Eating while drinking: how much is too much?

A friend recently mentioned how I always feed them when we drink. Not just a little, they say, but a LOT and how that makes them comfortable to drink with me on a week night or before a day that they need to get things done.

It got me thinking how often I usually involve food with drinking. Regardless if its beer, wine, liquor, whatever, I usually try to always have dinner as well as late night snacks available. Recently, at 1:30 in the morning, (read=we just got home from the bar and were drunk) I realized we didn’t eat that much for dinner and I boiled some noodles and warmed up some marinara sauce from the fridge. Yes, that’s right, I made pasta at 1:30AM. But, I bet we all felt better the next day because of it. (Particularly with the aid of my hangover cures, posted earlier.)

For the record, eating doesn’t help you actually “sober up”- it has very little effect on your blood alcohol content. However, it can help absorb some of that alcohol from your stomach and usually lessons the hangover. So, while I don’t recommend eating a cheeseburger to sober you up enough to get behind the wheel, at least have comfort in the fact that eating does help the next day. (Hopefully enough to burn off those late night calories.!)

But I wonder, do we really serve that much more food than everyone else while drinking? Usually, once we exceed 3 drinks, its time to serve a near full-meal. Is this really that odd? Is it too much food? I suppose, glancing at my waistline, that perhaps the Lush way of eating and drinking is overdoing it.

Not a vegetarian, but a meatatarian

I saw a hilarious commercial the other day. I’m sure it offends vegetarians everywhere but whatever. (actually I know it does because in trying to find the clip of the commercial to post, only complaints about it came up)

A guy and a girl are eating at Wendy’s. Girls asks Guy if he wants a bite of her salad. He says no, “I’m a meatarian”. (blank look on Girl’s face) He goes on to say he only eats meat and points to his “baconator” cheeseburger. He says it’s a lifestyle choice and you have to be really committed.

I, of course, find it hilarious. (I’ll try to link to the commercial once I find it) While I have recently tried to like more veggies, and have succeeded in adding a few regulars to the Lush menu, I’m far closer to a “meatatarian” then a vegetarian and lightyears away from a vegan. Unless its alcohol, almost everything I consume came from an animal or is an animal. (sorry, PETA)

On a side and somewhat related note, another hilarious anti vegetarian thing to watch is South Park’s episode from season 6. The ending is fab.

Right or wrong, I appreciate good low brow entertainment. That and good wine. Even better at the same time. :)

Really old Reisling

A few weeks ago we had a garage sale to get rid of some of the pre-wedding handme downs. We didn’t have much of real value, most of it was junk, but junk that took up space. A lady purchased an old patio set asked us to deliver it, since she was just a few houses down. No problem, of course, so Mr. Lush takes off. He comes back with a large container of wines that she had from her father, and she doesn’t drink wines. Sounds very exciting right? The vast majority of it is Riesling from 1979-1986. Hmm. I have never had 20+year old Riesling before, but I thought it lasted a while and call Lucy to ask her. She had heard the same, but had never had one.

Curious, Mr. Lush and I open a bottle of 1982 Spatlese. (Spatlese refers to the level of sugar/sweetness in the wines) Hmm. Its awfully golden. That’s what happens to whites when it ages, right? Smell. Hmm. Smells like sauternes-ish. Probably not going to be very Reisling, right? Taste….sort of apple juice like. Not moldy apple juice or funky apple juice. Just apple juice like. Dang it. We tried a few more, one with the Luce’s, who thought the same thing. Dang it. After looking it up we see that Spatlese wines will keep for 5-10 years, maybe 15 in extraordinary years. The youngest wine we had was a 1986, so they will all probably be thrown down the drain. Of course, I’ll open them and taste, hoping that perhaps we had one bottle that magically managed to stay good, and will probably be disappointed that the wine acted just as it should’ve….it was past its time. It might’ve been fantastic in 1990, which is probably how long she’d had it, based on other bottles in the bin.

I could be mad at the Wine Gods again, but one bottle did have a lovely rendition of a tapestry of the wine gods in a garden, so I thought perhaps it was a sign that I shouldn’t be mad at them, since I'm collecting art wine labels.