Poker night or a guys night out at the bar drinking and smoking... those are usually the only two options that I hear but I have an alternative idea. How about a guys movie night?

I love big over the top burgers, rock and roll, craft beer, and honoring those who serve to keep our country the best in the entire world! When a place manages to combine all of those into one tasty (if not extremely messy!) package I love to share the news of it with you guys.

A scene from Top Gun was filmed here, their bartender loves to create artisanal tequila cocktails and to top it off, San Diego Magazine's readers just named their chef, Accursio Lota, as "Best Chef" in San Diego - so who was I to say no when they approached us recently and invited us to stop by for dinner!

Honestly, I am not typically a fan of Italian because I usually associate it with kitschy bottles chianti, heavy but tasteless spaghetti sauce covered pasta and pictures of the pope or mobsters on the walls. Over the past couple years though I am starting to warm up to it. What I discovered at San Diego's Solare Ristorante was a delightful interpretation of classic Italian but merged with the essence of the Southern California farm-to-table movement.

If you aren't familiar with Carmel California, I bet you are familiar with it's cousins of Pebble Beach and Monterey. Don't worry though, there's a lot to offer in Carmel itself including a great beach, great food, unparalleled driving experiences in Big Sur, sports, and of course it is one of the most dog friendly cities in America. Oh yeah and many celebrities call Carmel home so don't be surprised if you see them walking around town including Brad Pitt and former mayor of Carmel, Clint Eastwood. 

I love to drink bourbon, the sweet brown spirit that tastes so good in a rocks glass or mixed together with other ingredients to form a delicious old fashioned, a whiskey sour, or a mint julep. But bourbon also works great with cooking and baking too and luckily I am not alone in my love for exploring the application of bourbon with preparing food, so I did a quick roundup of some of my favorite recipes that include bourbon in them!

The first is my all time favorite recipe featuring bourbon! It is a recipe forWhiskey, Caramel, Marshmallow, and Bacon Bark from Endless Simmer.

I actually discovered this on Pinterest and have made it several times since then. Unfortunately I am not as clever of a cook as they are but the nice thing about this recipe is that even if you have some extra crystals in the caramel or you make the chocolate too thick or the bourbon infused marshmallows are too runny... don't worry! It always tastes great! 

While deserts are great, Bourbon is a fantastic ingredient to use when creating the ultimate glaze for pretty much any protein you can imagine. In this case, we LOVE this recipe for Maple-bourbon Glazed Chicken Wings from Yummly.

As we continue our tour of mixing bourbon and proteins you can't miss the iconicBourbon Chicken with this recipe I found on Yummly.  

This recipe for Bourbon Glazed Salmon that I found on Yummly and hammers home the point that bourbon makes a remarkably find ingredient to put on just about any kind of grilled protein! 

Let's end this roundup with some delicious Bourbon Banana Bread from Smitten Kitchen.

 NOTE: image credits are from the linked-to website below the image. If you are the owner and would like me to remove the image and link, please let me know and we will remove it immediately.

This was my first time visiting the west coast of Mexico so I wasn't really sure what to expect - and frankly all you hear these days about the Pacific coast is about how dangerous it is. While that may be true in spots, during a recent tour of Ensenada Mexico I found it a very fun and unusual, with more to do than a frankly was expecting.

Unlike the Caribbean cruise ports I am used to, Ensenada is a real town with people that lead real lives and aren't just there to look pretty and offer excursions to rich American tourists. However there is some of that too, though it was more like visiting a regular city vs a sanitized "made for tourists" experience.

Is the fall chill catching up with you? Why not try this recipe that Laphroaig sent us for a Scot’s Cider.

Ingredients:

1. 1 part Laphroaig® 10-Year-Old Scotch Whisky
2. ½ part DeKuyper® Mixologist Series Ginger Liqueur
3. 3 parts Hot Apple Cider

Method:

Build in a pre-heated coffee mug.

Garnish with a lemon wedge studded with cloves and a dash of fresh ground cinnamon

T-Fal ActiFry - Jerk Wings Recipe!

T-Fal ActiFry - Bacon Fries Recipe!