Strawberry & Basil Heaven

Saturday Night Dinner

After many hours at my nephews birthday bash, several of which my husband was no where to be found, I was exhausted and dehydrated. All I wanted to do was lie down with a huge glass of water and a really long straw (or maybe an IV drip).

But my husband, who returned eventually, told me he had left the party to walk around the huge touristy-shopping-attraction place where the party was. He was raving about this olive oil and vinegar store. All I heard in my party dementia was, "Bla bla vinegar bla bla yum."

After we said out goodbyes to the party people, I managed to walk over to said store. It was very cool (as-much-as I could give a shit in my state of exhaustion). There were vats (maybe not the right word) with spouts on tables all over the room. We were informed to come in and try their 60 varieties. My husband started giving us the tour: you get a tiny paper cup, and try whichever one you want. I had three sips of different olive oil before I felt like puking. Then we tried the balsamic vinegars. They were pretty amazing so I tried about 10 before I told hubby to pick what he wanted and I went to sit down. The girls were really into trying all of them, too, which was so unlike them.

Fast forward to dinner: we stopped and got two kinds of cheese, salad fixings, bread and fruits. We set everything up as the kids went tot he neighbors pool. My husband, my MIL and I sat down to a "grown-up" dinner, I was having flashback to 10.5 years ago. You know, before kids spilled things all over the table, screamed and fought through the meal, etc.

The Strawberry Balsamic and Basil Extra Virgin Olive Oil were amazing on my salad. The Espresso Balsamic was amazing on the bread, the fruit, the cheese. As were the other two...Everything was so yummy. We had so much fun trying  different combinations of food and oil and vinegar. I passed out little bowls for dipping and we drizzled right on our plates. We were sticky and greasy and full by the end (sounds perverted, sorry.)

It was a really fun, special meal where we got to catch up and speak in out "inside voices". Then the kids came in...with wide eyes that we were eating without them. GAW, the nerve! The girls got out a bag of fish sticks and pretended to be grown-ups by making them themselves. Then they ate huge wads of our bread and cheese and fruit as they waited for them to cook. And guess what, they DIDN'T want to try the oil and vinegar with the food. No matter how good we told them everything was!

Weirdos.


Here is what we had:
Basil EVOO
Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar
Espresso Balsamic Vinegar
Tiny Bananas
Pear
Kiwi
Hard Italian Cheese
Havarti Cheese
Two loaves of french bread
Fresh Herbs: basil, mint, thyme and lemon balm
Fresh: cherry tomatoes, romaine, cucumber and avocado
Two bottles of Perrier

Voila! Dinner for three (and two bread hungry munchkins). This is the second photo after the above one, where Z snatched the bread out to gobble it up as I snapped the shot.





And no, I am not getting paid for this...I wish!