Perla's, Pets and Painting...OH MY!!!

Summertime is upon us and we have been craving Lobster rolls in a big way. We were told by several people to go to Perla's because they make the best.  So an opportunity came up where we could "feed two birds with one scone" (we feel this is much nicer than saying "kill two birds with one stone," don't you agree?) because we need to use a groupon that we bought for Easely Amused (a painting studio that teaches art classes and no artistic ability is required, thank goodness!) before it expired.  Not only do they encourage you to bring friends, have fun and let your creative juices flow, but it's BYOB!!  How FUN! - and to us that translates into Bring Your Own Box.  You go online, pick a date and are told what type of class to expect. Our class happened to be Pet Picasso Night and that was "purrfect" because we LOVE pets, especially our furry dog children; so we were thrilled to be able to try and paint their portraits (try being the operative word). All we have to do is show up with a picture of our pet and our box of wine and they supply the rest. How cool is that? So back to Perla's... since we were going to be downtown for the paint class, we thought we would go there for an early lunch and eighty-six our lobster roll craving. We arrive at Perla's located @1400 S Congress Ave., Austin, TX and right away the outdoor patio is inviting, but it's hot so we decide to sit inside. As soon as we walk in it immediately smells of seafood and reminds us of being at an outdoor fish market. The decor is beachy, very cool and quite calming. As we sit at the bar, we can just about feel the sand beneath our feet and makes us want to kick off our shoes and run our toes through it. The only thing missing at this point is a fruity drink in our hand and the sound of seagulls. Our waiter comes over and introduces himself then insists we try the drink special of a frozen mint julep. Oh man, he's already got our number and of course we oblige.

Looking at the menu we immediately let our waiter know that we will be having the lobster roll, but are waiting on a friend to show up before we order. The frozen mint julep is very refreshing and going down nicely as we just sit and talk and enjoy our surroundings.  Once our friend shows up, he orders an appetizer of Oysters on the half shell that he and Richelle both really enjoyed (Jenn no likey oysters) and a second round of mint juleps. When our waiter returns we are surprised when two prickly pear margaritas show up instead

 

We look at the drinks, then at each other a bit confused, and say that's not what we ordered - but they are pretty and pink and look very tasty, so we say it's okay we'll drink them.  We don't want any cocktails going to waste on our account. Then all three of us order the lobster roll with shoe string fries ($28.00) - that's comparable to New York City prices.  We both used to live in NYC and miss our favorite lobster roll place called Mary's Fish Camp located @ 64 Charles St., NY, NY.  Their rolls are the BEST in our opinion and are a piece of seafood heaven.  Actually everything we have ever tried there is outstanding and we frequented this tiny establishment quite often. As we order the lobster roll at Perla's,  Jenn can't get Mary's lobster roll off her brain because that is essentially what she wants right now and is pretty certain that's not what she is going to get. She even asks Richelle, "should we split one?" to which she replies, "nah, let's just go for it and get our own." Jenn says, "what the hell, okay" and then asks the waiter,"are they really good?" and of course he replies, "yes everyone loves them, but we do occasionally get people from Maine and the East Coast who have said, they've had better".  Oh HELL, he just burst Jenn's bubble and now she knows for sure that she is going to be disappointed because she's one of "those people". One of those East Coasters, even though she was born and raised in Texas, who lived in NYC for 10 years and frequently ate at Mary's Fish Camp. She hesitates for a second thinking she may cancel that order and then decides to try it because that's the only way she's ever going to find out how good they really are or aren't. It comes out beautifully presented and actually comes topped with a good amount of lobster, but right away we notice it isn't really a mayonnaise based lobster salad, but basically just lobster meat on a bun with bibb lettuce and a side of drawn butter.

