DOCTOR WHO NIGHT

So, I got a gift recently.

Indulgence.

I talk about “Doctor Who” a lot. On the blog. On Twitter. And around the house. The kids are pretty young and have pretty much no interest yet. My wife, though, has had to listen to me for more than a decade waxing eloquently about the madman in the blue box putting right the wrongs of the universe. I’ve told her about Daleks and the TARDIS. I’ve explained how time is just a big ball of timey-wimey stuff and how regeneration works.

She’s heard it all. And I’m pretty confident saying after hearing all this, she’s…

Well, she’s pretty indifferent to it actually.

BUT…

She does have a generous spirit. So, recently she offered me, unprompted, an opportunity too good to pass up.

DOCTOR WHO NIGHT.

A whole Doctor Who themed meal AND she would voluntarily sit through a Doctor Who episode of my choice. I don’t think she’s ever done that before. (She says she has, but I’m sure, much like the moon landing or the birth of our children, I would remember this.)

So, what did we have? Well, I have to give a shout-out to Dining With the Doctor: The Unauthorized Whovian Cookbook by Chris-Rachael Oseland.

That was the book that gave the recipe for “New Earth Apple Grass Cocktail”, a drink inspired by the second episode of season 2 of new era Who where Rose and the Doctor visit New New New New New New New New New New New New York. The link is a little iffy – the drink is supposed to invoke the lovely green grass Rose sees on her first time travelling trip. Otherwise, there’s not much of a link to the events of the show.

Damn tasty beverage though. As it should be. Apple juice, lemon-lime soda, blue curacao, peach schnapps, vodka, a lime wedge and ice all play together very nicely. Very nicely, indeed.

I’m thirsty now.

Dining with the Doctor also gave me the recipe for “Weeping Angel Wings”, which are baked (to make them marginally healthier) chicken wings, coated in flour, butter, hot sauce, salt, garlic, and cayenne pepper. They were excellent. Even better, the wings had a direct link to the night’s Doctor Who episode: season 3, episode 11, titled “Blink”, which some Whovians have rightly called not just an excellent episode of Who, but one of the best bits of sci-fi ever. The episode introduces a new villain called “the weeping angels”, hence we had chicken wings for dinner.

Nerds are clever, no?

Dessert didn’t come from the cookbook, but was so good, we almost didn’t need dinner. We had red velvet cupcakes dyed TARDIS blue with cream cheese frosting and blue sugar sprinkles.

So we watched this awesome sci-fi event. And my wife’s conclusion: “It was okay.”

YES! SCORE! NAILED IT!

Well, she watched anyway. And even stayed awake.

It was a nice, high-calorie, geeky evening. More than that, it was a chance, for one night, to share something really important to me with someone else. Even if she never watches another episode (and, seriously, she probably won’t), we had that one evening when she embraced her inner geek.

And I appreciate that.