A Little Bit More Wine

Jarrett has been living large downtown at the Ritz-Carlton the past couple of nights (as that is where his forums are held when they're in town), so I'm enjoying bachelorette living once again. I'm always good having one night to myself -- it allows me to catch up on things such as e-mail, reading the book club books I never seem to complete these days, and Lost episodes that I previously failed to finish due to my narcoleptic tendencies. By the second night, though, I'm ready to have human company in the house again. To avoid this feeling the past two weeks, I've declared girls' night for one of the nights (hence, the "Little Women" get-together last week). Last night it was wine bar night. Four of my friends met up at my house and we all walked down to the local wine bar, Palate, which, by the way, serves a dessert that was voted "Better Than Sex: The 25 Best Desserts in Atlanta" by the Sunday paper. True? I don't know. I had the hummus. The best thing about our visit last night was that they serve half-price bottles of wine for any bottles they have in stock on Monday nights. We consumed three bottles of wine for a total of $32.50... not too shabby.

I of course left tonight free, as I knew I would be entertained by the American Idol performances. I didn't watch it at all last week, so it was time to catch up -- and get another good look at Blake Lewis. I pick a favorite every season, and he's it this time around (no, I don't always choose them for their looks... it just happened to work out this season). Jarrett was recently telling me about this "Vote for the Worst" site the other day. This has to be the only way Sanjaya is making it every week. Vote for the worst, though? I don't even vote for the best.

My other accomplishment of the evening is that pictured above -- black-eyed pea hummus. I guess I'm on a hummus kick. But, really, that's nothing new. Okay, it might not look that pretty, but I'm hoping it tastes okay tomorrow evening because it's our turn for snack duty for Community Group. They serve this at the restaurant, Wisteria, which I spoke of in my March 11 post. At first taste it wasn't nearly as good as theirs, but I'm blaming that on the fact that it was still warm because the beans came right off the stove and into the food processor. Oh, and see the huge bowl of beans in the background? I obviously have no idea the ratio of dried beans to cooked. I'll eat black-eyed peas for days.