Toast

Ratafia Mafia

I have been very lazy, and failed to fulfill my big plans to put up every sort of plum in every sort of preserve this summer. I am hoping to otherwise fulfill my cravings for a drunken whiff of summer in February with a few bottles of fruit (and maybe some fennel) ratafia. According to an story* by Pete Wells in the NYTimes (he of the controversial "cheese sandwich" article, dissing food blogs he considered lacking in mission), ratafia can also do this summer conjuring trick.

There is a recipe there for ratafia from the restaurant T'afia, where several of these concoctions are available at all times. The recipe is entirely adaptable to your own ideas- have a look. You really do need to keep them in the fridge it seems, and their shelflife is such that they are more suited to the home-cook (or craft-y chef) than to commercial production. So good for us.

The one you see here is a nectarine/white pepper/basil one in its first stages, and I've got some lovely damson plums in line for another. They will be those left-over from making the redfox's plum cake, which is the best ever, though you must, of course, avoid the "heat bombs of death," allowing it to cool properly.

*Cleverly screwed up the link, I did. Fear not- recipe is posted in the comments below.

How Now: Root Beer Dreams IV

It may come as a disappointment to some (eg. you, Lynn, but no doubt others as well) that I have not forgotten the Root Beer Project. Rather, I have been awaiting the delayed arrival of my root beer selections from the Soda King. The order is finally on its way-I got the email notifcation on Wednesday, and, sorry, but my fascination has been rekindled. (Not that it was ever de-kindled; it's been lying in wait all along.) I have, however, sort of forgotten why I thought that tasting various root beers would help me decide how to brew my own, especially since the ingredients listings on the bottles are the last word in vague.

It will be fun (for me, at any rate) to taste them all, and try to find one approximating the root beer of my dreams. Maybe then, with some help, I can try to identify the most important ingredients. I figure we can have some pretzels to clear our palates, like fancy wine tasters, between bottles, make notes on little tablets...then finish off the remaining root beer with some vanilla ice cream. This is a pretty good reward for the note-takers, in my view, because IMHO, the root beer float (a/k/a "Brown Cow") is the queen of ice cream drinks. It has an old fashioned charm, and I love the weird creamy foam, neither soda nor ice cream, which is generated when you mix the ice cream and root beer.

Results will be reported when tallied. Stay tuned-or disregard-as you will. All root beer posts are clearly labeled, in case you wish to avoid them.

Directions For Brown Cow: Put a scoop of nice vanilla ice cream in a tall glass. Pour chilled root beer over ice cream. Serve with a straw and a spoon with a long handle. (Iced tea spoons are good for this, if you have them. I do, even though I do not have a full set of soup spoons for my everyday flatware. They do not disappear as fast as other utensils, because I use them much less often, and because, even stuck in the back of a drawer, they are conspicuous.) Eat, drink. Be Merry.

Whoo hoo-the root beer is arrived!

Root Beer Dreams Part III: Capping It

Hey , if you've had it with the root beer talk, I understand. At least the posts are clearly labeled, so you can skip them if you like. I can't promise I'll stop soon-I'm kind of wound up about it.

Until zp told me about the root beer episode in Belles on their Toes (a sequel to the the better-known, Cheaper by the Dozen) my biggest worry about making root beer at home was fear that sassafrass root bark might be both essential to the root beer taste, and toxic or carcinogenic. Now I know that bottling a soft drink at home can have other, more immediate and physical dangers. Of course, it can also serve scare off priggish, nosy (or "nebby" as we say here in western PA) relations, should you happen to have any, as in:

"...there was a booming, house-shaking roar in the basement, followed by a metallic ping, as something hit the basement ceiling, directly below us.
Cousin Leora jumped out of her chair in terror, and even Mother dropped her fork.
'Earthquake,' croaked Leora, who had been through the San Francisco one. And then much louder, 'Earthquake!'
There were four more window rattling roars, each followed by a ping, and then we heard something flowing and dripping, down below us.
'Listen at that,' said Tom, 'It ain't no earthquake, it ain't nothing to get excitit about.'
'What in the world is it then?' Mother demanded sharply.
'It ain't nothing but the childrens' beer,' he assured her.
"Mercy Maude' sighed Mother, 'It gave me a start.'
'The children's what?' shrieked Cousin Leora."

Explaining to their the bossy Leora that the children were only making root beer did not appease her. Especially since it turned out that Tom, the family all around handyperson, had added some prunes to a few bottles, making his "root beer" a little more interesting/intoxicating.

