December 12, 2007
Peoria, AZ
Well, the rain has finally ended, at least as far as the “seven day forecast” can see. Within the last four days, we’ve had almost as much rain as in the whole year up to that point. Of course, we’re only talking 2+ inches over the last few days as compared to 2.5+ inches YTD but, hey, we get pretty used to sunny skies when we’re here. It’s still running cooler than normal, but not as cold as it was last winter. We’ll survive it, I’m sure.
We’ve used the time well, getting all of the holiday decorations up (not too much, since it’s just the two of us), the shopping done, and the cards written. I got everything we needed to send out packed up for shipping. Although we can do a lot of shopping online and have things sent directly to the recipients, there are always some gifts that we end up with here that we have to send out. Fortunately, because we’ve been selling various things on eBay over the last year or so, we have the infrastructure in place to make things easier. We save a lot of packaging material from incoming stuff, and recycle what we can. I’ve set up accounts at UPS and the Post Office, so we can usually print pre-paid labels for most things and avoid standing in line for shipping.
We’ve continued to eat well, and are in the process of testing and “improving” a couple of new recipes. Geri made her “famous” meat loaf, and I made a nice loin roast of pork, both of which were pre-planned for two meals each. We’ve been working on fine-tuning a roasted vegetable medley as well, with fennel bulbs, onions, peppers, and capers. We’re getting there, although we haven’t been grilling as much as we’d expected. Some nights, we need the heat that cooking inside brings!
On the wine front, we haven’t been disappointed with any of the “value” wines we’ve found or treasures from the “wine box”. For “values”, we were quite surprised with a 2005 McLaren Valley Australian Shiraz from RockBare that we picked up at Costco. Who’d have thunk it. We also had a nice Spanish wine, a 2005 Juan Gil from Jumilla that I’d found at Dave’s favorite wine shop in Florida; unfortunately, we won’t be getting any more of that any time soon. Lastly, we enjoyed a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2005 Armador, that we picked up when we went back for some of the Root:1 Cabernet. It’s not as good as the Root:1, but still fits our definition f a “value” Cab with lots of fruit and soft tannins.
We also had a couple of wines from the “wine box”. The first was one of our all-time favorites, one of the first California wines we collected: Zaca Mesa Syrah, this one from 1994. I think this was that last 1994 we had left (I need to reorganize the “wine box” at some point), and it was drinking very well for its age since California Syrahs don’t have that long a track record. We were quite pleased to have it, since we believe that wine is for drinking, not storing.
Tonight, I made a new recipe for Cod braised in Vermouth with Mushrooms. Given the preparation, I chose a red Burgundy (Pinot Noirs tend to match well with mushrooms), a 2002 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru La Clef Du Sol from Patrice Rion. The Rion family makes quite a few great Burgundies, and this particular one was a fine example of the craft. I think we have a few more in the “box”, so I hope we can watch it mature over the next decade or so.
The only other excitement we’ve had over the weekend culminated in a trip to the vet yesterday. Starting on Thursday and Friday, Maya Lynn, and to a lesser extent Merlin, was obsessing over a couple of “hot spots”. We had a couple of nights of interrupted sleep as we tried to keep her away from them, and she ended up getting a cortisone shot for the itching and some ointment for her skin irritation. It’s usually Merlin that gets the allergic reaction to something in the environment, but we realized that he started with the allergies when he was four years old, and Maya will be four in about a month. It sucks to get old, I guess. Anyway, she’s better today and we’ll medicate her over the next few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment