

When we were all rested, we got our second wind and headed into town. Probably a good idea we decided to walk. We hit the beer garden right away. You could tell we were Octoberfest Amateurs. We didn't have crazy hats, real beer steins or lederhosen. Next year, we'll be prepared.

There were three huge tents to party in. All of them had German bands playing the chicken dance and various polkas. There were rules like no standing on the tables or the benches, no drinking on the dance floor and I think there was one more rule, but I don't remember it. Once in a while you'd hear a ruckus and look over to see a snockered participant on the floor. He broke rule number one. You could tell because the bench was tipped over and he was on his back with beer all over him.

We all had a good time. Earl & Jeff were in rare form, but what do you expect when two college room mates meet up with tents full of beer. They were in heaven. Can't wait to read Jeff's blog about it http://panchowonton.blogspot.com/. I guess he'll have to update it now.

Later in the evening we met up with some fun folks at the next table. This guy actually had a Grand Poobah hat, like the Flintstones! Cool. A fellow partier let me borrow her weiner hat for the photo op. Good times!

If you get a chance to celebrate Octoberfest, do it! What a blast!