Had a pretty hectic couple of weeks there, had to pull away from the blog to gear up for my parents visiting! Then they came, and I wasn’t about to blog while they were in town! deal with it – but hey- we had a pretty good time – check out these pics!

First things first – had to welcome them into town with a killer spread, and some drinks!

Then it was time for dinner – I sous vided some thick cut pork chops from Redlinski Meats- unfortunately, the suggested cook time on the sous vide site I used didn’t work out for these chops and I kind of overdid them – I was not happy about it. Sorry Mom & Dad 🙁

The next day was a little better planned out – we made our way to Encore for some drinks and some eats before heading out to a show-

Duck wings:

Smoking Eel:

Smoked Beef rib sandwich:

Pretty darn tasty – had a combination of 3 of my favorite things: beef, cheese and caramelized onions!

Then it was a quick walk over to the Tralf to check out the Rebirth Jazz Band!

Family shot! (my parent and my wife’s parents together!)

The show was amazing:

Even the opener (not pictured) Buffalo Brass Machine was great! I would totally see them again – and I would definitely check out Rebirth Brass Band again – totally awesome.

The next day it was about getting out to Thinman brewery and letting them try some good beer and food:

Of course I got the Tokyo burger – the thing is just a work of art, totally amazing. I got it Rare, and gave zero fucks.

Parents went with some Buffalo staples – Beef on weck and fried Balogna, had I known I would have taken them to somewhere else, but we had a great time sitting on the roof of thinman – the weather was beautiful – couldn’t have asked for a better day.

For dinner, it was all about the WNY pizza – Bocce club:

Mushroom and pepperoni! amazing.

Then I had to prep some action for my company picnic: I was doing pulled pork egg rolls. My sister in-law is vietnamese, and I am nowhere as good as rolling them as she is, but she taught me – and I feel like I’m pretty good at it: here are the pre-fried treats:

And here are the post-fried treats! looks like egg rolls, right?

What about the cross section? glad you asked:

Pork, pickled cabbage, dill pickle and chive.. they were ok.

Erica decided to make maple-bacon mini cupcakes for the picnic. I handled the bacon, but these cupcakes were awesome!

The next day was the company picnic, but before that – breakfast. Everywhere we went to eat, we ended up with leftover fries, and I kept joking about how they would make great homefries for breakfast. Well, along with some eggs and Redlinski breakfast sausage – they sure did! Tasty!

After breakfast, it was time to buckle up the company beer that Neal and I made – and head to the picnic:

The 5 gallon keg actually kicked!

The whole weekend was beautiful – we couldn’t have asked for better weather. It was great hanging out with my family – I definitely took more pictures than just of food and stuff, but this is kind of a beer/meat/food blog – so I’m just focusing on those images – the picnic was at Chestnut Ridge, McKinnon lodge. We have on there every year – I was happy my parents could make it.

Love my parents!