Let this be said, right off the top: The Wife can make a kick-ass fire, anytime, anywhere. Just look at the one she made in our little Weber grill tonight. I can almost taste those steaks…

Another preliminary notation: While she was starting to get ready to grill our steaks, The Wife was desperate to have the dishes washed. And she paid me Twenty United States Dollars to get that done. There’s some kind of lesson here; I’m just not quite sure what it is.

The Point: The Wife and Uncle Crappy did a very cosmopolitan, very adult (there’s a fucking surprise…) thing this evening, although it got me in enough trouble that I felt the need to post something right away: a function of the annual Pittsburgh Wine Festival. For years, the city’s wine festival has meant shelling out something like $200 a person for a multi-course dinner/wine pairing. That’s a bit stuffy for our tastes, so we were happy to find that this year’s festival included an event that pair a wine and a beer — fresh from Dogfishhead Brewing in Delaware — with five different dishes. We got to taste some of the Dogfishhead beers we hadn’t stumbled across before, and got to discuss them with the freakin’ owner of the brewery, who is A) no older than we are, and B) RICHER THAN GOD. Bastard.

We also found a couple of excellent wines, ate some outstanding horsdevores (however the fuck you spell that): a citrus/Mexican shrimp thing, a poached salmon thing, an asparagus-wrapped with ham-and-goat-cheese thing, a rare steak-and-biscuit thing and a mini creme brulee thing. And then we voted on whether the beer or the wine worked better with each dish (results not yet available.).

Then we drove home and ate grilled steaks for dinner. Exactly how do you top that? By drinking more as I sit on our porch.

I’d love to write more, but there’s a Brooklyn Brewing Chocolate Stout in the fridge calling my name. Have a lovely weekend.