Dinner w/ the Four Coursemen

OK.  I kept thinking I might become a great writer and be able to share something incredible with you all, but it ain't happening.  So now, almost a week after Edward and I were privileged to join Athens' Four Coursemen for dinner last Saturday night, I'm going to have to just break down and tell you about it in my own pedestrian way.

Oh, wow; it was a unique, wonderful experience.  I'm so glad I live in Athens, Georgia and that I'm in love with and married to Edward Brumby.

I had to work at the library last weekend, until 6 pm on Saturday.  Edward called me at the Reference Desk to see if I thought I could get home on time to be back in town to eat at 7:30.  Yeah, why?  Because he scored a confirmation to eat with the Four Coursemen!  What?!?!  I will be there if I have to quit my job!

So around the appointed time we're slinking the car down a crowded Athens residential street, on the lookout for something that resembles a place we've seen recently on TV.  We miss it on the first pass.  Around the block again and BINGO, we see people walking up a nondescript driveway -- this must be the place!  It's rainy and dark and kind of cold when we hike through someone's parking area and onto the porch of a (hopefully) green shotgun house.  Are we in the right place?

Oh yeah, we certainly are.


And what a wonderful experience we've now had.

Here is the menu (I wish I could explain each dish and wine to you as well as our hosts did):

First course = Shrimp Bisque w/ Rouille and Fresh Herbs, w/ Je Pense, "Rimauresq", FR '07;

Second course = Fried Trotter w/ Arugula, Radicchio, Pickled Smoked Egg White and Hollandaise, w/ Saint Cosme, Cotes-du-Rhone, FR '09;

Third course = Ravioli w/ Roasted Broccoli, Anchovy, Parmesan and Ham Broth w/ J. Hofstatter, Lagrein IT '06;

Fourth course = North Carolina Rainbow Trout w/ Truffled Cauliflower Puree, Wilted Brussels Sprouts and Grand Mustard Sauce w/ Raul Perez, Mencia ES '07;

Dessert = Cannoli w/ Hazelnut, Ricotta and Pomegranate Molasses w/ Lazzaroni Amaretto, IT NV.

My favorites were the shrimp bisque, the trotter (what a great name after all.....) and the Brussels sprouts, and each wine pairing was perfect.  But everything was so good and obviously a labor of love.  That's what the 4CM are all about.

I want to go back!  These guys were so nice and so talented and so interesting.  And the other guests were a cool mix of townies and students and Atlantans and foodies and old geezers Edward and Donna.

If you've not caught the Four Coursemen program on the Cooking Channel, see it and be envious of us!

And 4CM, I promise if Edward and I get to return, we'll bring a wonderful wine and maybe a special bottle of bourbon.  When's supper?

Rockin' Cornbread

My mom used to have this marvelous little 6" cast iron cornbread skillet.  I can't possibly begin to estimate how many lovely, lightly browned little lumps of love we ate out of that skillet.  Summer and winter, so many suppers were completed with cornbread.

Mom taught my niece how to make cornbread and eventually gave Ali that pan when Mom thought her cornbread making days were through.  I inherited my Grandma Trotter's iron cornbread skillet, but Grandma's family was larger and cornbread was for more than supper, so my pan measures closer to 8".  Thereby my problem.  I never seemed to get the hang of making that larger batch of cornbread.  And now that my family at home is down to Edward and me (and the dog), we always ended up throwing away leftover cornbread.  That's a Southern sin, ya'll!

But my mom began to miss her little cornbread pan and mentioned it to some group or other (probably her Sunday School class).  Presto!  Two people gave her used (thank goodness!) 6" cast iron cornbread skillets.  So guess what?  Tonight I made a BEAUTIFUL batch of outside-crunchy, inside-just-right cornbread!  Yeah!

I know Celestine Sibley's mother wouldn't approve of my efforts (because I used self-rising cornmeal), but I'm sharing the recipe I mostly used.  Mom gave it to me with the little pan.  It's not the recipe she used all those years; Celestine's mother would have approved my mom's old plain cornmeal efforts.  This one came from a local North Georgia educator, the principal of the first school where I taught in fact.  As I say, I thought this recipe rocked.

