My dry July!

It was not my intent to have a dry July.  We have plenty of other ways to help raise money for a good cause that we participate in without giving up drinking.  I do admire the people who have given up drinking though for a month to help raise funds, even though I know a number of them make at least one exception and are comfortable "in spirit" doing something for a good cause.

While I have not had a completely dry July, it has been three weeks now without drinking.  I was just so worn down and then got sick and on antibiotics for a while.  While I am feeling a lot better, I certainly am not back at full strength and not at the point where I know I would greatly enjoy opening and sharing a bottle.  I had a 5 minute workout on the treadmill today just to try to force back some fitness and it was clear I tried this a few days too early.  I am glad I had enough smarts to quit after five minutes even though I thought I was feeling pretty good; I was quite drained and light headed from the experience.  It will be another three days before I try to exercise further.

By not drinking, it has also lessened my desire to write about wine (and certainly removed the reason to write about what wine has been matched up with what food), so I have had a bit of a lull the last few weeks, even though I have got a few decent posts out.  I also thought it could be good opportunity to recycle some of my earlier posts as they only had about ten page views when I was getting started four months back.

I hope to be back into opening and sharing a bottle by this weekend as I really miss thinking about a meal as the complete package including the matching wine.  I read recently that it was only in the 19th century that wine and food matching came into vogue.  I find this hard to believe as cooking has been around forever blending many different ingredients into amazing recipes.  Matching up particular types of grapes and flavors of wine to enhance the eating experience seems like a natural extension to cooking and certainly seems like it should be something that has been around forever or at least as long as food has and wine has existed!  I guess there are "somethings new under the sun!"

Because we were sick, we had to cancel one dinner party with a Masterchef and some great wines and I am looking forward to rescheduling it soon.  But first I am anxious just to get a good glass with some meat or pasta!  Maybe by tomorrow or the next day!  I certainly want to be a "winner' (or winer) again soon!