Hauts Chassis 2007 ‘Les Galets’ Crozes-Hermitage….Sexy Wine. My purple wine covered teeth glowing when I smile….Not Sexy! Solution; a new product called Wine Wipes.
Developed by a company called Borracha LLC. (great name) these conveniently packaged to-go, moist towelettes remind me of finger wet naps, but more compact, about the size of a condom. Tear the package open, unfold the orange blossom flavored, thin cloth and start polishing.
I have to admit that it felt kind of funny rubbing the moist, slightly salty flavored cloth over my teeth (good thing I was in the ladies’ room so no one could watch me) but it worked! Pearly whites back in full-smile action. I highly recommend these little wine stain problem fixers. They are small enough to fit in your tiniest purse, or even in your wallet. More importantly they won’t interfere with wine tasting as they were developed with the help of a Sommelier and work as a palate cleanser.
Photo Courtesy of www.winewipes.com
They also now come in a small round container about the size of Burt’s Bees cuticle salve, which holds 20 wipes and has a mirror inside for a quick discreet swipe. $20 will get you 3 containers – that’s 60 wipes and there’s no shipping cost. Interested? I’m glad I tried them. You can order here.
You are probably bored with your home cooked meals, and would like to visit a restaurant for a change. On the other hand, your doctor has advised you not to eat restaurant foods as it can result in weight gain. You simply don’t know which way to go, right?
Here is an article that will tell you how to enjoy restaurant foods while at the same time making sure that you don’t get any fatter!
Here is a rule of thumb for you: if a certain food tastes too good, it means it has been richly fried, and as such, not good for your health. Surprisingly enough, the raw vegetables and fruits, which usually taste awful, are the best foods for quick weight loss!
1. Visit vegetarian restaurants: In order to be on the safe side, visit restaurants which offer only vegetarian meals. This is not to say that non-veg meals are bad. With non-veg restaurants, you have to take extra care to make sure that you are not eating high-calorie or high-fat foods.
As an example, ordinary chicken meat which is served in most restaurants is usually laden with huge amounts of fat which is bad for you! Lean chicken meat, on the other hand, is good for you, but not all restaurants offer lean chicken meat as part of their menus. With vegetarian restaurants, you will be more often than not on the safe side!
2. Let the salad dressing go: You have heard it a zillion times that salads are good for quick weight loss. The reason behind this is that salads are nothing but raw vegetables in chopped form. Raw vegetables, as you might be aware, help you burn fat by boosting your metabolic rate. However, the salad dressing that is provided in most restaurants is rich in calorie. So whenever you ask for salads, make sure to instruct them to remove the salad dressing from the top!
3. Stay away from buffets: A lot of the foods you see at buffets are rich in calorie content. These foods are cooked in bulk with a large amount of oil, thereby making them unsuitable for those who are looking forward to shedding some pounds. If you really want to eat from buffets, make sure you steer clear of these fatty foods and choose the salads and other healthier alternatives instead! That way, you won’t accumulate an excessive amount of fat in your body!
4. Control your portions: Check the amount of food you are going to eat before you take that bite! If you think that the food provided to you exceed the portion control limit you are allowed, eat according to your portion limit and then carry the leftovers back home to be eaten on the next day. Ask for a box from the restaurant to help you carry the leftovers.
As long as you use your discretion, there is nothing wrong with eating at a restaurant once in while. So go ahead and appease your tastebuds!
When I’m tired from a hard day’s work but don’t want to cop out by having instant noodles, I go the wholesome route by doing a quick stir-fry. This time, a quick run through the supermarket got me some organic choy sum, mixed agro-tech mushrooms, ginger and some pork shoulder. Once I got home, I washed and cut the vegetables quickly, then sliced the mushrooms, ginger and pork. (I can never be bothered to wash them.) That takes about 10 minutes and then the stir-fry itself takes 5 minutes. If there’s leftover rice in the fridge, then a 2 minute microwave sorts out the rice. If not, it’s a 5 minute boil of noodles. No, the minutes don’t add up to 15 because a lot of them are done simultaneously. After that short time of quick work, a piping hot and very home-cooked satisfying dinner.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp oil
6 thin slices of ginger
handful mushrooms, cut into chunks
small piece pork, sliced
good splash Chinese shaoxing wine or dry sherry
salt to taste
soy sauce to taste
Method:
Heat your wok over the highest possible flame. Coat the wok with the oil and allow to get as hot as you dare. Make sure all your ingredients are ready.
Slide in the ginger (gingerly!) and stir. Just before the ginger burns, toss in the pork. Stir rapidly till just about cooked, then add the mushrooms and keep stirring furiously. Now add the vegetables and keep going till the leaves are completely wilted.
Splash in the Chinese wine and add salt and soy sauce to taste. Turn off the heat and serve over rice or noodles.
I’m sure you’re aware of that highly successful franchise entitled “_____ Soup for the Soul.” They’ve filled that blank in with more drivel than the “_____ for Dummies” franchise. As such, I’m sure they won’t mind if little ole bloggin me lifts it for my own personal usage. Right?! Right!