Charles Henry Arp's Cornbread for 4


1 cup self-rising cornmeal (I used white )
1 Tablespoon self-rising flour (I didn't have any self-rising flour so I used Kentucky Kernel Seasoned Flour)
1/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 egg


Beat whole egg in mixing bowl.  Add other ingredients (I heated the oil in the skillet in the oven first) and mix well.  Place mixture in a warm 6" iron skillet.  Bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit in a preheated oven for approximately 20 minutes.

Yummy.  Oh, and the yellow-eyed soup peas (from dried peas), salmon patties and chow-chow were pretty good too.

Addendum 12/9/2012: I use ONLY real buttermilk.  Don't even try to pawn any of that "reduced fat" stuff off on me!  The real thing is getting harder to find, but thank goodness some stores around still carry Marburger Farm Dairy Gourmet Buttermilk and better yet, Mayfield Whole Cultured Buttermilk.  Anyone who identifies another brand of whole buttermilk, please let me know!

Make Room for Daddy's Cookbooks

Cookbooks & Whiskeys Cabinet

Drinks Books Case

 

Sometimes I wonder whether I'll eventually need to move out of our house in order for Edward to have enough room for his cookbooks and back issues of cooking magazines.  Seriously.

At least he does tend to make use of some of them, concocting wonderfully enjoyable meals from the ideas he finds there.  My standard complaint though, is that, once he makes something, even if it turns out to be GREAT, we'll never, ever have it again.  Once a dish is conquered, the thrill must be gone or something.

On our recent trip to the South Carolina coast (Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms), Edward purchased one of those local, collected, bound with a plastic comb cookbooks, Seafood Recipes by South Carolina Shrimpers Association: Recipes Furnished by Wives of South Carolina Shrimpers and Friends.  This copy was published in 1976, which means it contains both The Original South Carolina Shrimpers Cookbook along with new recipes for this edition.  He actually READ the whole thing at the beach.  And a good thing that turned out to be too, because he found a recipe for Green Goddess Salad Dressing (from Mrs. C. A. Magwood, Jr., btw) that made last night's ubiquitous tossed salad much less so.  Yum.


I thought I'd share our find the way it appears in the book:

GREEN GODDESS SALAD DRESSING
1 cup chopped parsley
3/4 cup chopped onions
1 clove garlic
1/2 pint sour cream
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 cup mayonnaise
1 pkg. Bleu cheese
1 tsp. sugar
Blend in blender; salt and pepper to taste.  May be used as a raw vegetable dip or on cole slaw, and tossed salad.

Of course Edward played around with this recipe.  I don't know what Ms. Magwood meant by a "package" of Bleu cheese, but Edward used around 2 tablespoons of Maytag.  He used 4 cloves of locally-grown, Romanian Red garlic, which is fairly spicy.  He started out using the blender, but switched to the food processor, with much better results.  (I'm trying to get Edward to write this part of this blog entry for himself, but he refuses.)  As unbelievable as this will sound to our children, we didn't have an entire cup of sour cream in the house, so he used only what we had and supplemented with a little milk (don't know why he didn't use the buttermilk we DID have; he says he would next time).

Anyway, for others who remember Green Goddess dressing (the couple of brands you might still be able to find in most grocery stores just aren't the real thing), you might want to give this a try. 

I'm lobbying for Pickled Shrimp or Shrimp Chowder next.

Reading Whatever I Want in America

I’ve been working in libraries for 30 years or so now.  I’ve seen a lot of “Banned Books Weeks” come and go.  I’ve never felt completely comfortable with that name; I’m a stickler for word definitions.  So I’ve never been much for tooting the censorship horn during one week’s attention.  But this year a co-worker (and co-book group member) said something that’s made me ponder more about what it means to take risks in order to read.  One title our book group read and discussed was Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie.  This is a semi-autobiographical novel about young people who do risk their lives to read Western classic literature in China during the Cultural Revolution.  Another book I’ve read, Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi, spoke to the courage required in some places to read and to learn today. 

