Okay, let’s see if I have this right. I attended eight holiday lunches, dinners, and events in nine days.
Tuesday – Italian business dinner, fairly casual
Wednesday – Fancy steakhouse dinner, intense with good wine
Thursday – Industry lunch; wore a suit
Friday – Winter gala; wore a tuxedo
Saturday – piano recital brunch
Sunday – a break in the action
Monday – Nothing, god bless
Tuesday – skipped an industry holiday party at a Spanish restaurant
Wednesday – churrasco team lunch
Scratch that, seven holiday events in nine days. I’ve actually grown weary of steak. I felt for some reason it was important for me to write about this as every year November and December seem to be a huge marathon where eventually I grow weary of indulgence. As a result, we have toned down our celebrations for the rest of the month, especially as we are traveling in January – more on that later.
The first dinner in the series actually materialized as part of my own instigation. I’ve been avoiding a social dinner with business partners for a while but I finally succumbed as I needed to meet with them anyway and I felt it was an excuse to avoid the supermarket. I decided it was a good opportunity to also try out a restaurant near my office that looked interesting and promising. The restaurant, North Italia, was interesting and promising, but a bit more casual and mass market than I was expecting. If I lived nearby I could see it becoming part of regular rotation but not necessarily for events. Like everything else in the center where my office is it seemed to be designed to be noisy, though.
The second event was a group dinner at Morton’s Steakhouse. Somehow we ended up with some overpriced wine – that was actually very good. This event began with happy hour cocktails and then appetizers (mostly seafood) and then the steaks themselves. Someone who shall remain nameless was handed the wine list by the host and ended up with a magnum of Caymus on the table. Next year we shall avoid that, but now I know also that Costco carries magnums of Caymus at a more reasonable price and it may be worth it for an event at home. The waitress also reported that they won Virginia’s ABC lottery for rare bourbons and had a few bottles but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to sample. This is fine of course as it’s a marathon not a sprint.
So, I occasionally attend lunches where someone from my industry speaks. That’s what last Thursday was. Some of these are at one country club and some are at another. Usually the meal served, regardless of the country club and banquet room, follows a set formula – a roll, salad, basic entree, basic dessert. Often the entree is combined with the salad. That was the case last Thursday and I was thankful even though I had not eaten since the previous dinner’s steak dinner. We had a roll, a salad with various chopped meats (ham, chicken, bacon in small deli bits), and cookies and coffee. It was perfect. Again, I did not have a large meal that evening. As you can see above usually the unspoken dress codes for these events includes “wear a suit” but aside from speakers and some of our higher ranking customers not many people wear ties for daytime events anymore.
Friday’s event was a classic winter gala in one of Washington’s big historic-ish buildings. Dress code was formal, black tie preferred. My black bow tie needs replacement as it is a bit frayed.
Last year we attended the same event and there was a lot of bourbon – there was a large bourbon tasting bar. This year there were two whiskey bars, smaller, that were placed better, and this year they had more sit-down seating so I could avoid having just heavy appetizers for dinner. We arrived such that the main event was barely beginning and the executive event was ending, so as a result we were able to find a table to join others and enjoy a meal. Then we met a bunch of colleagues and chatted.
Uber gave us a decent deal on transportation for the evening because I reserved ahead and we had black car transport to and from.
Twice a year our piano school has piano recitals – one for adults and one for kids. My teen plays at the kid recital of course at least for one more year. The adult recital consists of a bunch of adults standing around drinking wine and playing piano at somebody’s home; we have even done it at my house but my current set up is not large enough to accommodate all of the adult students now. The kid’s recital is almost as fun; it’s at a piano bar and includes brunch. At Christmas time it’s a good excuse to go Christmas shopping in Georgetown. Anyway, brunch was good, the piano playing was top notch, and we skipped the mimosas this year as we have all those other holiday events and an upcoming cruise.
By the way, the adult recital was Saturday; Jessica restrained herself from a huge spread and we went home after the “first party.” We could have stayed for the second party which included big steaks, but again it’s a marathon not a sprint.
I have no photo for Tuesday’s event because I did not attend. It was with a company we partner with for services and I did not attend because I had to go home after our afternoon meeting and did not care to drive out to my work neighborhood twice in one day. However, it was at a popular restaurant called Barcelona Wine Bar which operates in many large American cities. They do large spreads of tapas for banquet events. Last year at this event they rented out the whole restaurant for the evening. If I had gone it would have been a long evening.
Similarly, I do not have a photo of Wednesday’s lunch where we booked a large, long table at a popular churrascaria. For this lunch the meat was served rodizio-style meaning waiters constantly bring a variety of foods until you signal that you have had enough. There was a large salad bar with many options, mostly upscale, plus the meats of course – on lunch offering these included several beef cuts (the best was the flank steak), pork, sausage, bacon wrapped beef and chicken, grilled chicken (white meat, thighs, and drumsticks), and lamb. For my group we have carried on this tradition for the past four years; for this year it was modified somewhat due to a change in budget. We did not include wine officially or unofficially this year.
And that finishes out this year’s holiday-related events. The rest of the year is informal. We will probably go somewhere reasonably casual tomorrow for dinner and then just two of us on Christmas Eve. Dinner with friends and board games on Christmas Day is planned. And then we tentatively have a dinner scheduled at home on New Years Even and are attending a New Years Day open house.
I am still working more than not for the rest of the year unfortunately but have enough downtime for leisure – and for packing for January, of course.
In Retrospect 