Then the first bite - drum roll please and........ no cymbals. Sadly, it just wasn't what we were hoping for but it was good and fresh. One of Jenn's favorite things to eat is lobster with drawn butter, but that's not what she was here for. She was at Perla's with high expectations of a Mary's Fish Camp lobster roll DAMN IT!!! and therefore, was disappointed; but now she knows that's not what she will order again. We decide to end our lunch with two more mint juleps and that's what is actually delivered this time. When our waiter drops off the check, he tells us he didn't charge us for the prickly pear mistake and we thought that was nice because we drank and enjoyed them. Our overall experience at Perla's was satisfying so we will definitely come back and give it another try, as the rest of the menu sounds very appetizing, the drinks were yummy and the staff was very nice. Unfortunately it seems as though our quest to find a Mary's Fish Camp lobster roll in Austin, Tx is unobtainable. We bid adieu to our friend and realize that we still have some time to kill before our paint class. Looking down the street we spot Guero's Taco Bar and swear we can hear it calling our name (red rover, red rover, wine mavens come over) so we sashay on down for a margarita.

In the midst of drinking we realize we've lost track of time and now are running late, so down the hatch goes our drink and out the door we go. Thank goodness Easely Amused - located @ 2324 S. Lamar Blvd. Austin, TX is close by and we arrive on time super excited to paint. We meet up with five of our girlfriends and take seats next to each other in front of a blank canvas. A paper plate is front of each canvas with the colors black and white. We are told to add at least five or six more colors that we would like to use in our painting and then our instructor, Bridget, begins to instruct us.

This is a "Picasso Portrait" so it's supposed to be an abstract cartoon-ish like painting full of shapes and colors. It's not supposed to look exactly like your pet, but be a representation of how you see them through your eyes. Jenn's thinking, "well thank god it's not supposed to look exactly like my dog because this is my first time at a paint class"- and as much as she lives in her own little unrealistic unicorn filled world and would love to believe she is talented enough to be able to sit down and paint a masterpiece on her first try (with the help of fairy dust - a.k.a. vino) she knows very well that this is not going to happen because, dare we say the word... it's reality.

Richelle has had art class in school so she's like, "I got this".  Jenn is nervous because she doesn't want to mess up. She really wants to do her beautiful, movie star pup justice, but knows she must shake the fear and take the plunge.

Meanwhile, Richelle and the rest of the girls are painting away at warp speed and doing a beautiful job. Their pup portraits are all looking fantastic - really fantastic!

Jenn is thinking, "how can this be? how can all my friends be so talented at painting and I suck?" She is happy for them because all of their paintings are amazing and look exactly like the colorful Picasso dogs that they are supposed to. While hers looks like, well, a pig-dog.

She even gets up and walks around the room to admire the rest of the class' work - looking for that one other person who sucks as bad as she does, but nope there's not one. Really? Wow! Well, good for everyone else that they have talent. Jenn sits down and continues to work on her piece as all her friends each offer words of encouragement and say how they love her painting. All she can think of is, "my dog is gonna kill me when I get home after she sees this monstrosity." At the end of class, we all take pictures with our paintings and vow we will do this again.

It turned out to be a blast and a great way to spend the evening with our girlfriends. So if you are looking for a fun, unique experience for yourself or with friends, give Easely Amused a call. You will not be disappointed (unless maybe you happen to be the one painting a pig-dog Ha-Ha-Ha).  Once we arrive home with our masterpieces, Richelle immediately hangs hers over her bed and rightly so, because it's that damn good.

Jenn unveils hers to her pooch lying on the floor by the couch and asks, "so what do you think?" Her pup raises it's head, cocks it to the side then raises one eyebrow before getting up and walking over to give her momma a big, fat, sweet, juicy, wet, kiss on the face. Awe, there's that unconditional love and seal of approval that makes everything right in the world. Jenn loves and appreciates her painting after that, because she now knows that her interpretation of the painting is no longer that of pig-dog, but wondrously human-dog with the soulful eyes.

