Pamela Schoenewaldt: When We Were Strangers: A Novel (*****)
Malcolm Gladwell: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (***)
Tomorrow is election day and so it is important that you take a few minutes and exercise this right. We have seen too many people willing to die and even dying for this right as the Arab Spring swept through North Africa. Don't take it for granted. Go vote!! Tomorrow I will give you a few reflections on voting days past.
"My whole teaching in one sentence is: "Run slowly, run daily, drink moderately, and don't eat like a pig." -Dr. Ernst van Aaken, renowned German coach
I don't know where I came across this quotation but I kind of like it. I just wikipediad (yes, I know that isn't a word) this guy and apparently he was a huge advocate of endurance running as well as an advocate for women as equal competitors when that was unusual. Kind of cool. That "run daily" is the same thing that Jeff Galloway said when I heard him speak before the Run for Virginia Wine. He said "run everyday even if only for 10 minutes". I wonder if I could do that...I wonder if it would keep me from going into these funks where I can't get out the door. I set a mileage goal for the month -- it is high. I am counting time on feet both running and walking: 130 miles. It will definitely be a stretch. I hope I can do it.
French Nougat This stuff is amazing. I first discovered it in a tasting box from the now defunct petit amuse and had to have more and so I contacted Dedier. He could not have been nicer and soon had some nougat on its way to my house but if you are feeling ambitious, he shared his recipe with food and wine. Check it out, I want this guy to be successful so this little taste of heaven is easier to come by.
French knives I bought a couple of these to keep in my winery bag, my purse, my desk at work. They are the perfect paring knife for slicing cheese or fruit and they are easy to tuck into a pocket or bag without worrying about cutting yourself. If you can't tell from the picture, the blade folds up and locks in the handle.
1st half marathon 2012 Run for VA wine
What's complicated, you ask? It is my relationship with running (or jogging if you will). I am currently training for my fourth half marathon. Every time I say that I have to go back in my head and list them -- it is only three that I have completed and yet I cant fathom that I have really done that. Then my eternal voice discounts the feat by saying something like "OK, so you finished three half marathons, but you don't run the whole thing and you are slow". What is that about? I can rarely mention to someone else that I do these races without mentioning that I am super slow, without discounting this feat. I have a mantra that I repeat in my head (usually on out and back races as just a wee bit into the race those fast runners are already on their way back and passing me) "Each to their own ability". I am telling myself not to compare myself with these fast runners and yet I still discount my own performance.
Maybe it is my own like/hate relationship with running. Another mantra I found myself repeating on one long hill slog early in this adventure I call running was "you never regret the run once you are done." Hmm, what does that say about before and during?
So back to my 4th half marathon. I paid for my registration, I booked my over priced hotel room and in one short week I will be flying down to Savannah, GA. I am really doing this and for the first time I was going to have more then 8 weeks to train. For the first 6 weeks I logging my long runs each weekend, every weekday morning the alarm would go off at 4:40 in hopes that three days a week I will fit in some morning mileage (and I have been averaging 2 or 3 short runs a week). But like most of my training, it is hard for me to keep up the intensity once those long runs reach the 9 mile mark. I didn't make the 10 mile long run, I just made excuses to myself and then a week had gone by -- so I planned on 11 for that next week but I had taken a week off -- the run started out slow, hard and I only made it 10.25 before calling it a day. Next Saturday I will run Rock 'n' Roll Savannah. Pretty sure I am signing up for New Orleans again this year too...you see, it's complicated.
It is November, a month that marks my birth. The days are short and getting shorter and yet the farmers here in Virginia are not quite ready to end their forays to the city's farmers' markets. The last of the harvest is coming in and they begin to clean up the fields and plant a cover crop and move into the high tunnels. The leaves are still clinging to the trees in bright colors in these early days of November and by the end of the month there will be the few lone brown crinkled leaves refusing to make the descent to the ground.
In the kitchen, everyone is obsessesd with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and calling it pumpkin...oh and the soups shift to stews and the vegetables are once again going into the oven to be roasted. Squash, dark greens and sweet potatoes replace the zucchini, tomatoes and eggplants of late summer. Meals become heartier and it is hard to find balance in the season of eating.
Once again, despite a crazy social schedule for at least the first half of the month, I am going to try and move beyond just writing for myself and share a few of those stories with interwebs. Welcome to National Blog Posting Month: November 2013.
Carole's Ten on Tuesday topic is Ten things I always bring on vacation as she gets ready for a big trip to Mexico. I love to travel and there are some things that always find their way into my luggage.
So after a full day of running yesterday, I jumped on the metro bound for the Newseum for the yearly eating of the pig, Cochon 555. This event brings together 5 chefs, 5 heritage pigs, 5 wineries and 5 American Whiskeys for a culinary event and competition. This year's chefs were Mike Isabella of Graffiato and Bandolero, Haidar Karoum of Proof and Estadio, Kyle Bailey of Birch and Barley, Jeffery Buben of Vidalia and Woodward Table, and Bryan Voltaggio of Volt and the Range. Oh and there was a sixth chef and pig that was prepared by John Critchley from Bourbon Steak.
