Jeffy Boy

All fruit should be skinless, seedless, pitless and stemless. And about the size of a grape. And cube-shaped.

Do nutrition requirements differ in space compared to on earth? I'm curious about calorie needs, given weightlessness, and if there are any peculiarities with respect to protein, fats, vitamins and minerals. Is extra calcium needed for long-duration missions?

Before reading these posts, and the links, my familiarity with sherry was pretty limited, My wife's grandmother drinks it (which has made me NOT want to drink it ) Reading all this got me curious enough to go out and pick up a couple of bottles today to sample: Gonzalez Byass Manzanilla Lustau Dry Oloroso Don Nuno Any thoughts on these, or recommendations on how to serve them? I plan to chill the Manzanilla and have it with some tapas dishes. The Oloroso I plan to have cool, on it's own.

Is this a corollary to that "tree falling in a forest" thing? Last time I had wine from a small BC producer, I'm pretty sure it was wine. I have no problem with those who don't like BC wine, or don't think BC makes any good wine. That will help keep demand down, and prices down, and be better for me!

BC has a great range of wines, not all from the Okanagan. Just down the road from us in Langley, Domaine de Chaberton and Township 7 have won some awards recently. My personal favourites (best value) are Sumac Ridge's Cab-Merlot, and Red Rooster Gewurtztraminer. Red Rooster is tough to find in the liquor stores. Other memorable wines for me include Burrowing Owl Pinot Gris, Jackson-Triggs Vionier and Gehringer Brothers Pinot Noir. I think BC generally does a little better on whites than reds. A great place to get info on BC wines, with tasting notes, is on Anthony Gismondi's (Vancouver Sun wine columnist) web site at: Gismondi on Wine BC Rules!

While I like ice wine, I'm not so crazy about it that I want to drop $1 per sip on it too often. The flavour is so intense that it deserves to be tasted on it's own, without food. For pairing with desserts, I prefer a late-harvest wine, which is not as sweet, and is about 1/3 of the cost. Canada makes great ice wine, but I think it's over-rated - in fact its Canada's dry style wines which are under-rated. Between Niagara and Okanagan, we make very good examples of just about everything, red and white.

But there are no bones in sushi. BBbbbBBBbad Forgot to mention that Sleeman's also tastes good when preceded by bourbon and scotch, in that order.

Sapporo is now made in Guelph Ontario by Sleeman's. Don't know if they play classical music when they make Sapporo, but I know from my younger days that Sleeman's Cream Ale goes very well with George Thorogood played very loud.

Mmmm.... Late 70's Ontario wine out of a box I learned in high school that unlike bottles, boxes didn't clink in my adidas gym bag Seriously though, there should be no reason why a good wine wouldn't be just as good out of a box. With the added benefit of longevity. Bring 'em on!

I'll second the vote for Bulgaria. Great bargains right now on their wines. Also terrific value from Argentina. Although a little more expensive, South Africa delivers Australian quality at a lower price.

It's great to see a discussion on Canadian wines! As a former Ontario resident, now living in BC, I must put in my plug for our Okanagan wine region. Niagara and Okanagan enjoy a great rivalry, have pushed each other to produce better and better wines, and each have their devoted following. Although Niagara, and particularly Iniskillin is likely the best-known Canadian ice wine, at the 2003 Canadian Wine Awards "Best Ice Wine, varietal" was won Jackson-Triggs Okanagan 2001 Proprietors' Grand Reserve Riesling Icewine, scoring 92 points. "Best Ice Wine, vidal" was indeed won by Iniskillin, but Iniskillin Okanagan! Mark your calendars: 2003 should prove to be an awesome year for BC ice wines. There was an early freeze (November), and the quality of grapes on the vine at the time were superb!

UPDATE: Just back from our road trip today, and I don't want to leave anyone hanging! We altered our agenda significantly after the earthquake in the Paso Robles area, and decided to spent some time in Geyserville, touring the Alexander Valley, Sonama and Napa areas. We then went up to Mendocino for several days of serious inactivity. In Geyserville, we stayed at the Geyserville Inn, with a room overlooking some vineyards. Notable winery excursions included Geyser Peak (liked their Zinfandel) and Chateau Souverain (great Chardonnay, and a very nice bistro - mushroom pate was amazing). Ate many meals in Healdsburg, most memorable was dinner at Willi's, where I enjoyed fresh oysters with a bottle of Hanna Sauvignon Blanc. Also rediscoved the lemon cream ravioli I fell in love with years ago - at Piatti, in Sonoma. Best experience was lunch at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, in St. Helena. Had seats "at the bar", with a view of the kitchen. Mendocino is truly off-season in January, but weather for us was quite good, particularly after the torrential rains and flooding in the Napa area. Unfortunately Cafe Beaujolais was closed, and we were disappointed with our experience at 955 Ukiah. After overindulging in wine during the first part of our trip, I found myself switching to beer (I'm ambidextrous that way). The North Coast Brewing Co in Fort Bragg makes some excellent beers. I liked their Red Seal ale in particular. Got to see some migrating grey whales (no, before the beer). The trip down from Vancouver and back again was an adventure as well! Most memorable stopover was in Garberville, Ca. It was the largest "dot" on the map for 50 miles, but probably deserved a smaller dot. Imagine organic flower child meets Mayberry. Had to change our agenda again, to avoid Portland on the way back due to snow and ice.

