Bastille Day Weekend @The Catskills, July 12th-14th

Not a gig, per se, but a great weekend out in the country. Last weekend, Bestest Boy took me to his pal Eddie C.'s annual Bastille Day Weekend Celebration in the Catskills. Before heading out of the city, we loaded up the car with some gravalax, pastrami salmon and sturgeon from Barney Greengrass; bagels and bialys from H&H; and pâté, fois gras, croissants, beaucoup de fromages et cornichons de Zabar's! Also, many, many bottles of wine.

Once up at the farm, we mainly relied on Rich, professional tapas chef and guitarist/keyboardist extraordinaire to direct the evening meals. And there was tons of grilling.

Those are dried plums (aka prunes) which were soaked in Merlot for a few hours, then stuffed with fois gras, wrapped in prosciutto, grilled, then finished off with a thyme-infused simple syrup. Heavenly!

In addition to being exquisite gourmands, many of our friends are also fantastic musicians, keeping the rest of us drunkards entertained well into the night. Oh it's amazing what a fearless singer 8 oz. of Knob Creek will make me!