In addition to alerting me to explosion hazards, the story got me thinking that I was going to need a bottle capper, if I hoped to keep the caps on bottles of home carbonated goodies. I picked up a nearly new, used model on ebay for a few bucks, ordered some fresh caps and ale yeast from a beer brewing company, and started saving glass beer and pop bottles.I think the bottle capper's pretty cool; it feels very sturdy, and looks like a little red plastic monster-creature with big jaws. I'm looking forward to trying it out. Guess I could try using it to recap half empty bottles of beer or soda with new caps, and keep them fizzy?

I'm still waiting for the regional assortment of root beers I ordered from the Soda King. Once I've got those, we'll have a little root beer tasting, pick up my herbs and start brewing. Feels a bit witchy. Maybe I should find me a cauldron? Stay tuned.

Root Beer Dreams: Part II Soda King

As you may already know, I have been looking to find and/or make a duplicate of the home-made root beer of my (actual) dreams. So, I thought I'd work on checking out a range of root beers being made commercially today. I figured I'd see which ones I liked, and try to get an idea of the ingredients which might, taken together, produce that elusive taste.

I've been picking up root beers locally, with an eye to not so many national brands. I assume a lot of supermarket root beers are watery, or very sweet and they are probably a lot alike, having been the subject of lowest-common-denominator market research. Not that I hate commercial root beer- I quite like it. I'm going to include a couple, to see if I was right, and for comparison. I'm doing bottled root beer only, because most all drinks are nicer in glass than cans. Anyway, when I get around to making my own, I'll be bottling. (I'm not a purist who won't touch canned soda and beer-I just want to give the root beers every advantage, and the proverbial even field of play.)

Now of course I could just be trying these root beers as I find them, and taking notes, but I thought it would be more fun to have a root beer tasting, and get some other opinions. Soooo, Im going to invite a few friends to join me. An advantage of this deal over, say, a wine tasting, is the potential for sampling as much as we like, without needing a designated driver, or a day to recover. Plus, it is both more, and less silly, if you know what I mean.

Since there is a limit to the interesting looking varieties locally, I'm going to add some root beers I ordered on the internet from The Soda King, a very interesting site, especially for momomaniacal obsessives such as yrs truly. They have every sort of soda pop imaginable, including some you may have thought were no longer made. You can actually order one bottle of something, and I did. Of course the postage is ridiculous when compared to the price of the product, but it's still not all that much,all together, soda being pretty inexpensive stuff. I 'm also going to get a lot of vanilla ice cream, so we can finish up with root beer floats, and not waste the goodies. Maybe some pretzels, to, uh, clear the palate between root beers?

So, I'm waiting for the arrival of my out of state soda, and hope to do this maybe next weekend.

These are the root beers I'm planning on so far, though I plan to pick up a couple of bottles of the more mainstream stuff, too:

Indian Wells Root Beer
Boylan's Natural Root Beer Soda (New Jersey)
Clover Classic Root Beer (Chicago)
Napa Valley Organic root Beer(California)
Gray's Gourmet Root Beer (Wisconsin)
Sioux City Sarsparilla (says it is "root beer" on the label)(Iowa)
Stewart's Cold Brewed Draft Root Beer (NY): (This one is available in Pittsburgh, at coffee shops and delis) Can't wait.

Root Beer Dreams: Part I

This week I was canning tomatoes. I have written about canning tomatoes before, as have others with far greater expertise. So happy though it makes me to contemplate my row of jars, I find I don't have much more to say on the topic, at least for the moment. It is always a pretty big project, and I have no intention of doing much else at the stove until it's done. It appears, however, that I am unable to keep quiet, all the same. So I thought I'd tell you about my recurring root beer dreams.

Other people's dreams are famously boring. You can, of course, skip this bit, and I won't be surprised or offended. Personally, though, I often find dreams more interesting than the dreamers, if that makes any sense. By dreams, I mean real, while-you-sleep dreams, as opposed to fantasies. Lots of folks seem to have sadly boring (at least to others) conscious fantasies. (Presumably, they do not themselves find them boring-or they wouldn't bother to concoct them.)

I am almost always intrigued by real dreams, though, including my own. I have been amazed by how distinctive and original an ordinary person's dreams may be. It is cheering to think that people in general may have more potential to delight and astonish than is immediately apparent. Unlike some, I am generally pleased when anyone (who seems neither insane nor predatory) offers to tell me about the odd dream they had last night.

