Friends , Family and good food

Hey Gays,

Had a fabulous weekend! It's so great when you have friends and family to be able to do things with and feel comfortable.

On Saturday we headed up to visit our friends Jeff and Glenn. Jeff put together a fabulous meal for us, Tapas to be more specific, everything was great and just perfect, I especially loved the Chorizo dish with potato's, just tasty. We brought wine and dessert and the dessert was really good, we got little cakes from Black Hound. When Glenn picked us up from the train and brought us back to the apartment and opened up the trunk to pull out a case of wine...we had brought 2 bottles, he knows us so well..LOL.

We had a great time chatting about issues and laying the gay on the table, meaning , just talking about our lives and struggles as well as fun times. The thing is we are all a little different. My Jeff is a little headstrong and very blunt, Glenn is gentle but extremely intelligent and observant, Glenn's Jeff is an artist of the talk, and I mean that in a good way, he's so articulate and dramatic in tone, I love his voice and how his words flow and then there is me, then there is me, I think I always try and bring a little comic relief to everything.

We always have great talks and sometimes we don't always agree on everything but we usually understand each other's points of view. I didn't bring the camera so I didn't take any pics but believe me we were laughing, crying and enjoying our night and the drink added to the fun. We are planning a trip to Newport, RI next month so that should be fun!

On Sunday I had planned on going to my Aunts house in Connecticut to keep a family tradition alive.

You see when I was young my Grandmother, Sophie, was always bottling things. She always had a huge garden and every summer she would pickle everything she could get her hands on, LOL. She would also make hot peppers that would knock your socks off. The one thing that she made though that I loved was something called "Chili Sauce". Today it would be considered Salsa.

As a kid it would always be a big event to help make Chili Sauce and Nana would only do it once every few years because she'd make a huge amount that would last for 2-3 years. The other thing is she said you could only make it towards the end of the summer or early fall because you needed really ripe tomato's to do it.

In 2003 my Aunt used the last jar of Chili Sauce that was made in 1997 and my Nana died in 2001 so no one has been there to make Chili Sauce....sad. While on vacation in Florida I talked to my Aunt and we decided to carry on the tradition and make it in September and we did.

It made me really happy because I haven't felt close to my Nana lately and felt I needed to be close again. The really fun thing was that Nana only wrote down the ingredients for everything she would make but not the amounts so making chili sauce and have it taste like she made it is the challenge. It takes all day plus the night before to prep the tomato's...

So my Aunt Karen, my mother Barbara, My Father Joe, My sister Kim and my Niece Heather got together to try and replicate my grand mother Sophie's recipe.

Here are some pictures and we did it while drinking wine....of course... And yes
that's my father wearing the cut off T, it doesn't matter how old he gets , he still thinks he's a stud..insane.

After it is bottled and steamed shut you have to let it sit for a week before tasting. My Aunt said she had a little left over that didn't get bottled and she said it was really spicy but tasted pretty close to Sophie's...I can't wait to taste it, it'll be like going to Nana's house again!

XO, BT