Between Meetings & Meals 006
A wine aisle conversation, a crawfish table surprise, and a simple rule for collecting better life stories.
The Pour
Last week we made a quick stop at H-E-B to grab a bottle of wine before heading to a friend’s cookout.
What was supposed to be a quick in-and-out trip turned into one of those small moments that makes this whole wine journey a lot more fun.
In true me fashion, I struck up a conversation in the wine aisle.
The wine manager there, Cruz, had one of those voices that sounds like it belongs on the radio. Calm, friendly, the kind of guy who has probably helped a lot of people pick a bottle over the years.
We started talking about what we like to drink.
I mentioned a few bottles we’ve enjoyed lately, including some that have shown up here in Between Meetings & Meals, along with a couple others that have become favorites along the way. A few times he named a wine he liked and it happened to be one we already loved.
After a few minutes of that back and forth he smiled and said something that made me laugh a little.
“Well… you’re on the right track.”
That small comment carried more signal than reading ten wine reviews online.
We eventually went our separate ways and picked out a few bottles for the night, but a couple minutes later Cruz came walking back toward us holding a small notepad.
He asked for my name.
Apparently that H-E-B hosts wine tastings where distributors and wineries come in to share their bottles, and they keep a list of people to invite when those events happen.
So now we’re apparently on the list.
The bottle we ended up bringing home was Unshackled Red Blend by The Prisoner Wine Company.
Unshackled sits right in that sweet spot we’ve been exploring lately. Around the mid-twenties range, bold California red blend, and easy to enjoy with grilled food or a loud table full of friends. Dark berry notes, a little spice, and enough richness to feel like you made a good decision at the shelf.
Another solid step in this little wine journey.
And according to Cruz…
we’re on the right track.
The Table
March showed up faster than I expected this year.
Walking through H-E-B last week I noticed something on the end cap that instantly pulled me back to another season of life.
A big yellow bag of crawfish boil seasoning.
For a lot of people down here that’s the unofficial sign that spring has arrived.
Crawfish season.
Truth is, crawfish boils weren’t really part of my life growing up. That didn’t show up until my time at Texas A&M in College Station. Back then I had friends from all over the state, and the East Texas crew introduced me to something I had never experienced before.
Crawfish boils.
Oyster bakes.
Big outdoor tables covered in newspaper and spice.
Loud, messy, social.
After college I started seeing the same thing pop up back home every spring. March rolls around, someone buys a few sacks of crawfish, and before long a backyard fills up with coolers, folding chairs, and a pot that smells like Cajun seasoning from halfway down the street.
Last weekend we got a last-minute invite to one of those exact gatherings.
I’ll be honest. Crawfish itself has never been my main target. I’m usually there for the shrimp, corn, and potatoes soaking up all that Cajun seasoning.
But the real surprise of the night had nothing to do with the food.
It was watching my kids.
My daughter is usually the adventurous one when it comes to food. Sushi, steak on the rare side, trying something new at a restaurant. She’s almost always the one willing to go first.
My son tends to keep things a little simpler. Chicken, a few red meats, familiar territory.
So naturally, when the giant tray of crawfish hit the table…
they completely flipped roles.
My son went all in.
Pulling them apart, twisting the tails, doing the full “suck the head” routine like he’d been doing it his whole life.
Meanwhile my daughter mostly stayed back from the table, watching the chaos from a safer distance.
Everyone stood around the table grabbing what looked good. Peeling shells, talking over each other, laughing, picking at shrimp, corn, potatoes, crawfish.
It’s not the cleanest way to eat.
But it might be one of the most fun.
And in the spirit of Between Meetings & Meals…
that table was full of Cajun food, good friends, and a few surprises from the kids.
The Edge
The 3-Minute Expert Hack
Something small happened in the wine aisle that stuck with me.
When Cruz and I were talking, it wasn’t some deep masterclass about wine. Just a few minutes of back and forth. I named a few bottles we like. He named a few he liked. A couple overlapped.
Then he said, “Well… you’re on the right track.”
That little comment carried more signal than an hour of scrolling wine reviews.
It reminded me of something I’ve started doing more and more.
There are experts everywhere.
The butcher behind the meat counter.
The wine manager in the aisle.
The mechanic who has worked on the same engines for twenty years.
Most of us walk right past them.
I’ve started using what I call the 3-Minute Expert Hack.
If someone works around something all day, ask them one simple question.
What’s your favorite one here?
What do people usually get wrong about this?
If you were buying one tonight, which would you grab?
Three minutes with someone inside the system often beats thirty minutes researching it yourself.
Not because Google is wrong.
But because experience carries a signal you can’t always find in a search result.
That little conversation turned into an invitation to wine tastings and a bottle I might have never picked up otherwise.
Sometimes curiosity doesn’t require a deep dive.
Sometimes it just requires saying hello to the person standing closest to the thing you want to learn about.
The Lesson
Kevin’s Rule
Standing around that crawfish table last weekend reminded me of something Deven and I heard Jesse Itzler talk about called Kevin’s Rule at a conference we went to in Minneapolis.
The idea is simple.
Every couple of months you schedule a mini adventure. Something outside your normal routine.
Instead of sitting at home watching the game, maybe you go to an event, visit a friend, try something new, or say yes to something you normally wouldn’t.
Nothing huge.
The math behind it is what makes the idea stick.
If you do that from age 30 to 70, you’ll bank around 240 mini adventures that otherwise would have never happened.
That’s how you build what Jesse calls a life resume.
Not the one on LinkedIn.
The one made up of stories.
That crawfish boil last weekend fits that category for us.
It wasn’t the typical dinner table routine. The whole Cajun spread was the pattern interrupt. A big table covered in crawfish, shrimp, corn, potatoes, and people standing around peeling shells and grabbing what looked good.
Moments like that stick.
I’ll remember Deven attacking the crawfish like he’d been doing it his whole life.
I’ll remember Alanah hanging back from the table watching the chaos unfold.
And years from now the kids will probably remember standing around that table more than anything else.
Moments like that feel different while they’re happening. It’s like your brain recognizes something outside the normal routine and starts archiving it in real time.
You can almost feel time slow down for a second.
It’s easy to fall into routines.
Work. School. Dinner. Repeat.
But when Kevin’s Rule shows up and you say yes to something a little different, the day suddenly feels more alive.
And before you know it, another small story makes its way onto the life resume.
Some weeks the memory comes from a bottle of wine.
Some weeks it comes from a crawfish table.
Either way, the trick seems to be the same.
Stay curious, say yes once in a while, and let the stories build themselves.
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