For about a year, some time ago, I kept a notebook by my bed, and wrote down all I remembered of my own dreams, right away, when I woke up. This is a fairly common exercise. If you have never done it, you might like to give it a try. You get a ton more detail than anything you might remember as the day rolls on. Sometimes, when you reread there are cool surprises- for example, wonderful (or terrible) puns- often revealing. Eventually I stopped doing this...It required getting up 15 minutes earlier than normal , and anyway, I had accumulated a bookful of dreams to mull over.

This self indulgent rambling is intended to explain why I have the following precise recorded version of my first, long ago root beer dream. I still have this dream sometimes, and it doesn't seem to vary much. After all this carrying on and justifying, I must admit that my root beer dream is not especially astonishing. In fact, it is probably precisely the sort of dream people have in mind when they say they could not be less interested. I am, nonetheless, attached to it. While far from amazing, it is a little weird, and has had two odd side effects. This is the dream:

I am in a little wooden shack/shop, which is actually some way in to a dark woods, off a dirt road. It is very hot out, though cooler in the woods than on the road. I am about 9 years old. The shop is very empty, dark, possibly deserted, dusty; it is overgrown with foliage. The wood is a little like a fairy tale, and a little like a real forest. It's cooler in the building than outside in the woods. Everything in the shop is old-shelves and stacks of food with old fashioned labels, and so on. The cash register is an antique type, very ornate, with the sort of keys that stick up on stalks.

There is a ceiling fan going and a big chest cooler, plugged in and humming, in the corner. I open it and it is full of frosty bottles of root beer. You have to put money in the cooler to slide a bottle out...a dime (!). I don't have a dime. I also don't have shoes. I'm a bit raggedly, altogether.

A grownup comes in, he looks dusty, too. He has a bicycle outside with a wire basket on it, and he buys most of the root beer from the cooler. Plenty of dimes. He opens one with the can opener on the side of the cooler, and offers it to me. It is some kind of homemade root beer; it has a label stuck on it with the writing in pencil. The root beer is all icy cold and tastes incredibly, amazingly good. There are fishing poles and a box of lures and stuff on the counter, and the guy picks it all up and hands most of it to me. He says that the root beer will be "good with the fish," and that we'd better get going. He puts the rest of the bottles in the basket on the bike, and gets on it. I climb on the back, and we ride off, with me hanging on to the fishing gear.

I have no idea who this guy is. He has clearly mistaken me for someone else. I'm going along in part for the fishing, but mostly for the root beer, I think. The root beer is delicious and different -and I have, (after waking), a strong sensory memory of the taste. We ride off down the dirt road. End dream.

Avoiding interpretation, lurid or otherwise, these are the two side effects of my dream: First, I felt compelled to make a collage of it, back when it made its first appearance. The collage was semi-successful, in that it looks alot like the dream. However, it also looks a little sinister, and the dream doesn't feel scary at all. (I was especially pleased with the look of a reflection of the branch in the "window"-in case you didn't notice.) The other effect is that I have, ever since, had a real yen to make some homemade root beer, and to try to duplicate the great dream taste. ( You see, there is a food connection here, after all. You just have to be incredibly patient with my digressive yammering to get to it. ) Told you it was weird.

When I began looking into it, I discovered that it was a pretty complicated deal to make root beer. with ramifications, including the unwelcome possibility of poisonousness. However, very soon, I intend to give it a try- and I will tell you all about it.

The Christmas Present

I was the recipient of a number of wonderful christmas presents, including the digital kitchen scale I have longed for, which has the distinction of being the both the first, and the second item ever purchased from my Amazon wish list (Somehow, 2 people managed to purchase the same item, which I had thought impossible. Sorting it out involves me getting to pick out yet another goodie-I'm feeling well and truly spoiled.) There were excellent books, dvds, more nifty kitchen items, and even a cashmere sweater of lush softness. But this particular gift is just so fine.

You may, perhaps, recall my whinging about my inability to buy Maraschino Liquor anywhere in Pennsylvania. I wanted to get some badly after I read in the New York Times earlier this year about making maraschino cherries. It suddenly became immensely important to me that I have a jar of real maraschino cherries, without corn syrup, red dye, et al., made by soaking unadulterated real cherries in unadulterated maraschino liquor.

It is not that I have a manhattan, or a hot fudge sundae, or a pineapple upside down cake on a daily basis. But these things do sometimes just inexplicably grab me. I was not a happy camper when I was informed that the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board had decided that Pennsylvania residents did not need this item, so that it was not available at any liquor store in the state. I could not buy it here, even if I was willing to wait for it to be shipped in from a warehouse in another county.