As all three of my loyal readers know, about a year and a half ago I went through a separation that was perhaps the hardest period of my time here on earth to date. For those who have ever suffered through a separation, especially if kids are involved, you understand the range of emotions that one can go through. But as this new year has dawned, I’ve begun to feel the sun creeping through the darkened windows of my soul. Life just might be all right after all!
And so, it was with great excitement that back in February, I began preparations for a weekend getaway with two of my closest friends who we’ll affectionately call Starshine and Sugartoes (much like the military’s very misguided policy, we don’t ask and don’t tell when talking about these names except to say that it is to protect the not-so-innocent). Those early sketches of a plan eventually evolved into something that looked like it might just be what the doctor ordered.
In an effort to set the tone for the weekend, Starshine ordered up an electric blue VW Jetta (“ole blue”) to haul our butts up from sunny Southern California (Starshine in Newport Beach and me in Silver Lake) to first Placerville and then San Francisco where we would meet up with Sugartoes. I’m sure you’re wondering why the heck Placerville and well, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t too sure either. It quickly became apparent when ole blue showed up and Starshine’s puggle waddled it’s way out of the backseat where it had already managed to deposit enough hair to reupholster my sofa. I knew immediately that we were in for a great time!
By some point later than anticipated we hit the road with me behind the wheel and Starshine safely ensconced as the navigator. Given the lateness of our departure, I hauled ass (not that I don’t anyway, but I was definitely carried away with a stronger sense of urgency). What I should have hauled was a map, because before too long, we found ourselves on one of LA’s many freeways pointed in a decidedly less than North direction. Another hour lost. Once you’ve lost an hour, it never seems as though you can make it up, but damn did I try! Despite driving rains starting on the 5 somewhere before Stockton and continuing through Sacramento, we made it safely to Placerville where we dropped off Happy with Starshine’s gorgeous mom. Despite her pleas otherwise, we had to hightail it out of there. Deadlines are a b*tch sometimes!
Over at Sugartoes little place on these interwebs, you’ll find a recap of our time together in the City, that beautiful City by the Bay. I won’t regale you with stories of our time together because it’s already been done and better than I could. I will say that it was damn near perfect! I’ll start where Sugartoes left off -
After tooling through some beautiful neighborhoods with the sun shining on us, Starshine and I rushed over to SFO to pick up a colleague before heading up to god’s country, also known in these parts as wine country, or Napa Valley. Of course, said colleague’s flight was delayed and I was hungry. I know that Sugartoes said something about a food coma and not being hungry, but get real, I like to eat. No, take that back, I need to eat constantly. It’s a real miracle that I’m not some two-ton-bessie given my monstrosity of an appetite. For some reason not quite clear to me, it was decided that to properly view the gems and fabulous geegaws that have besplendored (and don’t tell me it’s not a word, it’s my weekend and it’ll be a word if I want it to be) the arms of so many of the uber-rich society matrons (you know, the ones who look like they’ve been sucking at the teet of the lemon tree), one should do so on an empty stomach. But, I’ve digressed. After circling the airport, we decided to park the car and find some food. Thankfully there was a little bitty food court that served up a lovely soup to go with some decidedly suspect pasta both of which soothed the raging beast that was my stomach.
Once we collected said colleague (who of course managed to show up as soon as my food did), we hit the road. Again, I hit it hard because, well, surprise, we were late for our first wine tasting/tour. Oh, you should probably know that said colleague attended college with a guy we’ll just call wine god who has proved to be quite successful at managing a little thing called a vineyard that produces some mighty fine wines, including a little Pinot that damn near sent me over the edge (more about that later). We did arrive in Napa, but late and as such missed our 3p.
Wine god said not to worry and with a flick or two of his phone had made other, possibly better arrangements. Wine god made it clear that ole blue would not be needed for the next leg of our weekend. Rather we should pile into the Porsche Cayenne parked on the side of the house. Now listen, here’s the funniest part of that deal, for the next 20 or so hours, we spent a great deal of time in that beautiful specimen of a sports car meets SUV and every damn time we hopped in, wine god made sure to tell us what a total “piece of sh*t” it was.
I won’t bore you with too many more details. We tasted some great Pinots at Etude, followed by a sunset tasting of some beautiful sparkling wines at Domaine Carneros after which we checked into our hotel (Avia Napa) for some quick spramping before our 7:30p dinner reservations. Dinner was at this fabulous new little place called Farmstead (part of the Long Meadow Ranch). There really aren’t words for the delightful (and lengthy) meal we enjoyed. And it’s here where that lovely bottle of Pinot was uncorked, allowed to breathe and then savored. Listen, I don’t know sh*t-from-shinola when it comes to wines, but this little bottle the wine god brought made me want to marry wine god! With visions of Pinots and Napa Valley weddings to wine gods meandering through my head, I somehow managed to climbed into my bed at the Avia and drift into a most beautiful dreamland.
