For now I leave you with this picture I took while riding back from Virginia after Christmas. And a song off Wilco’s new album Whole Love: One Sunday Morning. It is a gorgeous song but on the depressing side. I promise I am not depressed but rather I am winterized.  Enjoy your Sunday!

 

Fast forward to Christmas.  Daddy thought it would be fun to give Mr. Trap his very own bottle of government liquor.  Enter the Virginia Lightening.  Corn whiskey that is 100 proof and approved by the government. It is meant to resemble white lightening aka moonshine.

Word is still out if Mr. Trap will like it! Thanks Daddy… I think.

Mr. Trap being the kind gentleman that he is let me pick the wine.  I narrowed it down to two choices: big California or Italian without giving him any details.  He chose Italian!  I am glad he did because this wine went with every single one of our food choices.  We ordered a bottle of Gran Sasso 2009 Montepuliciano de Abruzzo. This wine was bright and juicy.  Medium bodied with light tannins. Just a joy in the mouth by being big enough to entertain your mouth alone and pairing well enough with all the food to let the food shine without the wine getting in the way.

What did we order?  (What didn’t we order is an easier question.)

• Boiled peanuts – a must
• French gnocchi with ‘canadian’ bacon, mushrooms, purée blanche, swiss chard, sarvecchio
• Charcuterie board with pate, deviled ham, cold cuts preserves & pickles, hm stout mustard, french baguette toast
• Berkshire pork and grits with smoked ham hock, bbq rib, dixie sausage, red-eye gravy
• Scallops with grapefruit and potatoes
• Salted Butterscotch pot de creme black pepper chantilly, popcorn brittle

In our defense they serve very reasonable portion sizes.  However, this was a huge splurge and our reward for Christmas and the New Year.

What did you do for your New Year’s celebration?

What I learned:

• Port gets it’s name from Oporto Portugal
• Port can get confusing: Tawny Port, Red Port, White Port, Vintage Port
• I love Taylor 20 Year Tawny Port which is from an English House producer.  It was thick, amber, butterscotch, and finished like a pecan pie.  Amazing.  Oddly though the nose reminded me of the pool at Myrtle Beach of my youth.  Combined with the rubber floats we used in the pool.  Very odd. Maybe a chemical nose.  Also, I found there was alcohol on the finish.
• Vintage Port can be opened and enjoyed for months.  However, white vintage port should be tightly sealed and refrigerated.

Among the other ports I tasted:

Ramos Pinto Collector
2005 Taylor LBV
2005 Ramos Pinto LBV
Fonseca 10 Year Tawny Port
Ramos Pinto 20 Year Tawny Bom Retiro

Do you love Port?  What Port should I try next?

Just keeping my theme and collecting photos of Boston in the same spot during the same time. 

A broken Gundlach Bundschu Mountain Cuvee…. flown in from Ca, fallen in Mass… There are tears over here.

I just can’t resist sharing my view from this evening’s walk from work.  I love Fall!

Last week started in Virginia celebrating my Father’s 60th birthday!  Happy Birthday Daddy!  We had a great time drinking scotch, smoking cigars, and eating steak.  Basically sounds like we were trying to outsmart death.

60th Cigar and Scotch

Then Mr. MT and I went to visit some of my best friends in the world.  Not a bad way to spend the day.  When we came back to Boston we were picked up by another wonderful friend and enjoyed some delicious pizza and wine in juice glasses at Santarpio’s in East Boston.  Tuesday night was no exception:  I went over to Mudpie’s house where she had Huntington’s Petite Sirah (yes! back in stock at Menotomy) and cheese waiting on me.  We decided to swing by Menotomy for a South African wine tasting event before heading downtown to see Wilco, our favorite band, at the Wang Theater. What a wonderful evening and quite possibly the most rocking Wilco I have ever seen.