So I began to wonder about what leads governments (and/or theocracies) to ban books.  Don’t report me to the Board of Librarianship, but I did a little search on wikipedia and confirmed my previous notions; most banned books run afoul of officials for political reasons.  Thus, to list only a few examples, the U. S. S. R./Russia banned Doctor Zhivago, The Gulag Archipelago, Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Rights of Man; Nazi Germany banned All Quiet on the Western Front and The Metamorphosis and the United States (or parts thereof) has seen fit to ban The Grapes of Wrath (California) and Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Southern states).  The Da Vinci Code was banned in Lebanon and Not Without My Daughter in Iran. And I’m not sure reading The Satanic Verses still might not be literally risky in Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Iran, Kenya, Kuwait, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Senegal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Thailand, some of the countries where this notorious book has been banned.

Other than politics, then sex and obscenity get books banned.  Some examples of titles banned in various places as obscene?  Brave New World, Fanny Hill, Lady Chatterly’s Lover, The God of Small Things, Howl, Naked Lunch, and the aforementioned Lolita.  

And, having also mentioned the Cultural Revolution, I didn’t know, prior to reading this wikipedia article, that China once banned Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland due to its anthropomorphized animal characters.  You think that’s odd?  A public library I used to work for had to deal with one woman’s complaint that we shouldn’t have children's books containing talking animals because “that’s a lie.”  How lucky should I feel to have been born where this little bit of ignorance is one individual’s narrow-mindedness instead of a very large nation’s political precept?  Would I risk my life to follow Alice's white rabbit down his hole?

Of course many of the books we’ll see displayed during “Banned Books Week” this year will not have been really banned; they’ve been “challenged.”  Someone somewhere thinks he or she should decide what you or I (or, more likely, our children) get a chance to read.  No thanks, Would-Be Censor; I’m happy to make up my own mind.

If anyone is looking for a good banned/challenged book to read, here are a few I’d recommend:

• Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi
• The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison
• Bridge to Terebithia, by Katherine Paterson
• The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
• All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
• The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
• In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
• “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and Other Stories, by Flannery O'Connor
• Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
• The Beautiful and Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle
• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.

And I think I’ll re-read Alice’s adventures... because I can and because they’re wonderful.

Eating on the SC Coast

Here’s where and what we ate on our trip to the Isle of Palms, South Carolina:

Morgan Creek Grill, Isle of Palms

• Fried platter (w/ slaw & fries): shrimp & oysters
• Fried platter (w/ slaw & fries): shrimp, oysters, scallops & flounder

Shem Creek Bar & Grill, Mount Pleasant

• hushpuppies
• stone crab claws
• Big Guy gumbo 
• Seafood Wando
• Bloody Marys

Melvin’s Bar-B-Que, Mount Pleasant

• Big Joe pork sandwich w/ onion rings
• Little Joe pork sandwich w/ onion rings

Seel’s on Sullivan’s Island, Sullivan’s Island

• crab dip
• grouper sandwich (w/ fries & hush puppies
• grouper basket (w/slaw & hush puppies 
• Bloody Marys

See Wee Restaurant, Awendaw

• hush puppies
• she crab soup (w/ sherry on the side)
• shrimp & scallop platter See Wee style (w/ slaw, fried okra & collard greens)
• See Wee platter of fried shrimp, scallops, oysters & flounder (w/ slaw, onion rings & ?)
• coconut cake and carrot cake (which we brought home to eat later)

The stars of the eats were the VERY fresh stone crab claws & Bloody Marys at Shem Creek and the fried oysters at Morgan Creek.  The Big Guy gumbo and Seafood Wando made good leftovers back at our villa at Wild Dunes.  And oddly enough, a nice house salad with hot bacon vinaigrette dressing for Donna and some fried fish for Edward at a Fatz Cafe on the way home!  We’ll be trying the Fatz here in Athens now.  I’ve come to the conclusion that South Carolinians (at least the ones who eat out and/or tourists) must like their food on the extremely rich side and that we like our onion rings lightly battered instead of the thick-thick-thick way we kept getting.

So we didn’t eat at any fancy spots this trip (and didn’t order any wine anywhere!), but we got our fill of fried foods for awhile.  I wish we could get really good seafood anytime we wanted instead of having to *flounder* ourselves on our rare trips to the beach.

