Trolls

I went to dinner with an old friend the other night. We agreed that at our age, it seems time to stop being a "news junkie," to stop following every political story, and reading every website we already like, and then scrolling as usual through the comments, let's say the first twenty or so, on all the events we (and the commenters, who are largely trolls) can do nothing about. Nothing except vote on that biennial, eighteenth-century schedule our forefathers found good, which seems an increasingly charade-like gesture in this era of fast-moving world government, open borders by the stroke of a pen, and the Holy Father suddenly discovering the exhausted creed of Gaia as if it were new. And he's getting ready to present it to the next session of world government. "I always think I'll just look at one item for a minute before I go to bed," my friend said, "All of a sudden a couple hours have gone by." 

"I know," I nodded while coping with my forkful of rigatoni in vodka sauce with sausage.

There are other things in life, she said. "There's botany ... and my dad loved birds ...."

"Exactly," I said. "I know absolutely nothing about the sciences. And part of what it means to live in a free society is to be free of politics, at least some of the time."

"True, I never thought of that," she said. Me neither. Somebody else thought of it for me. I think it was Jonah Goldberg. So, back to the websites. Are we all just trolls?

If so, this troll had a moment of disappointment a few days ago, when I discovered Matisse's gorgeous Goldfish on the art-reproduction website AllPosters.com, and excitedly placed my order only to learn We're Sorry this Item has Been Discontinued. Here's another category of life about which, I'll bet, most people can admit they know almost nothing: great art. I mean to truly try to know it: what are your favorites from Matisse, what was he like, how did he live? With what did he fill his hours, and with what do we? Were the political circumstances of his era just as objectionable to him, only he shrugged and painted? It looks like it.

Above, Le Difese, a super-Tuscan, which means a Tuscan-made blend of a non-traditional Italian grape, in this case cabernet sauvignon, with the traditional one, sangiovese. The producer is the famed estate Tenuta San Guido, the winemaker, Sebastiano Rosa -- thus Le Difese is a sort of younger brother to the estate's great ones, Sassicaia and Guidalberto. And it is just what our teacher for this lesson, the blog SuperTuscans, says it is: "warm, ripe, with seductively soft tannins and a burst of freshness." It's also affordable, as legendary super Tuscans go: retail, about $30, perhaps half that in a good sale. The name Le Difese, we're told, refers to the "defenses" the boar on the label has against the dogs pursuing him. Namely his tusks. What an interesting political metaphor that might be.

  

Look! the Bat Signal! And some wine

So far this spring and early summer has been lushly rainy. A few evenings ago we were treated to a display of mammatus clouds, the word, it seems, coming from the same Latin root that gives us "mammary." They do look breastlike. 

In snapping pictures, I was lucky enough to catch a seagull in mid flight. He poised himself perfectly so as to recreate the Bat Signal. 

                                                        

All the rain has made it simple to collect runoff for the patio plants. You place your ceramic seashell just so beneath the eaves, and wait. 

And you drink some delightful wines, whites for summer. 2011 Reinhold Haart Piesporter riesling. The aroma is, mysteriously, of bread; and then of lemon, and there is a bit of syrupy mouthfeel; then all throughout, a steely core which bespeaks riesling's ability to be so much more than just "oh they're sweet aren't they." Retail, about $18. 

Below, 2013 Naia, from Spain's Rueda region. If you are accustomed to the scentlessness of pinot grigios and many chardonnays, Spain's floral, cool, and slightly weighty white wines will be a nice change. The grape is verdejo, the most important white grape of Rueda, and not to be confused with either Verdelho, the (Portuguese) grape predominant in Madeira, or with Viura, a white grape of the Rioja region also known as Macabeo.*  

One more. 2014 Muga rose, to add to the collection of lovely roses trying to compete with Fenn Valley's "Cabaret." Still delightful, of course. The blend in our Muga, below, is primarily garnacha, which helps give it a bit of flavor that Mourvedre-based roses -- and many seem to be Mourvedre -- don't always have.

*We consult, as so often, Ron and Sharon Tyler Herbst's New Wine Lover's Companion, 2003.

New views, new wines

First, an old view. It won't do to be very sentimental, but I finally had a lilac bush blooming in my long-time-rented backyard, the day I moved out. Very tiny, no  more than a foot high. Long may it prosper.

