As Long As I Don't Have to Actually Knit

If I want to be surrounded by men, all I have to do is go to a lecture at the Virginia Center for Architecture. Not that that's why I went tonight. Or not entirely anyway.

Actually the topic was what drew me to the Branch House tonight. "A Ruin Revealed: Rosewell" was about the 18th century Gloucester County mansion that I had never even heard of before the opening of the "American Ruins" photography exhibition currently at the VCA.

Oh, sure, I knew about the Barboursville ruins (always a pleasant side trip after some wine tasting), but Rosewell not so much. Clearly a lesson was in order.

Architectural historian Mark Wenger provided the history as well as future plans for this three-story brick mansion with the three and a half foot thick brick walls. This house that Thomas Jefferson frequently visited (even writing a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence there).

A house with 450,000 bricks in it. One that took three miles of forest to procure the lumber for the floorboards alone. Because it took a decade to be built, owner Mann Page was dead five years before its completion, drat the luck.

It was a fire in 1916 that destroyed all but the east wall, parts of the other walls, the four chimneys and the wine cellar. Wenger said efforts are underway to stabilize what's left for the sake of further research and for future generations.

As far as I'm concerned, I now have to see Rosewell. I want to stand on the banks of the York River and admire the surviving wine cellar and imagine the grand parties the house once hosted. Fortunately, the ruins are still open to the public...for now. Road trip?

At the reception afterwards (after being warned to keep the red wine in the social room for fear of spillage), I had the pleasure of being approached by several attendees, all of whom asked what my interest in the lecture was (was this a quiz?). Sheer nerdiness? Curiosity about history? I didn't have any easy answers, but I got lots of great conversation from strangers.

A stop at Black Sheep on the way home for dessert and wine, and to chat up a friend I hadn't seen in a while was in order. I timed it right so things were winding down.

I took a seat next to two girls trying to finish their battleships and somehow we ended up in conversation when they asked for a dessert menu and I shared mine before their server could return with one.

Not wanting to influence their dessert choice, I waited till they'd ordered and my LaBrea tarpit (chocolate creme brulee) arrived before offering them bites of mine, insisting they take an animal cracker and scoop out some chocolate for each of them to taste.

They loved it, just like I knew they would and from then on we were fast friends. They said my dessert acumen meant they should ask about my favorite restaurants.

That led to a discussion of all kinds of eating out, covering even Fredericksbug since they'd gone to school at Mary Washington (which also led to a wonderful discussion of the satisfaction of driving Route 301; they were kindred souls on that subject).

By the time they got up to leave, my friend had finished her shift so she sat down to eat and catch up. The radio was set to slacker.com, so the music was terrific (The XX, Smashing Pumpkins, Andrew Bird) and just the right volume now that all the customers were gone. We talked about customers with unrealistic expectations of small restaurants and how to address that.

She brought up RVA's love affair with brunch ("People will wait an hour and half and then order scrambled eggs and a biscuit. I don't get it."). We tried to understand why Richmonders are averse to community eating and California and Europe are not. And who decides to proclaim that a restaurant kid-friendly?

By the time my Guintrady Cote du Rhone Grenache blend was gone, we had talked and talked but hadn't solved all the issues on the table.

"We need to have a knitting circle with restaurant people and just talk about this stuff," she said. "You have to be there."

But I'm not a restaurant person, I told her. "Oh yes you are," she objected.

Will there be chocolate and wine?