And the more interesting rest of the week off
Thursday was unexciting, consisting of a videoconference with an uncooperative vendor in the morning, lunch with my mother, and goofing around with dracoshen and leimon_malakoi in the evening. That at least involved burned bacon, frozen beverages involving rum and strawberries, and ice where ice should not be, so it wasn’t an entirely dull day.
Friday I decided to ignore work entirely and spent the day reading and otherwise goofing off until a birthday dinner for Leimon_malakoi with Dracoshen, myself, lostdog , and Amy at a relatively good Thai place. Afterwards there was conversation with a bottle of Eiswein. Err, that is, we drank Eiswein while talking.
Then off to bed to get ready for a busy 48 hours.
Saturday started with the Vintage Virginia festival, which was a fairly large wine tasting event. The focus was on Virginia wineries, which was nice in a way, in that I favour supporting local businesses and all that. The problem is that most Virginia vineyards just aren't that good. It’s not that they’re necessarily bad, but just on the lower edge of average which doesn't make them particularly worth seeking out.
There was an impressive amount of them to select from - one could easily have become quite drunk just from sampling. I stuck mostly to fruit, desert, and esoteric wines as I didn’t see a whole lot of point in trying a ton of average Chardonnays and Merlots. Even then, most of them fell into the "acceptable" category but I did find a few to track down for future enjoyment.
A particularly strange and interesting one was the Peaks of Otter apple and chili wine. It produced a medium tingle in my mouth so it would prolly be considered hot by most people, but if you like hot things this could be something worth checking out. It really would require some complimentary food to go with it - perhaps this Ethiopian potato salad (which happens to be modeled after one of the dishes at the restaurant we ate at following belly dancing the previous Sunday).
In addition to myself, Dracoshen, and Leimon_malakoi,scaun23 and fishy1 , smcapote117 , wyrdone , jerro1 and daphodil2 , pooka798 , and belcharlie were all running around the event.
There were a number of musicians performing at the event, quite a few of whom I know, so I got to catch up with people I’d not crossed paths with for a while. The day was oppressively hot and dry so for a while we sought shelter in the children’s tent which at the time featured a found-instruments group, which ended up sounding something like what would happen if Einsturzende Neubauten decided that being all dark, gothy, and painfilled was getting to be boring and decided to branch out into youth entertainment.
Saturday was Leimon_malakoi’s birthday and I’d promised her a nice meal, so we ducked out early in order to make our reservation, with the kind assistance of Dracoshen as the designated driver.
Dinner was at the excellent 2941 restaurant located just inside the beltway off Rt. 50. There are some places that serve fantastic food that leaves your belly with a happy, happy feeling for hours afterwards. This wasn’t quite that lingering style - it’s more very, very refined productions with high quality ingredients.
The meal started with an Amuse of creamy celeriac soup with crème fraiche and an assortment of slices from about eight types of fresh baked breads. For the first course, we had seared Kampachi on a bed of heart of palm and artichoke heart and fresh pasta stuffed with cheese and Morel mushrooms. Kampachi is a relatively obscure Hawaiian fish that is somewhat similar to tuna. In what might surprise some people, this was a fish dish good enough that I might actually order it for myself.
Second course was roast venison in a Madiera (a fortified wine similar to Port) and truffle sauce for me and honey and soy marinated sea bass for her, both of which were excellent. Even though I made the chef cry by specifying medium well on the roast, it was still exceptionally tender and the sauce was excellent soaked up in the bread. The waiter was also patient enough to let us concoct a non-alcoholic drink to match the bass - orange juice with a twist of lime juice and grated fresh ginger. The combination of citrus and spice from the ginger matched the fish perfectly.
And then began desert…
I had an excellent bittersweet chocolate concoction while Leimon_malakoi had a production that involved strawberries, rhubarb, and mascarpone along with a glass of Bigaro wine, which is a sparking blend of muscato and brachetto (a fruity Italian rose grape).
And a slice of birthday carrot cake with candied walnuts. I can’t comment on how it was as _someone_ forgot to share any of it with me.
And then, just in case we hadn’t had enough sugar, the meal was closed out with some small candy/cookie type sweets and a large poof of brightly coloured cotton candy.
So, you’re in the DC area and have the budget to splurge on an exceptional meal? Assuming our evening represents their par performance, 2941 is a good choice. The cost is relatively pricey (and expect small servings - quality over quantity) but you’re not just paying for food, you’re paying for the experience. You will be waited on hand and foot - an informed description of every wine and item on the menu is but a wave away and it is more or less impossible to have an empty glass sit on the table for more than a few seconds. (Speaking of which, when offered water, opt for filtered.) The dining room is impressive and well decorated with a modern feel.
If you have time to arrive early or leave late and the weather is good, spend some extra time outside in their nicely landscaped lakeside area.
Alas, despite the now pleasant weather, we did not have time to linger as we had to depart for the Herndon festival in order to see Enter the Haggis.
