Date Nights: Basement Tailgating and Movie Night

Props to Matt and I for getting in 2 date nights in one month! One weekend as a matter of fact. (I guess it was a slow weekend on our social calendar.)

Our October date night didn’t actually happen until November, so we were pressed to have 2 dates in the ever-so-hectic month of December.

These date nights were very low-key and involved staying in and chilling in front of the TV. Sounds like most people’s weeknights, but we don’t really watch TV together so, yes, it was an event.

On a Saturday night we had a movie night where we made popcorn and tea and settled into watching The Dark Knight rises together.

Except The Dark Knight didn’t rise since the version we downloaded was a dud. So instead we watched The Muppets’ Christmas Carol!

I swear I didn’t sabotage the Batman movie. (Really, I didn’t!) But I can’t say I wasn’t thrilled to watch the Muppets instead.

Date night and knocking off an item from my Winter Bucket List? Peeer-fect!

The next day, Matt and I had an afternoon date of a home tailgate party. I cooked up some mini grilled cheese sandwiches, and some baked chicken wings, which Matt loved (yay!). . .and we watched the Lions game.

I’ll reluctantly admit that football is growing on me now that I’m learning more about how the game is played, and who the players are, and which teams are good and which ones are crap. Weeks ago, I even called Minnesota to make the playoffs, which BTW, they did.

I used to not give a shit at all and now I’m mildly interested. But only in the last couple of minutes. And only if the score is close.

You all should be impressed (and by ‘you all’ I mostly mean Matt. . . and maybe my dad).

It’s funny the things you can learn if you actually pay attention when your husband talks about football.

The Lions lost. Surprise, surprise.

It’s nice that we got in our date night in December because now that the playoffs are coming up I’ll be a football widow for the next couple of weekends.

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
September – Detroit Institute of Arts
October – Wine Tasting

Date Night: Wine Tasting

It’s November. It’s practically December, actually, and Matt and I just yesterday managed to go on our October Date of the Month: wine tasting at some local wineries for their Taste the Season holiday open houses.

So we haven’t exactly been very good about making time for each other, I guess. On weeknights we usually do our own thing. I read or bake or practice guitar while Matt plays video games. On weekends we spend a lot of time together, but it’s usually in the company of other people.

In fact, our date for this month ended up being with other people, at least partially.

Yesterday morning my dad and his girlfriend mentioned that they were planning on hitting the local Essex County wineries too, so of course we had to meet up with them.

Matt and I like wine tasting. Matt has a particularly good palate and can point out flavours in wines to a T. I, on the other hand, rely heavily on the description of the flavour notes. I’ll read the label and if it says, cherry notes then I might taste cherry. Maybe.

I’m like a wine-tasting Neanderthal. “Yum! Taste Like Wine!”

We’ve done tastings in Santorini, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and in Essex county numerous times. It’s the best to go during open houses or special events because you get free tastings and, if you hit up enough wineries, then you’re bound to get shitfaced on good wine free of charge.

So it sucks when you have to be the driver, like Matt was yesterday.

Planning out which wineries to hit up.

Muscedere

We started at Muscedere Vineyards where we sampled nearly all their red wines: a pinot noir, a meritage, a syrah, and a cab sauv. Everything but the baco noir, because, to my taste buds, baco noir tastes like crap.

The Cabernet Sauvignon was my favourite. It had a really nice finish. Their red wines are pretty steeply priced, but we snagged a bottle for Matt parents for Christmas.

Erie Shores

Next we hit up Erie Shore Vineyard. They have a super tiny tasting room which was packed with a million people (approximately 8 people, but, ya know, it felt like a lot).

We tried a couple of their whites and a couple of reds. They have a killer Riesling, but we bought a bottle of their Chardonnay which was good, and made better by the fact it was on sale for $8.

They also served a bunch of little treats as well, like Apricots in Riesling which were delicious (note to self: soak dried apricots in riesling).

I took pictures outside, because inside it was crazy crowded

Sprucewood Shores

We met up with my dad and Silvia at Erie Shores and then headed down the street to Sprucewood Shores. They always have a really great set-up at the open houses with lots of wine and food to sample.