When the men sighed and gathered up their padded ropes and straps and were paid and left -- this will sound horrible until you read the innocent details --- then it was time to put dishes in cabinets and arrange furniture. I had no idea, when one moves, how much time one spends standing around thinking where this or that should go. You also spend a lot of time walking back and forth from room to room, because no place is familiar and every thing is out of place. And like Lucia moving into Mallards, you are quite sure which boxes contain books and which contain linens, except it turns out they don't, and they all have to be rummaged through again. When everyone decides it's time to stop and rest, we open a nice bottle of wine.

2012 Yalumba shiraz/viognier (red and white together!) blend, juicy and respectable for $9.99.

Time, then, to get accustomed to new views. Third floor. We are positively in the branches of a magnolia tree. Nicholas hasn't slimmed down yet.

The settling in, and deciding swiftly, thinking "I can always change it" but you likely won't, which cabinets are most convenient for plates and which for cups, makes me feel a bit as if I am on vacation -- with the result that I am not sure I want to go anywhere else this summer for a real vacation, and be required to settle in there too. Luckily I am still supplied with a bottle of Fenn Valley, Michigan's "Cabaret" rose for patio sipping. Hands down it is the best rose I have ever tasted. I say that even while forthrightly acknowledging my pro-Michigan bias, both for its little summertime lakes and its wines. You want aromas of strawberries and cherry blossom, you want refreshing dryness and a healthy puckery acidity to go with all the season's grilled meats and fruit salads? Here you are.

Retail, at the Fenn Valley tasting room, about $13.

Then we opened another bottle of wine, after we had moved some more things and felt it was time to rest again. A friend had given me a housewarming present for just this purpose. "When you're all settled in for the day and everyone wants to relax," he said. It's a 2011 Domaine Louis Michel & Fils, Chablis Premier Cru, Montmain. In other words, it is a French chardonnay, given little oak treatment or none, from the Chablis region -- of Burgundy, tres drole! -- and of the highest legal quality, Premier Cru ("first growth"). One can call it creamy or steely or try to think up new fruit metaphors, or one can say, as I do to customers about French wine in general, that it seems to have an interior core that you almost eat. Withal the prime image in my mind as I contemplate this wine is of a calm and regal Grace Kelly in a plain mint-green satin gown. I think she did a publicity photo like that once. Retail, about $40.
 

A few weeks after the move came that gorgeous early June full moon. My balcony faces east.

Half the reason for the move was that I wanted to be closer to work, a ten-minute commute being so much nicer than a forty-minute one. And here is some of what I have been learning at work lately.

2013 Muga Rioja blanco. If you should tire a bit of your summertime chardonnays, pinot grigios, and sauvignon blancs, venture forth please into the world of Spanish white wines. French, too, of course, or why not Italian, or those nice little Portuguese vinho verdes? but this one happens to be a white Rioja. The best of them tend to have a lovely floral aroma plus, often, some of a chardonnay's luxurious mouthfeel without necessarily its weight or its vanilla-like effects.

Meanwhile I continue to study the set of "Mary's apartment" from the Mary Tyler Moore show, to understand how I may make my completely pristine place, new carpet and fresh paint and all, resemble hers. It's not that I want the beige velour couches with the decorative flaps hanging off the bottom and brushing the brown shag carpet (remember those flaps? when you got new couches they stuck up for a few days until gravity pulled them correctly down), and certainly it's not that I want the brown shag carpet. What I want is the look of homeyness, the look of someone's personality absolutely impressed on her surroundings. Study the scenes of her apartment closely, and then perhaps those of Ted Baxter's and then Murray and Marie's, and you'll see there was genius going on, I'm convinced of it, among the set decorators of the show. For "Mary" they were thinking young, single, not much money, a lot of friends: therefore, a lot of hand-me-downs and flea market finds, no one table or curio-armoire to match any other, and there are too many of them -- she wants exactly what she wants, there -- but she seems to have easy seating for twenty and (probably) her grandmother's old bizarre little cabinet nailed to the wall, along with one hip '70s art print and her famous initial "M."

Images from Hooked on Houses blog

As for Ted, his place is exactly what it should be. Like him, it's sleek, silly, and grotesque. Combinations of big colored balls swirl descending from the ceiling on steel sticks, to masquerade as art; pictures of Ted's face, and a lot of matching chrome-edged surfaces, beam out from everywhere. If this reminds you of where you live, you have interior decor problems. And even Murray and Marie Slaughter's home is exactly right for them. One carefully chic oversized metal wall sculpture, and a lot of carefully crowded, soft brown sofas make a background of just some wealth, some warmth, and some slightly too careful, middle aged sophistication.

