Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

Sitting around on Wednesday evening after a rather depressing week and pretty uneventful day I wondered what I would do for dinner. I called up a couple friends and tried to round up some dinner plans. I just really wanted to be around people and get out of the house as I have been dangerously close to wasting all my days moping around alone since I received news last week of one of my good friend’s passing. Thankfully my friends were rather enthusiastic about a night out and urged me to go to Porter’s Pub with them. I’ve always been a fan of Porter’s and think their food is delicious, but on this particular night my friends had extra motivation. Apparently they were nearing the ends of their respective mugs and were eager to get down there whenever possible. I delightfully obliged and was happy to serve as the DD for the night.

We entered the dimly lit pub and took our place at a rustic wooden table and some chairs that looked as if they’d seen their better days. Of course my two friends rushed immediately to print up the list of beers they still needed to complete their mugs and I manned the table and began to eye up the menu. I decided on Nancy’s Favorite, a grilled chicken breast topped with spinach, tomatoes, provolone and a horseradish sauce on a Portuguese roll, all for $8. I also had to go with the cup of chili as an appetizer, as is customary for our Porter’s trips. For anyone looking for a good bowl of chili around Easton, PA I highly recommend Porter’s. It is by far the best I have found here, and I come from a long history of chili tasting, it’s about the only thing my dad makes and every week he experiments with new ingredients.

The food came and it was all delicious. I told my friends that I might blog about this very experience and they got extremely excited about the topic. Inspired by their quest for a mug, and the fact that they were a few beers deep at this point, they got all riled up and said I should talk about pairing beers with food. I thought it was an intriguing subject. You here so much emphasis on pairing wines with food, but never beers. I think it can bring out another level of appreciation for a meal. It seems like common sense, but it does take some education to know that a nice stout beer would work better with a hearty steak than a light salad. They went on talking about all the different micro-brews on the list and argued over whether wheat beers with fruit flavoring were acceptable. I personally think they’re good, no matter what “man-law