At this point in the day, I had so many tastings (read: I had a real nice buzz going) that I can’t really remember any of the wines that I had at Sprucewood. I vaguely remember a rose that had a really nice strawberry taste.

I do recall that there were 3 kinds of soup (the apple and squash was delicious) and mulled wine which was a perfect way to cap off the afternoon.

We finished the day off by having dinner at my dad’s house and then we went home and watched Casino Royale which I had never seen before (yes, I know it’s, like, 6 years old).

I’m happy that we finally got to go on our October date, but now we have 2 dates that we have to do in the ever hectic month of December.

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
September – Detroit Institute of Arts

Date Night: Detroit Institute of Arts

Detroit Institute of Arts

Matt and I managed to squeeze in our September Date of the Month right at the end of the month. We went back to Detroit (last time we went to see the Tigers game) and this time headed to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Grand Hall at the DIA

Both Matt and I have never been to the DIA before. We parked in a lot behind the building and headed toward the rear entrance. I pointed out the sign that said “Group Entrance Only”, but Matt shrugged it off and said that other people were going in that way. So we walked right in, strutted past a security guard like we owned the place and ended up right inside the gallery without paying admission. After a brief debate about the negative karma of sneaking in, we headed to the front entrance and ponied up the cash for tickets. It’s only $8 anyway.

I really liked how the rooms were designed to coordinate with the art inside them (like a room for medieval art designed to looks like a church, very cool).

I was thoroughly impressed with the collections. We spent most of our time in the Eurpoean paintings collection– which is the largest collection in the gallery I think– particularly the medieval and renaissance works which I think both of us find the most interesting.

In the European Modern Art collection we managed to find some famous impressionist artists like Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, and Matisse.

We quickly scanned through contemporary art, though both of us are critical and find this type of art frustrating and then briefly visited the Islamic and Asian collections before the museums doors closed.

Van Gogh

This was one of my favourite pieces, though I can’t remember what it is

Matt is not impressed with Picasso’s work.

The building itself is a work of art, really.

After the Detroit Institute of Arts, we walked over to a vegetarian restaurant called Seva close by. I was detoxing so I wanted a place with lots of options for me, and surprsingly Matt was game for this place. I showed him the menu online and he thought it looked promising. When we got there it was quiet (also, it was 5pm) but when we left, the place was nearly packed.

This general tso’s cauliflower was omg amazing (and probably not cleanse friendly, what with the sugary sauce and all).

I wanted dessert, but instead I ordered fresh carrot, apple, and ginger juice. It was good. It wasn’t dessert obviously but it was good.

The night was still early when we got back home so we watched Snow White and the Huntsman (not great, don’t bother) and then went to bed.

Another fun date night

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
October – Wine Tasting

Date Night: Tigers Game

Technically, we missed out on our July Date of the Month. I had intended for use to go to the Detroit Zoo but I made our date of the month cards at Christmas long before our trip to Greece was planned or our tickets to Next Restaurant were purchased. But given all the dates Matt and I had together in July, I wasn’t disappointed about missing the zoo.

For August, our date night was to a Detroit Tigers baseball game.

Matt bought tickets for a Wednesday night when the Tigers were playing the Blue Jays because he’s a bit of a Blue Jay fan. I, on the other hand, don’t follow baseball. But since I’m Canadian and actually lived in Toronto for a while I picked he Jays to root for. Baseball is decidedly more fun when you’re actually cheering for a team.

Our seats were close to right outfield but right behind the foul post.

But luckily in the mostly-sold-out park there were empty seats beside us so I was able to move a few seats over so I could actually see the field.

Not that it made much of a difference in my ability to follow the game.

I only have a basic knowledge about how baseball is played so I managed to make an ass out of myself several times throughout the evening by asking dumb questions like “Why is that guy on first base so old?!? He’s geriatric!” (it was the first base coach) or by cheering at inappropriate times.

Me: “Wahoo!”
Matt: “Who are you going for again?”
Me: “The Blue Jays. We just got a run!”
Matt: “No. He was out. You have no idea what’s going on do you?”