If someone asks at a party for the recipe for something you brought, just say "yeah, sure, whatever" and then quickly change the subject. And then don't give it to them. If they bring it up (next day, or whenever you see them), you can just say you forgot all about it! By making them remind you, then you weed out those who aren't really serious. Nine times out of ten, the people who ask you won't follow up. I get more annoyed at the work involved in copying the recipe for them than giving it to them.

I agree! I can't believe the number of people I know who "can't eat any bread" but have no problem horking down a big steak and fat-laden caesar salad. I'm just waiting for them to keel over from kidney failure or something...

My god, that's revolting! Sounds like the description of a two week old murder crime scene...

I'd skip the wine, and pair it with a smooth, Brown Ale. For cheese, something semi-soft and relatively mild - like Gouda, or Tilsit. Something tells me a Pear Cider might be good with this too.

Kim, There are excellent sweet wines made in the US and Canada; I would start off by exploring a range of Late Harvest varietals, and make your own comparisons. I personally prefer Late Harvests to Ice Wines, which I find just too sweet (as well as being much more expensive). The Late Harvests will pair better with a fruit dessert, too. Canada's ice wines are world leaders, coming from both the Niagara region in Ontario and the Okanagan in BC. This year, top honours at the Canadian Wine Awards went to Jackson-Triggs Okanagan 2001 Proprietors' Grand Reserve Riesling Icewine. 2003 promises to be a stellar year for ice wines from BC, as there was an early freeze, and the quality of grapes on the vine at the time was outstanding.

Best beer: In winter - Unibroue Eau Benite (great fruity charactertics, but at 7.7% it's a little "warm" to be drinking in the summertime) In summer - Corona (yes, with lime - preferably a cold six pack served up in a bucket with ice). Worst beer: The skunky Carling Red Cap (in stubby bottles) me and my buddy "swiped" from his old man's basement. Must'a been at least 5 years old.

Hey, just hit 20 posts, so I got to add an avatar! If you read my previous post about the picture of a Zinfandel glass, that's not it (if it was it would be a pretty crappy Zin). My avatar picture was taken the first week of January 2003, in Cannon Beach Oregon (from our room in the Stephanie Inn). I'm pretty sure it's a Chardonnay.

I usually only use Marsala in cooking - recently did an Italian Sausage & Wild Mushroom Risotto where I substituted Marsala for Madiera. It turned out beautifully. Marsala served as a dessert wine is a good match with bittersweet chocolate, and with it's raisin-like flavour pairs well with fruitcake. Might be a good way to actually eat that Christmas fruitcake!

Christmas Pudding and mincemeat. Disgusting. It's bad enough they taste like s***, but they also look like s*** !! I don't mind eggnog, but in small quantities, so you've got to have a high concentration of some good spiced rum in it. And it's got to be the "full fat" variety, not the light version. Canned cranberries with "real" cranberries in it are OK, but I don't like the kind that slurps out of the can and manages to retain its can shape.

Thanks for the info and recommendations, especially the restaurant tips Raoul. I'm thinking that SLO would be a good home base for a few days of exploring both Paso Robles and as far north as Cambria. A few years back we spent several days (again, in January) in Mendocino. We lucked out with terrific weather. It was amazing. I've got a framed picture I took of a glass of Old Vines Zinfandel on the balcony railing, with the setting sun shining through it.... The drive down to San Francisco on the coast was great, but took forever!! Last January we went down to Portland and then Cannon Beach (stayed at the Stephanie Inn, which was very nice). Again, the weather gods were smiling on us. We really enjoyed Portland, which is a lot like Vancouver. Especially liked the galleries and restaurants in the Pearl district.

I think the Food Network has achieved the status of a real "Network", in that they have a large stable of programming, and therefore a mix of good and not so good. For all the Emeril-bashing (and I'm not a fan of him myself), he opviously gets the ratings. Kind of like "Everyone Likes Raymond" (except me ) I'd be interested of there are analogies others have for Food Network shows, and what a comparable program on one of the major networks might be. Here's another one: "The Best of" = "America's Funniest Home videos".

I never even thought about Neverland! Los Olivos just made to the "must see" section of my itinerary The trip is now shaping up to hit 3 areas, with a couple of days at each: Sonoma-Healdsburg; SLO-PasoRobles; and Los Olivos-Santa Ynez. I know what you mean about memories of previous trips. I had an amazing lemon cream ravioli in Sonoma about 8 years ago, and have been searching for something like it since. I remember I let my wife have a taste of it and spent the rest of my meal defending it with my fork! We still chuckle about that episode...

Been to Cielo twice - first time was good, second time not so good. Giraffe is open for lunch Thurs-Sun right now (may be more often in the summer?). They have a good website http://www.thegiraffe.com/ La Folie is gone (it was good, but I don't think it got enough business). It's since been replaced by Aquamarine, a trendy looking tasting bar - a bit like Bin 942, if you're familiar with that. I've been to Aquamarine and it was decent. Jacques Tapas bar is good, not outstanding. Bistro Aubergine is also good, but I found the food not terribly exciting. It also replaced on of my favourites, the Hungry Heart Cafe (I'm going to miss those Saturday morning smoked salmon & dill scrambled eggs....)