One of the great things these days, is the chance to have dates again with my Bride, though she may be getting tired of being with me, after the last almost two years.  She is probably happy, that we don’t have a smaller house.  She is still trying to get me healthy, though it is a losing battle.  After giving up cigars and all other bad habits like that, somehow, I gained forty pounds, the first twenty pounds fell off, rather easy, but this next forty is determined to stay with me.  We are trying to do 5K walks, but in the extreme heat we may only do a 3K walk, otherwise I might be writing these articles from a hospital setting, and they probably wouldn’t approve of my diet or my wines.

Periodically we break up our morning walk in the neighborhood, as there only so many times when we want to have to walk around sprinkler systems, or yapping dogs that by now should be used to seeing us, walk hand in hand all around our subdivision.  My Bride is excited, because she has this vinyl or plastic “Fit Bit” watch that is somehow in sync with her computer.  We break up our routine by going to other communities to walk around, and we can tie the walking with some window shopping, do people besides us, still do that?  Beyond window shopping, there is a chance of some actual shopping, maybe a frou-frou coffee and brunch.  We ended up at a restaurant called Toast and they were very busy, but the hostess suggested that we might get a seat near the bar, and we found two seats.  My Bride had the Nova Scotia Benny which was two poached eggs, smoked salmon, spinach, heirloom tomatoes, English muffins, dill Hollandaise and a Balsamic drizzle.  It also came with their highly touted Bacon-fried-rice which is Jasmine rice, bacon, avocado, pickled vegetables, crispy onion strings and spinach.  I had their Why So Blue? Pancakes which was a blueberry compote, lemon-honey-ricotta cheese, lemon zest and syrup with a side of Applewood bacon.  We split each other’s dish, though to be truthful, we could have split either of the orders and it would not have negated our walk. 

A brunch would not be a brunch without a Mimosa, and their recommendation was Mimosa for the Table, and they offered five different bottles of bubbly, two I thought were sacrilege to be used for a Mimosa and we ended up with a bottle of Avissi Prosecco DOC NV and a small carafe of orange juice and we mixed our own, which was perfect, just the way we like it.  Avissi Prosecco is of course from the Veneto region, otherwise the grapes would be called Glera, because only the Glera grapes from Veneto may be called Prosecco.  The wine is made using the Charmat Method, which is the way most of the wines from the region are made, as it is a more affordable way and to be mixed with orange juice, it is perfect, in my book.  The wine has a floral nose of honeysuckle and gardenias, a nice crisp tasting extra dry wine with a finish of ripe pear.  It was tasty, even without adding the orange juice.  It is owned by the Trinchero Family Estates and if we weren’t having brunch, it would be an enjoyable wine with almost any dish that we might have.