Birthday Weekend Part II

We left Oakland with plans to drive to Walnut Creek to surprise our friends Tim and Britt. Tim had tweeted earlier in the day that he was going to be at a KGO event at the Pyramid Alehouse and since our San Francisco plans got changed, we decided it would be the perfect way to spend the rest of our Saturday.

Tim started working for KGO 810 shortly after relocating to the bay area from Southern California. He is one of the weekend talk show hosts.  Chef Ryan Scott from Top Chef Season 4 has his own Saturday cooking show “Cooking with Ryan Scott“ from 4-6 p.m., co-hosted by Rich Walcoff.  Ryan was broadcasting live from the Pyramid Alehouse and the show was all about cooking with beer. Beer infused recipes, beer and food pairings and some crazy beer cocktails.

We got there and I wish I had my camera out of the bag to capture Britt and Tim’s faces… it was awesome. We hadn’t seen them since our snowboarding trip back in January and the bonus was that their son had just graduated from high school, so Britt’s mom was there too.

Love these ladies so much!

We grabbed a table and Pyramid started serving up samples of their beers and beer-infused food items discussed during the live broadcast.

It was fairly hot out, so I thought it would be a good idea to hydrate with some water between samples. We started with pizza twists made with Pyramid’s award winning Hefeweizen. The small plate came with marinara and ranch for dipping.

Grilled watermelon and grilled avocado salsa… super interesting flavor combo, the texture was hard to get used to. I prefer my salsa to be cold.

The Pyramid chefs were grilling right behind us.

The samples kept on coming…

Kabobs with Beer Marinade – Beef, chicken and veggies in a tangy Pyramid Pale Ale marinade. The kabobs were pretty tasty. Between Dan and Jake just eating the meat… I’m pretty sure I ate the most vegetables.

Hefeweizen Lemon and Berry Parfaits, say it isn’t so… Four-layer parfaits made with Pyramid Hefeweizen lemon gelatin dessert (aka Jello) and lemon anglaise, topped with fresh berries and dollop of Pyramid Apricot Ale Chantilly cream.

I was pleasantly surprised that I liked the taste. There were also beer Jello shots with whipped cream. I had the Peach and Apricot Ale Jello shot. There also might have been 3 samples of Beer-gria mixed in there. Wheat Beer Sangria (Pyramid Crystal Wheat Ale mixed with fresh lemon and orange juice and garnished with blueberries and grapes) I didn’t get a photo because I was too busy grabbing them off the tray 🙂

The Hef-Mosa – Pyramid Hefeweizen and orange juice with a clementine wedge garnish. Fabulous!

Tim was talking about the sweet corn soup that Ryan had made for the show. We all wanted to taste it, but they weren’t passing out samples. Then Tim asked… So, did you want to meet Ryan? UM YES PLEASE! I had met him at the Top Chef Tour when he did the San Francisco show back in June 2010 – but there were major crowds and all I got to say was “hi” – as he signed a photo and cookbook. I did mention my food blog, but come on… he’s met a million people since then.

We decided to walk up to the broadcast table while they were on a show break. We did get to try Ryan’s Sweet Corn Soup – it was delicious.

Tim chatted away with Ryan as I stood there holding my soup spoon, LOL. Tim kept telling me… He’s really nice, he’s a great guy…. aren’t you going to ask him any questions? Why aren’t you talking Ms. Food Blogger?… Ha! Ha! – guess I was a little star struck… and yah, he’s kind of hot, so there’s that.

Thanks Britt for taking photos of me and my new chef boyfriend, and thanks Tim for being a twitter whore… I never would have known about the event had I not seen your tweet. As a thank you… Foodiddy readers, if you are on twitter or instagram, please follow Tim – aka Monty – @TheMontyShow and TheMontyShow on Instagram as well. You can also follow Ryan Scott @chefryanscott on twitter.

Thanks Monty family for the perfect ending to a fabulous day of birthday celebrating. Love you guys!