50 foods Donna craves

50 foods Donna CRAVES (in some semblance of order):

Fresh, creamed/fried, Silver Queen corn
Fried pies (apricot is the best, but any dried fruit will do)
Apple dumplings w/ Grandma’s milky-sweet “dip”
Cornbread (to accompany a lot of other stuff on this list)
Fried bacon
Beef steak (filet, rib-eye, t-bone, skirt: most anything!)
Crunchy Cheetos
Vidalia onions (fixed just about any way)
 Fried crookneck squash
 Chicken and dumplings (“slicks”-style)
 Heirloom tomatoes
 Pasta (best plain w/ olive oil & sea salt)
 Ice cream (especially hand-cranked, homemade, vanilla)
 Cheese (just about any kind you can name)
 Lay’s potato chips (plain)
 French fries (the skinnier, the better)
 Smoked pork barbeque
 Fried chicken (thighs are my favorite)
 Pecan pralines (that's pronounced pe-CON, ya'll)
 Black-eyed peas
 Turnip greens
 Meat loaf (I’ll make it myself, thank you, with a little ground pork added in)
 Biscuits and gravy (can't believe my mom doesn't make this anymore!)
 Potato soup
 Egg salad
 Baked beans
 Fried okra
 Chicken salad
 Fried green tomatoes
 Corn fritters
 Bread pudding
 Sausage (most any way)
 Fried fish (No one has ever taken me fishing in my entire life and I'm still waiting....)
 White half-runners (fully cooked & seasoned)
 Baked sweet potatoes
 Salmon patties (ask Edward about this)
 Chess pie
 Fried chicken livers
 Shrimp (any way at all!)
 Cinnamon toast
 Cheesecake (NY style)
 Scrambled eggs
 Turkey w/ cornbread dressing & giblet gravy
 Ground beef tacos (crispy)
 School lunchroom yeast rolls
 Pancakes w/ butter and maple syrup
 Fudge (w/out marshmallow gunk)
 Fried frogs’ legs
 Pumpkin anything
 Grandma Trotter’s Christmas jam cake

OK, load up my plate!  (But come to think of it, mashed potatoes and/or cabbage slaw are de rigueur with several of these dishes; maybe I didn't explore sides quite enough!)  And pour me a table wine or a glass of sweetened iced tea.

"The Best Pound Cake I Ever Tasted"

What a great dessert to carry to meetings, reunions, funerals, homecomings, tailgates, parties and potluck.  Pound Cake!

My mentor librarian, Ethelene Dyer Jones, had a really good recipe for pound cake.  Ethelene made so many that her husband, Rev. Grover Jones, learned how to make them too and baked them often himself.


Ethelene & Grover Jones' Pound Cake:

3 1/2 cups sifted plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 cup shortening
2 1/2 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons of 2 different flavorings (lemon, almond, vanilla or butternut)

Sift together the sifted flour, salt and baking powder.  Beat together shortening and sugar and continue to beat, adding eggs on at a time.  Continue to beat, adding dry ingredients alternately with milk.  Beat well after each addition.  Beat in flavorings at end.  Bake in a greased and floured tube pan at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

For their Walking Across Egypt Gwinnett Reads a few years ago, Gwinnett County Public Library including a couple of pound cake baking contests as part of the festivities.  The staff winner was submitted by Anne Henson.

Aunt Hortense's Poundcake


2 sticks butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla flavoring
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup heavy whipping cream at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Whip the butter until creamy.  Add the vanilla and whip until well-mixed.  Gradually add the sugar and whip the butter and sugar on high speed for several minutes.  Reduce the speed and add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each one.  Add salt to flour.  Alternate mixing the flour and cream into the butter/sugar, ending with flour.  Pour batter into a greased tube pan and run knife through the batter to prevent air pockets.  Bake for 1 1/2 hours.  Let cake cool before removing from pan.

(Thanks to author Clyde Edgerton for "The Best Pound Cake I Ever Tasted" phrase.)

