Hah-vahd Grad

One way to kick off a great Memorial Day weekend is to have a reunion with friends from afar!  Andrew and I had marked off May 26 for months when we knew Mike and Jeanne were going to be in Boston. Currently residents of Louisiana, they were in town to celebrate a very special occasion - Mike's graduation from Harvard with a doctorate in Political Science!

To celebrate such a momentous occasion, Jeanne picked Grill 23 & Bar, a place that I have heard many good things about but never had the chance to visit. When I first walked in and saw them (poor Andrew was stuck parking the car), I couln't resist referring to them as Dr. Mike and Jeanne Esquire, although Jeanne corrected me and said for the night, she was simply a proud Harvard wife.  What followed was a champagne toast, some excellent crab cake appetizers, delicious steaks and lots of reminiscing and catching up on each others' lives.

Dinner flew by and the service was flawless, except when the waiter kept trying to clear away Mike's creme brulee - Mike was kind enough to keep trying to tempt Jeanne into eating some of his dessert but wasn't going to let it go to waste (I had it for dessert as well and it was wonderful - vanilla bean specks throughout, a generous sized portion, and served in a wonderfully shallow dish so that there was endless supply of the burnt sugar topping).

The evening was mild, even at the time we left the restaurant (I'm guessing 9:30ish - 10 p.m.) and I told Mike and Jeanne that they had brought the nice weather in with them from Louisiana.  Next, we made our way over to an old favorite, Bukowski's.  We were a little over dressed for the bar but managed to settle in quite nicely at a table in the back:

And had ourselves many, many more drinks and laughs.  We actually closed down the place, and as an old broad, I can't tell you the last time I did that and had such a great time doing it!

That could also explain why it took all of Friday for me to recover - just getting up to eat was an accomplishment for me that day!

But cheers to Mike once again on an amazing accomplishment and for Jeanne hosting us for such a wonderful meal and night. We look forward to visiting them on their home turf sometime in the future (whether it's Oxford, MS, where they'll be moving to this summer or back to Lousiana in the fall to catch a LSU game) and getting a chance to see Marie walking and talking!