As often happens in the Toast family, my one and only child had also read the article and independently decided that she needed some real maraschino cherries. (I cannot tell you the number of times I have googled something and wound up looking at her hungry tiger.) She was, however, on her way to Italy for a conference at the time, and by the time we discussed it, she was back with her bottle of the goods. When you are an employee of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, you never go to a conference anywhere more thrilling than Harrisburg. Envy was the nice word for it.

So, when I opened the long skinny present on Christmas Day, and saw that she and S. had given me this, I was pretty well over the moon. They found it visiting Providence, at a fancy Federal Hill liquor store. (They live in Ohio, where the liquor stores are also dire.) There was a definite element of selflessness involved in actually turning it over to me-I know this well. I am hugely tickled to have it, and intend to pour a portion of it over a big jar full of defrosted pitted organic frozen cherries asap.
Cocktails to follow.

HoHoHo.

Addendum: Spotted a small bag of hard South American cherries at the market, and decided it would be nice to have some stems on my maraschinos. So- I abandoned plans for the frozen cherries, washed these guys and filled two pint jars to the top. (I didn't pit them-there's that almondy flavor to be gained from the pits, a perfect excuse for laziness.) I added a wee bit of simple sugar syrup and filled to the top with my lovely christmas present. I'll give them a few weeks at the dark side of the pantry shelf, and then (after tasting) move to the fridge.

Further Addendum: (see comment in response to Matthew, below) If you search this blog for "maraschino" you will find an update. Turned out that the fresh and frozen cherries were a bust- but dried cherries worked very well indeed. I heartily recommend poring this stuff over every dried cherry you can find.

Lemons and the Cold Wars: A Few Ways to Wet Your Whistle, and Some Marmalade

I was pleased to acquire a couple of bags of Meyer lemons at the Giant Eagle, which does not always carry them. I had been stumbling around the store, picking up a few necessities, in a haze of the cold that will not end. I've had this cold and its full panoply of disfiguring side effects for more than two weeks, and am happy to report that it is finally noticeably better. At that time, however, I was just grabbing what I needed, while exposing as few people as possible to my contagion, my damp, rabbity eyes, and the unearthly glow of my hideous nose.

I was glad I picked up the lemons, for a couple of reasons. The first is that I am a believer in the power of lemons over common virii. In various combinations they make you feel better, soothing symptoms, and cheering you up. The second is that playing with the lemons was a nontaxing entertainment for me while I spent the greater part of two days indoors, dutifully "resting" in an attempt to get back up to snuff. I made a small batch of Meyer lemon marmalade, limoncello, and hot lemonade. While the limoncello is not yet ready, I took a bit out early to make an incredibly easy and effective shortcut hot toddy.

Probably you are familiar with the hot toddy concept-most formulae involve tea, alcohol, lemon, and honey, or some combination of some of these. You may not be aware, however, of the optimal method for administration of the toddy, in aid of respiratory illnesses. I learned this method from my late Auntie Louie, who fixed me up, toddy-wise, when I came down with a filthy cold, visiting her in England many years ago.

My bed was made up with a pile of fluffy quilts and pillows, and I was sent off with instructions to take a very hot bath, dry up quickly, put on a flannel nightgown, and pop into bed. As soon as I pulled up the covers, she appeared with the steaming toddy. I drank it. It was excellent. Already drowsy from the bath, I was KO'd by the toddy, and fell instantly and deeply asleep. I woke up in the morning with a cleared head, feeling a bit damp, but otherwise perfect. Something was said about "sweating it out." It sounds like work, but was actually totally effortless-unconscious, even. (Okay, the sweating thing is a bit indelicate, but so is a bad cold.)

Admittedly, this toddy cure is more easily achieved with assistance than solo. But hey, I live alone, and have performed a modified form of this ritual on my own. It has never had quite as miraculous a result as that first time, but it always makes me feel better, and even if it didn't, I would still like it, because toddies taste lovely and are comforting. They are also good, of course, for cases of coldness and tiredness, in the absense of any illness whatsoever. Under those circumstances, it is quite nice to sip your toddy wrapped in an afghan, in a comfortable chair.

In any event, I will start here with the limoncello, because that is where I began when I arrived home with my bags of lemons. I made my limoncello with vodka, because I have done so before, and like it. Recently I have read that this is inauthentic, and that it is better to make it with something much cruder and closer to say,grain alcohol. This purportedly results in a certain characteristic "glow." I am definitely willing to try it if someone else wants to make some.