Switching Gears

Wow!!! It's been a while since we last posted, but that's because we've been busy bees and have had a lot going on. We won't go into all the details but will tell you the Big News Flash: we've decided to throw in the towel on the slow carb diet. Yep that's right, we are waving the white flag. Sorry if we are letting anybody down, but after four months of trying Tim Ferriss's slow carb diet (based on his book, The 4-Hour Body) the sista wives have decided to switch gears.  We met in the kitchen one morning (as we were embarking on our fifth month of eating this way) and just decided that if we had to eat any more meat we were going to throw up.  Literally. We just couldn't do it anymore.  This is coming from two girls who were previously vegetarians for ten & twenty years before slowly starting to add meat back into their diet.  We still weren't huge meat eaters, just occasionally.  So why we decided to embark upon the slow carb diet is beyond us.  It sounded like a great idea at the time.  Oh yes, now we remember, it was the two glasses of red wine a night that hooked us. The eating healthy thing was just an added bonus. We hardly ever ate red meat on the diet, mostly turkey (which Jenn hates) and chicken but it just got old for us. However, we are very proud of ourselves for what we accomplished while on the diet. We learned how to eat healthier and do without a lot of bad foods. We also learned that we have major will power. Wonder Mavens Activate!!! Form of... what else? a nice box of vino of course - Ha Ha.

We absolutely had our moments when we fell off the wagon, but we have to say for three out of four months we were very strict and really motivated. It was one of the hardest things we have ever done. So for that we are really proud of ourselves because we now know once we put our minds to something we can accomplish a goal.  We never weighed ourselves, but did see results such as inches and could feel a difference in our clothes.  It isn't much considering how hard we worked at eating right, BUT... our downfall was, we hardly ever worked out which we know is very important if you expect to really get the results you want.  We did walk our dogs two to three times a day and did yoga every now and then, but it's hard to find the time when you work twelve hour days. We need to try and change that so we can get more exercise.  So on Sunday we decided to give up the Slow Carb Diet and on Monday we were on a brand new path, so are you ready for this? We decided to join Weight Watchers (WW).  Everyone at Richelle's office is on it and they told her that after the will power we demonstrated on our previous way of eating, that this would be a piece of cake for us. Cake? Hmmmm and guess what? We can have it and not just on cheat day, but any day. So we made up our minds at 10:00pm to join online. As we were inputting our information of course it asks the dreaded question of our weight and height which in turn determines how many points we will get for the day.  Well, we have no idea what we weigh, so Jenn runs down the street to borrow a scale. Once she returns, she sets it down on the floor and we both just stared at it like, what is this strange contraption?  It was some alien from another planet that we were both intrigued by, yet terrified of at the same time (can you hear the sci-fi music playing in the back ground?).

Richelle began to have a mini nervous breakdown, so Jenn decided to be the first test subject and stepped right on the scary scale praying it wouldn't electrocute her or explode. When Jenn opened her eyes, she was so relieved she was still in one piece that the number didn't even matter - Whew!!!  Now it's Richelle's turn; after hugging the wall, a few tears and a not so quick pep-talk, Jenn was able to convince her that it wasn't the end of the world and they would get through this just like everything else...together. Once the trauma was over, we could continue to register on line and determine how much we needed/wanted to lose.  Here's how it works:  All fruits & vegetables are FREE! You get a certain amount of points to use each day and are not really supposed to go over. But, in the event you do go over by a few or a lot, they give you an extra forty-nine points to use however you wish throughout the week.  You can also earn extra points by doing activities - for example, walking the dog for thirty minutes equals two activity points. The extra forty-nine points can be used daily, weekly or all at one time which is how we want to use them.  The reason we decided to use them all up in one day is so we can continue our "Cheat Day" tradition making Mondays (our weigh in day). The amount of points you get is determined by your height and weight. What ever we decide to eat comes out of our daily points allowance, so we just have to decide if we really want the cake or something else like cheese and crackers or lasagna. It will force us to really think about the food choices we make for the day. Richelle is allowed twenty-six points a day and Jenn twenty-eight - so it's time for us to get down to business... tomorrow, because it's late at night.  You would think that after a good night's sleep we'd be raring to go, but that was not the case for Miss Jennifer. Richelle had already left for work by the time she woke up so she was left alone to figure out her new eating habits all by herself. Let's just say it wasn't pretty because after all, we were going from one extreme to another. The Slow Carb Diet was like being in the military, very strict and having to learn to do without a lot of things - only the bare minimum. Weight Watchers seems much easier because we can have whatever we want as long as it's within our allotted points, but it's all about portion control. Well, since we decided on a whim to switch from one way of eating to another overnight, we hadn't done any shopping. There wasn't even one piece of fruit in the house because we couldn't have it on the previous diet but now we can, so Jenn gets agitated because she's not sure what she can eat. To top it all off, she doesn't know how to use the damn food calculator and the fucking scanner app isn't working either and... she's starving!! It's the ugly starve too where a girl can turn into a raving bitch.