Friday night Mr. MT and I along with some friends took a Vino Voyage around the Boston Harbor for three hours.  Lots of wine and despite the weather, some nice scenery.  I found a new favorite: Geyserville Zinfandel.  Now if I could only afford a case of it I would be set.  This was a fine event.  I would say we got our money’s worth.  We boarded at 6:30 and started tasting wine immediately.  We played it cool and only tasted wines that we were interested in. They had over 200 wines to taste.  We also had dinner and dessert on-board.  We then spent a good hour listening to experts talk about burgundy wine.  I sat there and listened to the expert while my glass kept getting filled with tastes while watching the beautiful Boston skyline pass me by.  Would I do it again?  Maybe.

Saturday was a nice day with the Boston “family”.  We went over to Mudpie’s for an afternoon of football, bean dip, and a chicken soup that I whipped up to nurse the man who gave me this darn cold.  I wanted my Mom’s chicken soup but she was over 800 miles away so I was left to my own devices.  I had Mudpie’s help and even Mudslinger added her touch to the soup.  It started with some seared chicken breast in olive oil.  I removed the chicken and added chopped onion, celery, carrots, and garlic to the chicken oil.  After that had reduced I added back the chicken that I shredded along with chicken stock, kale, large hot red pepper, thyme, rosemary, sage, peppercorn, white pepper, salt, cayenne pepper, hot sauce, and red wine vinegar to the mix to stew for about 90 minutes. What to do while you are waiting for the soup to cook?  Well go to a wine tasting of course!  After we came back from the wine tasting I added about a cup of quinoa to the soup to bulk it up.  It was really good.  Unfortunately it did not prevent the cold from spreading.

Saturday night did not disappoint.  I went to a friend’s house-warming party that was complete with lots of wine and good times.  I even broke out a reading to celebrate the Fall season.

Decorative Gourd Season!

No wonder I feel so crappy this week.  I lived three weeks in one last week.  Excuse me while I go take a nap.

Favorite moments from last week:

• Sitting on the back porch in VA with my family.
• Watching Mr. MT have his first, second, and third shot of moonshine.
• Visiting with 75% of my favorite people in the world in one week.
• Meeting a new member to my friend family otherwise known as the sweetest and smilingest baby Sullie.
• Wine, wine, and moar wine.
• Dancing and singing with Mudpie at the Wilco concert.
• Cruising with my man around the Boston Harbor and realizing how much we had shared together in just one week.
• Wine.
• College Football!
• Reading one of my favorites at a friend’s party by request!

First,  I think I have become very happy with my life in the last few years.  I really think that helps.  I am not afraid of missing out on anything anymore.  If I were to pass before my time well rest assured that I have lived a great life to date.  See, told you it would be deep.  So that helped.  Secondly, I fell head over heels over the band Drive-By Truckers.  I could write a series of posts on how I feel about this band.  Mostly I feel connected to them like I feel connected to home.  They are extremely talented musicians and very talented song-writers.  They are very relevant to me.  So when I first heard this song “Shut Your Mouth and Get Your Ass on the Plane”  I thought it was silly and fun.  It is a great song to dance to at the end of one of their shows.  Once I had a chance to really listen to the lyrics, and to quote Cellar Roomie “Hand to God”, it changed everything.  Almost instantly I was no longer scared to fly.  This song just made sense and resonated with me unlike anything else could.  Check out some of these lyrics from the song:

We’ve been this close to death before, we were just too drunk to know it, Guess the price of being sober is being scared out of your mind

When it comes your time to go, ain’t no good way to go about it
Ain’t no use in thinking bout it
You’ll just drive yourself insane
There comes a time for everything
And the time has come for you to shut your mouth and get your ass on the plane

And the clencher…

Dead is dead and it ain’t no different than walking around if you ain’t living
Living in fear’s just another way of dying before your time

That Mike Cooley is awfully clever!  So I make it a chance to listen to this song every time before I fly just to remind myself.  Works like a charm.  I have shared this technique with Drunk Mama who is a nervous flyer and I think it has helped her too.

Tomorrow I am getting on the plane to go Home!  I haven’t been there in nine months.  It is time for me to shut my mouth and get my ass on the plane.

Snapped this with my phone on my walk home tonight.  Boston is one of the most beautiful cities when the weather cooperates… So like 30 days out of the year. Cheers B-town!