I poured almost all of a bottle of decent vodka into a one quart ball jar, and added the finely grated (microplaned) yellow zest of one bag of my lemons, shook it up, capped it, and pushed it to the back of a dark pantry shelf to rest for one week. (By the way, I recently learned that you can buy wide mouth plastic replacement lids for canning jars. I like to use these once I've opened something canned, or when I'm ultimately refrigerating something instead of sealing it. They can prevent weird metallic flavors from developing. Places that have lots of canning things all seem to carry these lids, but I had not noticed them before.)

Next, I juiced the bald lemons, and picked out and saved the seeds. I made a simple syrup, boiling a half cup each of sugar and water, and mixed half of the syrup in with the lemon in a quart pitcher. I poured out a bit of this mixture into a mug, then filled the pitcher to the top with water, stirred it up, and put this lemonade in the fridge, along with a little jar of the rest of the syrup. I added the leftover vodka to the mug, made some hot tea, poured it also into the mug, and took the resulting toddy to bed with me.

Not surprisingly, I felt considerably better the next morning, well enough to make a small batch of Meyer Lemon marmalade from my second bag of lemons and the seeds from the first bag. As I learned the first time I made Meyer lemon marmalade from the recipe I like (which is in the most recent Gourmet Cookbook), most of the pectin in lemons is in the seeds. You must put them in a muslin bag (or a stainless steel teaball), and cook them right along with the lemons and sugar, removing them only at the very end. The extra seeds from the beverage lemons helped insure a nice set. All very satisfactory.

To complete the limoncello, after a week, you must strain the zest from the vodka, mix with the remaining 1/2 cup sugar syrup (brought first to room temperature), shake it up, and put it on the shelf for another week. Then it will be all ready, and you can keep it in the freezer, serving it very cold and delicious, after your dinner, where it will seem especially lovely in a morrocan tea glass, or something like that.

Of course, you can decant it into prettier bottles if you like, too. Here is the bonus: Limoncello is also an instant toddy mix. Just put some in a mug, and add some very hot tea. Nothing else is needed for a toddy.

P.S. Hot lemonade is also a good thing for people with colds. It does not pack a wallop like the toddy, so you can drink it when you have a cold, but want to remain awake and upright. You might add a few slices of lemon and an ice tea spoon, after heating it and poring it into a tall glass. When you are feeling a bit better, the marmalade will be ready to eat on some crispy toast.. (The recipe says to give it 24 hours for the flavors to blend. A month would probably be even better, but I tried some the next day myself, and liked it fine.) I'm trying to hold on to the rest awhile before opening it. If you would like the marmalade recipe, email me, and I will (eventually) send it to you. I had planned to provide it here, but feel I've yakked on sufficiently for the moment.

The picture, BTW,"The Glass of Lemonade" is the work of Gerard Terborch (Dutch, 1655-60), and is in the Hermitage. The man and the older lady look very solicitous, and the recipient seems to be feeling under the weather. But perhaps I am projecting?

WBW #14: New New New Zealand (and Jam)

I thought I would try Wine Blogging Wednesday again, having enjoyed #13 (Like Wine for Chocolate). I was kind of hoping for another one with a food/wine theme, which this is not.

As I am not particularly confident where wine is concerned, I was thinking I'd write mostly about the food. I see WBW as a chance to try some new things, get some ideas, and learn a little about why I'm partial to certain wines. I enjoy drinking wine a lot , but tend to repeat the old favorites over and over. I guess I'm looking for a little push.

I still thought I'd make a nice dinner to go with the wine, but I've been busy, what with painting the apartment, a friend's wedding and related events, and some work travel. So, in the end I didn't really plan anything particular to go with pinot noir. This WBW topic is New New World Pinot Noir which means one which does not come from the West Coast of the US, or France.

I remembered having tasted some Pinot Noirs ( Pinots Noir?) I really liked, but I found I couldn't remember what it was I liked about them. I thought it would be good to be able to compare the new stuff to something more familar, so I used this theory as an excuse to buy a bottle of 2002 Saintsbury Pinot Noir for comparison purposes. (I also once had a marked-down bottle of a particular-vineyard Fess Parker Pinot that knocked my socks off, but I didn't see it around-probably just as well, as I think it cost a bundle, full price.)

For the WBW wine, I got, for $10, a Brancott New Zealand Pinot Noir, with last year's date. I picked this bottle, because I drink Brancott Sauvignon Blanc a whole lot; it is pretty much my house white.