She screams at the top of her lungs, "There is NO food in the house so what the hell am I supposed to eat? Oh woe is me!!" She was having a Crawford moment, but thankfully no silverware went flying. After furiously texting Richelle in a bitch fit manner that Joan herself would have been proud of, she made egg whites and was able to calm down once she had something in her stomach. However, she was still frustrated as she tried to get the hang of this new way of eating because going from one extreme to another was tricky. After work Richelle arrived home to still find a disgruntled Jenn, but she was able to talk her out of her tizzy (well, sort of) and the sista wives went grocery shopping to stock up on food, so as to avoid any more raging bitch moments. The flood gates opened while at the store and we were like Laverne and Shirley once again throwing everything into our cart. At least amongst all the food there were lots of fruit and veggies peeking out. Here are the results after one week - Richelle lost eight pounds and Jenn lost five pounds!! Whoop whoop!! So it does work. Here's the Slow Carb versus Weight Watchers:

Slow Carb Diet:

What you can have: Eggs, Vegetables, Beans and Protein (as much as you want), two glasses of red wine a night. And one cheat day a week to have whatever you want for twenty-four hours.
What you can't have: Sugar, Dairy, Carbs, anything white: Potatoes, Pasta, Bread

Weight Watchers:

What you can have:  Anything you want in moderation as long as it comes out of your allotted weekly points (twenty-six) plus an extra forty-nine points to use however you wish (spread out daily, weekly or all in one day)

What you can't have: Nothing - Hooray! but portion control is the key and wine is not free! What? Seriously?

The real downer here is no more "free" wine. It's gonna cost us four points a glass! And you all know how much we love our wine. So do we want to eat or do we want to drink? Well, hello!!!! Are we not the Black Box Wine Mavens? That should be a no brainer right? After all, we've built our reputation around wine. But we want to eat too. Hmmmm. Maybe we should re-think this WW thing. There's no reason to be hasty. Why should we jump from one diet to another so soon? That's kind of like jumping from one relationship right into another and never spending any time being single. You need that time you need to get to know yourself and see if you can function as a single unit instead of being co-dependent on someone else. So maybe we need to take a break before we jump right back into another life changing way of eating. You are probably asking yourself why?  Why would we give up so soon when we actually lost weight in the first week? We should be so happy and motivated to keep going.  This is true, but we don't want to get burned out like we did with the slow carb diet. We feel like we need to take some time to breathe and reassess so we can get our heads back in the game. We know WW works and when we decide to resume it, we want to give it our all - we don't want to go in half-assed. There could be pros and cons to our decision: the pros of course are that we can eat and drink anything we want (but we need to try and be conscientious of what we are putting into our bodies). The cons are that we could spiral out of control and turn into "Mavens Gone Wild!!!"  - having gained back all the weight and inches we have lost up to this point.