You entered the Newseum and headed upstairs to check in where you received a wine glass for tasting the wines from Sandhi, Scholium Project, Elk Cove, Westpost Rivers, and Silver Oak.
Then you were offered Virginia oysters from Rapphannock Oyster Co. who were serving the Olde Salts from the Chincoteague Bay and the Rappohannock River Oyster which is sweet and buttery due to the brackish waters of the river. Both were excellent as well as the Oyster shooter that had vodka and saki in it if I remember correctly. I think if you are local to the DC area that these oysters can be found at Union Market. The shooter as well as a wonderful punch were being mixed up by none other than DC beloved mixologist, Gina Chersevani.
Mike Isabella's offerings were the first that we encountered. Those pork fat arancini were amazing fresh and hot. Really pretty amazing way to start this pig fest. The offerings were amazing and in addition to the competing chefs they also sponsors who were show casing food.
One of my favorite bites of the evening was a wild boar tarrine from Dino.
And let's not forget the cheese bar that featured cheeses from Cypress Grove, Rouge Creamery, Righteous Cheese, Vermont Creamery, and Spring Brook Farm.
Overall it was a very enjoyable evening.
*Thanks to Cochon 555 for the images watermarked "the Fifth Anniversary Tour"
Several years ago when I was participating in my first Eat Local Challenge, I had had a particularly stressful day and was thinking maybe a cocktail was in order. I went down to my local ABC store (that is the Alcoholic Beverage Control for those of you who don't live in the Old Dominion) and started looking through the shelves -- no tequila, that's from Mexico, Rye is from Canada, and Vodka, well Russia or Scandinavia but not Virginia --wait -- is that Virginia Gentleman? Surely that is made in Virginia. Then I carefully read the label...hmm, distilled in Kentucky, finished in Virginia. Surely that wasn't really a local product. Well, the A. Smith Bowman Distillery seems to have a few other tricks up their sleeve in addition to refining Kentucky Sour Mash Distillate.
Welcome to the A. Smith Bowman distillery. Oh wait, this is going on the internet? cover your faces. (and yes, my sister knew I would put up both pictures.) The neicelets are home schooled and see the twin in the blue dress? She wants to be a chemist when she grows up. Well, a chemist or else she wants to sell snow cones. These things are hard to decide at 5. (Mom is encouraging both interests as long as that snow cone truck will pay her way through college...organic chem doesn't come cheap these days.) What better place for a field trip to show chemistry at work. So, they jumped in the trusty mini van (Aunt Jas in tow) and headed up to Fredricksburg, VA to the site of the old FMC Corp Cellophane plant. (Oh, and a former superfund site...apparently cellophane production is some toxic stuff.
The tour started out with a basic definition of bourbon.
There are some other stipulations about the proof of the drink at given stages of the process that go into the definition as well. I had no idea that the smokey flavor (and for that matter the color) came from burnt wood. Interesting. Next we met Mary, their copper still.
Apparently a copper still of her size is quite unusual. Most of the distillers only line their stainless steel stills with copper. (Copper being important to remove sulfur from the ethyl alcohol which eventually cause the need for repairs due to erosion for an entirely copper still. Repairs are necessary about every 8 years). Basically ethyl alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water and collects in the ball pictured above and then condenses in the coils. They only use the middle part of the distillation process referred to as the heart, as this is the best flavor. This middle part of the process is determined by human tasters. As subjective as that sounds they are way more accurate than any machine (which can only taste to parts per billion while the average human can taste to parts per trillion -- or at least that is what the tour guide said).
Eventually the bourbon is barrelled and left to age for 7 years. During this process quite a bit of volume can be lost 3-7% per year. So the more it is aged, the less it yields. The barrel aging room was stacked floor to ceiling.
The bottling and packing was a small corner of the main room -- a two person job. Small batch production is quite evident when you realize how manageable the whole production is and they only have 10 employees and two of them are giving tours. Last there was a wee little taste...has me thinking of an old fashioned, even now.
The sun has been out and trying to herald in this cool and rainy spring, asking apologies for the the late March snow. I am left craving green, craving FRESH, craving light flavors. I haven't been to the farmer's market in a month or two (vegetable delivery rocks!) and I know there isn't much in season that hasn't been forced in a green house or hoop houses...but I have been crazing craving nonetheless. As the spring warmth makes you want to clear out the cobwebs of winter, I have been trying to focus on cooking from the pantry...maybe you have a cabinet like this...
full of bottles (there are another two rows behind what you can see and then a few others elsewhere) ...some are used regularly and others less so. Forgotten after whatever recipe they were bought for, like the bottle of bulgur, right there front and center, what can I do with that? Wait, didn't I just pin a recipe for that? ah the FRESH tastes of tabouli. Now this isn't extremely local for this time of year but life is about balance -- what is it they say 80/20? This is one of those 20% meals.
Tabouli
adapted from Sam at Drizzle and Drip
Mix the bulgur wheat, water, olive oil, lemon juice and water in a bowl, covered and let sit to water is absorbed and temperature has cooled 30 min to an hour.
Meanwhile chop the remaining ingredients (I try to keep everything about the same size as the sliced scallions) and mix in bulgur mixture. Serve at room temperature.
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