Official Nanaimo Bar Wetting..

So, a couple weeks back we finally had the official Nanaimo Bar wetting party. This was a combination grand opening of the bar that I built, along with a birthday party for me. Yup, I’m another year older. 31 years old and it turns out I still know how to party! Good for me, right? Hee hee. At any rate, it was great to finally have a party with the fully renovated basement, and what a great excuse to invite people over, and see some people that I haven’t hung out with in a long time. I’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who made it out at various points in the evening, and a special thanks to those who brought some tasty additions to the liquor cabinet! It was totally unexpected but highly appreciated. I started the night off a little grumpy, as my sister will attest. I was very hungry, and had been training earlier in the day, and suddenly felt rushed to get everything set up for the party. Luckily, after a couple hot dogs and some gin, I settled down quite handily. From that point on, I pretty much moved to behind the bar, which you can see in the picture to the right. If you’d like to see more shots of the party, they’re all over on Flickr (as per usual). If you go through the pictures, you’ll probably recognize some faces from long ago, and you might even notice some eerie differences between this party and parties past. Yup, it’s true, we’re all getting a little older, and it seems the invasion of the little people is upon us all! The first half of the celebration night was happily punctuated by several of our friends’ babies, including my own niece Helena. At one point, I looked around and asked myself what happened to the raging keggers, throwing forks at rare earth magnets on the fridge, while dressed in crazy outfits. Now, it’s all about toddlers pulling themselves across the floor, and laughing at the older ones who are now already getting lippy with us 😉 Crazy stuff. As a result, we had to keep Jonah off by himself till the latter portion of the party, which was the appropriate time to release the ‘party animal’. You know when that is of course. It’s when Matt and Rob started throwing random beer and liquor in the blender, expecting to come out with a delicious drink! Such was not the case. However, it did prompt the transformation to the type of party I’m more used to.

Before things spiralled too far out of control, we found the time to do a few other things that I wanted to do that night. Namely, I took the opportunity to mix up some delicious national cocktails of a couple of my favourite places. First up was the Pisco Sour, which is the national drink of Peru. A refreshing drink sort of reminiscent of Margaritas, but made in a significantly different way. For a little history and how to make pisco sours, check out this site. I made a batch of 10 or 11 I think, and they went over quite well I’d say. I used a pre-packaged mix as the base for this one, and I think next time I’ll just make it from scratch. On the plus side, I was able to confirm our new blender worked great! The second drink up was of course the Mojito, one of my favourites (as well as Ernest Hemingway), and a well-known drink from Cuba. If you’d like to make your own, check out the recipe here. To make the drink extra tasty, I used only mint from our own garden. After all, it was growing like a weed and Jody wanted me to get rid of some. Like the Pisco, I cheated a little bit with it, in that I used a sugar sirop, and didn’t properly muddle the mixture before making the drink. Given a bit more time, and less embibing earlier, I’ll make it the traditional way for a refreshing summer deck drink.

Now that the drinks were taken care of, we also decided to do a little quiz game to see who knew me the best. There were 16 questions and a few bonuses, with all sorts of questions about my past and present. The questions were made so that no one would get them all, and I’d get to bore everyone with a few stories about me. Luckily there were prizes up for grabs, so at least that kept some people interested 🙂 It was a lot of fun (I think), and just for posterity’s sake, I’ll reproduce the questions here, and the brief answers. If you’d like the whole story about any of them, you’ll have to ask me in person. Perhaps over a mojito. Some answers won’t be revealed in order to protect me from possible identity theft. One can’t be too careful on the web, can one? All in all, a great party. Thanks for coming out all, and hope to see everyone real soon. Now, to close off, the quiz questions and answers:

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW STEPHAN MEYER?

1. 1. Where was Steve born?
   • [with-held]
2. Bonus: Where was he baptized?
   • [with-held]
3. 2. What is Steve’s middle name?
   • Robert, and if you want to be technical, Robert III.
4. 3. What was the first instrument Steve learned to play?
   • Piano, started at age 5.
5. 4. What was Steve’s first job?
   • Worked at Knife World, a retail store owned by Grohmann Knives in New Glasgow.
6. 5. What obstacle did Steve encounter on the way to his job at Beaver Lumber?
   • Tombstone in the shape of an Obelisk. Wrote off a Subaru Justy that morning.
7. 6. How old was Steve when he first got drunk and puked?
   • 16.
8. Bonus: What kind of liquor was it, and who bought it?
   • Two liter bottle of wine cooler bought by my sister and her then-boyfriend.
9. 7. What was the name of Steve’s University Residence?
   • Aitken House
10. Bonus: What were they known as?
    • Aitken Animals, the residence was modelled after the movie Animal House of course.
11. 8. What ridiculous road trip did Steve and Kevin make during exam period one year at university?
    • 1000km trip to Ottawa for a Hawaiian party being hosted at the Mad House.
12. 9. What was the name of Steve’s last place in Fredericton?
    • The Kitchen Sink, we lived on Kitchen Street.
13. Bonus: Name all of his roommates.
    • Adam Stewart, Tanya Stokes, Kevin Haggerty.
14. 10. Why did Steve miss his university convocation?
    • Biking through the Rockies seemed like more fun.
15. Bonus: What well-known magazine was he mentioned in upon graduating?
    • MacLeans had a feature on new grads. I was interviewed and profiled.
16. 11. What was the name of the first ultimate team Steve played on?
    • Ultimate Maritime Madness.
17. Bonus: What was their cheer?
    • More beer, less fear. Also Just Keg it. And a 3rd I can’t remember right now.
18. 12. What softball team was Steve the captain of?
    • The Keith-heads. We won that year.
19. 13. Where did Steve and Jody meet?
    • Playing Ultimate in Vanier. They were on opposing teams.
20. 14. What name was Steve’s Saturn affectionately known by?
    • The Fantastic Plastic.
21. 15. What restaurant does Steve hate the most?
    • East Side Marios. Bar none. Oktoberfest, van of infinite madness, salty tuna melts, ’nuff said.
22. 16. What is Steve’s favorite drunken snack?
    • Cheetos brand Cheese Corn. You know, the one that gives you ‘tobacco fingers’ after eating a bag?