melkor

Not much is reasonably priced around here. The croissants at Bouchon Bakery are 3/4 the size of normal croissants and cost $2 each.

Before I moved to the Napa Valley, I lived in a different tourist trap - right next to Woodstock NY in a tiny town no one has heard of. There are a few really good places to eat around there. the Bear Cafe Located right outside woodstock on highway 212 in an old farmhouse style building overlooking a small stream. The menu is california/american cuisine, they have a solid wine list with a reasonable markup. New World Home Cooking on the other side of woodstock, in saugerties – caribbean/cuban/new orleans/some of everything else, the blackened string beans are an absolutely required part of any visit. Depuy Canal House consistently serves the best food in upstate NY. They are located in the middle of nowhere, in the town of high falls. They run a bed and breakfast across the street. It's an hour and a half or so north of NYC, and a very good way to spend a weekend. Calico in Rhinebeck, is a very small bistro and bakery. They only have 8 or so tables and are open only a few days a week, but the food is excellent and the pastries are even better. And the thing I've now learned about all the places I used to eat regularly is that they almost all have awful websites. Cripple Creek and Max's Memphis BBQ are both also worth checking out.

This week in Napa we got a new vendor from half moon bay, where it rarely gets warm enough to be considered spring. They brought with them shelling peas, fava beans, and artichokes. It was also nice to meet Carolyn Tillie and her SO at the market. All and all, this week was better than last, but with my garden in full swing I need less and less from the market each week. black raspberries artichokes shelling peas santa rosa plums blueberries 10lbs of oranges a dozen eggs and an ambrosia mellon.

So make vanilla extract out of them. Take a pint mason jar (or mayo jar or whatever), slice the beans the long way, then cut them into 1" chunks, toss them into the jar and fill it with vodka. Put the bottle in a dark cabinet and shake it once a week or so. In a month or two it'll be vanilla extract. I refill my little vanilla extract bottles from the mason jar of vanilla, the extract gets stronger the longer it is in contact with the beans.

Howzabout a nice mer-lot? Ya' just couldn't leave it alone, couldjya'??? :laugh: How could I? Awwww.... no Mad Dog???? I generaly shy away from most of gallo's products

no way the ahi burger and espresso bean shake anyone been to joel gott vineyards? his cabernet goes well with larb Whatever you get, you must also get the garlic fries. I haven't been to joel gott vineyards yet... I suspect your mentioning him because he and his brother own Taylor's. They do make some really really good wine, and reasonably priced as well.

Here is a dissertation on different muscat varieties.

DOH!!

Answer removed and PM'd to slkinsey.

Howzabout a nice mer-lot? Ya' just couldn't leave it alone, couldjya'??? :laugh: How could I?

Howzabout a nice mer-lot?

Excellent idea! But you should start a new thread as more people are likely to see it that way. If your going to be running around Napa tomorrow you should come to the farmers market, I usualy go around 7:30 or 8am. PM me if you'll be there.

Whatcha got against the terminator for gov'ner?

I'm in also... I think for this to work we'll need to pm our tasting notice to someone and have them posted all at once or setup a board that is post only. It's much better to have a bunch of different posts including the 'this tastes like froot' posts than to have all the posts say 'hints of cherry, cassis, and black currant' because the first person to post said that. What's the price target? Since it's summer it would seem like a reasonably good idea to do a summery white to start with, maybe one wine per week or per night - whatever people are comfortable with. I'd say a good easy wine to start with would be the simple Dr. Loosen 2001 Riesling (non QmP), it's in wide distribution and only costs $10 or so. A slightly more exotic option would be D'Arenberg Laughing Magpie (Shiraz/Viogner) which is $15 in oz and $25 for the rest of us.

Most produce is better when you grow it yourself or get it from a local farmer, almost always cheaper that way than from the store.

Not even if the category is 'shit people clicked on last year'? The Zagat most popular list is almost entirely worthless.

Definitely. They do a black truffle tasting menu in February that is really amazing.

Not a chance, this late harvest white zin would score 96 points in any glass!

I'm focused on the troos or trus question... To my ear, that clip supports my trus opinion. The speaker as well as the Chateau are french, so I suspect it's safe to go with the french pronunciation. Besides, it's just a bottle of Merlot

Or, as the Mondavi's prefer to characterize it, not another California fruit bomb. It's funny how a yield of 8+ tons an acre off the valley floor and not another fruit bomb (aka bell pepper/asparagus) go hand in hand.

This week we are picking: basil (2 or 3 cups every day or two), haricot verts, beets, carrots, early season corn, zucchini, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, early girl, roma, and yellow/red grape tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, strawberries, raspberries, and pumpkins. Artichokes, peppers, melons, grapes, late season corn, and the other dozen tomato varieties are on their way soon.

http://www.privateclubs.com/archives/2000-...ne_stemware.htm Excellent article. At Copia we had a Riedel tasting hosted by Georg's son Maximilian Riedel. My experience matched what was described in that article to a tee. Including: The glasses are only able to hide structural flaws; there isn’t anything anyone can do about the vegetal nature of Mondavi Cabernet.

I got there as they were still setting up the counter, the display case is full later in the day. The bottom three ovens are electric and they are used for baking bread, the top oven is gas and is where all the pastries made. They are 14' deep, with a slate floor. I bought a ciabatta, but since this is a French bakery we’ll call it a rustiq. They use wild yeast for most of their breads. This is an especially good ciabatta, a nice thick crust with a perfect balance between crunchy and chewy. The crumb is very soft, with a faint hint of olive oil, this is damn good bread. If the bread from my oven were half as good I’d be excited. Vacaville is a hike from here, I'll check out their croissants next time I'm out there. I guess my lunch today will have to be a sandwich of some kind of the croissant I got from Bouchon.

I've got a 9' x 12' section of my garden where we plant corn. It's split into 9 blocks, each being 3' x 4'. We plant 12 plants in each block, planting one block every two or three weeks. In the beginning of the year we will plant the 7th, 8th, and 9th blocks at the same time as we are planting 1 through 3. The corn in 7 though 9 is early season corn and we plant the others with late season (Silver Queen) by the time the 6th block is planted the early season corn is ready to come out and be replanted with Silver Queen. This gives us fresh corn from the garden from late June until the middle of November. But we are in zone 9 (northern ca) so we get started planting corn in March.

I'm sticking with Pet-russ, but I do kind of like the idea of calling Dominus Domi-noooose. this link supports my pronunciation of Petrus.