My wife and I’ve had a very sociable weekend that started off with a dinner at my friend Peter’s place on Saturday and finished with a birthday party at another friend, Tim’s place on Sunday.
 
Dinner at Peter’s place is always a joy as he is a good cook, an excellent conversationalist and to top it all off he collects wines and enjoys sharing them with his friends.  Normally I am not a fan of lamb, and when Peter said that he was cooking lamb shanks my heart sank a little, but needless to say, the meal due to Peter’s skill in the kitchen was fantastic.  Peter slow roasted the lamb shanks in wine, and the meat just fell off the bone, it was really excellent.  The standout wine of the evening that Peter shared with us was a bottle of 1990 Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz.  It was a beautifully smooth, full flavoured (as one expects from Australian warm climate Shiraz) wine that perfectly complemented our meal.  If you think you might want to try this wine here are some tasting notes for it (that I lifted from an on-line wine catalogue):

“Deep red in colour, 1990 has established itself as a classic Penfolds vintage. There are intense dark chocolate and sweet berry aromas, complex, revealing many characters in the glass - raspberry, prune, fruitcake, exotic spices and roasted chestnuts. Spice and demi-glace secondary notes add to the aromatic interest, flashes of liquorice, white chocolate and cinnamon arise with a swirl. Medium-bodied and mouth filling, plummy, berried fruits mesh with dark chocolate, mocha and spice notes.”

Due to Peter’s love of wine, and his generosity with it, we always find ourselves staying up late into the evening whenever we go over to his place, sampling the various delicious treasures from Peter’s cellar.  Of course, due to the amount of wine that we drink in an evening at Peter’s we always sleep over so we don’t have to drive back home.
 
After a quick breakfast at the cafe near Peter’s, we headed up to the Blue Mountains (100 km west of Sydney) to have an extended lunch with our friend Tim and his wife Em with a bunch of their other friends to celebrate his birthday.  Tim’s wife Em is a vegetarian, so instead of the normal meat fest that passes for Australian cuisine, there were quite a few delicious salads that were the perfect antidote to the previous night’s dinner.  The highlight of the afternoons repast was a delicious beer cake with a saffron mascarpone filling covered with a raspberry icing made by Tim’s cousin, Kristin.

It was really a great weekend, with fantastic company and excellent food.  When we arrived home, I checked my e-mails to find that Kent Davis who has made contact with me through this blog and I have spoken to over the telephone, had a very lucky escape on the 17th.  Thanks to a smoke alarm, Kent and his wife Pa were woken up just in time to get out of their house, with nothing but what they were wearing as their house quickly burnt down.

In his e-mail to me, Kent had this to say:
“We have lost absolutely everything but our lives. We are wearing clothes from the neighbours now. Our good friend next door has an apartment and has given us a place to stay. The other neighbours have clothes for us. Life is good! Being alive is even better! (-: The important thing to know is that we are alive, in love, and that we are very, very lucky.”

Later in his e-mail, Kent said this:
“Typing is slow because my eyes are filled with tears… Before the fire was out our neighbours gave us so many generous commitments for food, shelter and clothing that we truly never felt “homeless” for a moment. As dawn arrived more food, clothing, help and housing offers came. As the day went on, dozens and dozens more friends came to help.”
 
Epicurus said that all we really need to be happy is freedom, food, friends, shelter and a life free from pain. Although Kent and Pa lost their shelter and many things of sentimental value, I suspect that they are so rich in friends that they will be back on their feet in no time.
 
I truly feel that our lives are defined and enriched by our friends. Therefore it’s very important to cherish and maintain our friendships as they bring far more joy and strength into our lives than any material possessions.