Um. Yeah.

Whatever, I was just there for the hot dogs. And nachos.

There were quite a few Toronto fans in the crowd, not surprising for a game played in Detroit. One of them sitting two rows ahead of us didn’t wait until his 8th beer to start embarrassing himself (and Toronto fans in general) by heckling the Tigers players like a true douchebag. I don’t get hecklers, really I don’t. If you know so much about baseball then why aren’t you playing MLB? I’d like to see you try. Or, better yet, how would you like it if came to your job and start yelling at you when you screw up?

“You suck douchebag heckler! How does it feel to have the worst sales conversion in the office?! You couldn’t hand in a report on time if you tried!”

Or something to that effect.

Douchebag heckler was on a double date. I told Matt that if a guy took me to a baseball game then proceeded to shout rude things to the players I would never see him again. I don’t have a lot of ‘non-negotiables’, but the ability to hold youself back from shouting criticisms to people who are better at shit than you are is definitely one of them.

Luckily Matt doesn’t heckle. And that’s why we’re happily married (ya know, among other things).

In the end the Jays lost by 1, which disappointed me for 2 milliseconds before I remembered that I don’t follow baseball anyway.

It was a good night.

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
September – Detroit Institute of Arts
October – Wine Tasting 

Next – Sicily

On Saturday night I had the best dining experience of my life at Grant Achatz’s Next Restaurant in Chicago.

If you don’t know anything about Next, it is a restaurant in Chicago’s meatpacking district owned by the famous chef Grant Achatz (of the high-end molecular gastronomy restaurant Alinea). Next opened last year and won the James Beard for Best New Restaurant in the US. The restaurant has a prix fixe menu centred on a certain theme that changes every few months and you don’t make reservations to Next, you buy the nearly impossible-to-score tickets.

So let me back-track to May 31 when I noticed a facebook post from Next Restaurant:

It’s GO TIME.

In a flurry on excitement, I logged onto the Next website within seconds of this post and whipped out my credit card (highly unlike me if you know anything about my spending habits—or lack thereof). Even 2 minutes after the tickets went on sale, most of the tables at reasonable dining times were booked. After taking far too much time trying to decide which weekend my sister would most likely be in Illinois (so I could crash at her place) I settled on my birthday weekend (happy birthday to me!)at the only seating left: 10:30pm.

I’ve been spending the last 2 months explaining to everyone I know why they should be ridiculously excited for slash jealous of me for having these tickets.

So on Saturday night after an early pre-dinner in Geneva with Vicki, Matt and I got all dressed up and headed downtown Chicago for our late, late dinner.

Our table ended up being about half an hour late which was a blessing in disguise because the host ended up giving us wine pairings for free! (I was far too cheap to pay the $65pp for those) and the hostess used our waiting time to give us a tour of the kitchens of both Next and The Aviary—the bar next door whose huge kitchen was exclusively for making ridiculously awesome cocktails—where we caught glimpses of Grant Achatz and Dave Beren.

Aviary Kitchen

Next Kitchen

Next Kitchen

Next’s kitchen was SO clean and organized. It was pretty impressive too how calm it seemed to be in contrast to the more frantic pace of The Aviary kitchen next door. The hostess showed us the information that they track on each table’s ticket which was extensive given the fact that everyone is eating the same thing. In addition to the obvious, like food allergies, they also kept track of where the woman was seated, when someone left the table to use the washroom, every time a dish was served or cleared from the table, and even whether someone in the party was left-handed! The attention to detail the staff paid to the diners made for some of the best service I’ve ever experienced in a restaurant (granted, I’ve never eaten at such a renowned restaurant before).

Aside from the fact that the food was amazing and the service was impeccable I liked that the staff gave us information about everything that we were eating and all the wines that we were drinking. Most of all though, the whole staff and even the restaurant itself felt very unpretentious a fact that I found surprising given that the restaurant itself has an air of exclusivity.

Place Setting

The menu was 13 courses of deliciousness with 1 apertivo and 4 wines.

