Hot! Hot! Hot!

Today is a holiday in the USA, Memorial Day.  It must be almost one hundred degrees F.  Yesterday I had friends over for Tea, Sandwiches and Scones, before which I served Sangria.  Made with my at least fourteen year old wine, I know it's that old because I made it when Rob was a little boy, and I have a photo of him sitting beside the kitchen sink helping me to destem the grapes.  To the Sangria I added apples, oranges and strawberries, mixed berry juice and it needed a little kick so I added Kirsch.

So Monday there was some left over and I thought I'll have a glass of Sangria and read my book, 'The Making of a Marchioness' The first part is very good, I don't think the second part is as good, by Francis Hodgson Burnett.

I have a set of six of the silver long spoons.  They look like a bamboo stem, and each one has a different Asian themed trinket on, I guess to tell the drinks apart, probably for iced tea, but I thought they were just right for this, with the lotus flower spoon piece, one can scoop out the fruit and eat it.

My bamboo screen with the afternoon light coming through across my desk always remind me of Saigon, not that I've ever been to Saigon, which of course now has a different name, but in the old movies you see those screens and the ceiling fans running, it depicts an era of Vietnam before the war.

Well that was my day, just trying to take it easy on a terribly hot day.

Christy

Carmine's New York City

 

 

 

Well Thursday was the big day a trip to Manhattan for a sales kick-off meeting.  I was up at 4:30 am to meet at 6:00 am for the drive up to New York.  We made good time even getting through the Holland Tunnel with not too long a wait.  We were in the New Yorker Hotel by 8:15 am, with enough time for coffee and a croissant before the meeting began at 8:30 am.

It was good to see different ones who I communicate with on the phone but hardly ever meet with from New York, Florida and Connecticut.  Met some new folks and was introduced to our new creative verbiage, "Smarter Solutions, Better Results."  Time really flew by, with round table sessions at the end.  By now it's 1;30 pm and we have a reservation at Carmine's for 2:00 pm.

Our little group from PA took a cab, so we were just about the first ones there.  I have never been to Carmine's before, so was quite excited to go.  We had a great time, a lot of talking, laughter and good food, served family Italian style, as you can see from the tables.  Bottles of Carmine's labelled wine, beer and all those lovely Italian courses.  I know I'm a Brit, but if they left me on a desert Island and said choose one ethnic food to eat, it would be Italian.  How can you not love focaccia bread, salad, olive oil, cheese, fried calamari, ziti in cheese sauce, cheese ravioli in marinara sauce, chicken parmigiana, veal Marsala, and ended with tiramisu, gelati bombs, Italian bread pudding and cannolis, with cappuccino. Yum! Yum! Yum!  

I seem to have no photos of the pasta and entree courses, because I must have been too busy eating them.

So yes I had a great day in Manhattan, even if we were delayed for one hour on the turnpike home, because of an accident.

Christy

P.S.  I love the photo of the waiter handing the bread over and the hands reaching out for it.

What's Up?

Today is a holiday over here in the States, Martin Luther King Day.  Not all people have off, but a lot.  Our office is closed, but since I only work part-time I will have to make it up by working another day this week that I would usually be off.  My friend in the UK said that part-time workers get paid for days off, most places in the USA do not.

So today was the day to rack the wine; which we made last August. After the wine sits all the sediment drops to the bottom of the demijohn, so you siphon off the wine into a clean demijohn, leaving the dregs to throw away.  By this method you make the wine clear. Two lots of grape wines from the garden vines, a Concord and a Catawba, plus I had a go at tomato wine; honest to goodness I think it's as strong as vodka, I'll probably just use the tomato wine for cooking, it has a lovely golden colour.

The Concord grape wine I made very dry as not too much sugar was added.  There were two batches of Catawba wine and the last one I made sweeter, but I would classify all these wines as dry wines.  It took a couple of hours to do all this, because all the bottles must be washed and sterilized as you go along.  Well that's a good job done today.

Yesterday I actually sewed on four buttons, three belonging to coats and of the coats two had needed buttons since last year.  Why does one procrastinate on buttons.  One of the reasons is, I put the button in a safe place then when I want to sew it on I can't find it.  Yesterday everything came together.  Plus one skirt button sewn on.  And Rob's T-shirt needed hemming.

