dinner with friends

At the last minute yesterday afternoon, Mike and Leslie called and asked if they could host us at their club here in Chicago (actually Mike's club is in Houston but it has reciprocal privileges around the country and maybe the world...) we ditched (or actually delayed) our sushi dinner and rescheduled it for lunch today and agreed to dinner with friends.

So off we went to the Willis (Sears) Tower and after only a half hour of taking four or five elevators we actually found the place LOL- on the 66th floor (or maybe 67th) - our passes had helpfully said 50th floor....

The room is lovely and we had a light show over the skyline pretty much the entire time since there were thunderstorms moving through the area.  The meal was very good, the service was excellent and the company and wines even better.

Let's start with dessert first- LOL only kidding- this an amuse of a scallop...

then we did four shared starters - the beef tartare, yellowtail crudo, blue cheese mac & cheese with mushrooms (yum!) and the giant crab cake...

then we shared two salads - one with beets and goat cheese and the other with berries and jicama-

then on to entrees-

I had short ribs with risotto and Mike had the Salmon and Leslie and Phil had steaks -

we had paired the wines with the various courses - moving from a white burgundy to a pinot to a Bordeaux....

and of course we had to have dessert as the conversation wasn't even close to being finished.... the wine was a bit closer but would last for the entire meal LOL

cheesecake with salted caramel and tiramisu with drunken cherries and sorbet selection and Phil had something chocolate ... shown first - with berries and dulce de leche ice cream...

a lovely evening memorialized in photos -

always fun to dine with friends - and gee we hadn't done that in 24 hours LOL- actually we had dinner with friends on Monday - Wednesday - Friday and Saturday and were out for a concert Tuesday and a play Thursday... and our friend Gary keeps asking what we do with our time LOL- who has time?  Tomorrow would have been my sister's 61st birthday except she died more than six years ago... and although I miss her all the time, she is a driving force in my life-

"from the cradle to the crypt it's a mighty short trip - you better get it while you can..." (Love you Jane) the quote is from Steve Goodman who didn't even make it as long as my sister Janna... but these are words we live by in our household...

so stay tuned- more adventures coming up....