It could be sink or swim for the mavens, but we think we'll be fine. We will determine when/if  it's time to resume WW again, but for now we are going to enjoy our lives however we choose (on our own terms) while still continuing to blog about our zany adventures. Stay tuned...

Calling us out

So one of our readers made a comment that this was the least diety diet blog in the history of diet blogs and well, we guess he would be right. Yes, this blog IS about being on a diet but mainly, it's all about the "CHEAT" for us and of course the wine.  Cheat day is a very big deal. It's when we get to let loose and make our wildest taste bud dreams come true. It's a time when we get to share our zany adventures and show our fun, crazy side as we cheat.

Let's see if we can explain it in a way so that our readers can understand what we're talking about.  The diet (or life changing eating habits) is kind of like us being kids cooped up in the house because it's raining and we are bored and trying to find ways to entertain ourselves, all the while driving our parents crazy. We're kids so all we really want is to be outside playing with our friends and not having a care in the world.

Cheat day is when the rain stops and then low and behold the clouds part and the sun comes out beaming it's warm rays down upon the earth. We bolt for the door, sling it wide open and run outside as fast as we can to release all the energy that is racing through our veins and needs to be freed.  We run around the yard in circles with our arms flailing above our heads, mouths open and tongues hanging out while making loud kid squealing noises - then run to our friends' houses and furiously knock on their door to ask if they can come out and play?  And when they do, we all jump on our bikes and pedal as fast as we can down the street until we are just about out of sight, as our mom yells, "be home in time for dinner". Can't you imagine the smiles on our faces and feel how happy we are?

Well, that's how we actually feel when cheat day arrives because being on the diet is us cooped up in the house when it's raining. It's very hard. And cheat day is the sun coming out and us feeling care-free and being happy.  So now that we have established the vast difference between the two, let's make this blog all about the diet.  Our reader is right, in the sense that he hasn't really gotten a glimpse inside our world as we struggle on the diet.  To know what we do and eat and say and think on a weekly basis may or may not be very interesting, but hopefully it will be informative.  So, let's get this non-party started, shall we?  It's Monday evening and cheat day is over, no doubt we've had a great twenty-four hours of eating whatever we wanted, but now it's time to get down to business. This is the most work preparation wise because we have to plan the menu, shop, cook, and then prepare our meals for the week, so this is when it really pays to have a sista wife to help ease the work load -  two brains and four hands is definitely a bonus.  So here's what we will have for the week:

Breakfast:   It's always eggs (scrambled, hard boiled, omelet, or egg muffins) and some kind of beans (whole black, re fried black or re fried pinto). We do our best to spice things up by using our 2 favorite spices: turmeric and cayenne pepper. We put it in everything; oh and jalapeños - either pickled or fresh.  We throw all kinds of veggies in our eggs: onions, fresh garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes, asparagus and spinach.  Not all at the same time (but you can), we switch it up day to day, but have our staples of onions and garlic. Since we can't have butter sometimes we use olive oil or ghee (a clarified butter you can buy at Whole Foods) to saute the veggies.  For the beans we just plop them in a pot right out of the can and add: jalapeños, turmeric and cayenne pepper.

Snacks:  Tomatoes (grape or cherub), carrots or celery and Sabra roasted red pepper hummus, walnuts or almonds.

Lunch and Dinner:  Protein, salads, soups and vegetables.  This week it's 1) Turkey Chili, 2) Italian Sausage, Kale and White Bean Soup, 3) Chicken Sausage (Roasted Red Pepper & Spinach) with a jalapeño mustard sauce.

Now here's the thing, we have a quirky way of cooking because we really don't measure anything when we cook and make up recipes. We just kind of add things here and there.  We try to start out with less so we can add more if need be. We probably should measure so when we share our recipes with you they are more accurate - we'll try harder next time, but when we are chopping and cooking together, listening to music, drinking red wine and exhausted, we just kind of go with the flow. Here are this weeks 3 recipes.