(For pictures of the dishes that are actually good, check out this flickr stream. Whose it is, I have no clue.) 

Panelle: Fried chickpea flour crackers. These were tasty.

Arancine: Stuffed with deliciously tender lamb. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sauce though.

Caponata: Made with eggplant and celery and probably $30 worth of pine nuts. I <3 pine nuts.

Charred Artichoke – You just eat the soft and deliciously charred tasting insides. SO good.

Bucatini with Bottarga – I learned that night that I do not like bottarga.

Gemelli with Sardines – I do, however, love sardines. Matt doesn’t. He still thought this was the most delicious pasta ever. I could have stopped here, satisfied with probably one of the best pastas I’ve ever had (not counting my Nonna’s of course!). I was full…but there was so much more to come.

Swordfish with Roasted Garlic and Mint – I found the swordfish just slightly overcooked, but I loved the minty flavour.

A mix of boiled and fried chickpeas with a lemon dressing – probably my favourite dish of the night and the best chick peas I’ve ever had.

Roasted Pork Shoulder – I was stuffed at this point but had to eat a generous portion of the shining star of the evening- pork shoulder. This bad boy was the most tender piece of meat I’ve ever sunken my teeth into.

Zucchini and Zucchini Flowers in a Tomato Vinaigrette – Really flavourful. The fried zucchini flower was awesome.

Blood Orange Granita – this must have been made from really, really good blood oranges. A nice segue into desserts.

Cassata – it’s the official dessert of Sicily so it had to be featured on the menu. I loved this light and not too sweet cake (my birthday cake) a lot that I had no trouble clearing my dessert plate. The server brought it out to me with a little candle . . . a trick candle!

Cannoli, Ravioli Fritti, and Sesame Honey Cookies – the cherries in the cannoli really made them good, otherwise I have to say that I’ve had better. The other cookies weren’t bad but I was too caught up with my cassata to really pay much attention.

I’m so stoked that I got a chance to eat and drink at Next, and to tour their kitchens. It was a pretty memorable experience and an awesome birthday present. I’m contemplating attempting to snag tickets for the next theme, Kyoto, but maybe I should pace myself and save it for another special occasion.

Date of the Month: Picnic

It was almost impossible to squeeze in a Date of the Month for June. With me being out of town one weekend and him being out of town another weekend, then with Father’s Day and Canada Day we just had too much going on to be able to spend an entire day together on our original date that was planned. So we did a little switcheroo with our date for July a much more manageable, weeknight date – a picnic.

We packed up our picnic basket with pulled chicken sandwiches that Matt made earlier that day from this recipe, some apple & pear cake that I made from this recipe, and a bottle of my favourite beer– Iron Spike Copper Ale– that Matt picked up from the brewery in St. Thomas last weekend.

We had plans for later in the night to go see Brave with Tina so we had our picnic close to home at a highly under-utilized park.

After reading one of Chuck Klosterman’s pop culture essays on time travel (well worth the read if you have the time) from the book Eating the Dinosaur we spent most of our dinner discussed the theories and purposes of travelling through time. It was a discussion which I’m pretty sure Matt didn’t appreciate since he claimed he would want to go back in time solely to stop the whole conversation from ever happening to begin with.

So that’s the last time we discuss anything remotely philosophical. Well, at least the food and the beer were good.

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
September – Detroit Institute of Arts
October – Wine Tasting 

Date of the Month: Colasanti’s

On Saturday morning, Matt and I went on our Date of the Month for May to Colasanti’s Tropical Gardens in Ruthven.

If you’re not from the area Colasanti’s is pretty impossible to explain. It is part petting zoo, part plant retailer, part amusement park, and part banquet venue that happens to make really good doughnuts and fried chicken, and it’s all housed within a greenhouse. It’s exactly as eclectic and ridiculous as it sounds but if you’re from Essex County then Colasanti’s is totally normal and somehow makes sense.

Truthfully, I go for the doughnuts.

So Matt and I wandered around the petting zoo area, hung out with the goats, and checked out the tropical birds.

This little guy spent about 20 minutes trying to eat this sign. Ahh, goats.

