Our fourth course was the first not to have its own drink pairing. This course was also paired with the Loire wine from the previous course. The dish was Moules a la Portuguese, again with baguette slices.

In case you haven't worked it out yet, we often treat Thanksgiving as an endurance test of cooking, eating and drinking. We literally cook a dish, eat it, and then move on to the next. Sometimes we leave space between.

Third course was escargots on baguette slices, with Château l' Oiseliniére de la Ramée Muscadet Sèvre et Maine. It was quite lovely. It is prepared thusly: the snails are simmered in the wine and shallots. An herb butter is prepared with parsley and garlic. The butter is spread on baguette slices and broiled. When the butter melts, the bread is topped with the snails and broiled until the butter sizzles. Put on plates and serve with wine. Yum.

Our second course was French Onion Soup (have you sensed the French theme yet?) and a bottle of Claude Chonion Puoilly-Fuissé. We made the stock last night (and this morning), and (e:jbeatty) made the soup. After the second course, we were feeling pretty full (and a little buzzed-did I mention the bottle of J.K. Scrumpy's Hard Cider we drank before the first course?).



The soup was very good, and beat out the onion soup I had at Colter Bay yesterday. That soup was good, but this was richer and was topped with better cheese. The wine very good, but was too light for the soup. We're thinking we should perhaps have had a red with the soup instead. I would recommend this wine with a lighter dish, such as skate grenoblaise or scallops.

The first course of Thanksgiving was stinky cheese. Not the stinky cheese of Olmos, but the stinky cheese from Premier. I forget what kind of cheese it was and (e:jbeatty) tossed the container. Suffice to say the woman at Premier told us it was the stinkiest cheese they had. And was it ever good. Especially with Belzebuth beer with. The beer is a very strong blonde ale which is reminiscent of Wagner Tripelbock. The cheese was similar to a strong tasting Camembert. Yum.

So, I haven't been in Buffalo for a few years. Last time was when (e:jbeatty) and I drove out to a Sabres game when we were both still living in Syracuse.

One thing that's hard to find in Florida is good wings. So we overdid it a bit on our first day here. We went to Colter Bay for lunch and had wings and hummus.

Following lunch, we spent several hours in the rain shopping for Thanksgiving ingredients. Our stops included Wegmans, Premier Gourmet (and Premier Wine) and Delaware Camera. Hey, I needed slide film, ok? Provisions included mussels, escargots, chorizo, a bottle of Laphroig, veal chops and Belzebuf beer. More on that later.



Eventually, we found ourselves at Laughlin's for the Sabres-Sens game. Again, we had wings, along with a good amount of beers. And some find music on the jukebox thanks to my bank card. I'm all about spending the money to monopolize the jukebox wherever I am. People have such crappy taste in music that I feel the need to take over if I'm out for the evening. Luckily the jukebox contains such essential things as the Clash box set, the Curtis Mayfield and James Brown best of discs and more. I did resist the temptation to program in the 25 minute Tweezer from Phish's A Live One.

Sabres won 4-2 and we drank a good amount of beer. Laughlin's wings beat out Colter Bay, but they're both good. We'll probably overdo it and have them again before we leave. I'm not sure where, though. Probably Duff's.