Pictures of recent efforts

CORNbread

swordfish steaks

Joyce Trotter's Vinegar Pie Recipe

Melt 1 stick butter; add 2 well beaten eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 cup chopped pecans, 1/2 cup coconut, 1 tablespoon vinegar.  Pour into unbaked pie shell and bake @ 325 degrees fahrenheit for about 50 minutes.

How simple is that?

Tonight I used golden raisins; sweetened, grated coconut and plain ol' white distilled vinegar.

It's really a regular pie size, not deep dish.

This pie is not overly sweet, but tonight Edward says this is it -- the best pie he's ever tasted.  OK!

Oops, didn't take a picture of it!

Ode to Grampa Jones

What's for supper, Grandpa?

Needless to say, we're polishing off a pitcher of manhattans even as I type.

Plus, I'm simmering those farmers' market-purchased fresh, shelled pink-eyed peas (wish they had a name other than a rampant disease that runs through elementary/grammar schools...) with garlic and bacon.  Edward is making some sort of spread (parsley, ground pepper, lemon peel, garlic, BUTTER) for the swordfish he's going to pan fry and oven-finish.  Ingredients for cornbread are set out, and there's small Indian eggplant to grill.  Garnishes?  BUTTER.  Vidalia onion and heirloom tomato slices.  And mozzarella or feta waiting in the wings if needed.  

What wine will we have with this eclectic menu?

WAIT!  There's also my cousin-in-law Joyce's recipe Vinegar Pie for dessert.  I promise to post this great recipe soon.  

We'll eat, tally the results and report ASAP!

Belated Birthday Dinner

Hugh Acheson's Five & Ten in Athens scores again.  Tonight's belated birthday dinner for Donna was a winner.

We started with the stellar housemade pickles (always a STEAL @ $4.00!); tonight's selection included both dilled and bread & butter cucumbers, okra and garlicky carrots.  Followed that up with mussels steamed in Terrapin Ale.  For the main course Edward had striped bass and Donna chose crisp catfish w/ tomato chutney, Red Mule grits, fennel slaw and arugula.  Wines by the glass matched well; Edward had a Burgundy and Donna a Pinot Grigio.

We opted for two cow's milk cheeses instead of dessert: a Sweet Grass Dairy soft ripened camembert and a hard cheese from Virginia.  Donna splurged with a glass of 2005 Chateau Roumieu-Lacoste "Cuvee Leon" Sauterne.

Overall, a yummy meal.  Edward took photos with his iPhone, perhaps he'll figure out how to post them at some point?

Oh, I almost forgot the lead-off Tanqueray Ten martinis!

Donna Posting for Edward

Edward says he can't get this to work. It is confusing that apparently, as a contributor to this blog, his access is not the same as mine. Let's see what happens when I try. Here is the nice shrimp salad Edward made for lunch when we got back from the farmers' market today. Very flavorful tomato, but we forgot what kind. We'll try harder from now on.

Oh, the Humanity!

I can't quite figure out my fascination, but I do enjoy a good disaster book.  I used to think I must have died in a fire in some past life, or maybe in a shipwreck.  I think my interest is based in the combination of the surprise, the freakishness, the impact, the courage and strength and the learning process these stories of natural and man-made disasters relate.  “Oh, the humanity!”

Here is a list of some of the disaster books I’ve read over the years, in no real order, but I have tried to list at the top the ones I think are the best written and/or the most interesting.  I’ve listed two novels at the end; they’re both good.  I’d love to hear what anyone else thinks.

Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, by Erik Larson -- Unnamed hurricane, Galveston, TX, 1900

Circus Fire, by Stewart Onan -- 1944 circus tent fire, Hartfort, Connecticutt

Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919, by Stephen Puleo -- Molasses storage tank collapse in Boston

Last Man Out, by Melissa Fay Greene -- Mining disaster killed 75 men in Nova Scotia in 1958; Governor of GA invited 19 rescued and their families to Jekyll Island, not knowing some were African Americans

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, by John M. Barry -- 1918 flu epidemic

The Winecoff Fire: The Untold Story of America’s Deadliest Hotel Fire, by Sam Heys and Allen B. Goodwin -- Deadly 1946 hotel fire on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, GA

