Champagne!

For Christmas, I received a bottle of Veuve Clicquot (yellow label) as a gift from my boss (bless her sweet heart) and my team received a bottle of Dom from one of our vendors (thank you Austin!) I probably haven't talked about it before but Melissa (my co-worker) and I LOVE champagne (it must be the Libra in us). Melissa admittedly LOVES Andre and while I can and will drink it, who doesn't love a little bit of really expensive champagne?

Melissa lives 30+ miles to the north of work and Kalen lives in Lincoln Park to the south and I'm somewhere in the middle but still 15 miles south of our office. How would we ever crack this bottle of Dom open with that much distance between us? Melissa and Kalen were all about drinking it in the parking lot after work but I dunno .... Veuve and Dom in the Chrysler, Dodge or Toyota? Too trailer park. But the Andre.....ah, well ..... we didn't only have Andre to drink!

I decided I would cook my boursin cheese stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in bacon and have the girls over for a girls evening. Aren't they pretty? Kalen snapped this pic, with a little cropping work, she might have a future in food photography, huh? Kalen suggested we watch Season 1, Episode 1 of Girls although I countered that with Season 1, Episode 1 of Shameless. We agreed to duke that out later. In true Melissa form, she suggested she pick up a bottle of Andre Brut and bring it along for a blind taste test to make it a little fun.

So here they are ... the contestants! I grabbed my sleep mask (yes, I sometimes wear one) and we used that to blind the taster and we went one at a time. If you try this at home, we recommend that all tasters be blinded at once and that you grab a random individual (but we advise against letting strangers into your house, especially ones that might make off with your champagne or want to drink it with you) to pour the champagne in an orderly fashion. Here are the tasters (left to right: Melissa, Denyse and Kalen):

Kalen poured this round and Melissa went first. She tasted the first and commented several times how much she liked it. She tasted the second and at first didn't like that at all and then she tasted the third and made a horrible face and insisted that was probably the Andre. I don't know why she thought the worst tasting one was Andre, she likes it. Anyway, she identified all three incorrectly .... she said that the first one was her very favorite and thought for sure it was Veuve when in fact it was Andre! She predicted the second was Dom but it was in fact Veuve and she thought the last and worst tasting one was Andre but it was actually Dom. We love our little ghetto fabulous Melissa. She countered our teasing by saying that she had cheap taste so she didn't have to spend a lot of money drinking what she loves. God love my little Kenosha girl.

I was up next. Kalen took this very unflattering picture of me tasting. Her people picture taking abilities are not as good as her ability to take food pictures but I'll be a good sport and go with this. Now, I hate to brag, but I know my champagne and I knew right away that the first one I tasted was Andre ---- more wine not enough bubbles. The second was Dom, had it many times and I like it, but it isn't my favorite. And ahhhhhh, last, the Veuve. Always a winner. Yum. I learned years ago not to fight the fact that I am only attracted to the most expensive things. It's a curse. I fall in love with a purse from afar, it's the $450 purse and all the purses surrounding it on the rack are $39.95. I see shoes I love and they are the $110 shoes when all those surrounding them are $50. I see a blazer I love and have to have and it's $220 when everyone to the left and right is $30. Yep, can't win so why fight it?

Turns out Kalen can identify Dom in a crowd ... yep, she guessed her third taste on the head....good ol' Dom. Her first taste was her favorite, she doubted herself and assumed it was Andre when in fact it was Veuve. See, her taste is actually better than she thought!

After dinner, we flipped on the fireplace and settled into the living room to watch Season 1, Episode 1 of Girls on HBO. Surprisingly funny and now I will have yet another series to follow (thanks, Kalen) and then in fair turn we also watched Season 1, Episode 1 of Shameless. Kalen liked it because it had raunchy sex scenes (she lives for that). We then got sucked into watching the second episode of Girls which was funnier than the first, I'll definitely be following that when Private Practice ends next week!

Fun times! Love my girls!