Raindrops and Rainbows

November 29, 2009
Peoria, AZ

We've had a weather front passing through over the last few days, bringing some clouds, cooler temperatures, and even a few raindrops.

Friday was "recovery day" from the Thanksgiving feast for us, like many others. We relaxed, we puttered, Geri made a pot of sauce and I made the veal parm.

Yesterday, I focused on our "Holiday Letter", a stuffer we put in with many of the Christmas cards to let friends and family know what we've been up to over the course of the last year. The text was easy, but picking out a few pictures from the many we took over the year is really hard. Dinner was a great rack of lamb with couscous and oven-roasted haricot verts and an almond aioli sauce.

Today, I finished up on the pictures, formatting each and adding a bit of text. Photoshop is your friend, I guess. We both made interesting recipes today. Geri made an asparagus and melon salad with crispy prosciutto and toasted pine nuts and fresh mozzarella. I tried to recreate a dish I had during the summer, making Chianti-braised beef ribs over a butternut squash/brown butter puree with wilted greens. Oh, yeah - keepers all the way around.

We've started pulling older wines from the "wine box", with mostly excellent results. The Chateau Bel Air 2000 we had mid-week was very good, probably reflecting the vintage more than the producer. A d'Arenberg "Dead Arm" Shiraz 2002 was drinking nicely with our Thanksgiving dinner, as was a Fiddlehead "728" Pinot Noir (check out the cover of the November Food & Wine). We used a Trinitas Petit Syrah 2002 as a "opening wine" for the last couple of days - this one was a surprise to me, having been bought at Moore Bros in NJ years ago and drinking pretty well now. An Utni California Syrah 2002 (who ever heard of that) went very well with the lamb, but a Damilano Barolo 2000 was a bit over the hill and port-like with the beef ribs. You can't win them all. This highlights the need to work through wines in the "wine box", as many are at (or slightly beyond!) their peak of drinkability. It's just something we'll have to work through. :-)

Today was sunny for most of the day, with a few clouds flying by at times. We walked the pups late in the day and - surprise, surprise - we got a few raindrops hitting us, and even saw both ends of a rainbow. No pot of gold, though. It'll be interesting to see if the rain was "measurable" on the news tonight, and if we're on track for the record for "driest year on record".