melkor

It would seem that the time to use natural cork as a wine closure is drawing to an end. Screw cap (Stelvin) closures seem like a much better way to seal a wine bottle. Corks have proven to be reasonably reliable closures but they not only suffer from occasional TCA taint, they are also at least partly at fault for the variations found between bottles of the same wine. Wine bottles are formed in a way to allow slight variations in the inner diameter of the bottleneck, corks are all the same size and as a result the seal between bottle and cork is better in some bottles than others. If Stelvin closures can both reduce TCA taint and bottle variation (by attaching to the outside of the bottles rather than the inside) what other than skeptical consumers and winemakers stands in the way of their mainstream acceptance? Have you had the opportunity to taste the same wine stored over time from bottles using multiple closures? I wonder how much resistance there was to abandoning amphorae in favor of wine bottles half a millennium ago.

I've been making the same zucchini bread with the stuff since the garden started making too much to just eat, that was about a year ago. Now I've got this years plants starting to produce, I suppose I should finish off what is left in the freezer before these plants get out of control. Here's my Zucchini Bread recipe: 2 eggs 1c sugar 1/3 cup oil 1 3/4 cups flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp baking powder 1 1/2 cups grated zucchini 1/2 tsp vanilla turbinado sugar Beat eggs, then add and beat sugar, then oil in stand mixer. Combine dry ingredients and add to mixer a cup at a time alternating with zucchini. Stir in vanilla. Pour into loaf pans, sprinkle with turbinado sugar and bake at 350 for about 50 minutes.

Zucchini Bread 2 eggs 1 c sugar 1/3 c oil 1-3/4 c flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1 tsp baking powder 1-1/2 c grated zucchini 1/2 tsp vanilla turbinado sugar Beat eggs, then add and beat sugar, then oil in stand mixer. Combine dry ingredients and add to mixer a cup at a time alternating with zucchini. Stir in vanilla. Pour into loaf pans, sprinkle with turbinado sugar and bake at 350 for about 50 minutes. Keywords: Bread ( RG556 )

Bake the squash first I assume, I'll try that tomorrow.

I've still got to figure out what to do with the 150lbs of shredded zucchini I've got in the freezer from last year...

Seems the four plants we planted this year are a bit more prolific than expected, in addition to the ones we picked today there are another few dozen on the plants and they are still setting fruit. So I need a plan for the 25lbs of squash in the kitchen and the few hundred pounds to come over the coming weeks. What should I do with this stuff aside from the usual roasting with parmesan?

It is indeed his son, Charlie passed away about a year ago. They have been making good wine in bad years and great wine in good years. They also make a Zinfandel that is only sold out of the tasting room; it's made with fruit from the 100+ year-old vines in the Monte Rosso vineyard and some fruit from the valley floor - very cab like in structure, definitely worth checking out.

There has been a minor adjustment on the premium market; most of the high-end Napa Cabs that aren't all sold through mailing lists (Insignia, Caymus SS, Opus, etc) have lowered their prices slightly. The major change that I'm seeing is the $20-$30 mass produced wines are not selling (Mondavi, BV, Sterling, ...) and are being repackaged and sold for half their original price with a different label and sometimes an entirely different brand name.

I've got the same problem with my pumpkin plants, I'm more worried about what I'm going to do with all the pumpkins. It's like that all over the patch they are growing in.

That’s exactly the reason we don't eat at Tra Vigne anymore, there are only some many times you can eat the same meal. Four of us together have eaten the entire menu at ZuZu in Napa in one sitting. ZuZu a tapas bar with an amazing wine list so it's really not so hard to eat everything they have to offer.

Your best bet may be online at premier cru. They are in California but they have a pretty good selection.

Frightening.

It wasn't my order that took so long, they were just running really slowly. There were maybe ten cars in front of me when I got there, they just were running really slowly.

Out the door I go, drive for a few miles, and take the exit and here we are: Neon... I suppose I should have expected that from Fat Guy's picture of the place, regardless it's not a good sign. Now things are looking up, we not only have neon - we also have a gas station! The first thing that I think of when I think fine dinning is where is the nearest Chevron... Rather than find parking in the strangely crowded lot I make a major mistake and choose the drive through: 40, count them FORTY minutes pass from the time I drive past that sign and the time that I receive my food, isn't the drive thru supposed to be faster? Would I still be at Carl's Jr. if I instead opted to go inside? Not having any idea what to order I go with Hollywood’s recommendation of the six dollar burger ($3.95) and their waffle cut (CrissCut) fries. $6.07 plus forty minutes of breathing the exhaust from the smoking pile of shit minivan in front of me. So here's the famous six dollar burger, a reasonably fresh bun, some mayo with pickles on the bottom, a piece of charred grey meat possibly from a mule, some limp red onions, a tomato that could be mistaken for iceberg lettuce, some iceberg lettuce core, more mayo, some mustard and the top bun. It's not that this burger is bad when you compare it to the other options you have while driving down the freeway, at least you can tell that this cartilage laced piece of donkey meat was at one point a living breathing creature, at McDonalds your lucky to tell which part of the sandwich is supposed to be the meat. In and Out is much much better (aside from their creepy bible verses on their drink cups). On to my backup plan for dinner:

ok since you guys won't let this thread die and the new store is all of 10 minutes away from here... I'll be back with photos and a report in half an hour.

I always put salt in the dough when I'm making pasta. For two people: 100g semolina, a large pinch of salt, and an egg. I don't however cook it in salted water.

Last time I was in Montreal for the Grand Prix we got a 4 top at Toque! on a walk in, I don't think there as many people looking for amazing food as there are people looking for large quantities of beer. The best bar scene was at New Town.

I've got room for at least another couple of cases . I've still got to sort out a system for keeping track of what bottles ended up where, but first on the list of things to do is drink all the wine in odd shaped bottles

Had I known that such an amazing place was opening so close I would have visited already.

So it finally arrived, $245.13 for shipping, on top of the $1100.75 and whatever tax ended up being. The shipping company showed up more or less on time, unpacked and setup the wine cabinet where I wanted it in the house and left with all the packing junk maybe 20 minutes after they pulled up in front of the house. I spent the next few hours loading my wine into it. My only complaint is the bastards up valley from me use strange shaped bottles that don't fit properly in standard sized racking - Quintessa and Cardinales bottles are too long to fit double deep in the cabinet, Insignia, Turley, and all the bottles of Champagne are too wide to fit in the standard width 750ml bottle slots. Westside was kind enough to swap out two rows of standard racking for a row of 4" and a row of 3" to accommodate magnums and 375ml bottles, I ended up packing the space above the racking with the odd shaped bottles that didn't fit in the available racking. If I were to do it again, I'd get two rows of 4" along with the row of 3". Otherwise the build quality is good, the cooling unit is quiet and seems to be doing a good job, and the unit was delivered without any hassle and on schedule. Here are a couple of pics of the cabinet:

I've been making bagels from the same recipe your using (bread bakers apprentice) but using a sourdough starter. There is a grace note on page 115 that says to use 35oz of starter in place of the sponge. I usualy need a little more flour in the final dough since my starter is kind of soupy but the bagels come out really well that way. Using the starter also means the bagels take one day to make instead of two.

I finally got around to taking some pictures of our garden. We've got veggies growing around the edge of the back yard and a bunch more stuff growing at our plot at the community garden 1/4 mile away.

11 1/2 ft x 21 ft

The cabinet I ordered holds 350 bottles and cost $1100.75 + tax and shipping. It seems like a good deal to me.

Oh, and I ordered mine from west side wine cellars which sells the same products at a slightly better price.