Firestorm at Peshtigo, by Denise Gess & William Lutz -- 1871 fires around Lake Michigan, simultaneous to Chicago’s great fire

Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean, by Les Standiford -- 1935 hurricane, FL Keys

Fire in the Grove: The Cocoanut Grove Tragedy, by John C. Esposito -- Nightclub fire in Boston in 1942 killed nearly 500

Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum, by Edward T. O’Donnell -- 1904 fire onboard pleasure boat in the East River, New York City

The Sinking of the Eastland, by Jay Bononsinga -- Pleasure boat capsized in 1915 in Chicago River, killing 844

Curse of the Narrows, by Laura M. MacDonald -- 1917 explosion of the Monte Blanc, loaded with 2,925 tons of explosives, in Halifax, Nova Scotia

The Sultana Tragedy, by Jerry O. Potter -- 1865 steamboat fire that killed over 1,800 on the Mississippi River

Wreck of the Medusa:The Tragic Story of the Death Raft, by Alexander McKee -- 1816 wreck of a French frigate

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick -- Shipwreck that was somewhat the basis for Moby Dick

Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938, by R. A. Scotti -- Hurricane hit New England between the two World Wars

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, by David Von Drehle -- The 1911 New York City factory fire, the resulting trial and labor movement

To Sleep With the Angels: The Story of a Fire, by David Cowan & John Kuenster -- 1958 fire at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago killed 92 students and three nuns

City on Fire: The Explosion That Devastated a Texas Town and Ignited a Historic Legal Battle, by Bill Minutaglio -- French freighter carrying ammonium nitrate exploded in Texas City, Texas harbor in 1947; killed nearly 600 people

Saved!: The Story of the Andrea Doria, the Greatest Sea Rescue in History, by William Hoffer -- 1956 collision of the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm

Fire at Sea: The Mysterious Tragedy of the Morro Castle, by Thomas Gallagher -- 1934 cruise ship fire

When the Dancing Stopped: The Real Story of the Morro Castle Disaster and Its Deadly Wake, by Brian Hicks -- 1934 cruise ship fire

Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire, by John N. Maclean -- 1994 wildfire ultimately cost $4.5 million and the lives of 14 firefighters

The 100 Greatest Disasters of All Time, by Stephen J. Spignesi

Gales of November, by Robert J. Hemming -- 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior

Triangle, by Katherine Weber (fiction) -- Triangle factory fire

Uprising, by Margaret Peterson (fiction) -- Triangle factory fire

Farmers' Market July 31, 2010

What will Edward find @ the Athens Farmers' Market this morning?

Well I went too and we came back with:

• zephyr squash
• shelled pink-eyed peas
• hot banana pepper
• okra
• Indian eggplant
• suyo long cucumber
• heirloom tomatoes
• sweet peppers
• bintje potatoes
• 1,000 Faces Toaroo Toraja (Indonesian) coffee beans

But for all that, we're eating out tonight (another belated birthday celebration)!  Where shall we go?  Five & Ten?  The National?  Farm 255?  I'll let you know what we decide.

Belated Birthday Presents

Here it is Friday and my birthday was this past Monday, but Edward finally coughed up some birthday presents today.  They were worth the wait.

I'll report on the 46 later.  I already know the Hendrick's will be wonderful and have a fresh cucumber ready for garnish.

Thanks, baby.  I hope the remainder of my 56th year will be this nice.

Pimento Cheese I

The best you can buy in a grocery store: Palmetto Cheese

Cellar Cats

I sincerely think that if I had to pick only one wine to have for the rest of my life (that I could afford to purchase for myself), it might be my adored Sausal Cellar Cats Red Zinfandel.

UPDATE 1-3 -13: It was with a heavy, heavy heart that we learned a few months ago that our beloved Sausal has been sold by the Demostene family to Silver Oak.  We honestly pray that Silver Oak understands what they've purchased.  Sausal's century Zinfandel vines are precious and beautiful.  They were on the property when Leo and Rose Demostene purchased the land in 1956.  Many of the original vines were included on an 1877 atlas of the area.  Our final shipment of closeout Sausal wines arrived here in Bogart yesterday: two cases.  My little "DonDon always loves Cellar Cats" song and dance is now performed sadly and with a tear in my eye.  Each of these last bottles will be dearly appreciated.  Sincere thanks and best wishes to the Demostene family.