Just to have some company (and an idea or two) I invited my friend Ilene to join me in sampling the wine. We tried the Brancott first. We liked it. This is what we found to say about it: Light, gulpable; we tasted cherries, but more as an aftertaste, really. It was it was very pleasant to drink along with food-kind of refreshing. We thought we noticed some oaky business somewhere in there.

Then we poured overselves each a second glass, of the Saintsbury one, and looked at the two together. The Saintsbury one was darker, but less brown toned. It tasted much more complicated, though we were at a loss to identify most of the flavors. Plums? The taste lingered longer after a swallow, and it was richer and sort of velvety.

"It tastes more like, well, wine," said Ilene, who is about as much the wine pro as I. I agreed with her, though I couldn't tell you what that means. Anyway, that was the one we drank some more of, and we were very happy with it. I certainly wouldn't kick the New Zealander out. But- if I'm going to pick a red of that affordable, gulp with your food ilk, it probably isn't my first choice.

Two of us, on a work night, did not finish either bottle. But no fear, neither will go to waste, nor will you escape from food talk (unless, of course, you stop reading abruptly). I'm finishing the Saintsbury one tonight, and the remains of the Brancott were added to color and nicely flavor some Pear Preserve with Pinot Noir and Cinnamon, a recipe from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures.

To make this preserve you need 2 3/4 lbs pears, not too ripe
4 cups sugar
juice of a lemon
a cinnamon stick
1 cup jar of apple pectin jelly
a cup of pinot noir

Peel, core, and stem the pears, and cut them into 8 wedges each. Put them in a preserving pan or other suitable cooking vessel with the sugar, cinnamon stick and lemon juice. Bring to a boil, stirring gently. Pour into a glass or ceramic bowl, cover with parchment, and refrigerate overnight. Pour the macerated pears back into the preserving pan and add the wine and jelly, stirring gently.

Bring to a boil, turn down some, and simmer for 15 minutes. With a slotted spoon, divide the pears among some sterilized 8oz ball jars. This recipe will fill 5 or 6 jars. Now, bring the liquid to a boil again, and boil stirring for about 5 minutes. Check the set , and ladle over the pears in your jars, to nearly the top. Cap with the two piece lids, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Cool overnight and test for seal by pressing the tops- no boing? Good. If it boings, refrigerate and use first. Note: I generally use the simpler,european method of sealing, but went with the hot water bath here because my pears were very very firm, that is to say, rock-like, and I felt the extra cooking couldn't hurt.

You are supposed to let these mature (only for a month or so- not to worry, this isn't wine, only jam), but the remnants in the preserving pan were pretty tasty. Note: These are quite big pieces of pear, which I think is classy in preserves, but you might want to dice them if you want to increase spreadibility. Now, I am really wanting to copy my daughter, and make some preserves with melon, but first, I must paint the dining room, and then put all the furniture and books back where they belong.

PA Wine Bus: North East in the West

E.signed up for this day trip as a little consolation treat. She is on her own (except for Jack, her dog)
for 6 weeks while her husband visits their son and his family in Krakow, and rides his bike all around Poland.

It was a day of visiting four wineries in the Lake Erie region of PA. via bus, a benefit fundraiser for public radio. Also, there was to be a lunch and a dinner. I thought it would be fun to splurge and go with her, and signed up too. We used to see each other regularly when we lived on the same street, but since I moved several years back, it's taken more effort to get together.

So this seemed a fine chance to spend some time and have a day off. E. is a very long term friend; we met in the hospital , when our now-adult daughters were born on the same day. Our daughters have also remained friendly, many years after we first propped their fuzzy, wobbly heads together to take a joint baby photo.

As you may have noticed, although I drink a fair amount of wine, I am not exactly well up on the topic. I tend to find (with help) wines I like with certain foods, and just keep on buying the same things. Having gone on a one day tasting adventure in the more uh, generally known, Napa and Sonoma wine areas, I thought I could use some pointers. I had a fine old time on that excursion, but found I forgot everything I tasted very quickly (no, no, not plastered, very restrained I was, considering the temptations, just mentally disorganized and overcome by variety and pretty places.) So I asked Lenn, who kindly offered some advice.

He suggested that I break each wine down to how it looks, smells, and tastes....with special emphasis on smell and taste. Is it fruity, oaky? He suggested that I take notes. (Why I did not think of this one myself, I cannot say.) He also suggested that I have fun, which was already part of the plan. I set off intending to follow these obviously sensible hints, and did so, to some extent. I was also hoping to mostly get white wines, since nearly everything I had in the house-which was not so much-was red.

