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!)