Next morning dawned gorgeous (again…Starshine kept saying we brought the good weather with us) and, prodded by a call for the colleague, we hopped up, through back some coffee and headed off towards for a little winery up by Mt. Veeder called The Hess Collection. It was here at The Hess that I got my first real glimpse of the amount of blood, sweat and tears that go into making a beautiful wine. Following our private tour, I was left in awe and vowed never again to drink two-buck-chuck. It just wouldn’t be fair!
Speaking of unfair, at some point, I was reminded that I had to leave paradise. What to do though? Starshine had to stay for a conference and Sugartoes was dealing with work drama and I, well, I was stuck. Except of course I wasn’t. One of the many amenities of the Napa Valley was a lovely transportation service called Evans Transportation that had me out of Napa by 2:30p and at SFO by 4:00p giving me ample time to shop for the progeny (he wanted a key chain) and catch a 5:30p flight to LA. I was home allowing my dog to put a massive wreck job on my face (yeah, I look like I’ve been in a bar brawl) by 7:30p.
This morning, despite being awakened by a strong jolt (damn earthquakes) and stuff falling off the walls, I’m still blissful. I needed to get away! I needed a little pampering! I needed to spend a little bit of quality time with two of the bestest friends a boy could ever ask for.
Here’s to friends both old and new who enriched my life and provided the soup to sooth my soul!
It was Mother’s Day in the UK (which is probably where mothers were invented) on Sunday, so this post is in honour of all that NONSENSE.
The story today is likely to be a bit shit, so I’m giving you two photos for the price of one. The price, incidentally, is no pounds.
Terry the baby polar bear and his mum, Hagrid, went out shopping. It’s quite hard to go shopping in the Arctic because there are no shops, but they somehow managed to buy a bottle of wine and a Fruit Shoot.
Terry was thrilled to have a Fruit Shoot, because it made him feel like one of those kids off the telly that didn’t live in the flipping Arctic. He guzzled it down happily while his mum drank the bottle of wine.
Sadly, in no time at all she had finished the wine and was quite drunk. She kept telling Terry about how much she loved him, and that dad would be back soon. She did this every Mother’s Day.
Eventually she passed out hugging Terry tightly, so he couldn’t escape.
He couldn’t get out until the next day.
Thanks to Miriam for these pics, she got them from here.
Also, you may have noticed I just update this around midweek once a week at the moment, this practice is likely to continue for the time being.
I have added another page to my blog called Everyday Gourmet. The problem is that my newness to blogging means I cant quite figure out how to post weekly to that page…so I will give you a link here so that you can see installment 1 of Everyday Gourmet which you will not want to miss because it will make your mouth water…its called Garlic Naan Pizza. yep, you should go check it out!
Cozy B&Bs + equal ratio of dogs to people + Mediterranean eats = Carmel-by-the-sea. Given its sleepy atmosphere, we decided to shake things up for our Saturday night in Carmel by doing a foodie crawl of sorts through the quaint beach town.
First we stopped for a wine flight at Southern Latitudes Wines, where we enjoyed watching the resident beagle puppies nap in the window seat and play with their chew toys.
Out of the gentle Australian and Chilean wines we tasted, our clear favorites were the D’Arenberg Hermit Crab Marsanne/Viognier and NV Yalumba Antique Tawny Port. The viognier was buttery but light, and smooth on the tongue without the burning sensation of too much alcohol. The tawny port tasted like a swirl of brown sugar, and didn’t have the heavy syrup quality that can weigh down others. We picked up one of each for the road!
Next up, oysters and bubbly at Flaherty’s Oyster Bar & Seafood Grill (translation: sparkling wine for me, and beer for David). We chose to split our half shell dozen between the Chesapeake and British Columbia selections but in the end the Chesapeake oysters were much larger and flavorful.
Since the dominant cuisines in Carmel are Italian, French and seafood, we opted for Carmel Bistro Giovanni to replicate the “steakhouse” experience, as recommended by our friendly host at Briarwood Inn. We tried Giovanni’s own Zinfandel, and fought over my crab ravioli with scallops and champagne cream sauce. David’s choice didn’t meet his expectations, but fortunately I was too stuffed to finish my entree – leaving room for the surprise chocolate cake they treated us to.
But the star of the show turned out to be the “Giovanni Insalatina Greca” (greek salad). Beyond the typical flavors of a greek salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, kalamata olives), Giovanni adds dried cranberries (or dates, as listed on the menu). The combination of flavors – in complete balance since all ingredients are chopped to a similar size – was a surprising treat that would be very easy to replicate at home.
All in all, there are plenty of cozy, fireside restaurants to try. In fact, we had brunch at the Cottage Restaurant earlier in the day (they’re open all day for breakfast fanatics) and an afternoon coffee at Carmel Valley Coffee Roasting Company (the name speaks for itself). And if you have a friendly dog, they will be welcomed with open arms.
