Today is my 30th birthday. My dinner guests just left, and I’m extremely tired. I was up at 04:00 to go waterfowl hunting again this morning. Maybe not the wisest thing to do before hosting 15 dinner guests. 40 more geese and 13 ducks this morning, followed by lots of butchering. My bird-cleaning chops are getting quite polished. More on this later.

I had a wonderful birthday. Last night I had some good friends and family over for a wonderful dinner, and we enjoyed the wine in the photo below. A very nice Pauillac. I have good friends. The photo on the upper left is the starter of lightly cooked shaggy mane [in butter] on a pan-bread with some liquid the mushroom releases when cooked, topped with a wild chive.

The theme for my birthday was ‘braised and bordeaux’d’. I will post more soon on this, but we’ll just say for now that it’s the reason my dishwasher smells so good.

I will try to catch up in the coming days. So much food. So many wines. So tired. But what I will take the time to scratch down is a big thank you to all who were very kind to me in the past few days, including my lovely wife. The rest of you know who you are. I really appreciate all the thoughtfullness, generosity, and love.