So far, it's been a great 'weekend' for me. I got up early Tuesday morning when Eddie's alarm went off, made the coffee, and spent most of the morning either reading or writing, then I caught up on the latest episode of 24 on the Tivo.
I'm sorry, but it must be said--this season started with so much promise, and even though it's had it's bright spots, it's seems that the conclusion will arrive not with a bang, but with a whimper. Seriously--Nobody in the 24-watching universe is rooting for Audrey Raines to recover her mental abilities and for her and Jack to ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Of course we're all hoping for him to hop on the hot ex-girlfriend/sister-in-law from earlier in the day. If I were a badass on the same order of magnitude as Jack Bauer, that's what I'd do. Audrey Raines would only be fetching my coffee and ordering my office supplies, and that'd be about the extent of our 'relationship'.
Clearly this past episode was directed by a woman who's not getting enough love or chocolate, because I about gagged during that whole I love you with all my heart bullshiat scene. John Wayne would've never said that. And Chloe and Morris having their "breakup" in the back hallway? Whatever. Do they really need to make such a lame effort at chick-flickedness to maintain ratings? It makes me sick.
Anyhow... That kind of put me in a foul mood after watching such a crappy episode.
Once my tv-watching and the rest of my chores were done for the day, I got a little grocery shopping done for last night's festivities. We didn't need much, just meat, buns, and beer--I pretty much had everything else on hand.
I got back to the house a few minutes after Eddie did, and we spent the balance of the afternoon watching ESPN, drinking a beer or two, and going on another wood-gathering safari in the underbrush of the 'frontier' that surrounds the property.
Once the sun headed for shelter behind the western mountains, we fired up the charcoal grill again and built a teepee out of firewood. I made some sour cream/onion soup dip, then set out preparing the brats.
Of course, you can just throw brats on the grill right out of the package, but that wouldn't be proper. I sliced up a couple of onions and added them to three bottles of Corona in a stew pot. I added the brats, and let the whole mixture simmer for about a half an hour. Good lord the kitchen smelled good!
Rob showed up about the time the coals were good and ready, so we threw the brats and a few hamburgers on the grill, and also prepared a can of bbq baked beans.
The beer/onion mixture didn't go to waste, as Eddie salvaged all of the onions while I was tending the grill. A few minutes later we were sitting at the table chowing on the best tasting brats we'd ever had.
I know that's a bold statement, but it's true. We couldn't stop raving about how good they turned out. Grilled beer brats on super-fresh soft buns, topped with spicy mustard and beer-boiled onions--Oh hell yeah--it just didn't get any better than that! You can only imagine how good it tasted.
I even tossed out the offhand remark You know fellas, it may be blasphemy (there's that word again!) to say so, but I think I enjoy these brats more than the steaks last week! The amazing thing was that both of them agreed. Don't get me wrong, the steaks were fine, but they weren't prime ribeyes or anything like that. But the brats were just so damn good, that we couldn't find enough superlatives to describe them. So we pretty much decided at that moment that we'd be grilling brats again next time.
After dinner we lit up the fire pit, got fresh beers, and fired up a couple of cigars, as is our usual ritual. We hung out for a couple of hours, until the stack of firewood had turned into a pile of embers. Eddie announced that it was his bedtime and started to wrestle The Blob back into the bedroom, while Rob and I headed back inside to do the dishes and clean up and such. Eventually, we made a pot of coffee and roasted a plate of smores in the microwave, and stayed up chatting till sometime after 1:00 am.
I guess you could say that Tuesday night at the fire pit was a success.
I slept like a rock until that 5:00 alarm this morning that got Eddie up, and of course I've been up ever since. The agenda for today is to do a shitload of laundry, go to the post office, and maybe scarf down a leftover brat for breakfast. I've got to get a nap in at some point, because tonight we're off to The Mirage for the wine tasting.
Mikey
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