I have so far watched only five or six episodes, none earlier than the fifth season. YouTube must have already caught up with whoever pirate-uploaded any of the first four, and shut them down just as they did all the divine Joan Hickson Miss Marple programs. Anyway from what I can see, Mary Richards and her friends and co workers still, in the mid 1970s, don't drink much wine. Lou Grant keeps scotch in his desk drawer and Mary gets her boyfriend "a drink." At her parties -- and really, who everlastingly wants to socialize with her coworkers? -- she drinks a glass of orange juice which I am sure is meant to be a screwdriver. If I hear mention of a grape varietal or a region of Europe, I will let you know.

Aquamarines

There are aquamarines.

And then there are aquamarines.

(Photo credit, the Tudors.wiki.)

I like hers better, but mine (in the singular) was a little milestone-birthday treat to myself, so it has sentimental value already.

And I can't tell you what a whirl it's been. Three weeks already, and counting. On the first day men hauled beds and cabinets out of one home and into another by the use of long padded ropes. They suspend heavy objects between them, just balanced on the rope, long lengths of which they twisted up their wrists and forearms. You would think the mattress at least would flop over dangerously, but it doesn't. Then they haul smaller pieces, strapped to their backs, up three flights of stairs, and when they are ready to let the partner take the "piece" they hold still, gripping the straps to their chests, and ask formally, "have you got the piece?" The other man answers "yes" and down comes the small armoire that your father built, or the even smaller nightstand or whatever. And the man who carried it stands up straight and sighs, and gathers up the loose straps to go back downstairs for more.

Not that I moved all that much. Maybe seven or eight things in all. One night in Week Two I sat down to watch television for the first time in ages, because my new tv is gorgeous and I want to see what it's like to have cable and I want to figure out how the remote control works. I ended up viewing, not anything new or trendy (because what they call basic cable is really basic) but an old episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show. Remember the set of her apartment? I tried to take note of what made it look so prettily homey. I think it was a combination of things. The step or two down into the living area, the abundance of farmhouse kitchen chairs, the plants, the pass-through or window from the "kitchen" to the dining area (I have one of those! Should I put a giant 'N' on my wall?). It all gives the illusion of room and of permanence. Of settling in. I also happen to have her exact living room lamps, those plain ivory-colored urns, real hand-me-downs from the era.

All this has nothing to do with aquamarines except that as Week Three elapses, we have also reached the anniversary of her present Majesty's coronation, sixty-two years ago yesterday. I learned about it listening to the radio. It seems nice to give a nod today to her and her jewels, while I go on finding wall studs to hang pictures on, and placing things just so.

   

The Red Snapper cocktail

I have unearthed some older photos. Lincoln Park Zoo and Conservatory. Don't worry, you may have a cocktail at the end.

 

Now amid the greenery and the orchids, the spilling water and the lovebirds, the klipspringers and the meerkats, we have also seen a lot of fish. (Is there anything prettier than a koi pond? We think not.) So, let us carry on the theme and make a fish-referenced cocktail. Here is Charles Schumann's Red Snapper, from American Bar. 

Red Snapper

2 ounces (a little more than a jigger) cream
dash grenadine
1/4 ounce (1 and 1/2 teaspoons) Galliano
1 ounce (about half a jigger) white rum

Shake well over ice cubes in a cocktail shaker, strain into a cocktail glass.

Quickie research, before ascending

 

 

I have had two customers lately ask me questions whose answers I did not know, so I have been compelled to do some quickie research. To wit: there are a whole bunch of wineries in Washington State, not just Columbia Crest, and I can give you a list pretty soon; and, Sonoma County has a whole bunch of wineries in it too -- well, we knew that -- but I can also give you a list of some of them and I can inform you that there are at least twelve AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) inside Sonoma, the best known of which are Russian River Valley, Alexander Valley, and Chalk Hill.

 

So there. I hate it when random customers passing within earshot know small details better than me just because they've been there.

 

Enjoy the Piper Sonoma (ah hah!), above, in celebration of the big move. I may be incommunicado for a few days. I would mention the coincidence that May 14th is Ascension on the calendar, but that seems blasphemous.   

Wall of fish, and the Chicago cocktail

From Lincoln Park Zoo. It's meant to represent life in the waters of Lake Victoria.

