Slambin'!

I love it when a social event creeps up on me unexpectedly, in the middle of the week, no less.

Sam Bell is Cathleen's cousin. Next week is Sam Bell's 38th birthday. Tomorrow Sam starts his new job at Spot Runner, a new-media advertising company. Last night Sam wanted to celebrate his birthday. Last week he emailed friends and family about gathering for a dinner at a restaurant in Brooklyn Heights. I had planned to stay home with the kids while Cathleen went to the dinner, but when Claudia appeared at the house to stay over for the night (like she does pretty much every Tuesday and Wednesday), we handed her the babysitting reins and Cathleen and I took off for the Heights.

At 8 pm we met up with her other cousin, Madeline, outside the restaurant, on Atlantic Avenue, and we then headed across the street to the Waterfront Ale House for pre-dinner drinks with Sam, Crazy Uncle Frank and Linda, and some of Sam's friends. At around 8:45 the fifteen of us headed back across the street (well, down a block if we're to be honest) to the Yemen Cafe and Restaurant.

Sam had pre-arranged dinner: we were having the lamb. Not "a lamb dish" or "the lamb dish," but the lamb, as in the entire lamb. We were first served a soup -- a lamb consomme which was outrageously flavorful. This was accompanied by plates and plates of flatbread, a few platters of hummus/beans/babaghanoush, and then salad. Just when you were wondering if you were getting too full, they plopped down four humungous platters of roasted lamb parts on the table. A single lamb, it turns out, makes a lot of lamb. We gorged ourselves, and there was enough left over for pretty much everyone to take home a substantial lambie bag of food. Then came dessert -- pieces of the flatbread soaked in honey and sprinkled with nuts. The place needs to get a liquor license, because we could have used a few bottles of red to go along with the eats, but that was one hell of a meal. And had Frank not generously treated everyone, it still would not have been an expensive meal for anyone.

Cathleen and I walked back home, arriving at 10:45. On a school night. We crazy.