An Epic Labor Day Weekend (Part 1)

Wow. Just. Wow. I'm exhausted. I'm sitting here pecking out this as I miss my beloved Tuesday night Donaldson Ride. I just don't have the strength. I'm gassed. 

Why, you ask? Well, I just topped off about the busiest long weekend that I can remember. Ever hear the phrase, "I need a vacation from my vacation"? Well, there's a picture of me right now in the dictionary next to that one. We're gonna cover Saturday and Sunday here right now. Monday, however deserves some special attention, which I hope you will understand tomorrow when it comes out. Anyway on to our Epic Labor Day Weekend:

Saturday: Erin and Kevin's Wedding

We here at Yummy NOMs consider ourselves incredibly blessed to have met some truly interesting people in our lifetime. Even more so, we are proud to call many of those people friends. The down side? Life moves so fast that we lose touch, and people that we once saw every day as a matter of course become "once a year" friends. Such is my friend Erin, whom I have known since I was 5. I'm pretty lucky that my old high school crew still manages to get together and keep in touch on a fairly regular basis, and I was even luckier to be able to attend her wedding to her boyfriend (now husband) Kevin this past Saturday in Charleston. Saying it was good time would be putting it lightly,

A note on Kevin: he's a cook, and he promised me that the food would be good at the reception (a major priority here at Yummy NOMs) He didn't disappoint. Repeat: HE. DID. NOT. DISAPPOINT.

The service was held in the Circular Congregational Church in Charleston (bit of history:  not only is it actually circular, it's the oldest church in Chucktown, and also one of the original meeting places for the original city citizens, hence the name of the street it's on: Meeting Street). Beautiful church, and a lovely ceremony, followed by a marathon walk (across the street )to the Gibbs museum for the party. Good times. Really good times. And GREAT NOMs. Here they come: 

We've got good beef tenderloin cooked just right (extremely rare), pork tenderloin cooked just right (see previous) and stuffed w/ spinach and bleu cheese, and four cheese mac & cheese topped off with fresh sea scallops:

Let me tell you all something. I never before thought about having scallops with my incredibly good mac & cheese (when done right, mac & cheese, southern style, is art), but I will consider it on every future mac & cheese outing. This stuff was freaking good!!!!

But, were were at a wedding, and I'm sure you're thinking "Bo aren't you forgetting the most important part about the wedding? Like, say, the reason the whole thing is happening in the first place?" By that, I'm assuming you of course mean the cake.

And what a cake it was... There it is.

Oh, you mean the couple? Well, yes they were quite lovely., as you can also see here. Let me take a moment and say that I'm really happy for these kids. I love weddings. And not just for the food (though it was most definitely a plus in the case.) It's always uplifting to see two people who love each other starting their lives off.

Anyway, back to more important things...

Like the fact that the cake was RED VELVET CAKE!

Did I mention that I love red velvet cake?

Case in point: 

Yeah, that cake didn't stand a snowball's chance.

All in all, it was a great night. I'm sure Erin and Kevin are someplace warm and sandy right now reading this with baited breath, so we here at Yummy NOMs want to wish them good luck, and they can feel free to have another party with tasty NOMs and invite us any time!

Congratulations, Erin and Kevin!  NOM!

(editor's note to the reader: if you ever have friends that cook for a living invite you to any kind of gathering, go. Just go. Don't ask questions. Just go. You won't regret it)

 

Sunday: The Mad Dash from Charleston to Greenville and the first Yummy NOMs Homemade Pizza Fest (YNHPF)

We literally dragged our backsides out of bed to drive back home the next day in time to clean the house and get ready to rustle up some tasty goodness with our friends Josh, Jessica, and Vinnie.

Backstory: all the pics that Nikki and I have been posting over the summer have brought some people out of the ether to see what going on. Josh is the breakfast chef at La Bastide. He has cooked for Tiger Woods. He is obsessed with pizza and cycling. Needless to say, we get along swimmingly.  Jessica is his wife, and Vinnie is a buddy who rolls into town periodically that we like to have over to chow down (he's training for an Iron Man, so he's never met a calorie he didn't like.)

Josh and Jess showed up late afternoon with what can only be described as an incredible amount of homemade pizza dough (Jess had another description, but we like to keep in PG here, so use your imagination. It was A LOT OF DOUGH). The labors began (I gladly took a foreman's role in the process, by which I mean that I sat there, drank a beer and generally tried to keep the conversation lively. Hey, you do what you're good at!)

 

The results, were, ummm, NOM-tastic.

Pie #1:Hawaiian style w/ real (i.e. really expensive and tasty) prosciutto, pineapple, and cilantro

Pie #2: Buffalo chicken (Cholula was the base sauce)

Neither stood a chance, but here they are, presented artfully and with primo product placement from the hopefully-soon-to-be-sponsor of Yummy NOMs, Sierra Nevada.

Man, that was good.

For dessert, what else, but strawberry, blueberry, and rhubarb dessert calzone!

After that, we were completely wiped out, and made every body leave, as we had an early wakeup call the next day. How early, you ask?   

EARLY.

Thanks to Josh, Jess, and Vinnie for participating in the first ever YNHPF! It will surely happen again many more times in the future!

Coming tomorrow, we take it to another level with An Epic Labor Day Weekend (Part 2):

THE GIRO DI TEDD

Stay hungry, friends. NOM!