Wine and Chocolate

One of my jobs (among others) is a college professor in public health. Scary thought isn't it? I influence young minds... Awesome. Anyway, so last night was Wine and Chocolate night in one of my classes. (All over 21, mind you.) Last year, we had gone to Whole Foods. There's a second floor that has a wine bar (best Whole Foods ever!). They had hosted us, did a "whole" (hehe) wine and chocolate history/culture lesson and tasting. (I teach the best classes ever!!!) This year, a few days ago, I get such a lovely email from them saying that they can't host my class because the wine bar be open for business. Could we do it at 3 instead? Considering my class starts at 7:20 and almost every single one of my students work, that wouldn't be able to happen. Even I wouldn't have been able to get out of job #1 to get to class on time. I ended up cancelling the field trip (grrr Whole Foods, grrr). I now had to put together a lecture about things I don't know too much about. Fantastic.

My thoughts would be to have a simple wine tasting and history lesson with the same with chocolate. Simple. Key word. Simple. My department chair fortunately did the wine part of the lecture and I did the chocolate part. I bought several different chocolates from Whole Foods (I still love you even though you suck a little). Several hours before the class started, I get a bunch of emails and phone calls from the department manager and the chair. They reserved a large room in the dining hall and had a few plates of veggies, fruit, and cheeses ordered. Guess who had to pick them up? And guess who had to coordinate with the catering people when to pick it all up?? (Try convincing someone to work a bit later than usual...yeah.) One of the phone calls was to also inform me that they had gotten 12 bottles of wine. Mind you, my class has 25 students, not all who drink. 12 bottles. Good times for all!

The lecture came and surprisingly, it went alright. We drank half of the bottles and demolished the veggie, fruit, and cheese plates. I'd like to think it was better than what Whole Foods would have put on for us. (Maybe not completely true, but again, I'd like to think so.)