Monday, October 23rd - Once You Begin Down the Dork Path, Forever Will it Dominate Your Life.
As I was saying before I fell asleep at my computer last night, Jay and I are dorks of the highest order. We're comfortable with that, and actually as we've matured...
hahahahaha - maturity, right...we've learned to revel in our shared dorkiness. It's part of our mutual charm.
Anyway, once we booked the 7-night Western cruise scheduled to leave Port Canaveral on 10/20/07, I did what any self-respecting Dis-er would do: I hot-footed it over to the cruise boards and subscribed to the cruise meet thread for our sailing. Let me just say that there are some terrific people on that thread - friendly, warm, funny, supportive, generous and caring. They're a chatty group, too, which explains why I don't recall exactly how the Hard Rock Cafe ended up as a topic of conversation one day. But it did, and that's where Lindy Loo stepped in and made an offer that knocked my socks off.
She offered to pick up a couple of pins from the London HRC for my dear husband. I was so excited to be able to do this for Jay and I couldn't wait to tell him that someone from the cruise was going to get him some pins from the original HRC. But before I even had a chance to say anything to the hubby, this wonderful woman whom I'd never before met then offered to take herself and her friends on a global HRC pin hunt for us. Turns out she travels for work and she has friends who travel and suddenly there was a small army of British people looking for Hard Rock Cafes and buying guitar pins for a pair of crazy Americans.
How cool is that?
We arranged to meet up at the Grand Floridian on Monday afternoon to exchange pins and currency because their daughter was participating in the Wonderland Tea Party and adults were strictly forbidden to attend. This presented us with the perfect opportunity to have a drink or two together and hear about their experiences on the Disney Wonder, which they had just returned from cruising on for the first time.
Before I tell you anything more about our meet with Lindy Loo and her hubby, wouldn't you like to hear about our Epcot snackables and see some pictures?
You would?
Excellent - I knew I could count on you!
**For those of you who followed the food porn thread: yes, you are experiencing deja vu - do not attempt to adjust your monitors.**
Knowing that we were going to be heading over to the Grand Floridian from Epcot, we decided to turn left after entering the park from the International Gateway. This path would take us through England and Canada, and past such tasty food booths as Ireland, Poland, and New Zealand.
First stop:
Ireland
Here's one last picture of their food booth because I still think it's just the cutest little set-up.
Food offerings: Potato Leek Soup with a Dubliner Irish Cheese Crisp; Lamb, Bacon, and Cabbage Stew with a Kerrygold Butter Scone; Raspberry Trifle.
Drink offerings: Guiness; O'Mara's Irish Cream; Bunratty Meade Honey Wine.
I ordered the Potato Soup:
I love me a good potato soup - the cream based kind with a smattering of potato cubes and soggy carrot chunks. A wee bit of pepper for taste and a sprig of parsley for visual effect and I'm in simple soup heaven. But this soup was terrible! Look at how greasy it is. Do you see anything resembling a potato? And let's talk about the cheese "crisp" for a moment. I'm no culinary expert, but in my many years of Oreo cookie-dunking experience I've learned that submerging "crisp" in any sort of liquid results in first degree soggy. Two thumbs down for this choice.
Jason ordered the Lamb Stew:
I'm not crazy about lamb, but I did try this...after that soup what did I have to lose? It wasn't bad, all things considered but I think it's a bit watery for stew. In my book stew should be thick enough to be eaten with a fork. Maybe there was a flour shortage in the Disney kitchens this fall; maybe the Irish like runny stew; maybe I'm just unreasonably picky. Jay ended up eating most of these two samples, but he's used to that by now. I'll try weird and scary stuff at Epcot but that doesn't mean I'll like it and it certainly doesn't mean that I'm going to eat all of it!
Next stop:
Poland
Food offerings: Beef Cabbage Roll; Kielbasa and Potato Pierogies; Paczki.
Drink offerings: Nalewka Babuni Raspberry Wine; Kurpiowski Honey Wine; Okocim Beer.
We decided to share an order of the Kielbasa and Potato Pierogies with some Okocim Beer.
Certain aspects of this plate o-food were quite good and others never even touched my fork - I am, in the end, still a rather picky eater. The kielbasa was very tasty but a bit more greasy than I prefer so I didn't eat much of it. I don't like saurkraut so Jay got to enjoy all of it by default. The pierogies were really good but there was sour cream on them...oh my god, I accidentally ate some sour cream! Quick, gimme that beer! I loves me the Okocim Beer; it's good stuff - masks the taste of sour cream really well.
Onward we go...to find ourselves in
Canada
Food offerings: Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup; Maple Glazed Salmon with Arugula and Roasted Corn; Maple Custard topped with Almond Crunch.
Drink offerings: Mission Hill Chardonnay; Mission Hill Reserve Riesling Icewine; Labatt Blue.
