Dinner Party!

My sister-in-law called on Monday night, just to check in and talk about Thanksgiving plans. I was in the middle of prepping for a dinner that I was giving on Tuesday. I told Becky what I had been doing; cutting flank steak into cubes, 'Frenchifiing' half a pound of bacon by cutting it into dice and boiling it; slicing onions and carrots, and finally making a massive chocolate stout cake. With only two nine inch cake pans for a three layer cake, I had to turn out one layer, let the pan cool, add the remainder of the batter to the now empty pan, and bake. All this organization to make dinner on a school night for friends visiting from Brantford, Ontario! So, my chattering on about these preparations made Becky chuckle, "That's great, Li, but I have no idea what all that meant!" So funny!
I got up at 5:30 on Tuesday morning, sauteed the bacon; browned the beef; sauteed the vegetables, and dumped the whole thing into a crock pot to cook during the day. I made Julia Child's recipe for beef burgundy, although Julia didn't have a crock pot and I'd have been raked over the coals for using cooking wine! My philosophy of wine: If it's decent wine, I'm going to drink it! Every time I've used 'drinking wine' in this recipe, it comes out insipid and tasteless. With cooking wine, the results are always predictable.
Our guests arrived at 5:00 with wine in hand. Bless them! The wine we opened was FANTASTIC! I would buy a case. Konzelmann 2008 Niagara Peninsula Shiraz. Jason and TiTi explained that all the Ontario wines were dry, but this one was perfect. Dry, without too many tannins (I hate that quality in wine that sucks the moisture out of your mouth. Ick). The primary tone in the wine was a peppery quality. I've never had a wine that tasted peppery! It was delish and went down far too easily.
We started with the wine and an assortment of cheese, wheat crackers and a selection of olives. For the main course, the afore-mentioned beef dish, garlic mashed potatoes, salad, and steamed broccoli with a squirt of lemon juice. For dessert, chocolate stout cake and coffee. There's nothing like a three layer cake made with beer! The evening; a triumph!