Rebel Rose

I totally understand. Given the number of dog avatars around here I think one day soon we should have a dog blog!

This is going to be great. Not to give too much away, but Seth is going to "Mom's house" for the holiday weekend. I don't know about you, but as much as I love my mother, it's always awkward to express yourself through food on someone else's turf--ESPECIALLY Mom's! Let's all root for him! Watch for his first posts very soon. In the meantime, Dan has finally gotten into the spirit of my schmog . . . wog . . .clog? So I'll post through his pizza, dear thing, and then check in with Seth. See you there!

Pan and Squeat, thank you so much! I have really enjoyed doing this. And I knew the risks, even though I only posted once in Judith's blog! However, the two refusals were due to impending travel, so I'll urge the next blogger to put up a friendly warning at the beginning of the blog. And Soba, thank you for the list of previous bloggers. I'll pass that on as well. In the meantime, Sunday evening approaches and Dan is making homemade pizza, so I'll continue blogging until the newbie signs in. And now, I am in search of fresh blahd. :evil laugh:

So true. When we entertain we never worry about who consumes what. Our friends tend to have robust and adventurous appetites. I have encountered fussy dining behavior at formal winemaker dinners (but then the stories I could tell would start a whole new thread)! I've noticed that people who actually have a food sensitivity are delicate about upsetting other people, or coming across as prima donnas. They ask ahead of time, or remove the item discreetly, or refuse a dish quietly and politely, and if someone near them notices, they will quietly explain their allergy so as not to gross out the entire table. On the other hand, I've sat across from people who disect all kinds of things out of their dishes, a little pile here, a little pile there, sighing mightily at the irresponsibility of chefs and hosts who would burden their delicate digestive systems with such abominations. My recommendation is to just maintain a sense of humor. Unless the picky eater is your boss, just let your guests entertain you--and us!

Sunday morning, and well, it's time to turn over the day to the next blogger. Who will it be? Unfortunately, it's a mystery to me as well! I 've tagged Australia, Pacific Northwest, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pastry so far. Gotten two no's and two already-dunnits. If the fifth one gets cold feet, I'll be coming after the New Yorkers again. We know you guys are always "game!"

Saturday morning it's off to the farmers' market in Templeton. The booths surround a village park, and kids and dogs enjoy playing together on the grass. I spend $40 on carrots, asparagus, honey, Mayan onions, sugar peas, basil, and Pinkerton avocados. I'm so loaded down with bags I can hardly walk. I need to get one of those little market carts! Saturday afternoon I have a book signing at a local bookstore, so I hie myself off afterwards to a local restaurant for margaritas and guacamole. And then I run into friends and associates just getting out of the Hospice du Rhone main tasting and the whole restaurant turns into a party. I didn't have my camera, but trust me, you probably wouldn't want to see the pictures!

Whew. Friday was a whirlwind of activity, and I manned the tasting room as well, but I'm thinking about the truffle butter all day. Mmm, mmm. I stuffed the Cornish hens with a tangerine and half a lemon each, and rotisseried them on an old Farberware electric unit. It's about 25 years old, and one of our favorite kitchen appliances. I basted the hens with a mustard sauce from Bistro Laurent that consists of veal stock, mustard seed and white wine. Once the hens were crispy and dark I set them on a platter and basted them with some of the black truffle butter. In the meantime, I put some Vidalia onions on to caramelize, and assembled some other ingredients: chopped sundried tomatoes, grated ginger in olive oil, and zest from the lemon and tangerines in aged Amontillado vinegar. In a pan next to the onions I put chopped green and yellow summer squash, with diced red bell pepper. When the birds were close to done, I added the sundried tomatoes and a few threads of saffron to the caramelizing onions, then poured the ginger and olive oil over the squash and lightly sauteed it. I wanted to make wild rice but we didn't have any in the pantry, so I made some buckwheat soba noodles. The noodles get a button of truffle butter, and the finished squash is dressed with the citrus zest and Amontillado vinegar. While everything's cooking, a quick run to the wine "cellar." Our wine cave isn't as scary as Lucy's, though! The door is right below my bedroom window. (Handy, huh?) It's just an old root cellar. We keep our special bottles in old riddling racks that were once used for making champagne. Let's check on the temperature and humidity monitors. Yep, they appear comfortable. Let's try this Chalone 1993 Pinot Noir. It's got to be almost over the hill, but it will be fun to open it with dinner. I think Dan owes me a foot rub!