Turkey Chili:

2lbs Turkey
1 large sweet onion
1 can of black beans
1 can charro beans (or whatever kind of beans you like)
1 packet taco seasoning
1 packet ranch seasoning
Cayenne pepper
Chili powder
Cracked black pepper
Turmeric
Mushrooms
Fresh Garlic
Tomatoes

Cook onions, mushrooms and garlic in a large pot and then add the turkey.  Cook well and then add canned beans, taco seasoning, ranch seasoning, cayenne pepper, chili powder, black pepper and turmeric and a splash or two of red wine... Cut tomatoes in half and throw in. Let sit and cook for 20mins plus... Especially good the next day.

Italian Sausage, Kale & White Bean Soup:

1LB Italian Sausage

2 Cans White or Great Northern Beans

1 Large Onion

1 Bag Sweet Kale Vegetable Salad (from Costco - if you can't find this, you can use a bag of Kale)

1 Box Chicken Broth (33% less sodium)

8 Cups of Water

Salt

Cracked Black Pepper

Red Pepper

Cook the onions until well done. Then add the sausage and red pepper. Once cooked all the way through,  add the chicken broth & water. Then add the canned beans, and Kale salad, salt, pepper.  Let sit for 20 minutes and then serve immediately or  pack for next days lunch.

Chicken Sausage, Peppers and Jalapeño Mustard:

2 Packages Chicken Sausage (Roasted Red Pepper & Spinach [Costco])
1 Red Bell Pepper
1 Yellow Bell Pepper
1 Orange or Green Bell Pepper
1 Large Onion
Mushrooms
Garlic
Woeber's Jalapeño Mustard (Our favorite brand that we can only seem to find now @ Walmart)

Saute Onions in a Pot. Then add chicken sausage and cook for 10 minutes. Add garlic, mushrooms, red pepper, yellow pepper, orange or green pepper.  Cook all together. Do not drain. Once done, add Woeber's Jalapeño Mustard and stir. Make sure flavors blend well and if not, add more of whatever sounds good. Enjoy!!

So these are just a few of the recipes we came up with while trying the Slow Carb diet based on Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Body. We hope you like them.  So you be the judge as to what you want to read more of: diet or cheat day?  Or maybe a nice balance of the two would be cool. Hee hee, get it? A nice balance - balanced diet... Oh man we crack ourselves up.

Hey...Fondue

There will be times when we occasionally fall off the chuck wagon (see our previous post of the same title) and this just happens to be another one of them.  We've had our very best friends from Switzerland and their children staying with us at Casa de Maven for the last 2 weeks.  They call themselves the Swiss Family Flintstones - cute, huh?  

We really wanted to continue our healthy way of eating when they arrived and thought we could stay the course, but quickly figured out that it wouldn't be any fun for them (especially the kids) nor for us, quite frankly.  They travelled a really long way to see Austin for the first time and by golly we were going to show it to them.  We wanted to make sure they had a great time so we threw everything out the window and decided to go with the flow for their sake. Yeah, yeah, for their sake.  There was no use beating ourselves up about it because having them visit us was a very big deal - a special occasion and cause for celebration - and we knew that we'd be able to get back on track as soon as they were on a plane headed home for the Alps.  Besides, they brought us all kinds of goodies like cheeses, cookies & chocolate and it would be so rude of us not to try them while in their presence, right?  

Especially the cheese (Jenn was jumping for joy).  Switzerland has some of, if not the best, cheese in the world and the stinkier the better. Yes we said Stinkier. Some of it stinks to high heaven - even as bad as dirty feet, but it's delicious!! Yum... dirty feet, stinky cheese.

Just to name a few: Appenzeller, Gruyere, Tilsiter and Raclette - and then there's Fondue... Cheese Fondue - Oh Hell Yes!!!  The recipe we have was handed down to us by our friends, so it's a la Swiss.  Have you ever tried it? Basically it's just cheese - so it helps to be a cheese lover - and garlic (at least that's how we make it) in a communal fondue pot which sits in the middle of the table. 

