Sparkle where you may

My actual resolution for 2014* was to go to a sparkly dress event, wearing a sparkly dress.

Notice the cork corkscrewing through the air.

A week ago it looked clear that I was going to fail at this resolution.  I had sparkled in a pink dress with my Kansas friends over the summer, worn a dress to the opera in Colorado, and looked great in artsy painted silk at the food contest/benefit dinner at which The Mister was a judge, so I wasn't totally lacking in dress-up, but I hadn't worn a sparkly dress to a holiday party, which I publicly resolved to do.

Wife of Judge

Last Thursday afternoon I e-mailed a Kansas friend to find out if she were going to be in town this week.  By Friday morning we had a party planned for Monday.  And so I wore velvet and sparkles to eat snacks with friends in a small house in Kansas.  There were fewer of us than expected (crud is going around) and we talked about unemployment, funerals and weird skin conditions while acknowledging chronically ill spouses, miscarriage and depression.  There was no dancing, no men, and no pictures taken.  You'll have to take my word that our cheap jewels were outlandish.

Crying tears of consolation and clearing pet hair from my skirt was hardly with glittering ball of my imagination, however the evening was fabulous.  There was friendship. And in the glow of friendship, we all sparkle bright.

Thanks to you all for your friendship.

*Roots year continues until February.  I have thought lots and lots about family and metaphorical roots.  Someday I will organize the thoughts enough to type them.

Come by and we'll pretend it's your birthday

As noted elsewhere*, I am big into birthdays (and traditions and romantic gestures and lots and lots of other things) and love baking birthday cakes.  I mentioned on facebook yesterday that I was baking a cake for my sons' birthdays, the aroma of warm chocolate was wafting through the house, and more friends should visit for their birthdays so that I could bake them a cake.  Twenty people "liked" that status within a few hours.

It would have looked better had my cake pans been the same size and
there not been a worldwide shortage of sour cherries.
Maybe

Well, friends, what are you waiting for?
I'd love the chance to combine four things that I love-- drinking sparkling wine in celebration of something, baking a decadent, multi-layer cake, arranging some flowers and talking to friends.  Come by for your birthday!
The secret is that it doesn't even need to be your actual birthday.  Even Dianthus has the hang of it, "I'll be four on Tuesday, but we celebrated my birthday with Grandma and Grandpa last night."***
Tuesday to Saturday is admittedly, pretty close, but it need not be.  A dear friend of mine (from high school) also has a May birthday.  Throughout college and occasionally afterward, we would celebrate with a nicer meal than we could generally afford, sometime in May.  Once we both started graduate school, several years lapsed before we were able to go out to dinner together.  It happened to be in January.  At his urging, we had a bottle of sparkling wine, toasted with "happy birthday" and I didn't turn down the free dessert once offered**.  I owe much to that meal.  It was the start of the sparkling wine resolution ("If sparkling wine is your favorite drink, why don't you have it more than two or three times a year?" ) which was the start of my annual resolution/themes which then led to this blog and the official start of celebrating birthdays whenever I see friends.

Leo Birthday Boys. With an average of over 23 years experience.

So stop by (okay, give me notice so I can bake you a proper cake, move the junk from the guest bedroom into another space, and find a bottle of bubbly [in Oklahoma we can't buy chilled champagne or any alcohol on Sunday]) and let's celebrate.

*** We also had a cake for Aster on Wednesday (even though his birthday was last Tuesday).  Both cakes baked were from Tish Boyles' The Cake Book, a less comprehensive tome than The Cake Bible, but still pretty authoritative.  I altered the Peach Buttermilk Coffee Cake recipe too much to know if the cake, as written, is good, not great, or if the substitutions (oil for some butter, walnuts for almonds, half whole wheat flour, half fresh and half frozen peaches, unneeded cream cheese frosting made overly sticky with juice and powdered sugar at the behest of Dianthus) diminished something that could have been great.  Dianthus has been hankering for a cherry cake and a chocolate cake.  I baked him a Black Forest cake and it was great.  It's better today after the cherry juice, cream, jam and alcohol have had more time to permeate, but looks even more askew (who knew that my two nine inch pans were so different in size?  Or that I wouldn't notice until after I had cut the layer and was alternating them?).