I would definitely contact the winery and ask them to replace the wine. Take a digital photo of the remaining bottles and send it to them. Also offer to return at least one bottle so they can evaluate it. They'll be able to determine if it's a winemaking defect or a bottling line problem. Sometimes the micron filters on the bottling line become clogged and a sloppy crew will remove the filters for cleaning without turning off the line, allowing unfiltered wine to slip through in the bottles. You'll be doing them a service to let them know about the fizziness.

As long as we're discussing nasty things in wine . . . a) Brett can produce flavors ranging from mouse fur to aluminum foil, depending on the extent of infection. b) Abundant use of sulfites will not necessarily prevent secondary ferms. If the wine is unfiltered and has not been cleanly racked and fined, it may still go off in the bottle despite a high level of sulfites, which are used primarily to keep fruit elements fresh and give them longevity, not, as I said, to necessarily "clean up" a wine that still has sugar or suspended particulate matter. Or both. c) Larger wineries frequently use COPPER, in the form of copper sulfate, to freshen up fruit that has become oxidized from too much time in barrel or tank. If overused it gives the wine a distinct metallic character, and it gives me a ferocious headache and heart palpitations. One of the zinfandels most admired in this forum gives me these symptoms, but I won't say who it is because I'm afraid that the real issue is that I drink it in enough quantity to bring it on!

That's a great idea! At least I'll know everyone coming can cook!!

The best vintages in our area in recent years are 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2001. Although we're close to the coast, our elevation and the coastal hills keep us warmer than the wine appellations to the north and south, Monterey and Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez, so those appellations have really good pinot noir and chardonnay, while our region is more known for zinfandel, cabernet and syrah. I'm glad someone sent you home happy, and with lots of wine to keep you that way!

Thank you, Jen! You're not too far away to escape here for real.

The tasting room is open today and I'm on deck, so I ran some errands first, stopping at Wilmot Market for bread and cheese. One of Wilmot's owners is chef Laurent Grangien of Bistro Laurent. (Laurent trained with Michel Rostang in Paris before moving to the states and becoming chef of Bistro Fennel in Santa Monica, then executive chef of the Inn at Morro Bay, subsequently moving to Paso to open a family-style bistro.) Ooh, there's French onion soup from the restaurant in the cooler. And black truffle butter . . . I've got to have it! I'm not sure why, but as the day goes on, I'm coming up with some ideas! A quick stop at the herb farm on my way home. I'm in the mood to make walnut pesto for customers, but no cut basil yet. Later this spring they'll offer fresh cut herbs by the bag, four dollars for a quart bag stuffed as tightly as a pillowcase. Sycamore Farms is also the home of Chequera Vineyard (Spanish for "checkbook") and a tasting room for Bonny Doon. Randall Graham buys Syrah and Viognier from Chequera. I settle on some basil and thyme starts for the garden, and say hello to Annie. Petunia looks hopefully at the box of herbs as I walk back to my SUV. Lunch is French onion soup with a sprig of thyme and crusty French bread. Dan offers to make dinner tonight. He's made scallop fajitas, with red pepper, tomato and cilantro, with a Cajun seasoning that provides just enough kick to make it special. We sip some Dover Canyon 2002 Cujo Zinfandel with it—one of those big, jammy, purple, spicy, high alcohol zins—it seems tame and fruity with the Cajun scallops and cilantro. I'm still thinking about the black truffle butter. I have some veal sauce from Bistro Laurent in the freezer. I'm thinking about a romantic candlelight meal for Friday, maybe Cornish game hens basted with the sauce and finished with a swipe of truffle butter, wild rice served with a button of truffle butter, and summer squash saute with citrus zest and ginger. . . hmmm . . .

Pan, thanks for the compliment and the info on triticale. No, I'm not a trained photographer, although I once worked as a field reporter for a small newspaper, so I was also my own photographer and had to learn some basics. I use a Kodak Easyshare, but Easy is a relative thing. I have to rely on LK to help me figure it out!

Oh yes. I'm not into hand cranking. We got a rotisserie kit for our Weber. They're inexpensive, and so much fun. The kit includes a riser that extends up about 8 inches, the rod, and a motor. After the chicken was done we removed the kit and put the grill back on so I could speed-grill the asparagus.

Yes, they certainly try! We had coyotes come right up in the flower beds by the house and eat a litter of kittens. Last week during the night I hear a cat shrieking, like a cat fight, but then the shriek went high and seemed to be moving on into the distance at warp speed. Not good! I hit the floor running with Rebel right behind me and let her out the front door. Although not the fiercest of dogs she took off barking. The next morning our favorite fluffy grey kitty walked up to Dan in the vineyard and was rubbing against his legs. "Oh my god," he said, "Look at this!" Half the fur around her neck was gone, and she had bite marks in her neck. Apparently something had gotten her entire head in its mouth and was dragging her off. Spunky follows her new best friend everywhere. It's a little embarrasing for Rebel.