I was distracted by many things, including a nasty sinusy headache which I got early on, and cured with a serious cup of coffee at one of our 4 stops. Everything else I was distracted by was all good. It had been rainy and gloomy when we set out in a bus from WQED in Oakland early Saturday morning, so when the day turned impossibly beautiful, it was especially charming. Besides the landscape, I was predictably produce-distracted, and wound up buying two kinds of gorgeous grapes for eating, purple Fredonias, and a pale green kind, called Niagara, which smelled and tasted heavenly and had slip off skins like the purple concords.. In fact, I was amazed and delighted to find that the air itself smelled unmistakably of grapes.

It had taken us about 2 hours to get from Pittsburgh to the area of North East, PA, a small town at the center of this wine region.I have not checked into the reason for this odd name for a western PA town. It is a very pretty, Edward Hopperesque place, with big old trees, clapboard houses, a center square, and row style businesses in long, low, modestly ornamented brick buildings. We did not stop here, but passed through several times, as all 4 wineries were nearby.

The vineyards were quite different from anything I'd seen in California or in Cyprus (about the latter, more another time). Those had been nestled among hills and valleys. In the Erie region, it is vast, flat stretches of vines to the horizon, with glimpses of the lake. Being a Great Lake, Erie has that ocean-like infinite look. Add on the smell of grapes, and it is so relaxing as to be nearly coma-inducing.

Not relaxing was tasting wines at a crammed counter jammed with all the very pleasant people who arrived on the bus with us. Nobody was at all pushy, and everyone was good humoured, but it was too hectic to be thoughtful about what we were sampling. This is a bit of a dilemma for tasting jaunts, I think. How to not worry about drinking and driving, and yet not to arrive with a cast of thousands everywhere you go? The bus was nice in other ways, very comfy, nice big clean windows, and the people were companionable and laid back at the 2 picnics. Also, although I enjoyed the first three tours of the wineries, and generally am endlessly curious about how such complex things are done, I skipped the last tour entirely. I was experiencing information overload, and the immediate need to sit outside under a big old tree.

I was thwarted in my aberrant desire to find a Western PA pinot noir for Wineblogging Wednesday. There was not a bottle on offer anywhere. I bought 4 other bottles, however.I came away with two wines from Mazza. One was a Cuyuga ($8.95), which was a sort of off-dry white wine with a distinctive and different, but not overpoweringly sweet taste. I later over heard our expert-from-the-bus saying that it was "well-balanced", which on reflection, seemed true. There were acetic tastes which made the sweetness less powerful, and changed it- kind of like when you add lemon juice to fruit jams, to bring out the flavor. Anyway, it seemed like a good idea to try a different grape that I'd not had, and that was of the area.

I also bought a bottle of their Reisling ($10.95), without pushing for a chance to try it. I had thought about getting it during the tour, and kind of dashed back to the shop to buy it. Mr. Mazza had compared the Erie area to German wine regions, because of the climate control of the lake. This, and the fact that Mazza specializes in white wine, made it seem like a good bet.

Mr M explained that in an extreme climate, the lake retains its heat, or stays cold, longer than the air would on its own. It thus affects the temperature of that air, resulting in a late spring and also a late autumn. This both reduces the danger of early spring frost kill, and allows the grapes a longer growing season into the fall, to mature properly. He noted that when he and his brother (both immigrants from Southern Italy as toddlers) switched the family business from table grapes to winemaking 30 years ago, they hired a German winemaker to help them, for this reason. So the Reisling seemed a good idea for a shot in the dark.

At Arrowhead wine cellars (you see the owner here, with stems and seeds), I liked a cabernet franc, which was yummy and fruity, and slightly teabaggy (which I understand means tannins). It was pretty and dark red, but also very sort of clear looking. It smelled of plum jam, which is my thing for sure. I liked it immediately; no major internal debating about this choice. It was $10.99. The winemaker said this grape grows well in the region. He is trying to convince more local growers to switch to wine grapes, as the Welch's Grape products scene is not a good one of late. I didn't like anything I tried at Penn Shore winery, but then my headache sort of peaked at that point. I noticed several folks bought quite a lot there.

My final choice was a Vigonier from Presque Isle. It was fifteen bucks, including tax.By the time I chose this last selection, I was pretty spacey, and full of their catering department's dinner: "Mexican" barbecue (fair), corn (frozen? why?) and custardy flan (excellent, served with great coffee)-I failed to take notes. I am suffering from some doubts on this choice now now, especially since it turns out E. had tasted it too, and said "ick."I'll find out when I open the bottle.