2 year-old Aster does not seem to mind lack of "birthday" candles

*See, for instance, picture of a Lady Baltimore Cake here or first key lime pie discussion here.

**I have plans to write an article about rules for enjoying food like a passionate amateur. One such rule would be to never turn down genuinely offered bonus items and to express delight in them when they are great and unexpected, as the chocolate cake in this case was.  I'm afraid, however, that the list of rules would end up like my suggestions for having a fun wedding ("marry someone as great as the Mister who has a fun family and have fun friends and family yourself"), i.e. "enjoy eating and eat with someone you love who enjoys eating".

And so begins Floraganza

Happy New Year!

I pickled some daikon on Saturday, the Mister preserved some lemons and I think I inadvertently am growing a vinegar mother, so never fear, acid explorations will continue; but the new moon was yesterday, Janet's birthday was weeks ago, the year of the snake is here and with it the new resolution.
It's flower year.
Welcome to Floraganza!
This year I will celebrate flowers.
I will be spreading out my specific goals and the rationale behind Floraganza* over the week (among other things, we have a different sickness in our house and I must attend to the youngest member and his feverish rasps) but we will start with the big one.
1. I will have flowers in my house or office (and preferably both) every week.

*The term Floraganza is from the Mister.  It was a joke.  One can't make many suggestions in jest around here without someone taking them seriously.

**The photo captures the lingering nature of these resolutions.  Flowers (2013), sparkling wine (2003-- this bottle a gift from FiL and MiL from Greece) and pink (2004) are all represented.  And somehow I didn't even discuss the acidity of wine in acid year (2012).

Southern Sparklers Herald Changes

One Tuesday in February, classes were cancelled at 3:30 p.m. for that night and the following day. The Mister and I celebrated the unprecedented advanced warning, and that I had on-campus interviews for both of the positions for which I applied over the winter, by popping open the bottle of Simonsig Kaapse Vonkel Brut Rose my parents had given us for Christmas.
This South African methode cap classique (the South African term for bottle fermented sparkling wine: methode champenoise) wine is made from mostly pinotage grapes, with some traditional French champgane varietals, pinot noir and pinot meunier, comprising less than 20% of the blend. It's a lovely coral-pink and, like brut rose champagnes, struck me as very dry for the color. Soup and sparkling wine while it is sleeting is not a classic combination, but one I'd be willing to repeat.
Over our spring break, the Mister and I spent the night at a local bed and breakfast that has great food (my Christmas present to him and our Valentine's meal) while my parents spent the night with Dianthus. We ordered the Graham Beck sparkling wine because it was listed as being from New Mexico, and we were shocked that anyone was challenging Gruet for the New Mexico-based sparkling wine market. The menu was wrong, it was regular Graham Beck from South Africa. I don't think the fact that I spent the next 48 hours in very close proximity to the toilet had anything to do with the sparking wine, and I think it tasted very good and went particularly well with the mushroom soup and the Mister's crazy seafood platter, but my taste memory is somewhat sullied by the after-illness.
Yesterday we made a decision regarding our future jobs: we'll be moving to Oklahoma over the summer, and we drank a bottle of Korbel to celebrate. (The Korbel is Californian, not South African, but I'm sure it fits in with "Southern Sparklers" somehow. California is "southern" compared to Champagne).
Thanks to Mom and Dad for the babysitting and the wine. Thanks to the Mister for looking for finding me jobs to apply for and we look forward to seeing many of you on our travels to and from Oklahoma this summer (which will include Colorado, Kansas and possibly New Mexico).

Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin

While at a cabin away for the weekend two weeks ago, the Mister and I drank a bottle of Veuve Clicqout Ponsardin champagne. My parents had given it to us at Christmas to be drunk when Mervivian Alloicious arrived. It was super tasty. I don't have the taste memory to rank it with other good champagnes we've had, but know that it was certainly up there. Sitting on the porch of a stone cabin watching the leaves fall and chipmunks frolic in the rain, discussing everything from fantasy novels to family-friendly employment practices with the man I love certainly didn't hurt the taste either.

