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Sometimes I stoop low enough to write about food and wine, especially as I’m getting older and getting more into wine and cooking fun stuff. 691 0

South Africa’s Wine Country

Food & Wine, Travel, Vacation 

Pictures and such after the break! 685 0

Wine Tasting in Mendoza

Food & Wine, Vacation 

More trip and winery details follow the break! 344 0

 It’s 36 bottles.  I brought them home on the airplane, so I checked 4 items (3 cases and my backpack), the third and fourth of which cost $175 each to Quantas.  Dayum, says I. Then again, WineFlite wanted $585 for 30 bottles, I think, and who knows how that would have gone.

Now it’s on to finishing the data entry so I can get through some of the other projects that I’ve got on my plate. Whee! 381 0

Breakfast Blues


I am not as good at eggs as I should be. I cook them very rarely, and almost never over-medium, the way I like them in the diner.  I think I’m using a pan that’s too small for two eggs, actually, and I think I’m impatient.  If I had a bigger spatula I could probably flip both eggs at once in the small pan, but alas, I do not.
(Time to go to Spatula City!)

I make really good scrambles, of course, but that’s about the ingredients and finding tasty things that taste great together. And an omlette is just a scramble with pretentious aspirations, make no mistake.

At least I’m trying to start the day off right with tea and eggs. 
Wine Batch #2


I bottled my second batch of wine!

It’s another kit wine, this time from “Cru Select.”  It’s a Chilean blend of Malbec, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and I call it Chilean Mystery Blend because I don’t know the percentages of each, nor really anything about the grapes’ origins.  On the provided labels, the description says this: “Opening with dark roasted notes of coffee and chocolate with a hint of blackberries, fermentation on Cabernet Merlot Genuwine Winery Dried Grape Skins and French oak completes this monumental taste experience.”

I have more pictures and notes and such after the break, but the takeaway here is that in 10 days or so, I’ll have a new wine in rotation at the Casa Fredonia.

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I racked my wine yesterday
 290 0

Soup Week – The Thrilling Conclusion
 

Pictures and more notes post-break. 295 0

Soup Week – Broccoli Cheese Soup


So I made Broccoli Cheese Soup.  It was yummy!

Last night’s Red Kidney Bean soup was pretty aces as well. 384 0

Soup Week Continues
 351 0

welcome to soup week!


Welcome to 2012, the home of culinary experimentation. 352 0

Long Island Wine Tasting 2011
 1075 0

Compound Cabernet
 Bottling: complete!

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I am a culinary rebel


And to prove it, I bring you this:

Tonight, I mixed Sunday night’s leftover Bell Pepper Stuffing (a chicken-based dish with rice and onion, etc.) with Monday night’s leftover Chili (beef an beans, natch). Then i heated it all up in the microwave, topped with crumbled bleu cheese and put it on a 100% whole wheat hamburger bun. BOOM!

The unholy marriage of beef and chicken in one reheated sandwich.

And I know you’re all thinking “microwave?!?” but I assure you, I didn’t time travel back to the 80’s. It was actually the best choice I could make. And it worked. Don’t hate. Remember, kitchen utensils are like tools in a toolbox – you use the ones best suited for the job.

Science, dropped. Osgood out.

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Cheffin’ it up!


Last night, I made a tasty wine sauce to compliment some broiled London Broil that I made.  Scott showed me a broiling trick with tin foil that I”d never seen when I was in Portland, so I was eager to use it, and the steak, while it had probably lived in the freezer for too long, was tasty.  The sauce, designed in true French fashion to mask the potential blandness of the steak, worked flawlessly.  So yay for that.

Right now, I’m at Cathryn’s, giving Craig a much-needed break, then I’m going to head home and build an awesomely-huge shelf in the garage for my stuff and Tim’s stuff.  It’ll be great.  I’ll take pictures for you.  This is the build-up for the desk hutch and the new office configuration.  Should be fun.

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Caprese for Dinner


Okay, so this is the caprese that we made last night.  The picture isn’t really a winner and the bread isn’t here (it’s just about to come out of the oven), but it’s pretty representative.  Those are home-grown tomatoes, as you might expect, and the mozzarella was good, but not great.  I’m not sure I can define what makes a mozzarella great, but this didn’t quite have that thing.  Of course, it was plenty good enough for my pathetic palette, I’ll tell you what. Also, we dipped the bread (covered in hand-chopped garlic, of course) in the olive oil, only I also buttered it. That’s probably overkill, but health be damned.

Casey pointed out that this wasn’t actually a very healthy dinner, but I’m not so sure. I mean cheese has a ton of fat, but can’t there be good-for-you fat once in a while? And haven’t we yet debunked the myth of the bad-for-you carbs? I mean, what ever happened to the carb-hater guy anyway? He’s friggin’ dead. Anyway, I digress. Tonight I’ll cook lean steaks and we’ll eat raw beans or something to make up for it.

Okay, enough about food, I’m off to house-sit.

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Are you in Wine Clubs?


I’m in a couple, and I like them.
I sort of feel like I should join something else, something with a little more variety, since my two clubs sort of border the Napa Valley on the north and south ends.  That”s not bad, but then again, there’s a lot of wine out there, right?

What I want to know is whether you’re in a wine club or two, and which they are.  Would you recommend them?  If not, is it something that interests you?  Wanna all join the same club and take notes on the same wines?

I dunno, it might be fun.