Afterwards we searched for some plants for the house and picked out a couple of bridal veil hanging baskets for the front porch and a citronella plant to keep the mosquitoes away. The plants are pretty reasonably priced, but they seem to stock less and less every year.

We stopped for a doughnut or six (relax, we didn’t eat all six, though it did take some willpower) and then headed out.

So it wasn’t exactly the most exciting of dates, but it gave us something to do besides sit in the basement watching The Game of Thrones. Plus the weekends in May have been so busy for us that I think that without the date night (or day in this case) we wouldn’t have gone anywhere together at all! Plus, ya know, we got doughnuts so it was still kinda awesome.

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
September – Detroit Institute of Arts
October – Wine Tasting 

Downtown Detroit Walking Tour

Click any image to enlarge

On Saturday, Matt and I went on our Date of the Month for April, a self-guided Downtown Detroit Walking Tour, focusing on the history and architecture of the downtown core, that I came across on the VisitDetroit.com website. It was supposed to be a podcast, but it wouldn’t download properly so instead I printed out the script and we read it as we went along.

Being from the area, I know a bit about Detroit’s history as a French fort founded at the beginning of the 18th century and the city’s role as the last stop in the underground railroad, but I haven’t spent much time wandering around the downtown area and I knew nothing about the architecture in the city.

One of my favourite parts of the tour was an arch sculpture called Transcending, located in Hart Plaza on the riverfront The sculpture included a path with quotes and bronze reliefs representing the landmark events in the history of the Labour Movement.

I also enjoyed getting a view of the Windsor skyline from Hart Plaza since I rarely get to see Windsor from the other side of the river. Unfortunately Detroit gets the shit end of the stick when it comes to skyline views since their skyline viewed from Windsor is much more pleasing to the eye than the reverse.

My favourite work of architecture, the best in my ignorant-about-architecture opinion, is the colourful art deco Guardian Building with its painted murals, intricate mosaics, stained glass, and varieties of marble.

The whole tour took us about 3 hours which was much longer than I expected.

Following our tour we drove up Woodward Ave to the Cass Corridor for dinner at the eclectic diner Traffic Jam and Snug on Canfield, but not before picking up a couple of very tart loaves of sourdough bread at the organic bakery Avalon just a block over on Willis. I am always drawn to scoping out a 3 things when I travel: churches, cemeteries, and bakeries.

If you go:

You can download several different walking tours from VisitDetroit.com

Guided Tours are also available at: Inside Detroit, Preservation Wayne, and Detroit Tour Connections

Highlights:

- The iconic Spirit of Detroit bronze statue

- Transcending, the art installation in Hart Plaza representing the Labor Movement with famous labour quotes and images representing workers’ and human rights.

- The Beaux-Arts Classicism of the Wayne County Building

- The opulent Siamese-Byzantine style interior of the Fox Theatre

- The Guardian Building‘s bright, multi-coloured Pewabic tile on the exterior and the gorgeous interior lobby featuring a mosaic of Michigan’s State Tree, the White Pine, back-lit stained glass, a Tiffany clock and a five story mural of Michigan.

Lowlights:

- The tour took us into a very, very shady section of the downtown area to show us the birthplace of the first Ford automobile where we ran into some heavily inebriated individuals.

- We saw a person doing hard drugs in the middle of Grand Circus Park

- Downtown Detroit on a Saturday is a very lonely place when there are no sporting events going on. I see more pedestrians in my suburban neighbourhood. Tourists were even harder to spot though we managed to see one other couple posing for a photo-op with the Spirit of Detroit and what looked like a bicycle tour in Hart Plaza. That was it.

- In spite of the city’s efforts, there are still lots of abandoned, formerly beautiful buildings

Interesting Facts:

- Campus Martius Park is Detroit’s point of origin and one of the best public squares in North America

- The city’s motto, established after the 1805 fire, is “We hope for better things. It will arise from the ashes.” which is still very applicable today

- Martin Luther King, Jr. gave the “I Have a Dream” speech for the first time at Cobo Hall in Detroit.