I'm trying to write a conclusion to my earlier post about being proud of playing tennis to explain why the pride is new for me. The advice, obviously, is nothing new: "live life to the fullest 'cause you never know when you'll die" would be trite if it weren't such good advice and if tragedy didn't regularly remind us that we need to follow it. I suppose part of my typical difficulty comes from the fact that it is easier to write about personal misfortune than personal good fortune. I want to write that the cabin had mice and lots of insects, the chimney flue didn't completely work and that it rained all weekend, all of which is true, but those issues didn't make the company or the champagne any less wonderful. Coming across as boastful about my life really concerns me, but, as I've mentioned before, while boasting of good fortune may be annoying, experiencing good fortune while claiming it is bad is insufferable. My life is not perfect and I never intend to portray it that way, but I hope that I am wise enough to show some gratitude for how very good it is.

While I was in graduate school, my mother annually wrote about the parties I threw in the family Christmas letter. This disturbed me because I worked hard as a graduate student, and I didn't want family friends to think that I partied all the time. The year she listened to me and wrote about my graduate work instead of my parties, the letter ended up devoid of any me-ness. What makes me different is not that I worked hard and had ample set-backs as a graduate student (and as a professor and as a mother), but that I threw fantastic theme parties while in graduate school. While in Colorado last week, I watched my father fight with computer programs until the wee hours as he tried to assemble data to his client's changing specs. He was frustrated, achy and having trouble focusing, yet he dropped his work to take me to multiple specialty grocery stores to make sure we had serrano ham and cabrales blue cheese for his grandson's Colorado debut tapas party. It's the good humored food enthusiast refilling wine glasses that people know, not the workaholic scientist, and I think that's a good thing.

When I spoke with my mother about this, she commented that everyone knows we work hard. I'm not so sure. I still remember the sting of one high school friend telling another, who was truly appalled that I had been selected for a prestigious scholarship, "Yeah, she may act like a blond ditz but she's actually really smart" and then repeating the conversation to me as if it were a compliment. My own (very pro-education) grandfather suggested, upon completion of my doctorate, that it was time I settled down and financially supported myself. At the time I was 34, married, living in a house I had purchased while single, and over ten years into the working world.* Friends here fail to understand that Dianthus does not sleep all the time. Many times when they see him asleep in his stroller, it is because he in inconsolable any other way, and while it is great that the stroller nearly always consoles him, I cannot accomplish anything else while taking him for walks**. I'm as guilty as other friends of thinking that when my father, who often works from home, answers the phone, he is available to talk. Despite my mother's suggestion, people don't know that we work hard.

I'm just beginning to convince myself, however, that it is not the hard work that is worth talking about. My uncle died suddenly nine years ago. I'm sure he was a fine geologist, but I'll always remember him as the guy who sent my father a rock for a Christmas ornament, a man would swing me round long after I was too big too swing, and someone who would take a day of his limited vacation to take his niece and nephew to an amusement park. When he died, a great family friend commented that it further supported my father's philosophy (which stunned me, as I had no idea my father espoused any philosophy enough for others to be able to repeat it). That friend visited my parents in China, somehow convincing my father to sing karaoke (much Jack Daniels was apparently involved), danced at his daughter's wedding and helped pick champagne for my wedding before he died much too young four years after my uncle.

I wrote a really good dissertation. Most semesters I teach too much and most of the time I do it well. Dianthus cries and I deal with it. Yet, if I am remembered, it will be for balls and groundhog parties and wine tastings as a graduate student, taking off on vacation the moment that grades are in as a professor, and taking a two month old to the tennis courts and to a rodent-infested cabin for a champagne-drinking, pizza-eating weekend. And I'm okay with that. No, I'm more than okay. I'm proud of that.

*For accuracy sake, I should clarify that my parents had set aside money for my college education. When I received the prestigious scholarship, I was able to keep the money invested and later use it to buy my house. Thanks Mom and Dad!

**I am well aware that I have an easier than average child; but that still doesn't mean that spending long days with him is easy.

Image is from Dianthus's uncle, who could be known for authoring articles in high impact journals in genetics and geophysics in the same year, but will be better remembered for decorating images of his adorable nephew.

