Recently some good friends of our, decided to forgo a traditional Baby Shower and waited for the infant to be born, so that they could invite all of their friends to see their new grandchild.  I thought this was an excellent way to get friends and family together and not preclude all of the men.  It was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and to celebrate a new member of their family.  My Bride and the Grandmother, that was the hostess, have been friends since Elementary School, and have maintained contact through out the years, with a close bond.

Our hosts for the afternoon, decided on a very nice barbeque dinner for all of the guests.  The food was more than ample for all the attendees and started with munchies and appetizers, and went on from there.  Even though our Hostess has dietary restraints, all of the food was excellent, and one would not even realize that there were special requirements, if one didn’t know about them ahead of time.  Some of the guests also brought dishes for the dinner to be shared with everyone, including my Bride, who altered her oft requested Caesar Salad for the benefit of our Hostess.  One surprise to me, as I had never seen it before was that the Chicken Kebabs that were on skewers as they were being cooked were all perfectly cubed and equal in size, which amazed me.  Our host went on to tell me that he purchases these from one of the major “club” stores, and they are prepared this way, to facilitate even cooking time as well as presentation.  After I though about it, I was impressed not only with the concept, but also with the ease of prep work involved for a crowd of this size.

As for the beverages for the day, our Hosts had several stations set up in their yard for different types of drinks.  There was a soft drink area, a beer area and a wine area.  Each location had a respective cooler with plenty of ice to keep everyone comfortable in this setting.  My Bride and I brought two bottles of wine to add to the stock of wines available as well.  One of the wines that we brought was our current go-to white wine, namely a Sterling Chardonnay 2011 that I written about several times, and has always received rave reviews, which I put into the wine cooler as soon as I got there.  As we were one of the earlier guests to arrive, I had the choice of selecting the first white wine to open and I chose an Oak Grove Sauvignon Blanc Reserve 2012 that I thought would be perfect on this sunny afternoon.  This is a California wine, made with grapes from the Coastal area, which is as specific as the winery details on their information sheet.  Suffice it to say, that the wine was most enjoyable in the mid-day sun, during all of the revelry.  The second bottle of wine that we brought was a wine that we had bought while we were up in the Niagara district of Ontario, and I wanted to see how it was faring from storage.  As we were not aware of the menu, I had brought a bottle of Inniskillin Pinot Noir “Montague Vineyard” 2010, as I figured this softer red should work with almost any dish that we had to pair it with.  I am happy to say, that I was still pleased with the wine even after the fun of tasting it at the winery and it may have even better after aging in our cellar.  It seemed to be popular with others, as well and that made us both happy.

Good food, good wine and a happy event to celebrate, what more is there in life?