We just finished hosting the first of two nights of our autumn Harvest Beer Dinner. It was my favorite one yet. The second course featured La Chouff Golden Ale paired with lamb carbonnade and buttery tarragon spaetzle. Just the smell of it was the best thing in the world! My hat is off to the chefs, Leighanne and John and their helper today, Katie. Wow. Thank you for a wonderful evening!
We are getting ready for another one of our beer dinners this month. We do them about every 3 months to kind of kick off the season and to get some folks together who enjoy beer about as much as we do. I guess you could call us “beer nerds”. Basically, it’s a six course tapas-style meal paired with six different beers from around the globe. The different food courses are designed to compliment the beer is paired with in style, flavor and texture, so it takes quite a bit of time to come up with the menu and the beers we want to use because there really are so many choices out there. We have been tasting different beers over the past few weeks, and we have found some amazing beers — actually too many to include this time around.
Here’s one we’ve settled on — an abbey beer called Dulle Teve (or “Mad Bitch”). It’s delicious!
I was away last week for a family vacation. We invited a bunch of family to join us at a house on the beach. It was beautiful. Some highlights…
My two year old daughter really discovered her grandmother this time. But she insisted on calling her “Grampa”. It got confusing when Grampa showed up…
My nephew, Zack came up from Florida, and we finally had the pleasure of meeting him. He’s a treasure.
We drove up the beach on Corolla for an hour in search of wild horses. So we turned around and drove back. About 5 minutes before we got off the beach, 4 wild horses walked right by.
After getting on a ferry off Ocracoke Island, we found out it was going to be almost three hours before we hit land again. Our three kids were over it in about 25 minutes. But we saw a beautiful sunset over the water.
Weather was perfect.
When I returned to work today, I was amazed and thrilled to find that everything looked better than when I left. I am blessed with a wonderful staff. And I can’t say thank you enough.
(originally posted by ValaVala)
Last, but not least: Writing your phone number on the application is crucial. More crucial than your education, your social security number or your address. We will not be mailing you an invitation for a job interview.
So, one night I was training a new bartender in the downstairs bar at M’Coul’s. The upstairs bar was already closed and I kept hearing a group of women erupting in laughter every few minutes. I kept running upstairs into the dark bar and tried to follow the voices and laughter, but it would die down when I went from room to room. Then I would go back downstairs, and hear it again, run back up into the darkness, but there was no one. I didn’t want to scare my trainee so I didn’t mention to him why I was running upstairs and figured he must think me crazy. I was heading back down the stairs after my fourth run up and when I was almost at the bottom, I heard them laughing again so I stopped dead in my tracks and just listened. The trainee peeked up at me from behind the bar and said, “Do you hear that, too?”I was stunned. “You hear it?”
“Yeah, the women laughing. I have been hearing it all night.”
I was spooked. “That’s why I keep running up there. I thought maybe some customers were still up there hiding somewhere.”
He said, “Well, earlier, I was kneeling down behind this bar and I felt someone behind me run their fingers through my hair. I thought it was you. When I turned around, no one was there.”
“No, it wasn’t me. Definitely not me.”
“Then I started hearing the laughter and the voices, but I spent time in a mental hospital so I thought maybe my medication wasn’t working.”
Okay, now it’s really time to go home…
Today I met with my web dude, Sean so we could head over to Carey Sound to discuss them doing sound for our joint music event coming up October 19 for Converge South. I was getting into my car and got covered by a spider web. I hate that feeling! I said, “I know there’s a spider on me. Do you see one in my hair?”
He said, “You’re fine.” And laughed at me.
I was driving up Market Street and I looked over and there is a HUGE wolf spider RUNNING up his sleeve so I screamed and pointed. (I am hysterically laughing as I write this because it was so funny!)
“IT’S ON YOU!”
At which point, (and Sean threatened me not to say this), he SCREAMED, “WHERE?”
I was barely keeping in my lane, trying to pull over, cars were honking, while he frantically swiped around trying to figure out where the spider was.
‘WHERE IS IT?!?!”
ON YOUR SLEEVE!
At which point he flicks it AT ME. I duck and somehow manage to pull over to the side of the road without slamming into any of the cars around me. Now we are both screaming. Cars are still honking at us - it’s CHAOS.
Where is it?
Over there!
Where?
In the cup holder!
Get it out of here! Don’t kill it!
So Sean picks up a small piece of paper and says, “I’m going to litter now. So I don’t have to kill the spider!”
So if you saw a renegade SUV weaving like a maniac and dropping a small piece of paper in the road around lunchtime on Market St. today, I am so sorry.
I HATE SPIDERS.
We are in an old building, and apparently quite some decades ago we were once a hotel of ill repute. You could get a room for ten bucks, or a room and services for twenty, if you so desired. At least that’s the story I heard.
So one night I was sitting on a sofa after the doors were shut and talking with a server while the bartender was sweeping behind the bar about thirty feet away. All of the sudden I got a chill and it felt like the bartender had taken the broom and run lightly down my hair and rested it on my shoulder. I sat very still, thinking “this is a prank”, so I said to the server, “Who is standing behind me?”
“Huh?”
I reached behind me to swat the broom away and nothing was there, but it still felt like something was resting on my back. I jumped up, looked behind me and saw the bartender still behind the bar sweeping, and no one behind me.
I was pretty spooked but decided it was nothing. Until my next visit.
As I get a little bit older I keep having to investigate all these different types of insurance. For the business, for the cars, for the liability, for life, for health, for maternity. And everyone seems to be selling insurance now. For everything.
So I was meeting with some of my sales reps and we were swapping some war stories. About the guy walking onto my patio who got hit by some bird droppings and adamantly demanded a gift certificate. About the guy who’s friend spit in his beer and he wanted me to buy him another one. Or the guy who puts his cigarette out “accidentally” in the backwash remainder of his bottle of beer and wanted me to buy him another one. Or the guy who’s friend took his shot of jagermeister and I was, once again, required to buy him another one.
So we got to thinking. Maybe we should sell beer insurance. Because you never know what might happen to you when you walk into a place and for one reason or another and you down a beverage. Maybe we can offer “beer insurance” for those unexpected mishaps. Add a buck to the beer price and you can drink it with an easy mind… You dropped your beer? Do you have your insurance group number? No problem. Here’s another. Cheers!
I have this thing called the “four month rule.” As it goes, it takes about 4 months of constant reminding (I hate that word “nagging”) to get people to fall into the habit of doing things without being told. So when I realize, hey, we need to Brasso that banister every day so it looks nice, it takes me putting it on the list of things to do and then “reminding” them every day to do it. Just an example.
So, I’ve been trying to get a few lovely staff members to drink out of to-go cups with lids on them, per the health department. Sounds reasonable, right?
I told one employee three days in a row to drink out of to-go cup cups. On the third day, I said, “Don’t you remember I told you yesterday AND the day before not to drink out of glassware?”
To which they replied, “Yeah, but you didn’t tell me today.”
Hence, the four month rule.