Now we are 36

While bathing* on vacation in Tennessee, I read A. A. Milne's The House at Pooh Corner. It was a strange sensation, because, although I knew the characters and the stories, I'm fairly certain I had never read them before. We had Milne's verse We Were Very Young at my house, and perhaps Now We Are Six, but I had never read the prose of the Pooh stories. Not only are the stories fun, they are much more realistic than my Disneyfied image of them. The characters are multi-dimensional. Eeyore is a pessimist and a snot. Rabbit is caring and a busy-body. Winnie is lovable and really dumb. Issues are rarely resolved, just diverted from, in much the way that life at six, or thirty six, really is.

Speaking of birthdays, my parents were here for mine and we celebrated in good style by painting the living room wall red, eating delicious dark chocolate stout cake and drinking a sparkling Blanc de Noir from the Biltmore. I liked the wine better than the Blanc de Blanc from the Biltmore we drank in November or the Canard Duchene the Mister and I drank to celebrate the end of the semester, or several bottles of inexpensive sparklers we've consumed to get us through the semester, but I'll admit I've enjoyed them all.

Speaking of wine, the Mister and I did visit wineries in Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina on our Smokies trip, so I think we may be moving ahead in the every state winery challenge.

Speaking of Pooh, we spent Memorial Day weekend in the Alleghenies with my parents and did two great hikes. At the last stream crossing on Saturday we played a game of Pooh Sticks and my father claims he won, although none of the rest of us spotted his swift stick.

Speaking of birthdays again, the little lion turned four on Monday and appears to be as adorable as ever.
*We have neither bathtub nor television reception at home, so vacation can mean taking bubble baths and watching The Daily Show or a Top Chef marathon.

Deconstruction of a Dinner

How many lucky elements can you pick out from the image of the ginger celebration dinner?

1. Sparkling Wine The vintage Canard Duchene was on sale for $15. While neither of us was overwhelmed with the 1999 vintage, perhaps because the ginger salad dressing and ginger-soy tuna overwhelmed the champagne, we were still lucky to be able to try it for the price.

2. Scrabble Hard to tell from the photo, but I drew no vowels to start (two games in a row!) which was lucky for The Mister as my wasting a blank on the first move, (along with his superior playing), led him to victory.

3. Triple Ginger Cake, Roses, and Nice Candles The Mister did his part and bought roses from a student organization I'm associated with. I baked a dense cake with dried, fresh, and candied ginger and the beeswax candles from my Seattle Sibs seem to be lasting forever.


4. Celestial Quilt Top Just a hint of the lucky stars I'll be sharing with a baby who is due in April but who's mother is certain will emerge any day now.

5. Having a Mister with whom to cook silly theme meals, drink champagne and play Scrabble. Sometimes I'm just really lucky.

Sparkling Update

We've been remiss here at sparkling squirrel in reporting on sparkling wines recently. There is a reason for lack of sparkling wine drinking, and, until that reason arrives (she/he is due in early July), the lack of wine sampling will likely continue.
However, to celebrate being with family and to announce our reason not to drink sparkling wine, the Mister and I did toast with some fine vintages recently. With The Mister's parents we had Jansz Tasmania, a mysterious (as to varietal) Tasmanian premium non-vintage cuvee, which I really liked for what little I sampled, and the crowd did not. We also opened a Biltmore Estates Chateau Reserve 2003 Blanc de Blanc, much preferred by Prairie Quilter, but which reminded me that chardonnay based Blanc de Blancs are not my thing.
In Colorado we drank the last (?) of our wedding sparkling (Korbel Blanc de Noir) and a bottle of true champagne, a grand cuvee purchased simply because it was relatively inexpensive. Both were good, but the later certainly not twice as good as the former, as the price might suggest.

Find a reason and drink some sparkling wine, or whatever makes you feel festive, and keep celebrating.

Pop open some house sparkling

The Colorado Rockies, on their way to the World Series, were apparently drinking Domaine Ste. Michelle last night. Good choice, guys. If you're in a "hot streak of epic proportions" well-chilled sparkling wine should hit the spot. And nice playing, too.

Sparkling Celebrations

We packed the road trip with sparkling wine worthy celebrations. I've already mentioned aperitifs with the siblings-in-law in Chicago and bad wine with good friends in Lawrence. To celebrate the Mister's Cousin's nuptials, we drank Tott's (I believe), which was well-suited to the gorgeous and tasty wedding cake. To celebrate Father's Day with the Mister's Father we drank pumpkin wine from Illinois. Really, it is much much better than it sounds.