Yep. There is a fantastic product called Plantskydd, a nasty yet organic goo that is water reprellent. It was tested by Weyerhauser on their tree starts. It repels everything. Unfortunately, the liquid version is sometimes backordered for a year, and the granular version is harder to mix and apply. We just got a small drum of it but haven't used it yet. I'm still recovering from the shock of dumping fermented fish emulsion all over myself. My father used it in his Christmas tree farm and said it was effective. He loses baby trees to rabbits, fresh limb growth to deer and elk, and . . . entire 12 foot trees to beaver!! Now there's a guy with a pest problem!

We have deer fencing, eight feet high, and a dog. Of the two, the deer fence is far more effective. The deer fence keeps out most grazing mammals, including Antillio Busi's marauding cows. The family to the east of us, the Busi's, own 800 acres of grazing land. To the west, the Barloggio family owns 1,000 acres of pasture, peas, barley, and safflower. Their cows actually wear bells, and when they walk the ridge at dusk, we can hear the cowbells clanking in the soft summer twilight. We're welcome to climb the fence in spring and fill a bowl full of sugar snap peas from the fields across the road. When the safflower, which is basically a thistle, is in bloom the fields are a vibrant yellow color, and everyone visiting the tasting room will ask us what it is. As the fruit ripens, we invest in bird netting. Due to thick stands of oaks in our area, and the fact that we have a walnut orchard, starlings and blackbirds have us on their daily flight plan. A swarm of voracious birds can wipe out entire rows at the edge of a Really Large Commercial vineyard, and the entire crop in a small, secluded vineyard. And there's the bugs. That's an ongoing war, but my favorite solution to date is Scott Welcher's, the vineyard manager at Wild Horse. He bought some biological predators ( I don't remember which ones) and loaded them into the bomb bay of a remote control plane, and dropped them over the vineyard. We have eight cats, which help to keep the gopher population down, and we had a resident badger. They're nocturnal, but you can tell by the huge burrows with the deep, gnarly claw marks. However, after we put the 12-year-old to work mowing the cover crop, on a lawnmower with his bicycle helmet firmly fastened (he's a little wired), singing Ki-yi-yay at the top of his lungs, the badger left. Last year we had a very fat bobcat hunting gophers. One morning she calmly walked right by me--I was wearing my Big Dog robe with yellow happy faces all over it and drinking Starbucks coffee. How obviously human could I be? She strolled by and went to the edge of the property, where there's a deadfall log covered with poison oak. She looked both ways and hopped underneath, so I grabbed the binocs and sure enough, she had cubs there. As they grew she would take them down to the creek bed to hunt frogs while she watched over them. We would watch from the kitchen windows, which look down over the vineyard and creek. (And we watch windows is hard to say after wiognier!)

Yes, Mayans and Vidalias are extra sweet. I also love Walla Wallas, a Washington State wariety. (Oh sorry, must be the Wiognier.) We love them for caramelized onions and in fact, the picture that I posted was early on. We don't stop sauteeing them until they're a toasty brown and about one-quarter their original volume. They're like candy for grownups. Too rich for me to eat every night, but Dan is becoming addicted to them. Even if you don't eat them for dinner, they make the house smell fabulous, and they hold over for homemade pizza, frittatas . . .

Thank you, the "pup" appears on our red wines. We have a bird on the whites, and, well, the same artist did all three, but we've nicknamed the late harvest art "Beaver on Acid." I'm sure we'll take a look at that before the week is out. The heart-breaking, two-hanky story of Blue, which I swear is not exaggerated, can be found here.

