Ok--here's all the details about our Samoset "date" last night...

Dwane was given a free dinner at the Samoset by one of the Banquet managers. Dwane's co-worker from New Hampshire, and his wife, were to join us. At the last minute, we learned that the wife's sister, and her husband, were also going to join us. So--now I was going to have a date with my husband and 4 people I didn't know. I was a little apprehensive...

When we got there, and made introductions, and I learned that the brother-in-law was actually a former supervisor of my Dad's. How odd is that?! He had one of those names that are so unusual that you know that you've heard it before. When I mentioned my Dad's name, they started laughing. "Of course, we know Bill!" That broke the ice, and we had a little discussion about my Dad.

Dwane and I started with root beer and diet coke. The others had some sort of onion martini (a gimlet?), some drink made with "grey goose?", and some kind of wine. I know I had heard of that type of wine before, but I can't remember it now. Can you tell that I don't drink?

We were then served "tapanades". You'll have to forgive my spelling in this post. I tried looking up the words in the dictionary, but they weren't there. (Maybe because the words are from a foreign language, as opposed to English.) The tapanade was crostini with a black olive paste, sun dried tomato and parmesano reggiano. Can you believe that I actually ate it? Although I wouldn't pay money to have it again, it wasn't bad. We then had our "appetizers". Four of us had the lobster stew, which was to die for. It was made with sherry, and it was very rich. The other two had Caesar salad that was made tableside. Lemon sherbert was then served to cleanse the palate. For our main course, Dwane and I had the chateaubriand for 2, which was also prepared tableside. It was awesome! It was so tender, and such a huge portion. I'm used to putting down some protein, but that was unbelieveable. I don't remember all of the other dishes--but there was Steak Diane, some sort of duck, some sort of pork, and I think some sort of stuffed haddock. Four of the people had Bananas Foster for dessert, because of my brother's recommendation. (My brother is THE famous Billy Rhythm, the world's best drummer.) I had creme broulee with fresh berries. It was really good. Even though I love custard, it was the first time I had ever had it. What surprised me was that it was served cold. I guess I figured it was worm because of the burnt sugar on the top. Everyone loved the bananas foster. I tried it, but actually didn't care for it too much. I could really taste the alcohol. It felt like a vapor was in my nose. Someone mentioned that perhaps it hadn't been flamed enough.

We got home about 10:00 PM. The boys were still up, and they did a great job with Mindy. Mindy said Caleb cried only once, and that was when she told him "no".

This was a great night. The food was great, the company was great, and the boys didn't kill the babysitter.