Less than a week after the woodland party in Lawrence, we threw the almost-annual croquet tournament (16th, I believe, first one in 1988) and drank good sparkling wine with good friends: Hungarian, our "house" sparkler (Domaine Ste. Michelle Blanc de Noir[DSM]) and a fair pink cava (Cristalano). With my partner Moonbeam, I won the croquet tournament for the second time in 16 attempts, but only because Principal T and Bass Masseur, who were way ahead, threw it. Distinguished Diplomat and her Handsome Husband arrived, but didn't stay, as they were on their way to the hospital for sprog induction (I'd never seen anyone nine and a half months pregnant perform croquet yoga before; it is an unusual sight). Like the Woodland Evening in Lawrence, the croquet tourney reminded me how much I adore and miss my friends. Although, unlike the woodland evening, it was not twinged with "this will never happen again" sadness. My "gang" in Lawrence largely dispersed last summer, with another significant contingent leaving this year, and it will take significant work to meet up again. The Colorado group, however, is a tribute to the lasting power of friendship and tradition-- we have a great time regardless of how long it has been since we've seen each other.

While still in Colorado, we also drank to my mother's birthday (the Korbel Blanc de Noir from our wedding-- very good stuff), Father's Day (a good Spanish red, along with some DSM), my mother's real retirement and Elaine's Birthday (a slightly effervescent Vino Verdi).

Later in Madison, we drank a New Ulm Cherry Lambic with great friends from high school. Technically not wine (although it is sparkling), the is the best made in the US Lambic I've had, and really very good. I also bring it up as an excuse to mention the dear friends, neither of whom I have seen in years, whom I love. I reveled in the chance to introduce my Mars geologist friend to my chemical archaeologist friend because everybody needs a to know that there are people as nerdy, or perhaps nerdier, than they are in the world.

Speaking of people nerdier than we are, back in Chicago we attended a wedding that included rings in Elvish, menus with Latin names, diver's during dinner (reception at the aquarium) and the Dungeons and Dragons players guide. We celebrated by drinking DSM Blanc de Blanc (a great choice, I might add, even if I prefer the Blanc de Noir) and enjoying the company of friends now living in PA, TX, IA, KS, MO and IL.

Before we left the sibling's-in-law place the next morning, we drank a bottle of a cava with red and black raspberries from the farmer's market, specifically labeled as "for champagne." While our primary motivation was to try beautiful berries in sparkling wine, we could have been celebrating Sibling-In-Law's new professor job in St. Louis or the other Sibling's-in-Law signing off on his dissertation (rounding out the topics of obscure advanced degrees in my generation of sib, Mister and sibs-in-law to genetic algorithms, effect of internet on German news communication, the 660 discontinuity in the earth's mantle, economic history of San Fransisco (?) during a specific time period, 15th century (?) German Lit., and population ecology of prairie turnips).

We drank a nice bottle of Door County Winery Sparkling Wine (Wisconsin wine made from California grapes, $20 at a restaurant) just 'cause, which impressed our waitress. It's one of the better small state sparklers we've had, but then the juice wasn't local. To celebrate our second anniversary, we drank a bottle of Bollinger Special Cuvee over a leisurely dinner at the Old Rittenhouse Inn in Bayfield, Wisconsin. While it wasn't as good as the Charles Heidsieck we drank for our first anniversary, there is something about a nice bottle of true champagne which makes it better than other sparkling wines (including non-Champagne French wines).

At a Portuguese restaurant in Toronto (I had no idea that Toronto has a strong Portuguese community, but then I had really no idea about how large, urban and cosmopolitan Toronto is until I tried to navigate The Mister downtown into the city), we had a bottle of Portuguese sparkling that was a good accompaniment to the grilled octopus, raw oysters and fabulous seafood risotto. In absentia, we may have been celebrating my good friend and former roommate Tuscon Trekker defending her dissertation.

We sampled several Ontario Sparkling wines at the Niagara Pennisula wineries because we could. Three of them very good (two from Reisling and one from Vidal Blanc grapes, I believe), and the two very cheap peach and "sweet brunch" sparklers were, well, cheap and sweet.