I'm starving! I skipped breakfast, and lunch was an antipasto plate of salami, rye bread and mustard, with pickled beans and dilled corn from Santa Barbara Olive Co. After a heavy day shipping wine out, I put in another back-breaking hour suckering zinfandel vines. Dan announced that he had dinner planned—rotisserie chicken, grilled asparagus and artichoke hearts! Oh, boy. I took a few minutes to check on my greenhouse. And my babies—mostly tomatoes and peppers. They're almost ready to plant out, and if I finish all my paperwork tomorrow, I will treat myself to a gardening afternoon this weekend. Unfortunately, it seems there's a Kings/Wolverines game on tonight. So it was, hey, honey, can you light the coals? and hey, honey, can you do the chicken? As I type this, Dan is saying, hey, Mary, can you clean the grill for me? But it's all okay. After washing up and replacing my dusty duds with a clean sundress, I'm in the zone and relaxing. And since I'm making dinner after all, I'll choose the wine. A friend gave us a bottle of Rosenblum 2001 Viognier, Ripken Vineyard this weekend, so I decide to compare it to an already open bottle of Dover Canyon 2003 Viognier, Hansen Vineyard. Both wines approach 15% alcohol so now I'm feeling really relaxed. First, I cleaned a whole chicken. It was a little torn, but hey, it's just us. In goes a whole bulb of garlic, and a whole lemon with rosemary and fresh bay leaves from the herb garden tucked inside. I rub Trinidad and Maharajah seasonings, from Penzey's Spices on the exterior. Trinidad is a lemon-garlic blend, and the Maharajah contains saffron, which gives the chicken a beautiful dark gold color all over. Two bunches of asparagus are set aside for the grill, slimed with olive oil and sprinkled with dry Italian dressing and lemon pepper. I throw on plenty because a lot of it falls off while it's grilling. Dan is making two artichokes—he trims the 'chokes, sprinkles herbs and spices over the top, then pours olive oil on top of that, to carry the spices down between the leaves. Then he steams them in about 1/2 inch of water. And for Rebel Rose, bonitas--marrow bones prepared in her personal pan. Ah, the chicken is looking toasty and brown. It's now resting in a pan under aluminum foil and some dish towels, to insure that it's done, yet juicy. The vegies are done and Dan is filching asparagus during commercials. When the game is over, we'll eat! Ah, dinner time!

Last night's meal was a rushed affair. We were tired, so we pulled out the marinated steaks that BK made, grilled some corn, and caramelized some sweet Mayan onions. The steaks were so tender we didn't need knives! The corn is the first early white corn from California Polytechnic's gardens. They sell the corn at farmer's markets and to local stores. It's so sweet you can eat it raw. We didn't even add butter or salt. And Dan pulled out a bottle of our Dover Canyon 2000 Menage, a Bordeaux-style blend. Comfort food and comfort wine.

Carolyn's right--wineries, especially small ones, often have offerings of ripe vinifera grapes for tasting during harvest. When I worked at Wild Horse, we'd even put pitchers of fresh pressed juice out on the counter for customers to taste. (But that was a decade ago, back in the day.) Wine grapes are very small and seedy, not voluptuous and juicy like table grapes. The flavor and pigment is locked into the skin, and seeds are an important tannin contributor, so ideally a winemaker wants a high skin-to-juice ratio. With practice, you can taste grapes warm from the picking bin and immediately know the variety. Another important thing to watch for is the ripeness of the seeds, or pips. They should taste like toast or popcorn. Green pips mean the grapes have high sugar but are not truly ripe and will throw harsh tannins with high astringency. I will admit though, when you first meet a vinifera grape, it's uh, size, is disappointing considering the price it commands later.

I know. But the people most affected are consumers, and with the growth of the internet, they're all getting wise to the wonderful wines that they can't get. Things are starting to change rapidly now that consumers are demanding free access to artisan wines. UPS now has a "wine shippers' agreement" that says, in effect . . . go ahead and ship, but if you're arrested we're not to blame. And as Jack Nicholson would say, "Now, who would have thought that would be worse news?"

hathor, do we have wildlife? Hmm, let me see . . . nematodes, insects, beetles and wasps, rabbits, no, but gophers and kits, coyotes, badgers, lions and deer, blackbirds, starlings, barn owls and jays, and, your favorite . . . ta da! I took this picture just after lunch. Dan came up for his lunch and said a young turkey hen had somehow gotten into the vineyard and was following him around. I will never be able to look at a wild turkey again without thinking of you! smithy, that was a good answer to bioviatrix's question. Suckering citrus trees would be brutal. Those little thorns look more delicate than a rose's but they're like needles! Suckering grapevines is easy--the suckers are soft and pliable. I just take a gloved hand, swipe it down the vine, and rub briskly around the graft. The only workout involved is climbing up and down the vineyard rows and bending over. And trust me, I need it. phaelon56, I beg your pardon. They're not steel cut oats after all. (I can't be expected to make sense in the morning without coffee. ) They are rolled, and can therefore be prepared in 5 minutes. This is a "Wheat Montana" mix that Dan's father, who lives in Bigfork, sent us. The mix includes hard wheat, soft wheat, oats, rye, barley, triticale (what is that?) and spelt. I like Silver Palate, too, but I would have to say that this is the best cereal I have ever tasted. I don't know what the price is for the 3 lb. bag he sent us, but their website is on the bag . . . www.wheatmontana.com