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The Joys of Family, Friends, Food, and Wine
- MarkG
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
As I get older, I have a much greater appreciation for time spent with friends and family. Perhaps that’s because Laurie and I have much more time on our hands now since retirement to enjoy these opportunities. And there’s one common thread to each of these engagements with friends and family – the communal enjoyment of food, wine, and spirits!
There are a lot of important things in life, but none more important than our health and our relationships. In my case, there might be scant evidence of those priorities if you looked closely at my pre-retirement life. While I always tried to stay healthy, working out always took a back seat to my job when things got hectic at work. And healthy eating wasn’t a focus either – I almost always picked the less healthy options for snacks and dinners if given the choice.
Most importantly, my job and work were the top priorities as evidenced by the time I spent working, and at work every week. The end result was few opportunities to get together with and enjoy time with friends and family. All that hard work did allow both Laurie and I to retire early, but it came at a cost.
Which is why we were so anxious and excited to meet new friends and spend more time with family when we retired and moved down to Florida to live the good life in Sarasota! Now, we had the time to get together with friends for an afternoon wine tasting on a Wednesday, or a dinner out to one of our favorite restaurants on the weekend, or a day spent on a boat in Sarasota bay, or a holiday wine tasting dinner hosted in our home, or longer and more frequent visits with family.
And the common element in all of these get-togethers? The enjoyment of food, wine, and spirits as the centerpiece of our social engagements! Of course, celebrating with food and wine is as old as time. Of the 12 main Greek gods/goddesses of Greek mythology, three are associated with food and drink (Dionysus, the god of wine; Artemis, the goddess of animals and hunting; and Detemir, the goddess of agriculture, harvest, and fertility of the earth), as are a plethora of other minor Greek gods and goddesses.
And of course, there are numerous references to food and wine across ancient religions and especially in the Bible. The original sin included eating a piece of fruit. Food and wine were divine gifts for celebration and presented as blessings from God. And sharing meals, which included both food and wine, was a sign of fellowship and hospitality in biblical times. Also, don’t forget that the bible says that Jesus turned water into wine, and the Passover meal and the Last Supper featured bread and wine as well.
Growing up, I was blessed to have a mom that was an excellent cook, and parents who instilled the importance of spending time together as a family, usually centered around food. We always ate dinner together, and breakfast as well on the weekends. Since we were all raised as good and faithful Southern Baptists, alcohol was not allowed in our house (despite the frequent imbibing of wine in the bible, which always confused me a bit), but we were able to enjoy sparkling non-alcoholic grape juice on special occasion!
Once I met Laurie, we set out on a journey together to learn everything we could about food, wine, and spirits. That included learning how to cook (most people don’t know Laurie is both a fantastic cook and baker!), educating ourselves and learning all we could about wine and spirits, and getting out of our comfort zone by trying new and different foods that we had avoided before. For me, that meant trying raw oysters, octopus, abalone, sardines, lamb, sweetbreads, tripe (stomach lining of animals), alligator, Chinese stinky tofu, haggis, steak tartare, and fish penis (yup – served as a course in a 20-course dinner at Jose Andres’ restaurant minibar in Washington DC) to name a few.
As a result, I learned to love fish and shellfish, along with eggplant, exotic mushrooms, bread pudding (hold the raisins please, …), and duck, and even fish penis (tasted like chicken, …)!!! Alas, despite trying on a number of occasions, I never developed a taste for eel, squid, coconut, prunes, organ meat, or fried insects.
But back to time spent with friends and family, and the nexus with food, wine and spirits. For me, the connections have to do with the desire to share what we love with others – a new dish that I’ve recently mastered, a rare wine that I’ve been aging and that’s ready to drink now, or a unique cocktail I tried at a favorite restaurant that was so good that I just had to learn how to make it. I also equate food with community – a reason to bring people together to create a shared experience and to learn about and from each other. And finally, wine and spirits often serve as the lubricant for social engagement – something to talk about, but also something that relaxes us and makes conversation flow easier. Also, something that can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary!
So, whether it’s Matt and Cathy’s fantastic New Year’s Eve party, their famous grilled smashburgers, a day out on Sarasota bay on their boat, or entry into their beautiful “lounge” where top shelf tequila and other spirits are generously shared and flow freely; or whether it’s Theresa and Charlie’s famous pizza bar nights including bonfire and lanai games, or Theresa’s amazing baked goods (keep those banana muffins, snickerdoodles, and chocolate caramel brownies coming please, …!!!); or a great dinner out to a new or favorite Sarasota restaurant with Terry and Gerard, or joining them for a cooking class, or enjoying one of Terry’s fantastic homemade cocktails, or a unique and hard-to-find wine Gerard generously opens and pours for us; or Karen and Rich’s BBQ bashes and potlucks; or my sister-in-law Lisa’s fantastic chocolate chip cookies and other deserts; or my brother Ken’s smoked meats or dinner out with them both during their yearly visits to Sarasota in the winter; or our niece's husband Andy’s amazingly unique cocktails or dinner with Andy and our niece Sara at one of their favorite restaurants in St. Paul, MN (Yes, I’m talking about you, Estelle!); or our nephew and his wife, Christopher and Euginia’s out-of-this-world Tinga and Mexican street corn; or eating out with our fantastic best friends from Virginia, Annie and Terry – the list goes on and on – and it all ends up in the same place.
And that place? A shared experience with those people we appreciate and treasure most; life-long memories that represent “the best of times” in our lives; a safe place where you can just relax and be you; and in each case, made all the better by the food, wine, and spirits served to enhance the enjoyment of each shared moment. Does life get any better than that??!!