Birthday Wines

Monday was my birthday, so we've pulled a couple of nice bottles lately.  First was a 2005 Domain Raymond Usseglio & Fils Chateauneuf-Du-Pape we enjoyed with lamb chops.  This wine had just the right age for me, very smooth and drinkable.

The next night brought filets done on the little Weber, which is the perfect filet-grilling device.  What wine? 2006 Pride Mountain Vineyard Merlot.  SO good!  Can you tell that we still like some size to our reds?  We visited Pride Mountain last spring and it's a gorgeous place.

View from Pride's patio

The vineyards and winery straddle the Sonoma and Napa County lines.  The drive up and back down is a bit hairy, but the views and the cave tour are worth it.  The merlot we drank Monday was labeled 58% Sonoma and 42% Napa.

Pride Mountain Vineyards

Selecting & Enjoying Wine: A facebook Reprint w/ Edits

Some of my facebook friends asked for my input on selecting and enjoying wine for novices, so here is an updated note I posted there awhile back:

I like wine better with a meal.


To begin learning about wine you like, find a “wine guy” (my own non-gender specific term) you can trust. Tell the guy what you think you like about wine (be honest!) and what food you’re serving. Ask for suggestions and give his recommendations a try.  Make notes about what you did or did not like about the wine the guy picked. You’ll find some wine guys who have similar taste preferences to your own; take advantage of their ability to taste lots and lots of wines and make good suggestions for you.  I mean, they get to taste WAY more wine than you ever will; it's their job.

Some of the best less expensive wines come from other countries. Try Australia, South Africa or Chile.

Read about how to begin enjoying wine: books (check your local public library of course!) or on the net. For instance, about.com’s Wine Basics gives good advice about the importance of “price, preference, pairing.”

Attend some tastings and/or visit some wineries.  And if you can, sign on for some extended vineyard/winery tours.  Walking through the vineyards, seeing the grapes on the vine, seeing where the wine is grown and made really is informative.  If you care at all about farming or gardening, you'll love vineyard tours.

Most people start off enjoying wines on the sweet side, but the more you drink wine, the less you’ll like “sweet” as your norm. That’s not a snob thing; your taste really is changed by the wine itself. If you’re wanting to move on from jug or mass-produced wines try a German Riesling, or a Rosé, or a Merlot (Columbia Crest Grand Estates for example). Yes, I said “merlot!”

Back to pairing, read up on it some, but basically, I tend to like a wine that matches the locale of the food, Italian wine (or grape variety) with Italian food, etc. That’s oversimplified, but you get the idea.

Do take a little time to notice and consider whatever wine you’re drinking. Smell it first. If it’s spoiled or “corked” it may smell like paper maché (wet cardboard). Swirl it in the glass to really get a good whiff. Look at the color. Look through the wine to see how deep or thick the color is. Use plain, clear glasses btw. As a sideline, I don’t care what anyone else says, those glasses with a scientifically designed shape for the various grapes DO WORK! Once you get used to enjoying good wines, the shape of the glass really can make a difference in the taste of a specific wine.

Sadly, do expect to pay more per bottle as you learn more about wine, but again, your wine guy can help you find good value.


Tasting, tasting, tasting leads to learning, learning, learning.

Cook up something good, or unwrap some nice cheese, uncork/unscrew a bottle, and pour me a glass!

Seasmoke in the glass!

Not That Easy

I'm sure I'm not the first blogger to say that this isn't as easy as it sounds.  I started this blog because I was finding that most of my status updates, wall posts or links on facebook were about food and drink.  Rather than bug friends there all the time with food info, why not record it on Blogger?

Trouble is, I've been a little under the weather since I put this thing up so I haven't been eating much that's very interesting!

I promised to start thinking about this more though; I see this blog as a space for me to store future memories about the wonderful food Edward and I share.

Let's talk about what gives support, strength, endurance. Let's talk about living, nourishment, provisions. Let's talk about the good life. Good food, good wine, good books, good memories and the best people.