You may have a little drink, too, since it's ages since we tried a new one. Here, from our Calvert Party Encyclopedia (1960), is the Chicago Cocktail.

Chicago Cocktail

1 and 1/2 ounces (1 jigger) brandy
dash curacao
dash bitters
champagne

Stir all ingredients well with ice. "Frost" the rim of a champagne flute by dipping it first in water, then in sugar. Strain the drink ingredients into the flute, then fill with more champagne.

Admire the view. 

Responding to a faulty meme, because silence gives consent

This is the kind of  haughty moral equivalence, complete with adorable picture (and of course, it's of a child, an innocent), that stuns people into not thinking the logic through. There isn't any.




Christian bakers are not asking not to participate in a homosexual wedding. Or if they are, they've been poorly advised as to rhetoric, which is choice of the right argument.

Since homosexual marriage cannot exist, marriage being what it is, bakers and photographers are asking not to be morally pistol-whipped into agreeing that reality is what it is not.

The Christian gun shop owner, and the man he sells to, on the other hand are each making their own choices on their own responsibility in this fallen sinful world.

And by the way, if the gun-buyer is not a murderer but rather uses his gun to protect a homosexual couple on their way to city hall, does the gun shop owner get credit for saving gay lives? Also by the way, will the man who made this adorable and specious poster raise a breath in protest of gays being thrown off roofs in Syria? I'm guessing not.

Still in a hurry, but here -- Oz Clarke's book, and more Brancott

First, I cannot tell you what a complete revelation Joan Hickson is, "the divine Joan Hickson," one commenter on YouTube puts it, playing Mrs. Rivington in another Agatha Christie dramatization, Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1980). In a cinched-waist, sky blue-splotched white silk frock with long tasseled necklace, swinging earrings, gold bangles, red fingernails, cocktail and cigarette holder, -- and loose blonde curls and substantial makeup, and how! -- she is quite the late-middle-aged, sensually matronly delight. I even like the unseen husband, "Heww-bert." He already sounds such fun. I have decided I will be her before I become Miss Marple.

Next, nice people at publicity firms have more than once sent me advance copies of books having to do with the wine trade. In the past I've rather bitten the hand that feeds me -- although of course p.r. firms take the risk that their offerings won't be liked, and they absolutely cannot solicit positive reviews -- dear me, I sound like Mrs. Rivington -- anyway I've sort of bitten the hand by acknowledging the arrival, and then using up whole blog posts to proclaim "I didn't care for it much." I had reasons. In the past, the wine books thrown at me were a bit two-dimensional: all about the Authour, and his journey into wine.

Now I've received one that looks as if it will be different and very good. It is Oz Clarke's History of Wine in 100 Bottles, just published last week (April 2015). At last, here is information rather than the Authour's thoughts on himself, and it's the kind of information that really helps clarify what you are seeing on the shelves at the liquor store and why. What is sack, what is Barolo, why so many "Doctors" on German wine labels? Who was Konstantin Frank? And (I salute Mr. Clarke) he has chapters on white zinfandel, screwcaps, and Robert Mondavi.

All necessary to know. This is the kind of book that is going to be hugely enjoyable to dip into at bedside, or to read straight through on a long leisurely warm spring afternoon, that is, after your move. For you see, the packing and rummaging and stacking are still underway. Meanwhile, the three most wonderful signs of spring are at their peak of, what shall I say, busyness or visibility perhaps: lilacs, flowering crab and apple trees, and robins. Now after 26 years in my ex-husband's hometown, I am not going to go out and take more pictures of lilacs, flowering trees, and robins here. For one thing I am too busy packing. But here are some examples from the past. It is going to prove odd, you know, what a repository of the past this blog will be in another week. I will be sure to take photos of my new surroundings.

 

Finally, a glass of wine. For when you finish packing. Another sample from the Brancott sauvignon blanc virtual tasting a few weeks ago. Lovely for spring and summer. People really are so kind.

  

I'm in a hurry! So here are pork chops baked in cabbage and cream

My fatheads! --

I'm in a huge hurry. In less than ten days, I am actually moving, moving out of the apartment in the house where I have lived for almost 26 years, and where I raised my children, and out to a one-bedroom, third floor "walk up" -- or shall I call it a "bed-sitter," as poor Dora Bunner calls her living arrangements before she wrote the letter to Miss Blacklock -- "not a begging letter, it wasn't that" -- that got her out of them and into Little Paddocks, where the Murder Was Announced -- anyway I am moving, and so all my off days seem to be occupied with packing, and with talking about packing. But I haven't forgotten you. I want to give you a glass of wine, and a recipe for Pork Chops Baked in Cabbage and Cream. These spring days can still be rather chilly, so you might like this.

