it all began with a wine dinner at the flying fig about two years ago. ben and i, prior to joining forces in spice of life, thought it would be very nice if we planned a special night out at our favorite restaurant with friends and our significant others. the food at the fig is always fantastic and we're good friends with lots of the people who work there, so we figured it would be a blast. well, that first dinner sure was a blast and set the stage for many more to come. what began as a polite wine dinner quickly devolved, at our table, into a loud, somewhat irreverent party
, featuring off-color joking, minor food fights, way more wine than we were allocated (like i said, we know people), and even a slow-clap for ben as he polished off the last piece of bread. after a few more like this, we noticed that we stopped hearing about the wine dinners for a while and ben and i began to joke that we'd been blacklisted. nothing lasts forever, though, and we've been back on the fig wine 
dinner circuit for a while now. last night, karen small and co. had an anniversary dinner with menu items from when the eatery opened back in 1999. the night featured four courses of awesome food for $19.99 and a selection of wines for $19.99 per bottle. the food was awesome as expected and we sampled five out of the six bottles. also, as if it could have happened otherwise, we had a food fight, drank too much, stuck plastic stars to our faces, and then, once we were assured it was a rental, started drawing on the tablecloth. a small portion of the art that i helped to inspire is shown here. as i've said so many times, i don't know why i'm wired this way, i just am. we all work really hard in this business, so it seems to me that nothing beats a little irreverent fun in the face of our daily f&b grind. i suppose i also need to maintain my reputation for being awfully puckish and poorly behaved for a chef, food writer, and business owner. the night finished off with a few survivors making it to jonathon sawyer's excellent bar cento in the o.c. and the flying monkey in tremont. another great night.
