Wanderlushes

Chaumes with Roasted Pineapple & Habanero Jam

We tend to burn the candle at both ends in our never-ending journey to see, drink, taste and savor all the delights the world has to offer.  But every now and then we downshift to take time to appreciate good food, drink and friends.  A few Saturdays ago we did just that.

A little bit of background first.   We had attended the SOBE Food & Wine festival and received a flyer about a contest on the Ile De France Cheese website.  We entered and gave another entry to our good friends.    They received a phone call several weeks later that they had won a cheese platter!  We were all expecting a small amount of cheese to share between the four of us.   We were wrong!  The package arrived and there were gigantic slabs of cheese enough for a small army.   What to do in order to not waste all of this amazing cheese?   The plan developed for a “Beer and Cheeeez Party”  with everyone coming up with recipes incorporating the cheese which we would pair with beer and Richard Cheese tunes.  This was the final menu:

St. Agur Blue on Crackers Drizzled with Honey

- St. Agur Blue Cheese drizzled with Cheese Honey on a Table Cracker 
- Cremier de Chaumes on toast points with Roasted Pineapple & Habanero Jam
- Mediterranean Pizza with Goat Cheese, Sundried Tomatoes and Artichoke Hearts
- Pizza with Peppers and Caprice des Dieux
- Deconstructed Blue St. Agur Blue Cheese Burgers 

The Pizza Selections

 There were three choices of pizza on the menu this evening, including an amazing goat cheese, artichoke and sun-dried tomato pie.  It paired quite well with the Flying Dog Raging Bitch on draft.   As if that wasn’t enough, the grill was fired up for the next stage of our gluttony: mini burgers deconstructed and topped with bleu cheese and served on a puff pastry paired with Stone Smoked Porter.    My mouth is watering as I’m typing these words, so you can only imagine how good they tasted as they came sizzling hot off the grill.   

Stone Smoked Porter & Blue Cheese Burgers

With a continually filled plate in one hand and a beer in the other, it’s safe to say we all enjoyed the offerings.   After stuffing ourselves, we retired outside to listen to some music and talk. The weather was perfect: not too hot or cold, with a gentle breeze that kept the tiki torches flickering.

It’s always nice to slow down every once in a while and appreciate what we Wanderlushes have: good food, good spirits…and most of all, great friends to share them with.

Fort Lauderdale, I love you. Well, maybe not love…but I sure do like you a hell of a lot. But I think I’m beginning to lose some respect for you. Once you were the exciting, everything goes kind of town…like the happy-go-lucky kind of place everybody wanted to party in, be it spring breakers to sun-worshipping touristas, all with loads of cash and eager to tuck into your bikini bottom while you danced and pranced, all the while swaying and swinging your fun-loving little tush to and fro in the face of your uptight neighbors Miami, to the south, and Palm Beach, to the north. Then, years later, it all kind of went down hill. It wasn’t a seismic disaster of a change…no, it was more of a subtle change, a gradual downturn that most people didn’t see coming.

Fort Lauderdale: what happened to you?

You stripped off your façade and got a facelift. You built more and more condos and created a vast wasteland of over-priced buildings to attract more and more of the wrong type of people; you turned your back on your partying ways and suddenly decided to go chic and sophisticated on us. Nice try. Fort Lauderdale, for all your beauty, you’ve turned into a bloated, decrepit excuse for a sun-baked town. The party is over, for the most part. Sure, you enjoy fun in the sun and cocktails, but only in moderation. You tell everyone to keep the noise down at night; you build posh hotels to attract God-knows who to your shores and then complain when you can’t get a table at your favorite restaurant. You’re the tacky Hawaiian shirt, the black socks with white loafers, the early bird special lining up at the cheap diner with the rest of your survivors. I hope you see yourself for what you really are and do something to make a change…any change, for the better. But still, Fort Lauderdale, warts and all, I’m still a big fan…though not as much as I used to be.

Take two curious spirits (emphasis on spirits) who have an insatiable appetite for traveling this big, blue orb; add in a child-like fascination for experiencing food and drink amongst like-minded friends and strangers alike…and the end result is a Wanderlush. Okay, you’re probably scratching your head right now, thinking what the $*&@ is a Wanderlush? It has no formal definition (at least none published, according to us.) And it’s not just a name: it truly is an ideal…a way of life that shakes off the mortal coil of the everyday. It flies in the face of the mundane and thumbs its finger at mediocrity. You may already be one yourself, or know people who embody this principle. Well, step up to the web page and throw off all inhibitions and semblances of attitude. No, friends and dedicated readers…this page is for the wine aficionados, mixed drinkers and beer lovers alike. Snobs and slobs, you may ask? Hell no. And if you enjoy a nice beverage before, during and after enjoying a good meal, be it a simple snack, appetizer—or a full-on lunch dinner or midnight buffet, then you really are a highly evolved Wanderlush. Think of this page as required reading for your own Wanderlush adventures…the anti-travel guide for the travel guide impaired. You’ll read about great spirits worth trying, foodie adventures worth exploring and places you may know, or think you know, but will be seeing for the very first time—or in a whole new light. Now mind you, we Wanderlushes enjoy ourselves responsibly, so should you. If what you read in this blog doesn’t excite you or pique your curiosity, oh well. Teetotalers need not read further. However, if you have the spirit, the yearning and the desire to expand your horizons, then raise your glass, mug, snifter or flute…and join us loyal Wanderlushes everywhere in a massive, collective toast. FYI: we’re still working on a memorable toast, so until then just enjoy the read.