The one long blue wool coat I want to wear to New York on Thursday.  I'm meant to wear corporate dress, for a sales kick off meeting in Manhattan.  I will rake out my blue suit, seems appropriate.  Afterwards we're meant to eat at Carmine's, I've never been there before so I'm looking forward to that.  Hope to take my camera and take some photos, if possible.

Also made a pot of chicken and vegetable soup today from a left over chicken carcass.

I've been watching Jane Eyre over the weekend, a version I had never seen before from 1983 with Timothy Dalton who is famous and an unknown Zelah Clarke.  I can't say I especially liked her performance, his was OK but I've seen better.  I do like the 1997 version with Ciaran Hinds and Samantha Morton.  There are at least six other versions I found, besides these and I thought it would be fun to stream them or order them from Netflix

There are so many wonderful books why, as much as I love Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, can they not do some of the just as wonderful stories but not quite so well known.  I would even take a remake of North and South, my very favourite.

Christy

Wineries on the Weekend

I did a wine tasting here, 10 different wines, fun.

We brought cheese and crackers with us, along with non alcoholic for the boys.

Got to use my picnic basket.

Got to listen to life music.

Pennsylvania countryside

Shadows.

An old Pennsylvania house.

With new windows.

Pennsylvania farm.

The last winery we visited, Twin Brook Winery.

The last winery we visited.

The vines.

In the Amish country.

Going home.

How to have a frugal day out.  Pack your own picnic and just do one wine tasting.  You could buy a passport for all seven wineries; which was $30.00 but I just did the one $7.00, quite enough with ten wines to try.

After having our wine, cheese and crackers, we followed this up with coffee, shortbread and chocolate in the vineyards.

Didn't buy any wine, I feel bad about that, but needs must.  Just shows how non-employment ripples down, because I would have bought one bottle of wine, when hubby was employed.

Christy.

Home Made Catawba Wine

Syphoning from the primary fermenter.

8 1/2 gallons from 38 lbs of Catawba grapes.

In demijohns with bungs and fermentation locks.

I planted three grape vines about six years ago.  A Catawba, Concord and Niagara grapes.  Good for our more northerly climate in the North Mid-Atlantic states.  The Niagara died and I planted instead a Montrachet.  Earlier this month I made several gallons from the Concord grapes. The Montrachet did not produce, other years it has though.

The Catawba vine yielded 38 lbs of desteemed grapes.  Isn't that amazing.  I'm thinking of turning one of my lawns into a vineyard, with that kind of yield.  But it is a lot of work and time.

It took us a while to work out how to use the hydrometer which measures sugar content and prospective alcohol content.  It probably is worth using one.  Before I've just followed old country recipes and it always seemed to work out well.

Now we just have a year to wait.

Christy

Thrifty Finds

I was hoping that these might be diamonds, as I got them from the type of thrift shop that is run by very wealthy little old ladies, for the hospital, but knowing me, they're not, but pretty.

I never noticed until I took the macro photo, that the little center beads are missing their pearl finish, but I still like the broach.

I partake of a little Bailey's Irish Cream in this glass.

I already have some pink and brown Japanese plates, so will run these in with them.

Thrift shops are fun, because they allow you to purchase a little something in this economy, without spending a fortune. Plus you are recycling. Soon our local Hospital will have their twice a year yard sale. M and I go and have the greatest of fun.

Christy

An Aged Wine

This is Rob as a little boy. He is sitting by the kitchen sink, where we had sorted grapes and destemmed them. You can't see the grapes, as this was originally not a digitized photo and was scanned in, so I only have this one, not the whole series, but I know this was when we made this wine. Rob sat and helped me. So it must make it eleven to twelve years old.
I was cleaning up our basement and decide to syphon the wine off. It has been sitting in these gallon demi-johns on the dregs, all these years. I didn't have regular wine bottles or a corker, so decided to just empty one demi-john into a decanter and clean the bottle, then syphon one into the next. I actually have one more bottle of wine, than shown.

When you syphon you always get a mouthful and I can tell you, it hits the back of the mouth and is warm and goes down the throat warm. I made it as a dry wine. I like it and will also use it as a mixer.