hello again, sort of

Well, I just looked, and last posting was 18 September! And here is it, 3 October (the day after MFO’s X^th Birthday).   The temporary darkness was due to a number of things not the least of which was a trip to STL to see both FOJ’s and take in a “National Specialty” event hosted by the American Kennel Club.  A specialty show is a dog show which reviews a single breed, unlike other dog shows, which are generally referred to as "all-breed" because they are open to all breeds recognized by the sponsoring kennel club.  FOJTY’s dogs are American Wire Haired Pointing Griffons, and so his portion was only for the AWPGA breed.   While there is a lot more “in the can” here is a picture of a “Griff” (not his, but related, another story for another time

And in action with Duke

They are basically a hunting breed, and alert readers will remember I have posted pictures before of FOJTY doing training. 

There will be more scenes from the competition in editions to come.

And now for something completely different!

I had a most pleasant surprise the other day, that kind of astounded me (I am trying to avoid using the overworked term: “aMAAAAAAzing”).  I was able to procure a whole beef tenderloin from a local farm, and a friend was kind enough to cut it into filets for me.  In exchange for a good glass of wine he agreed to come over and grill it for us (another lesson!).  In the end, an empty propane bottle scuttled the grilling scheme, but a nice job by me in a cast iron skillet did well.  Anyway, in honor of the steaks, I decided that we should raid the “Silver Oak” stash, as the “never the right time for THIS wine” syndrome has resulted in a growing inventory of said wine. 

On a whim, I went to the far end of the selections, and found this:

In case your eyes are fading like mine, look at the vintage on the label!

That wine is approximately 31 years old!  Expecting the worst, we also brought up a younger vintage.  My friend is quite an accomplished consumer of wine, and was able to extract the cork with help of an Ah So without crumbling it – which is common with older bottles, and employed the coffee filter trick to capture the sediment (after all, if you had been laying down for 20 odd years, you’d have sediment too!

After letting it breathe a little we hesitatingly poured it into a glass

Now those of you who are familiar with older vintages of wine know that in general, the older the wine, the more it takes on a “brick” color, which doesn’t extend far into the edge of the wine.

We were both surprised that while this one exhibited some of that, it held its color pretty well.   On top of that, the nose still revealed fruit, and on the palate there were noticable tannins.  Instead of having to dump it, we enjoyed it.   Pretty special

It gives me hope that the 2000’s vintages are worth drinking.   I will have to investigate and report!  I have decided that there is no sense in not drinking my “special” wines, who know what the future holds (the Shadow do….).

Harvest

Last spring, with the help of our landscape team, we planted a bunch of plants (butterfly bushes, a couple of those red stick Dogwoods, an American Beauty Bush (for the birds), and my usual brace of herbs: parsley, basil, thyme, and our existing tarragon, chives, and the seemingly ageless volunteer Dill..  The deer made short work of the parsley, the basil wend wild, as did the tarragon, and the thyme hung on…

So finally we decided to “clean up” the bed by the pool, and harvest some of the stuff for culinary purposes.  We focused on the basil, dill, and tarragon, and came up with quite a lot.

PH-18

We don’t get fancy trying to preserve them, just (painstakingly) editing them for the “good ones” and then after washing laying out in front of our window.

Eventually I will strip the leaves from the dill and tarragon, and kind of crush the basil into flakes.  Next year I’ll take more pains to cover the parsley.. home dried.

Finally, just kind of a pretty “still life” on our counter

 and as usual, we won't forget to say:

DFD and

NMMJ

(and for the few who still ask about the latter, No More Mason Jars is a plea for restaurants to stop bringing me water/tea/soda in those clunky Ball Mason Jars with a handle on it.  Disgusting)