- The Marriott at the Renaissance Centre is the tallest all-hotel skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere.

- The building at One Woodward Ave was designed by the same designer of the World Trade Centre and was inspiration for the twin towers

- With 13,000 theatre seats, the Detroit has the second largest Theatre District in the US

- Detroit was the original capitol of Michigan and the state’s first governor was only 22 years old

- Detroit is the only American city ever to have been occupied by a foreign power, the British, during a 13 month period of the War of 1812

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling

Date of the Month Club: March

Time for another Date Night.

March’s card turned out to be a bowling date, so we headed to Bowlero, slightly earlier than the high school “rock ‘n bowl” crowd (side note: man, I loved rock ‘n bowl as a teenager), for a couple of games.

I’ve always been a crappy bowler. In my worst game ever I bowled a whopping 5.

I have also always been a bad loser, so combining the two meant that as a kid I was a bit of an asshole to bowl with and I wasn’t a huge fan of the sport.

I started to grow out of that when I would rock ‘n bowl with my friends as a teenager, and I found my ineptitude more comical than anything.

It’s been about 4 or 5 years since the last time I bowled, so it was fun to go out and play again and I think it made a good date night.

The first game started out ok. I managed to get into the groove of bowling again and got a couple of spares. I ended up with a respectable (for me, anyway) 76 points. Matt got 96.

In our second game I hit the highest score I’ve ever had: 111.

(I’m the first S, Matt is the second S for ‘Stinky’)

We finished the night off with some coffees at Starbucks and discussed what character each of us would be portrayed as if we were on a reality TV show. I figured Matt would be played off as slightly arrogant but funny and likeable. Matt said I could go both ways, and the producers would either see me as a competitive bitch or a total sweetheart. That sounds about accurate.

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
September – Detroit Institute of Arts
October – Wine Tasting 

Date of the Month Club: February

Our first Date of the Month Club for January was an awesome bookstore scavenger hunt.

February’s didn’t quite work out according to plan.

Our date of the month was supposed to be tobogganing and yet the entire month of February went by without enough snow for tobogganing to be possible. Any time the snow fell it would melt away within a day.

I was hopeful that this weekend would be the weekend that we could finally go tobogganing but the 10-15cm of snow that were expected for Friday turned into a light dusting on the ground that melted the same day.

The unseasonably mild temperatures in SW Ontario this winter have been baffling. What happened to the thundersnows and 20cm blizzards of last February, when my car was spinning out on the 401 from all the snow? And every February prior to this there has been enough snow for snowmen, snow days, and salt covered roads.

This February I was doing yardwork. In a sweater. It was practically November.

February Date Night – Board Game Night

So needless to say the tobogganing date didn’t happen. Which sucked, because how fun would that have been? Instead we had a Board Game Night.

We don’t have a lot of board games that are fit for only two players, so we settled on Trivial Pursuit – Genus Edition. For those of you in the board game know, you’ll recognize this as the original Trivial Pursuit, circa 1981 (ie. before I was born)

Because the game is so goddamn old, the questions are intense. Especially when it pertains to pop culture which, 30 years later, is no longer “pop”. Most of them left us asking “Who the fuck?”

The Entertainment and the Arts & Literature questions are ancient and, since I know nothing about the likes of Ingrid Bergman or Gone with the Wind or Charlotte Bronte, these questions are impossible to answer.
In the end of the game Matt and I ended up tied with 5 pieces and needed an A&L and Entertainment piece, respectively. We tossed the game rules out the window and just rapid fired questions to each other until one of us finally answered something right.

Then we gave up on the game and just watched The Game of Thrones.

In summary:
I need to invest in a version of Trivial Pursuit from my lifetime. And where the hell was all the snow this month?

Date of the Month Club

Check out other posts in the Date of the Month club, where Matt and I go on one special date every month of 2012:

January – Bookstore Scavanger Hunt
February – Board Game Night
March – Bowling
April – Detroit Walking Tour
May – Colasanti’s
June – Picnic
July – Next Restaurant
August – Detroit Tigers Baseball Game
September – Detroit Institute of Arts
October – Wine Tasting