When there’s no music or art calling my name, I can be satisfied with food and wine to occupy my time. I can recommend a couple of recent activities that provided both…and even a little learning in the process.

Friday night I went to the European Market for its monthly First Fridays Wine Tasting. They provide 6 wines and 6 taste delights paired with them, all of which are served family style. The lovely blogger GenevelynSteeleSwallows was the guest host (and has the best-ever named blog, IMHO) and shared her encyclopedic knowledge of wine with us as we sipped and chowed through a lot of delicious food and drink. Fair warning, though: these events have a hardcore group of regulars who sign up quickly, as well they should, given what a bargain it is and the high tastiness factor of everything poured and served. The market’s owner Jason was a most hospitable host and knows how to show off his kitchen staff’s obvious skill. It was a fine way to wait out the rain before heading over to Broad Street and the InLight extravaganza.

Monday night meant Cheese Class at River City Cellars and while I definitely learned plenty, it was the combination of wine and 7(!) absolutely delicious goat cheeses that made this such an enjoyable evening. As with wine, we started delicate and moved on to heartier and eventually to barnyard stinky (a personal favorite). A guy once told me on a second date that he didn’t care for strong-flavored cheeses; I knew at once it would be our last date. And it was. We tried some cheeses last night that were so pungent they left a tingling in your mouth; those are my kind of cheeses. The wine flowed throughout the evening, sometimes enhancing the cheese and sometimes just cutting through the stink. They can call it a class…but it was really an awesome way to spend a Monday evening drinking wine and tasting some superior cheeses.

Both events have a fee and require reservations and both are so completely worth it that I’m probably an idiot for sharing.

Posted by Karen Newton in
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