If you like [classic] Carbon Leaf, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys etc., you will most likely enjoy Enter the Haggis. The Canadian group mixes rock, country, Scottish, and Celtic styles together in a pleasing and energetic manner. It made a nice cap to the day to sit in the grass and listen to them and then watch fireworks at the end of the performance.
Their soundguy was a very nice guy (who even solicited my opinion on the mix and modified it (or at least pretended to twist knobs…) based on it) and a snappy dresser. He was elevated to "a god among men" status when I saw him reseting the mixing board knobs at the end of the performance. I can barely get people who work for my company to do that let alone guest soundpeople.
On the way back to the shuttlebus to the parking area, a car stopped and SB from the SCA started talking to us from it. So we hopped in with him and Tara and had a short conversation as they drove us back to the car, then went back to Leimon_malakoi’s place and slept.
Sunday started with giving Leimon_malakoi a foot massage (this is an important thing for boys to know how to do, apparently, along with cooking and drumming) then running off to a Greek festival with Lostdog and Amy. Large mounds of greek food occurred followed by even larger mounds of greek deserts (though sadly the fryer was broken so there were no Loukoumades to be had). After browsing the small vendor selection and buying some honey, we went back to the Herndon festival.
The Nields album “Play” was an important one in my life but I had never managed to see them perform before this past weekend. The weather had turned dreary and rainy which had its ups and downs.. The downside was that the festival was nearly deserted and it’s always tough as a performer to play to an empty site. At one point the two sisters invited two other family members up on stage to sing with them and joked that they were hesitant to do so, as it was going to halve the audience size. But on the upside, it meant that every song we requested got played.
In between their two sets, we meandered through the vendors where Leimon_malakoi found a nice cabinet to use as a nightstand at an extremely reasonable (but still splurgy) price. There were an assortment of the usual spread of festival merchants but nothing all that interesting, other than an enterprising chef who was giving away samples of a mashed potato chocolate cake to represent a restaurant he was opening.
I was also entertained by a family with two small girls who we kept running into who were in turn very entertained by me, as small children are wont to be. The eyebrow wiggle always gets them…
We had discussed going to a bellydancing performance that evening as well but ended up being all evented out so we opted for a nice Vietnamese dinner and a quiet night in.
Monday I took my leave of Dracoshen and Leimon_malakoi and did some work at the NOVA center and had dinner with my parents, fixed a problem in Alexandria Tuesday followed by even more Vietnamese with my father and drove back to Blacksburg getting in around 2AM, nicely relaxed.
The tension, of course, returned to my shoulders within a few hours of getting back to the office Wednesday…
Friday I decided to ignore work entirely and spent the day reading and otherwise goofing off until a birthday dinner for Leimon_malakoi with Dracoshen, myself, lostdog , and Amy at a relatively good Thai place. Afterwards there was conversation with a bottle of Eiswein. Err, that is, we drank Eiswein while talking.
Then off to bed to get ready for a busy 48 hours.
Saturday started with the Vintage Virginia festival, which was a fairly large wine tasting event. The focus was on Virginia wineries, which was nice in a way, in that I favour supporting local businesses and all that. The problem is that most Virginia vineyards just aren't that good. It’s not that they’re necessarily bad, but just on the lower edge of average which doesn't make them particularly worth seeking out.
There was an impressive amount of them to select from - one could easily have become quite drunk just from sampling. I stuck mostly to fruit, desert, and esoteric wines as I didn’t see a whole lot of point in trying a ton of average Chardonnays and Merlots. Even then, most of them fell into the "acceptable" category but I did find a few to track down for future enjoyment.
A particularly strange and interesting one was the Peaks of Otter apple and chili wine. It produced a medium tingle in my mouth so it would prolly be considered hot by most people, but if you like hot things this could be something worth checking out. It really would require some complimentary food to go with it - perhaps this Ethiopian potato salad (which happens to be modeled after one of the dishes at the restaurant we ate at following belly dancing the previous Sunday).
In addition to myself, Dracoshen, and Leimon_malakoi,scaun23 and fishy1 , smcapote117 , wyrdone , jerro1 and daphodil2 , pooka798 , and belcharlie were all running around the event.
There were a number of musicians performing at the event, quite a few of whom I know, so I got to catch up with people I’d not crossed paths with for a while. The day was oppressively hot and dry so for a while we sought shelter in the children’s tent which at the time featured a found-instruments group, which ended up sounding something like what would happen if Einsturzende Neubauten decided that being all dark, gothy, and painfilled was getting to be boring and decided to branch out into youth entertainment.
Saturday was Leimon_malakoi’s birthday and I’d promised her a nice meal, so we ducked out early in order to make our reservation, with the kind assistance of Dracoshen as the designated driver.
Dinner was at the excellent 2941 restaurant located just inside the beltway off Rt. 50. There are some places that serve fantastic food that leaves your belly with a happy, happy feeling for hours afterwards. This wasn’t quite that lingering style - it’s more very, very refined productions with high quality ingredients.
