A Perfect Sunday

 Got up early and drank Mello Joy with my wife.  Through our kitchen window we watched a big blue heron enjoy the backyard pond.

 

Just before meeting my brothers at the brewery for a workday, I walked through our vegetable garden.  I noticed our first tomato of the year was near red enough to pick, we have some cucumbers getting close as well.

 

I knew the keg of LA 31 Bière Pâle in my fridge was nearly empty.

 

After a hot and hard days work of scraping, sanding, pressure washing, and priming our fledgling brewery, my brothers looked forward to tall glasses of Bière Pâle.  However the tap sputtered nothing but foam and CO2 – and then just CO2.

 

My brothers looked at me accusingly.

 

My wife hurriedly sliced some cold leftover roast beef and set it out with some salami slices.  She also put out provolone and Swiss cheese, as well as a tub of garlic and herb goat cheese.  A couple of boxes of buttery-tasting crackers completed the setting.

 

Now what to drink?

 

Our young daughter and niece and their friends were over, so we set them up with several party platters of our spread and some freshly brewed iced tea.  The girls giggled and ate, played and watched Harry Potter on the living room television.

 

I had beer in the fridge.  I usually have Abita’s Amber and Jockamo IPA on hand.  We also had some of their Strawberry Lager.  We had some Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan ale from Mississippi and some Bohemia from Mexico.   And I still had a few bottles of North Coast Brewing’s Silver Jubilee.

 

Any of these beers would be delightful on a good Sunday afternoon.

 

Instead we tapped a keg of one of our experimental biers, code-named Duck Blind ale.  Our idea was to brew an easy drinking beer that you could bring to the camp or Holly Beach.   A beer you could drink outdoors while eating boudin or cracklings, or maybe even a bologna sandwich.

 

As this was our initial batch, we knew we still had a lot of tweaking to get the recipe right.

 

I don’t know if it was the good company or the way that the beer and food conspired to amplify each other, but we drank a lot.  We ate a lot too.  We talked and planned – we laughed and dreamed.  Reminisced and joked.

 

Our mother and father stopped by for a visit.  Dad even drank a short glass with us.

 

When we were kids our parents would take us to visit their parents in the country every Sunday.  All of our uncles, aunts and cousins would be there.  In those days, Louisiana still had Blue Laws that prevented most people from working on Sundays, it was a common day of rest that every member of extended families shared.  Our family would eat at Papa and Grandma’s house every Sunday.  While the adults visited we played in the barnyard.

 

Did you ever stick chicken feathers in a dry corncob for a make-shift helicopter?  I have to round some up for our girls next week.

 

Those Sundays were close to Utopia.

 

This past Sunday was close too.  Here’s to perfecting Duck Blind Ale and the return of the perfect Sunday afternoon.

 

  À votre santé.