Two Days Later

- Knock, knock!
- Who's there?
- It's A-Dog and V-Cat!

Well, that's how it started more than 48 hours ago. I still get chills when I think about it. This is what really happened!

The missus and I had invited over the Dog and his Cat for some spanish wine-tasting. You know, tangle a few reds from overseas. Mix it up a little bit.

We got the idea a few weeks earlier at a french wine-tasting event at the A-Dog's hacienda. We started with a Côtes du Rhône and finished with a Burgundy. Nothing fancy but on the other hand not half bad. We enjoyed cheese in the addition to the wine. Stinky cheese. The kind that grows hair on your chest - and probably other places as well if you aren't careful. The locker-smelling-kind. The-old-trainers-never-washed-but-been-through-hell-and-back-kind. The-what's-that-green-stuff-kind.

Being the last minute kind of guy, I had just come back from the grocery store. Carrying four corniche game hens to broil. I quickly rubbed them with my secret mix and threw them in the oven - 400 degrees for 45 minutes.

- Knock, knock!
- Who's there?

Cheese on the table and the first Rioja - a Marques de Riscal Reserva from 1999 - was decapitated and the party started. A-Cat got promoted 24 hours earlier so there was a real reason to celebrate. We usually just make up celebrations in our statistically irrelevant household.

- Knock, knock!

The hens are dead, broiled and done. White, tender and ready to be had. The meat is falling of the bones and the second Rioja is popped open and the feast can continue.

We talk about chicken tenderness, being a chef and about the wine region of Rioja. I mean, to be fair, we are gathered here today to enjoy the hard labour of our friends in the spanish grape wines.

Then I realize, this is the moment. This is why we head up at 6am every freekin' morning to go to work, why we extend ourselves and go beyond what we thought was possible. Those small moments of true connection, of happiness, of planning the future and exchanging Ahh's and Ohh's with good friends.

Say cheese! It's definitely time for a picture!