Year of writing 251. Taste of the town.

8/10/12

My wife won tickets to an event today called "Taste of the Town."  I was mostly just happy to get to spend some daylight hours with Tegan sans kids, but hey free food is good too.  As we drove through the hills of Santa Barbara to get to this event, I started to realize the amount of money that was involved.  Mansions rolled by on either side and the greenery was obnoxiously lush.  When we got to the event, we walked up to will call and they could not find our name.  I felt a little like an imposter, then some manager came and asked if we were on the "VIP" list.  We didn't know, so asked them to check... fully expecting to have to turn around and go home.  Lo and behold, however, we were VIPs, so they ushered us off to a fully catered luncheon with things like compressed watermelon salad and buttermilk poached chicken.  It was pretty rad.  After, there was a fun auction, to which our limits were quite handily outbid, but it was still entertaining to watch. 

If this were all, I would have, after 3 glasses of wine with lunch, gone home happy.  What I did not realize was that next, we would be traipsing around tasting 80 restaurants and 40 wineries.  I was overjoyed, and doomed.  The food was phenomenal, highlights being the wonton sushi nacho, apple fritters, deep fried phylo dough wrapped prawns, and gold-dusted chocolate mousse.   What got me in trouble though, were the wines and beers.  I was already 3 glasses in, and I have no idea how many more glasses I drank, I'm pretty sure I sampled everything.  Needless to say I was wobbly on the way back down the hill to the car.  Wobbly, but happy.