Since returning home, we drank the Niagara sparklers to celebrate being home, a DSM bottle to celebrate living here one year, a Cristalano bottle to celebrate almost being unpacked, and I'm not sure what all else.

On the trip we also celebrated the Mister's Grandfather's 80th birthday and actual birth of Kaliel to Distinguished Dip. and her HH. Both were certainly sparkling wine worthy occasions, if we didn't actually drink it at the moment. Cheers!

Why I Make a Poor Wine Critic

Two weeks (and over 3,800 miles ago), I sampled my first ever sparkling wine from Luxembourg. While it was offered as an aperitif, it was not opened until dinner was ready. Dinner, in this case, was kale and chorizo soup and fabulous from-scratch biscuits, prepared by the siblings-in-law. The meal was great. Along with the rest of the time we spent with them, the meal reminded me how much I like my siblings-in-law. My siblings-in-law, in fact, are one of the unexpected bonuses of my life. It's not startling that a great guy such as the mister would have a great family, or that my brother would have good taste, but the chances that both of my sisters-in-law would be vegetable-loving people I genuinely enjoy spending time with is fairly unlikely.
In any case, I left this meal thinking about the wonders of kale and lucky siblings-in-law. I didn't note the name of the wine, the price, or anything about it. I recall it being slightly pink, tasty, and not a great accompaniment to the hearty soup. Too many thoughts of friends and family and no thoughts of wine. Poor critic skills.

Bad Sparkling, Good Company

While in Chicago, the Mister and I found bottles upon bottles of sparkling wine we needed to try-- sparkling from Michigan, Luxemburg, Switzerland and a Lambrusco. We had the opporuntity to sample several of them last night at a "Woodland Evening" with our friends in Lawrence.
The Swiss sparkling was unexpectedly red and advertised as having hints of strawberry. It was definitely fruity, and the strawberry hint was the overwhelming smell of over-ripe (read rotten) fruit.
The Michigan blanc de blanc was dry and yeasty with an off-smell.
The Lambrusco was dark red and overtly grapey-- similar to sparkling communion wine or Andre cold duck done better.
Three bad sparkling wines in one evening, a total bust, except we were there to see friends, so it was wonderful.

Apertifs!

"Shall we have an apertif before we go out to dinner?" asks one of the true intellectuals, my sister-in-law, while pulling out a bottle of French sparkling wine, some truly blackcurrant creme de cassis, and a chunk of "fruit of the goat" she picked up at the farmer's market.

It is immediately clear to me that I am not home in small town West Virginia, where apertifs are not part of our regular routine, mores the pity.

Apertifs represent the transition to my siblings-in-law world, which, to me, represents all that is cool about big city life. Their apartment is crammed with books and original artwork and not in the least bit cluttered. They have Gastronomica, The Journal of Food and Culture, sitting next to the guest bed. They discuss foreign films (and see most of them too.) And they have apertifs.

We've just arrived on a long road trip. Apertifs are served. Maybe it's all an act. I eat it up, and in the case of my sparkling apertif, drink it down.

South American Sparkling

Prior to our recent trip, different varieties of Argentinian Chandon were the only South American sparkling wines The Mister and I had sampled. We were, therefore, anxious to try more, despite the warnings of Happy Cricket and the Lonely Planet Guide ("Local wines are truly terrible and should not be experimented with,").

At the supermerket In Baños we discovered the Grand Duval line of Ecuadoran sparkling wine. For only $2.80 a bottle (Ecuador is dollarized, so US currency is in use), we could have either the Quinceañera Rosado or the 45th anniversary special. Of course we bought the pink bottle to celebrate a quinceañera. Prairie Dog made of point of commenting that if we ever throw him a quinceañera, we will not be serving that swill. It was very likely the worst sparkling wine we have ever consumed. One might reasonably ask what we would expect of a $2.80 wine that includes water, musto, and raisin concentrate as the first three ingredients drunk at room temperature from a plastic hotel cup, but we've drunk some awful stuff. Being the worst is saying something.

Towards the end of the trip we found a bottle of Chilean sparkling wine at a Spanish Deli in Quito. While it was not as good as many cavas or our house sparkling, the Mister commented that if it were available in the US for $6.95 a bottle, we'd drink the Concha y Toro Brut on occasion.