Folks sit around and take turns dipping their bread, tomatoes and sometimes pears into it with long skewer-like forks. The meal wouldn't be complete without some cold Apfel Schnapps - we put it in the freezer to get it chilled just right before pouring. Watch out for this stuff... it tastes like apple juice (but better) so it sneaks up on you if you throw back too many which of course we always do. We keep a little on the side for soaking the bread beforehand because it really brings out the flavor of the cheese and adds a kick.

Before the first drink of Apfel Schnapps, there's a traditional ritual chant that we perform.  It goes like this:  Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke Hoi Hoi Hoi Zicke Hoi Zicke Hoi Zicke Hoi Hoi Hoi.  It doesn't really mean anything- it's just a chant of Cheers.  It's also used as an Oktoberfest drinking chant and we're told the Swiss Military use it, but we don't think they are guzzling Apfel Schnapps afterwards, but who knows?  Once we have accomplished the chant, it's time to throw back the schnapps, start dipping your bread and get the party started.  The chant usually makes it's way into the meal several more times throughout the night.  It goes a little something like this (see video)...

We also enjoy white wine with the meal and have a pot of tea on hand for drinking throughout which helps aid in your digestion. Fondue can be heavy and sit in your stomach like a brick, so tea is the trick to avoiding major constipation (you're welcome). And then there are the garlic cloves at the bottom of the pot which are little nuggets of gold if you are lucky enough to skewer some. We make a game out of it and fight over the cloves if they happen to drop back in the cheese. You can buy a ready-made fondue that comes in a box with 2 foil pouches you cut open and squeeze out into the fondue pot over the stove -

add a little Kirsch (cherry liquor made in the Black Forest of Germany) and some white wine then grab a wooden spoon (it has to have a hole in it so the cheese can flow through) and stir in a figure 8 type movement until melted and smooth. 

It's an old wives tale that if you are a woman and happen to be on your "special time of the month" (you know, when we ladies come across happier than a mocking bird and sweeter than a freshly picked Fredericksburg peach) you are not allowed to stir the fondue as it will fall or fail to turn out right.  They take this very seriously and so do we - we are not taking any chances with that one.  We secretly think that it was made up by women to give them a break from having to cook (even though it's technically really not cooking) and to get the men involved.  Hey ladies, maybe we should use that "special time of the month" excuse all the time, huh?  Unless you are a woman married to woman and then it most definitely won't work in either of your favors.  There is also a fresh fondue version made up of Vacherin and Gruyere cheese, but you can only get it in France or Switzerland at the specialty cheese shop.  They slice it and then put it into a machine which grates it all up for you.  Oh Sugar!!! It's so delicious. When we happen to be in Switzerland visiting our friends and are priviledged enough to get to enjoy this fresh version, we always open the bag on the ride home and eat some. And then some more and some more... it's surprising that there is ever any left by the time we get home. Having Fondue with the Flintstones is definitely a unique, fun, one of a kind experience that never ever disappoints. However, it always turns into an all night affair so you must have your party hat on when you sit down at the table. 

Just ask our neighbor who recently got to experience it when the temperature dropped into the 50's one night making it perfect weather for fondue.  After a bite or two and a shot of Apfel Schnapps he texted his wife, "I may be in trouble".

Scheisse we were up until 6:30 am!! That's right, the sun was coming up and the birds were chirping when we finally decided to call it a night - well, the guys gave up around 5:00ish.  Our neighbor was smart enough to have gone home much earlier in the night and told us the next day that he got up at 4:00 am to let the dog out and heard us still going strong.  Ha-Ha-Ha the women were wreaking havoc upon the night.  So there you have it, a night of Swiss Fondue with the Flintstones & the Black Box Wine Mavens. When the Swiss & the Texans get together (Switxans), you know it's gonna be one hell of a good time!! YodelayYee-Haw!!