I am the Audience

Wine and cheese

July 2, 2015

a day in this life, food & drink

This post is for the amusement of avincie and annmeeker.

My loving husband got me a wine club membership. It is at the Cork And Cow Wine Bar at the mall near my job. We found the place by accident when we had time to kill before a movie and went in for a wine tasting.

Their tastings are offered on Tuesdays and Wednesdays every week and cost $5. YOu are given 2 crackers, a bite of cheese and tastes of 4 wine that are generous enough to be the equivalent of a glass of wine.

The club membership is $99 for the first 3 months and $40/month thereafter. It provides you with your name engraved on a Riedel red wine glass that stays there for your use when you come to taste, one free tasting every week and 2 bottles of wine chosen from the wines tasted on the first week of each month. If/when you cancel your membership, you take the glass home with you. the club wine prices range between $20 and $40 each month.

This is a fun thing for wine drinkers and I rarely go in for a tasting without spending “extra” money on tapas. And sometimes another glass or bottle of wine. Everybody wins.

Now, the Cow part of the menu. They have nice cheeses. I can easily find 3 to put together one of their cheese plates. And the bite they give you with a tasting can stretch to a nibble with each sample of wine. It changes each week, with the wines, so that can be its own adventure.

And, of course, I lost the little list of what was served the first week of this month. That was the week that the cheese was manchego. This is a sheeps’ milk cheese. And I usually like it. But, I found it to be an interesting combination with the wines. Because I hate goat cheese with the heat of a thousand suns. OK. Maybe not quite that bad. But, goats’ milk and its cheeses have a musty flavor that I find very unpleasant. Most people I know don’t taste it whatever that particular molecule is. I can’t avoid it. It cannot be hidden or covered up. My sister has tried. And 2 of the 4 wines turned the usually pleasant sheep cheese into goat cheese on my tongue

I found that to be a fascinating example of wine and food working together. Or not working.

I am repeatedly intrigued by how our physical perceptions differ and change. That one was pretty dramatic.
Ruining a steak

May 28, 2015

a day in this life, family, food & drink

I saw this graphic on FaceBook this morning and it made me think of my grandmother:

Kate grew up in the country. Her father was a farmer with a third grade education. They didn’t always have a lot of ready cash, but they were never, ever hungry. It was kind of a shame that she didn’t like “vegetavles,” because they were abundant. She was a bread-and-meat kind of girl. And, when she was old, she enjoyed going out for dinner to a steak house.

I took her to a Western Sizzlin’ or whatever equivalent was in Morganton, NC, one time, and freaked out the guy taking our order when she asked for a filet mignon cooked well done. He said “It will be a charcoal briquet if we do that.” She insisted that was always how she had her meat cooked. He found his manager to deal with her because he was at a complete loss for what to do. The manager said, “We can butterfly it and cook it that way, but a filet is too thick to make it well done and still be edible.” I said that would be fine.

When it came to the table, she was delighted. It was the best steak she had ever had.

Sometime after that, I took her out for dinner, again, and, again, she ordered a filet cooked to death. The server got this appalled expression and started to say something. I stopped him, smiling, and said, “Just have the kitchen butterfly it and cook it that way. She will be delighted with it.” He kind of shook his head and wrote down the rest of our order.

And she was delighted. I was, too. It made me happy to have the ability to make her happy and de-stress the people who were helping me do that.
Death is Nothing at All

May 20, 2015

dancing in the field of dreams

I found this on FaceBook yesterday.

“Written by Henry Scott Holland (27 January 1847 – 17 March 1918) was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford”
My little peach

May 4, 2015

a day in this life

Last summer we had some delicious peaches. I stuck 14 pits in one of the potato dirt bags after reading around on the internet to see what would actually work. They need opportunity to freeze.

Two sprouted and, because I’m not always the sharpest tack in the box, I killed one. I didn’t recognize its tiny leaves and thought it was a weed. The sacrifice of the one saved the life of the other, however. And it has been moved to a pot my cat isn’t tempted to sleep on.

I realize that it looks tiny in that huge pot, but I don’t expect to move it for a few years.
Bone Wind

May 2, 2015

poetry and songs

Found on Tumblr this morning by following #ordinary things. I”m saving it here because I really like the poem and want to remember it in December.

http://witchesandpagans.com/sagewoman-blogs/woodspriestess/bonewind-s-return.html

Bone wind has returned
    mother of winter’s chill
    sweeping through bare branches
    and rattling dusty leaves.

    The remnants of summer
    have completely faded
    and the doorway to the new year
    has cracked open.

    With the skeletal swirl of frost and freeze
    I see the hint
    of new things
    waiting to burst from behind the door.

    Hibernating now perhaps
    hunkered down to wait it out
    resting, biding time, percolating
    nestled in darkness
    but, oh so ready, to grow.

    It is only on the surface
    that the world prepares to take a long nap
    underneath the crust
    change boils
    life bubbles
    new ideas gestate
    and time crowns anew
    with the promise and potential of birth
    held in cupped hands.

    The flame of fresh ideas flickers
    and catches
    until the blaze of possibility
    envelopes the cold.