On our last night in Ecuador, we splurged and ate at Mare Nostrum, a gothic-themed seafood restaurant where the fireplace, stained glass windows and pewter plates actually added to the evening, rather than just looking silly. We drank a bottle of Navarro Correas Extra Brut, an Argentinian sparkling that complimented the perfectly grilled octopus (the best octopus either of us has eaten), as well as the garlicky shellfish, the grilled wahoo and the taxo (a type of passion fruit) ice cream.

Vivre!

To celebrate completing the end of classes, the Mister and I drank a bottle of Vivre California Sparkling wine last Friday. It was nice. The kind of pale, fine, sparkling wine to add ameretto to to make sparkling almond. The wine was nice. It was even nicer to be done with classes.

JanKris Sparkling Almond

I recently mentioned to the Mister that we need to drink our sparkling almond, a statement which immediately evoked disbelief, "We don't have a bottle of sparkling almond," and then curiosity, "Why do we have a bottle of sparkling almond?"

We have a bottle of sparkling almond because we bought a case of unusual sparkling wines while we were in Colorado, and sparkling almond was something that we had not tried before. We have now. If you want to replicate the experience and JanKris Sparkling Almond is not locally available, (on-line I found only four purveyors, 2 in Colorado, 1 in Delaware and one somewhere else. It is not listed on the winery's current web site,) take a fine, pale, inexpensive sparkling wine and add a dash of amaretto (clear amaretto if such a thing exists). There is nothing wrong with a slightly sweet sparkling wine that smells like almond flavoring, and I imagine it is probably a much better accompaniant for wedding cake or many brunch items than finer champagnes, but pork and lentils are a bit much for it.

Banrock Station Sparkling Chardonnay

My first sip of Banrock Station Sparkling Chardonnay left me underwhelmed. I commented to the Mister, "Well, adding bubbles doesn't do a lot for a mediocre chardonnay." It was Friday evening, it had been a very long day to end a very long week and I was ready to sip something to celebrate the coming of spring (for the third, and perhaps last, time this year) and distance me from my poor lecture and my students' abysmal test performance. And, at first sip, the Banrock Station wasn't doing it.

The Mister and I then began to make fun of the color of the wine. Being 100% Chardonnay (but not claiming to be a blanc de blanc), the wine was much more yellow than the sparkling wine we usually drink. "That's mighty amber," commented the Mister. I disagreed, "It's pure yellow. Not straw or amber, plain pee."

"Liquid sunshine in a glass," the Mister responded.

Soon the pork loin he had been roasting was done and we were eating delicious food and laughing and chatting. Suddenly, the wine was not too chardonnay-ey or large-bubbled. It was just the right complement for a just right evening.

Roger Pouillon et Fils Rose

Money is not spent lightly in our household. Both the Mister and I are debt averse and feel something is amiss if we are not actively saving, whether on a grad. student or consultant income or something in between. I feel blessed to a have a partner with similar savings attitudes, and lottery-winning-lucky to have one who shares my splurging priorities as well as my savings priorities.

We splurge on travel, food, and sparkling wine.
Last night we dined at Cafe Cimino, a fabulous New American Cuisine/Italian restaurant in a small town that appears as dead as ours in central West Virginia. We'd been planning this meal for a while (it was a Christmas present/Valentine's meal) and thoughts of gorgonzola and roasted fennel kept me going through a gray day of grading. The waiter brought the wine list before the menus and seemed surprised when we insisted on deciding what we were going to eat before we decided on the wine.
Which, as it happens, was foolish, because we knew we were going to end up drinking sparkling wine. I ordered filet mignon with gorgonzola spinach, the Mister had a salmon/asparagus/goat cheese special. We shared the entrees as we always do. We feasted on a fabulous anti pasta platter beforehand. And we enjoyed it all with a bottle of Roger Pouillon et Fils Brut Rose Champagne. The wine was considerably more colored (and less pink-- more the rusty shade of an older pinot noir) than most champagnes we've had. Very dry. Very winey and very good. Worked with oily olives, salmon and steak, which is a tough combination.