I also can't decide whether to write a novel based on the idea that Anne Boleyn escapes, makes her way to Venice, and pushes Cromwell into a canal (he followed her), or whether to write one based on the idea of a woman unearthing her grandparents' few papers and letters, and learning that her grandfather was a thrice-married black market smuggler very proud of his ability to sense when the political winds had changed and rendered his business too dangerous to follow. I bought notebooks so as to be able to simply write, longhand, whenever I want, but it seems foolish to sit down to a blank paper when you haven't puzzled out the plot yet.

Anyway, here are Pork Chops baked in Cabbage and Cream. They are from Time Life books' "Foods of the World" series, specifically from French Provincial Cooking.

You will boil cabbage briefly -- 12 cups! though that sounds like an awful lot -- drain it, and then in a separate pan saute one chopped onion and two diced cloves of garlic in half a stick of butter.

Then you will brown four or five pork chops, nice thick ones, in another two or three tablespoons of butter or olive oil.

 

Remove them to a plate, and deglaze that pan with a half cup of white wine.

Pour the wine and all the scraped deglazed bits into the drained cabbage, and then blend in the onions and garlic. Layer this seasoned vegetable mix into a large pot or Dutch oven alternately with the pork chops.

In a different small pot, heat about 1 and 1/2 cups of heavy cream. Pour this into the layered chops and cabbage. Add bread crumbs, say a cup and a half, mixed with perhaps a cup of grated Parmesan cheese. Bake, covered, 1 and 1/2 hours at 300 F.

Serve forth with buttered noodles or boiled or mashed potatoes or just about anything nice. Your accompanying wine will be any nice white of your choice, don't you think? I recommend what I had in my pantry,

 

 

 

 

 

2011 Henri Perrusset Macon-Villages, crisp, delicate, and light, suitable for cutting through or standing up to all that rich cream and cabbage and garlic. I know a person who delightedly agonizes over any and all food and wine pairings. "A zinfandel? With lobster ravioli and spinach?" he said to me the other day. He cocked his head on one side, interested. "I would think it would depend on the sauce. A spicy zinfandel, now, I don't think that would work for me ...."   

Pluot goes to a virtual New Zealand tasting (and learns something new)!

A wine's body or mouthfeel or weight comes from soil, and its aromatics come from climate.

This is according to the winemaker for Brancott, Patrick Materman, who led about 25 bloggers through a virtual online tasting of five New Zealand sauvignon blancs last night. The assessment was new to me, and a few other bloggers questioned it too, albeit with a level of enthusiastic wine geekiness I don't necessarily share ("I thought mouthfeel heft came from skin or lees contact?!").

Last night's virtual roundtable marked my first invitation to a blogger tasting since Pluot rebooted. I'm very flattered. I'm flattered and pleased, but still I would love to be a fly on the wall when the winemaker, anywhere -- New Zealand, Chile -- is told it's his turn to take part in this sort of thing. O God .... There are always the anxious whispers, usually from the techies in New York or California who stand beside the camera(s). "Are we still on?" And always there is the winemaker's pleasant, calm patience with all questions and comments. Is he much struck by the keenness, or is he thinking, "Folks, please. It's just wine." Great fun, but how many different ways can 25 people in the chat room find to say "I'm getting notes of honeysuckle and lime zest"? What does one answer?

Maybe I'm just peeved because I got notes of lavender, pine, and cream instead. But then the moderator, an editor from Wine Enthusiast, mentioned "creaminess" to the wine maker from my chat room response, so I feel as if I had some sort of impact, or at least showed my appreciation adequately by demonstrating I was there. The Butterfly Effect ... Six Degrees of Separation ... you know.   

2013 Brancott Estate "Letter Series" sauvignon blanc. Creamy (from the soil, remember), notes of lavender, pine, and eucalyptus (from the climate). Delicious. Suggested retail, about $26. My chat room question as to whether there would be other letters in the series, C, D, E, for example, or perhaps R, A, N, C, O, T, T, was left unanswered. It's o.k.