Less then a week after my Brother-in-Law stayed with us, his charming wife and her daughter and came by. She left her daughter to stay with us, and we also had two of our grandchildren stay at the house as well. There was a baby shower that they came in for during their visit. Naturally the house was in constant flux, as the house became a secondary kitchen as some of the food was being prepared, and the women then proceeded to the shower.

I was fortunate that I was not attending, as I was off to work, and when I got home that evening, the house was calm, but not for long. My Sister-in-Law stopped by first, after getting some groceries and she was going to prep some dishes for a brunch that they decided to have the next morning at their Mother’s home. I may appear to be familiar with the kitchen and all its intricacies, but I almost felt like a fish out of water, as she was searching for certain types of utensils as well as some culinary ingredients. I was able to find most, and by that time, my Bride showed up with the girls, to take over in the kitchen and I went to bring all the stuff from the car, which she had schlepped over for the shower. Sometimes I think we could be party suppliers, but that is for another day. The women were in the process of making some assorted quiches for the brunch. My job was to get the secondary refrigerator set up, so that the next morning they could take the orange juice, Korbel, assorted meats to be cooked, and of course the quiches. My job was much easier than theirs, I felt.

Of course when one is in the kitchen preparing culinary dishes, the old adage “I love to cook with wine…and sometimes I even add it to the dish” comes to mind. The bottles of wine that my Brother-in-Law had left for his wife came into play, and I had placed them in the main refrigerator earlier in the day, after all, one must be prepared. The two wines were both Chardonnays, hence they were being chilled. The first was an old stand by that all of us have had in the past, sometimes even in restaurants. The William Hill Estate Winery Chardonnay 2013 from the North Coast of California is just a great every day wine. The fruit came from Sonoma, Solano and Mendocino; hence the North Coast designation. A great way to get the evening started. The next bottle of wine that we opened was a new one for me, but I am told that it is one of their personal preferences when they want a Chardonnay in the evening at their home. Charles & Charles Chardonnay 2014 is a Washington State wine that is a joint effort between Charles Smith and Charles Bieler and the wine that they produced was more of a Continental Chardonnay rather than the big oakey Chardonnays of Napa Valley and it was very refreshing. I am glad that it was the second wine that we opened, though I almost opened it first, out of curiosity. The next morning, the family all had brunch at my Mother-in-Law’s house, while I worked again. Then our guests left to go back home and my Bride took the grandchildren back, and when I got home the home had only traces of the big weekend that had occurred.