I know that fabulous bottles of true champange don't come cheaply. But they make us happy. Someday we'll have maxed out a huge diamond engagement ring worth of great meals and champagne and I'll need to come up with another excuse (all the money we've saved by not having two cars is already going into the summer travel fund), but in the meantime, I'll look at my plain gold band engagement ring (which is what I asked for) and feel fortunate to be with someone who knows where sparkling really counts.

Sparkling Occasion

The Mister put a bottle of house sparkling wine (Chateau St. Michelle Blanc de Noir) "for Monday night," last weekend. Monday night was the East Region NCAA Women's Division II basketball championship. The opposition, the Crimson Hawks of Indiana, Pennsylvania, played well and were ahead at half (an unfamiliar situation for the local fans. The Lady Pioneers have won 88 of their last 90 home games, and usually the domination is obvious by half), yet the Pioneers prevailed in the end. Upon returning home, humming "Country Roads", and fantasizing about somehow making it to Nebraska to watch the team win the National Championship, I pulled out the bottle of sparkling wine only to find out that the Mister had intended it as dinner wine (we had been expecting guests) rather than celebration wine. After much arm twisting, we drank it anyway. Good wine on a good evening.

Sparkling Report

A few of you have been wondering, "Is Sparkling Squirrel really falling behind on seeing rodents (I haven't seen a live one yet this month), writing groundhog cards (yours is not the only one that hasn't been sent), AND drinking sparkling wine?"
Fear not, dear friends, while the rodents are reclusive and post-work evening time very very short (I'm sleeping with the texts again), the wine is being drunk. Not all is amiss in the world.

While we were asleep at midnight on New Year's, we did have ample sparkling wine-laden frivolities in Lawrence on Jan. 3, consumed the Indiana sparkling on the way home, Sanity Saver (my friend and TA for the 101 labs) brought a bottle of Balletore to the GH party and we had a bottle of Domain St. Michelle Blanc de Noir (the house cham-pan-ya) sometime in between. Enough to keep us going in any case.

Beyond the basic, over the last month we kept a bottle of Chandon California Blanc de Noir in the 'fridge, awaiting a job offer for me. Last Wednesday, my department chair recommended that the college hire me. Technically, that's not a job offer, but it was Valentine's day, it was freezing and cold outside and the Mister and I needed to open a bottle.

It was tasty. Very tasty. Fine bubble structure. Beautiful color. Just plain really good. Better than our "house champagne." Mmmmmm.

Yesterday we were in the big city in yet another snowstorm. The warehouse store to which we belong had both lobster ravioli and Cordoniu Pinot Noir Brut Cava (Spanish) on special, and displayed a big sign mentioning that the sparkling wine was perfect with lobster. Ever suckers for marketing schemes pushing things we really enjoy, the Mister and I bought both pink cava and lobster ravioli and consumed them this evening. While I'm proud of the leek cava butter sauce I created for the ravioli, they were somewhat of a disappointment (I had lobster ravioli at one of the most innovative restaurants in France at age 12 and have been spoiled ever since*), but the mister and I were both impressed with the pinot noir cava.
The wine was definitely better than any pink Spanish wine we've had. While it was pinker than most blanc de noirs, it was distinctly dry and, comprised of 100% pinot noir, made in the same style. We'd both very happily drink it again. It wasn't as good as the Chandon, but at half the price ($10 for this bottle), something we're more likely to encounter again. I'd like to do a side by side tasting with the Domaine St. Michelle, to discern a definitive favorite, but in the absence of that I'd put them at the same level and choose based on price (unless you absolutely cannot handle the pink color in which case the Domaine St. Michelle is distinctly paler).


*Every once in a while my mother wonders what sort of food snob monsters she created by taking my brother and me to Europe and out to eat at nice restaurants while we were young and impressionable. Of course I have no idea what I'd be like without my love of good food any more than I can imagine myself not noticing the plants (I mean, I wouldn't be me), but I am eternally grateful to my parents for this (and many other things). Thank you mom and dad. I hope I'm not a monster, but if I am it's not because of those fabulous lobster ravioli, or rooster kidneys, or dark chocolate apricot souffle, or casis sorbet in France or wonderful pesto or cinnamon rolls or schnitzel at home . . . or . . .