Rustic Kitchen

We had lunch today at Rustic Kitchen in Boston. For an appetizer, we had fried calamari with pine nuts and jalapeños, $7. Our entrée was pizza fired in their brick oven, $11. The pizza had sweet Italian sausage, roasted red peppers, and mozzarella. The crust was very good, nice and thin. I had a glass of an '04 Californian Zinfandel (I can't recall the vineyard right now), nice and smooth, hints of spice, $7.

I also liked their chairs. They're very good chairs. Very comfortable, roomy, substantial. You can lean back in them without having to tip them. These are the kind of chairs I'd like to have at my dinner table.

Black Velvet

Okay, the Black Velvet is my new New Year's Eve toast of choice. Pure genius, the mixing of Guiness and champagne is. I used an extra dry sparkling wine from Domaine Ste Michelle and Guiness in a can. Really simple:

Fill a champagne flute half full with Guiness. Slowly fill the rest of the glass with champagne. Be careful, the champagne will fizz up.