The meal started with an Amuse of creamy celeriac soup with crème fraiche and an assortment of slices from about eight types of fresh baked breads. For the first course, we had seared Kampachi on a bed of heart of palm and artichoke heart and fresh pasta stuffed with cheese and Morel mushrooms. Kampachi is a relatively obscure Hawaiian fish that is somewhat similar to tuna. In what might surprise some people, this was a fish dish good enough that I might actually order it for myself.
Second course was roast venison in a Madiera (a fortified wine similar to Port) and truffle sauce for me and honey and soy marinated sea bass for her, both of which were excellent. Even though I made the chef cry by specifying medium well on the roast, it was still exceptionally tender and the sauce was excellent soaked up in the bread. The waiter was also patient enough to let us concoct a non-alcoholic drink to match the bass - orange juice with a twist of lime juice and grated fresh ginger. The combination of citrus and spice from the ginger matched the fish perfectly.
And then began desert…
I had an excellent bittersweet chocolate concoction while Leimon_malakoi had a production that involved strawberries, rhubarb, and mascarpone along with a glass of Bigaro wine, which is a sparking blend of muscato and brachetto (a fruity Italian rose grape).
And a slice of birthday carrot cake with candied walnuts. I can’t comment on how it was as _someone_ forgot to share any of it with me.
And then, just in case we hadn’t had enough sugar, the meal was closed out with some small candy/cookie type sweets and a large poof of brightly coloured cotton candy.
So, you’re in the DC area and have the budget to splurge on an exceptional meal? Assuming our evening represents their par performance, 2941 is a good choice. The cost is relatively pricey (and expect small servings - quality over quantity) but you’re not just paying for food, you’re paying for the experience. You will be waited on hand and foot - an informed description of every wine and item on the menu is but a wave away and it is more or less impossible to have an empty glass sit on the table for more than a few seconds. (Speaking of which, when offered water, opt for filtered.) The dining room is impressive and well decorated with a modern feel.
If you have time to arrive early or leave late and the weather is good, spend some extra time outside in their nicely landscaped lakeside area.
Alas, despite the now pleasant weather, we did not have time to linger as we had to depart for the Herndon festival in order to see Enter the Haggis.
If you like [classic] Carbon Leaf, Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys etc., you will most likely enjoy Enter the Haggis. The Canadian group mixes rock, country, Scottish, and Celtic styles together in a pleasing and energetic manner. It made a nice cap to the day to sit in the grass and listen to them and then watch fireworks at the end of the performance.
Their soundguy was a very nice guy (who even solicited my opinion on the mix and modified it (or at least pretended to twist knobs…) based on it) and a snappy dresser. He was elevated to "a god among men" status when I saw him reseting the mixing board knobs at the end of the performance. I can barely get people who work for my company to do that let alone guest soundpeople.
On the way back to the shuttlebus to the parking area, a car stopped and SB from the SCA started talking to us from it. So we hopped in with him and Tara and had a short conversation as they drove us back to the car, then went back to Leimon_malakoi’s place and slept.
Sunday started with giving Leimon_malakoi a foot massage (this is an important thing for boys to know how to do, apparently, along with cooking and drumming) then running off to a Greek festival with Lostdog and Amy. Large mounds of greek food occurred followed by even larger mounds of greek deserts (though sadly the fryer was broken so there were no Loukoumades to be had). After browsing the small vendor selection and buying some honey, we went back to the Herndon festival.
The Nields album “Play” was an important one in my life but I had never managed to see them perform before this past weekend. The weather had turned dreary and rainy which had its ups and downs.. The downside was that the festival was nearly deserted and it’s always tough as a performer to play to an empty site. At one point the two sisters invited two other family members up on stage to sing with them and joked that they were hesitant to do so, as it was going to halve the audience size. But on the upside, it meant that every song we requested got played.
In between their two sets, we meandered through the vendors where Leimon_malakoi found a nice cabinet to use as a nightstand at an extremely reasonable (but still splurgy) price. There were an assortment of the usual spread of festival merchants but nothing all that interesting, other than an enterprising chef who was giving away samples of a mashed potato chocolate cake to represent a restaurant he was opening.
I was also entertained by a family with two small girls who we kept running into who were in turn very entertained by me, as small children are wont to be. The eyebrow wiggle always gets them…
We had discussed going to a bellydancing performance that evening as well but ended up being all evented out so we opted for a nice Vietnamese dinner and a quiet night in.
Monday I took my leave of Dracoshen and Leimon_malakoi and did some work at the NOVA center and had dinner with my parents, fixed a problem in Alexandria Tuesday followed by even more Vietnamese with my father and drove back to Blacksburg getting in around 2AM, nicely relaxed.
The tension, of course, returned to my shoulders within a few hours of getting back to the office Wednesday…