23 February 2014

Eric's Birthday Week

So after the cheese tasting extravaganza combined with a daily gift throughout the week, we celebrate the beginnings of his 36th year with a delectable dinner. Cooking, for me, is a delight. There is nothing quite so relaxing as the patterned chaos of a well run and prepped kitchen. Supported by three organic supporting grocery stores with fresh seafood, a wonderful local butcher shoppe, and myriad of farmer's markets, I fear no dinner ideas.

Perhaps I was in the mood to be on the coast, or I was subconsciously preparing Eric for his San Diego trip the next day. Likely it was simply that I was standing in the grocery slobbering over the freshly dead fish wishing I could eat them all. Regardless of the motivation, Eric's birthday dinner was of an oceanic variety.

Starting off Cherrystone clams, I basked in the glory of what smells garlic, butter, and clams make. I tried to stay in the moment, but looking at the lovely trout just waiting for the grill, it was difficult to control my excitement. Poor Eric. At least this started out for him, but nobody can deny that he benefits.


The wine simply added an entirely new level of complexity. Gewurztraminer from the Alsace region particularly is Eric's favourite varietal, but I wanted something a little more special. This is when the big decision moment came. Should we? Do we dare? Is this the moment? The cherished 2008 Jean-Claude Belland Corton-Charlemagne?????? We collected this little jewel when we bought out a local wine shoppes higher priced bottles at half off when it was going out of business, but just the fact that we paid $85 instead of $170 didn't lessen our appreciation of it's value. Money rarely indicates quality wine except on a larger scale. For example, the best ever $15 bottle of wine really isn't likely going to knock out the average $150 bottle of wine, but it might well beat out a $30 bottle of a wine. As such, we were guessing that we could rely on this being better than our own average $50-60 bottles of wine. Enough wine geeking. Yes, we did indeed make the plunge. It was WELL worth it. The rich complex nose had a buttery edge to it that your average oaked Chardonnay wished it could have. With an touch of acidity on the palate, there was shocking flavours of caramel that were delightful. Now, for all those who snort at Chardonnay....seriously, give this a shot some day ...and this wasn't even fully matured like the 8-10 years of cellaring it demands. OK. Done geeking. I promise.

Dinner was indeed a success with my al dente angel hair pasta that was tossed into the skillet with the clams, garlic, and butter. The whole trout was frankly unbelievable. Please don't be grossed out, but you simply must keep the heads on when you cook fish. The difference is insane. Buttery, juicy, and tender trout very lightly salted made for such a perfect match with the Corton-Charlemagne that it was difficult to even consider that the moment must pass.


It would be with sadness that these two delicious courses ended. However, it wasn't with total sadness because we transitioned to a an absurdly amazing citrus cake. Now, I can't take credit for this as I'm really not a baker. My skills in the baking department is limited to recognising a good cake .... and those skills were in full throttle when I saw this one.


To all of those who visit our home, yes, that is our decaf espresso .... one of Eric's gifts was a separate grinder for decaf, so I suspect his blood will be transforming into coffee beans any day. Happy birthday sweetie!



16 February 2014

Tasting Warm-Up

This weekend is being spent in Lexington on a pre-tasting effort to properly prepare for April's Niagara-on-the-Lake tasting event. This being Eric's official First Day (yes, we celebrate entire birthday weeks), the celebration was to start in the science fiction section of Joseph Beth's bookstore, work our way through local wineries, and then back to the self-indulging category five Marriott for a cheese, sausage, and bubbles tasting that I slaved for two whole hours on Friday to prepare.

For starters, our eventuality in any science fiction section is always bad. More books than we can possibly read are purchased, except then we try and justify the purchase by reading exponential amounts of sci-fi at once, destroying any productivity. Eric prepared for this by not working tomorrow, but I am in no such state, so good for him; bad for me.

Next up, wineries. The problem with tastings is that you start out with your ultimate finicky behaviour.

"I like the apricot nose but it's simply over-toasted on the palate."

This is a classic attempt for an educational experience in the wine tasting effort. However, by the end of a tasting day, this is what really happens.

"OH MY GOD THIS IS TOTALLY AWESOME LET'S BUY TWO CASES!"

While Americans always like to sniff at the French for only swishing and spitting, one has to wonder how much the French wineries wish they had the opportunity for such gullibility as the American taster. This is also why any attempt to visit Niagara-on-the-Lake requires preparation. No swishing and spitting. 60+ wineries requires fine tuning your desires and setting explicit rules.

Moving right along.

We arrived back at the hotel to open a bottle of bubbly specially purchased in Arizona, and dig into the multiple cheeses for the next round of tasting.

I purchased a special cheese tasting notebook for Eric's First Day in Boulder a few months ago for just this occasion and am now getting the joy of learning the ins and outs of semi-firm, washed rind, soft, raw, and pasteurized (not to mention whether it's goat, sheep, or cow). Meanwhile Eric's reaction to such challenging educational opportunities is to flip up a Lombardy recipe varzi (Italian sausage) and have it perfectly land as a suction cup on his mouth. I struggle with frustration that he's not taking this tasting seriously enough and jealousy that he landed it so perfectly. How did he do that?

Much more time was taken for this process, as you simply have to take breaks with cheese, especially the collection of mold I brought along. I'm pretty sure our neighboring room would report the stench to the front desk if they were there :)

While an excellent day overall, the unforgivable part was that Eric decided that this would be a perfect time to help me better understand multiple regression, and set up a multiple regression study for me to better predict the crumbly + nutty cheeses. My brain blew several sockets and I have now reverted to the entire second season of House of Cards (of which my friend says I'm a natural sociopath because I saw Zoe's demise coming....but seriously who didn't? I told her to be less positive about people and this would become obvious to her as well!)



The Carolina Apocalypse


It looks like a late Fall Michigan frost, doesn't it? Perhaps a Denver wake-up call that winter is indeed coming. It's all about perspective because this is officially dubbed the Carolina Apocalypse. Granted, not quite a foot and zero ice really isn't The Day After Tomorrow, but don't bother trying to explain that to the natives. Sometimes I worry about Elle turning into a southerner, so I was quite pleased that she embraced this whole-heartedly (although I suspect being out of school for a week was the relevant bit here). It was absolutely perfect weather with a solid 28F degrees and a nearly a foot of snow - the snowmen were just waiting to happy with that wetter heavier bottom and fluffy overlap.

(There was one person in the house that was less excited about the snow, possibly due to being the official shovel-er .... however, Elle and I sung him the Grinch song several times to make him feel better.)


I was quite proud of our final product (above) until of course the neighbors waited until the snow got heavier and simply plopped it together. Please note that I slaved over mine properly by starting with a snowball and rolling it around, carefully patting in new snow for new layers. Their six foot snowman irritated me in general, but Elle suggested that I let go. Meanwhile, I must admire her managerial skills that are growing by leaps and bounds. As you can see, she is not particularly helpful except to say 

"Good job mommy!"
"I'm going to pop indoors now, I'll check on you soon."
"Mommy, you're not getting this done very fast.....I'll come back out when you're closer."
"Oh good job Mommy, you finally finished."
"We need a picture of the snowman we made!"

We made?

I sense that I was used.


Wonderfully to me and horrifically to the majority of Asheville, the snow did not simply disappear, and when it started to, the snow came back. I could only smile to experience at least a quick second in time of a normal winter. This led to many hours lounging in my library regardless of reading casually or working heard. I wasn't very motivated to go in other places in the house with a Winter Wonderland in my view and a crackling fireplace next to me!