I fell asleep on the bus on the way back. Lucky for me, we came in E's car, so I had a ride home. Full of flan, grapes, a bit of wine, blue skies and lots of fresh grapey air, I stumbled into bed, and slept long and contentedly, and like the proverbial log. I am looking forward to trying my bounty with some food in the near future.

Three Ships Cocktails and Salted Almonds

I am not informed on the topic of cocktails, being mostly a wine and beer drinker. I am pretty much of an ignormamus about those too, now that I think about it. Though I am definitely enthusiastic about wine drinking, in a greedy and unconnoisseurish way.

Apart from Pimm's in the summer, and the occasional gin and tonic, I don't generally take to cocktails, martinis, highballs, manhattans, daquiris, and the like. For some reason, though, I was drawn to this one in the NY Times last year (under a different name, which I have forgotten, except that it had to do with Spain and was somehow nautical. I went with "Three Ships", for Columbus, but that's not it.)

Anyway, I tried it and have grown attached, I think because, despite the alcohol, it feels like having a light starter, along with your drink. Quite simple, it is Fino sherry and Clamato juice, with a squirt and slice of lemon. The ratio is up to you. I also like to sprinkle it with smoked spanish paprika. Tapas and fino in one, it goes nicely with nibbles of the olive and salted almond order.

This cocktail has not been universally adored. One person said something like, "Hey, there's something fishy in my drink." And it was true. The salted almonds, however, brook no argument. They are prepared according to the instructions given by Elizabeth David for salted almonds as made by Suleiman, who was her Sudanese cook, when she lived in Egypt.

I was attracted to this recipe, because of my fascination with the magic of toasting nuts. I find it amazing that there is such a dramatic enhancement of flavor in a freshly toasted nut, and always try to toast nuts first, when I am baking with them. It is, of course, ridiculous to paraphrase Ms. David, the mistress of perfect simplicity in food and words. I do recommend reading the original. If you do, you will not be sorry.

To make 8 oz. of these little treats, you will, of course, need half a pound of whole almonds, blanched, and some time at home. If, like me, you have a bunch of nice fresh whole almonds, but they still have their skins on, you will need to blanch them. As Ms. David points out, this is very easy, but it does take considerably longer than the "minute" she estimates. It is, nonetheless, less fiddly than I feared.

You just boil a pasta pot (with strainer basket) full of unsalted water, and drop in the almonds. Bring back to a boil, strain, and run a little cold water over the almonds, so you can touch them without screaming in pain and raising blisters. While they are still a little bit warm, slip the skins off. They pop off quite easily, and there you are. This part, and only this part, can be done ahead.

As to the rest of the process, you need to start about 6 or seven hours before you want to eat the almonds. Preheat your oven to 250F. For 8 oz of almonds, you need only a tiny bit of oil or butter- a tbsp at most. Ms. David suggests getting sweet almond oil from the "chemist". As I am quite sure none of the chain drugstores around here offer this product, I used tasteless and nonburning grapeseed oil, from the heathfood store, in a spray. I sprayed the baking sheet with the oil, spread out the nuts, sprayed the top lightly, and baked them for 45 minutes, until they were the color of light toast.

I then spread them on a sheet of parchment which I had sprinkled with coarse gray french sea salt from Penzey's. (Ms David says that regular free pouring table salt will not do.) I swished the almonds around in the salt, and then pulled up the 4 corners of the parchment, and twisted them into a little closed packet, which I tucked away in a dark cupboard for 5 hours- the optimal time for the salt/almond relationship to develop, as I understand it. This does give the feeling of a magical trick, but really, says Ms. David, serves a primary function of giving the almonds time to mix nicely with the salt while cooling. It also serves the secondary important function of keeping passers by-including the cook-from eating all the almonds before it is time to serve them. When you are ready to put them out, it is a good idea to dust off a bit of the extra salt and sprinkle them with a meagre amount of your favorite ground chili. I like to use a bit of ground chipotle.

There is nothing fishy about these almonds. The slow ritual makes a dandy treat evey time. They beat out the vacuum packed sort by a mile, in my view. I make these with the jordan type almonds I find around here. I'd like to try it with the delicious Marcona almonds I enjoyed in Spain. These are not easy to find in Pittsburgh, though.

Have some with your drink and a few olives if you like.