Our decision here: An order of the salmon and a sample of the maple custard.
The salmon was OK - you guessed right if you were thinking that I'm not crazy about salmon. It really just depends on how it's prepared and I thought this was a bit on the dry side. Jay really liked it, however; and said it was very flavorful. The custard was tasty but it was very thick and too sweet for our taste - since I can't eat nuts Jay was forced to destroy the top layer of the dessert before I could even try any of it.
As an aside for those of you who like ice wine, try an ice wine martini sometime - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. We mix equal parts of ice wine and vodka over ice and then drink slowly. Be sure to use a premium vodka when you do this or the drink will suffer!
Where should we stop next? How 'bout:
New Zealand
Food offerings: Bay Scallop Salad and Seafood Medley; Lamb Slider; Kiwi and Custard Roll.
Drink offerings: Fernleaf Sauvignon Blanc; Nobilo Icon Pinot Gris; Monkey Bay Chardonnay; Nobilo Merlot.
Seafood is usually a safe choice and Jason likes lamb so it looks like we're going to try the medley and the slider.
Where do I start? How about with a question that has no satisfactory answer: Why don't the food booths have food displays any longer so that you can see what you're getting yourself into before you commit to it?
I like seafood but I do not want to sweep the sea clean and then eat it cold in a small plastic cup. I'm not sure what the seafood components were that comprised this dish but when I took a brave forkful and ended up chewing something very springy and squishy I knew Jason was going to have to eat the rest on his own. He offered me the lamb slider. Does anyone else have a problem with this name? In St. Louis, sliders come from White Castle and sober-minded people only eat them at 4AM after drinking three times their body weight in alcohol. Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.
Call me surprised when I take a bite of the slip-slidin' lamb and find it to be very tasty indeed. This was very tender and moist and well seasoned - I don't know if it was the method of cooking or if it was something else the chef did, but it really didn't taste like lamb, which is probably why I liked it.
We've got time for one last munchie before catching the monorail over to the GF:
Wild & Wonderful Florida Shrimp
Food offerings: Chilled Rock Shrimp with Mango Salsa; Saute'ed Shrimp with Ginger and Lime.
Drink offerings: Blue Fish Riesling; Florida Orange Groves Mango Wine.
I love shrimp so there was no way we could go wrong with this food booth. We decided to order everything on the menu and end the snacking with a bang!
I preferred the saute'ed shrimp to the shrimp salsa, but that's probably because I'm not much of a salsa eater. But I have to say that the Mango Wine was extraordinary when paired with the shrimp salsa - it was an explosion of taste. The Riesling was acceptable but nothing really stands out about that one.
Snack time is over, at least for today. It's time to hop the monorail and get ourselves over to the Grand Floridian.
Does anyone else feel compelled to sing the "Monorail Song" when at WDW? Before leaving for Florida, Jay downloaded part of the song to his cell phone and played it while we were waiting in the monorail queue at Epcot - I'm sure this is the reason no one wanted to share a compartment with us.
Sing along for a moment, just for fun!
"There's nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!"
"What'd I say?"
"Monorail!"
"What's it called?"
"Monorail!"
"Once again!"
"Monorail!"
Ah, Grimace-free, good times! And for anyone who might be wondering, alcohol had nothing to do with this particular bout of goofiness. We have these kind of Simpsons interludes every day - no alcoholic encouragement is required.
We met Linda and her husband in the lobby of the Grand Floridian and decided that we'd go hang out at the hotel's pool, conveniently located near a bar. I don't remember what anyone else had to drink, but I had two Pina CoLavas in pretty quick succession. There is no picture of this drink, but it was quite tasty and I do have the ingredients: Bacardi Razz Rum blended with Pina Colada mix and raspberry puree.
I can't say enough nice things about Linda and Wayne - just super-nice people and we had such a lovely time chatting with them about their cruise and their time in Florida and the HRC pin-quest.
The fabulous Lindy Loo gave me permission to post a group shot, so here's the four of us just before we had to part company:
Aren't they cute? I mean it - they're just darling and so much fun. I'm very sad when I think about not cruising this fall because Jay and I won't get to share the experience with people like Linda and Wayne (and Nancy and Chuck and Karen and Neil and Cass and Rob and Paige and Abby and Tina and AFEG and anyone else I should have mentioned but didn't because my memory is starting to get fuzzy tonight- please don't take it personally).
Linda, thank you, thank you, thank you for being so wonderful and helping Jay add to his stash!
Here's a picture of Jay's current HRC pin collection, which now numbers 66 pins:
His goal is to cover the entire back of the t-shirt with HRC pins and then get it framed and start all over again.
And thus ends the current segment. I swear the next installment will include Plankton's Great Escape!! Thanks for reading!!
rincess: 
(Unless one of us KK's wins the lottery!!! 
)
(Go ahead. Hear the "ha 
