{"id":2170,"date":"2022-06-07T14:40:38","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T14:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/?p=2170"},"modified":"2022-06-09T14:08:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-09T14:08:58","slug":"date-night-old-peoples-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/?p=2170","title":{"rendered":"Date Night…old people’s style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Since moving down the street from the cutest winery, where they feature a wonderful singer each weekend night, we’ve been toddling down the block from our house one night each weekend. It’s so nice to sit out beneath the trees, enjoying a glass of wine and a charcuterie tray as the sun sets over our new little town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, though, we were both pooped. We attended a beautiful wedding on Friday night (the GRANDson of a dear friend) and stayed out until after 10:00pm – I seriously thought we might turn into pumpkins at any minute. Then, Saturday morning, we got up early to visit our local Farmer’s Market and spent the rest of the day working up in the grandkids’ room – painting and assembling their bunk beds (more on these bunks another time – a jillion pieces each – but soooooo cute).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, about 7:15, Mack stopped the extreme assemblage and said, if we’re going to go, we need to go. Being a person who would always rather stay home, I said, with false enthusiasm, “Ok! I’ll get ready.” We headed downstairs to get kinda-ready (no heroics here, just put on some non-paint-splattered clothes). About midway through the transformation, Mack (a lover of going and doing and not a stay-at-home-kind-of-guy) said, “Why don’t we just stay home?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, you don’t have to ask me twice. I put together a little homemade charcuterie tray, some sparkling water and a tiny little bit of sparkling wine and we spent a delicious evening in with a Netflix mystery and a couple of rounds of gin rummy. Sometimes, a night in is just what the doctor ordered~<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s my charcuterie platter. Simple, but absolutely delish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shrimp from HEB – already cleaned and then steamed by them. So much easier than my beach days when we would go to the boat, get a fresh catch and clean then roast in the oven with olive oil and that magical elixir: Old Bay. The HEBs were not quite as good, but not bad for our landlocked little piece of North Texas. Sharp cheddar, blueberry goat cheese and blueberry cheddar (don’t know why – I was in a blueberry mood). A few olives and some sweet pickles from our new friends at the Farmer’s Market completed the feast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are watching How to Get Away with Murder on Netflix. It’s kind of crazy, but mindless enough to be able to enjoy a little gin rummy while we watch. I do have to finish off the night with a sweet bedtime story read aloud to Papa, or we both have nightmares of dragging dead folks through the forest. Not cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, I’m reading Jan Karon’s Bathed in Prayer and it is the perfect nighttime read. Through the years, when we traveled a lot by car, I would always keep a Jan Karon Mitford book going as we drove. Bathed in Prayer takes some of the highlights of each book and shares a little bit of prayer. It’s nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will probably head back down the street to the winery this next weekend. But, a night at home is always a welcome event for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BTW…years of living at the beach made me an expert on whipping up some yummy and easy cocktail sauce. Basically: a half cup or so of ketchup, a teaspoon of horseradish (more or less for desired spiciness), the juice of one-half lemon (save the other half to squeeze on the shrimp at the table) and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. It never fails. And, you make just as much as you need and don’t have that crusty bottle of cocktail sauce cluttering up the fridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since moving down the street from the cutest winery, where they feature a wonderful singer each weekend night, we’ve been toddling down the block from our house one night each weekend. It’s so nice to sit out beneath the trees, enjoying a glass of wine and a charcuterie tray as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2170"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2179,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions\/2179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melaniewallace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}