Free dinner...

...would be something I rarely turn down, especially when it's cooked by this fine woman. I met her at a park near her house and played with her adorable child. Then later I chatted with her fine and manly husband. And then we dined on some recipes she's testing for a cookbook she's working on: a really complex and delicious pickle of apples, onions, cucumbers, some salt, some sweet, and some herbs; chestnut-apple soup into which we tried mixing some compote-you wouldn't think the mix would work but it did, and well; and cider-brined pork chops.

There's nothing like getting to hang out a with an adorable baby whose diaper you don't have to change, followed by dining on tasty chow you did not have to cook and you do not have to do the dishes for, all while getting to chat with interesting, snarky and kind grown-ups.