The Promise

We saw "The Promise"( Wu ji) on Sunday night. It shares some DNA with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon": mythical-magical martial arts set in ancient China, lavish costumes and sets, and loads of CGI and flying stuntwork. The script and special affects are not quite in the same league though...

"The Promise" was fun but came off more as a cross between "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" and "House of Flying Daggers". The Baron Munchausen similarity goes beyond the fantastic setting - one of the characters comes from the "Land of Snow" (think Tibet) and has the ability to run incredibly fast, which reminded me a lot of Eric Idle's character in Munchausen.

"The Promise" is at times so goofy you think it must be tongue-in-cheek, yet at other times it takes itself very seriously, so the end result is an uneven mix of tones. The acting was generally great - I thought all the central characters were perfect, and only the "baddie" seemed a little too cliched and one-dimensional.

The special effects were at times subtle and well-used, and at other times completely overblown and ridiculous. (For example, the all-too-fake looking circular city, the huge CGI battle scene, or the cartoony bull stampede). Nicer touches were the morph/blends from one scene to another, and the awesome Goddess Manshen.

If you can switch off your brain and not worry about the weak plot or occasionally silly special effects, this is a fun movie. If you want a more enjoyable goofy kung-fu movie (albeit set in the 1940's) , see "Kung Fu Hustle". (I need to check out some of Stephen Chow's other movies...)

Current reality TV addictions

So, there are a few interesting reality-TV shows on at the moment that I'm enjoying. I don't like most of the shows with gross challenges, lots of personal in-fighting and backstabbing, or stupid challenges. I tend instead to like food-related competitions (hello Iron Chef - the original series, not Iron Chef America) or historical shows (putting modern people into historical recreations).

So, currently, we're watching:

1. Top Chef (Bravo). A fairly fun cooking-challenge show (not as good as Hell's Kitchen, though). Thank heaven Stephen finally got booted out - he's a pompous ass! :)
2. Texas Ranch House (PBS). In the tradition of The Pioneer House, Edwardian Country House nd the 1940's House, this show puts a motley collection of cowboy wannabe's out on a huge ranch in Texas, along with a rancher and his family.
3. Jamie's School Lunch Project (TLC). Jamie Oliver takes on British government school lunches, and tries to make healthy food for 65p a portion. So far, he's run up against several problems: kids don't like his fancy veggie-laden food, he tends to be way over budget, is disorganized and gets the food out late, and the kitchen staff is a bit of a thorn in his side. Lots of interesting details make this more of a documentary than a reality-TV show. Excellent so far!

To cork, or not to cork?

It seems South African wines have the highest rate of corked wine in the world.

It also seems that South African consumers are not ready to accept screw-caps (and these are still associated with cheap or bad wine). The Vergelegen estate (recently named the best winery in the New World by Wine Enthusiast) tried to release their ultra-premium Sauvignon Blanc under srew cap, but had to switch back to cork after poor response from the public. Some restaurants even return any wine under screw cap...

Othering interesting bits from the article above:

• Only 15% of Kiwi wine is closed with natural cork.
• Domaine des Baumard is moving their entire production to screw cap.

Unrelated note: Domaine des Baumard's website seems to have been defaced at the time this was written.

Tasting notes and some slang from down under

Just a reminder that I tend to not post wine tasting notes here anymore, instead I put them up on Cellartracker. I just added a note for 2002 Larrikin Shiraz (Barossa Valley, Australia). It's very yummy!

Here's are my notes from April. (Yikes, that's a lot of wine!)

Interestingly, the word larrikin is Aussie slang, and pops up on quite a few wines from down under. (For example, there's Mount Langi Ghiran Larrikin Shiraz ) Some info on the origin and meaning of larrikin is here. Oddly enough, it looks like larrikin means the same thing as tsotsi! :)


PS: Unrelated to wine, but an Aussie at work used the term flat stick today, in this context: "We have a couple of emergencies, so the team is flat stick at the moment". No, it's not a reference to ice hockey, here's info indicating it means "flat-out" or at full speed. I'll have to ask Michael Quinion what the origin is...

Sauvignon Blanc overrated?

Slate has this article on why Sauvignon Blanc is overrated.

Simply put, the grape is a dud, producing chirpy little wines wholly devoid of complexity and depth, the very qualities that make wine interesting and worth savoring.

What's with the poo-pooing of whole grape varieties in the USA? First it was Chardonnay that was "out", now Merlot seems to be in the firing line (seen "Sideways"?), and now Sauvignon Blanc? It should be about the taste of the wine, not whether the grape being used is currently in favour or not. (What next? Grape tabloids? "Did you see how fat Pinot Gris is getting? She's so over the hill!")

A little harsh, methinks. Sure, most Sauvignon Blancs are fresh, crisp and refreshing and do not have the "complexity" of heavier white wines (which are often oaked to hell and gone). But sometimes you want that - it's like having a nice refreshing salad instead of pate de foie gras. I think packing good flavour into a light, crisp white wine is as much an art as making a lush, opulent red. (But then I'm a yobbo that actually likes some heavily oaked Chardonnays every now and then)

I tend to drink mostly reds, but have had some good Sauv Blanc in the past, most recently a 2004 Southern Wright (from South Africa, of course). With the sunshine and warmer weather finally making themselves felt in Seattle, I'll no doubt be buying a drinking more white wine than red.

[yellow tail] wine

The New York times on Sunday had two articles discussing the phenomena of Yellow Tail wine (which is printed [yellow tail] on their labels).
The first is this one, covering the topic of animals on wine labels.
The second is this detailed story of the rise of Casella Wines and the Yellow Tail brand, which is now one of the top-selling wines in the USA with 7.5 million cases sold in the US last year. Interestingly, only a tiny fraction (<2%) of their wine is sold in Australia.

* If you're needing a login to read NYT stuff, try cypherpunk.at.cypherpunk.com / cypherpunk.

Sad news

Sometimes you find sad news when browsing around the web...
I was looking around to see what the guys from the South African band Tananas are up to nowadays. I Googled one of the members, and came across this story about Gito Baloi from April 2004: South Africa music star shot dead. F u c k....

Here's a page in memory of him, and a bio page on Sheer Sound's website.

I'm lucky enough to have seen Gito play several times along with the other members of Tananas, the last time being the WOMAD festival in Marymoor Park here in Redmond, WA.

On the positive side, it looks like Steve Newman and Ian Herman are playing together again, with a new bassplayer (Mlungisi Gegana).

Tsotsi : 's good, 's good!

(My previous post about Tsotsi is here)

{A} and I finally got to see Tsotsi on Friday evening. The movie was great - I'd give it a 80% fresh rating on the All-Gold Tomatiesous Meter! I heartily recommend it and am very proud in a vicarious way. The picture it paints of life in gangsterism in South Africa is not flattering, but it shows a realistic slice of life for much of population.

There's some great language to tease your ears with (a little Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tsotsitaal, and maybe Sotho or Tsonga). It seemed to me that the writer/director deliberately tried to mix in as many Southern African languages as possible - and at times this seemed a little contrived.

The acting is pretty uniformly great. Presley Chweneyagae is amazing as the title character, and the other three actors playing his fellow gang members flesh out their roles nicely, so that you get a real feel for them each as individuals. The only weak links in the acting for me were the police

The kwaito soundtrack is very good and mostly performed by Zola who also plays a role in the film. (Some of the songs are harsh and challenging to listen to - not that I claim to understand most of the lyrics - but they add greatly to the mood.) The schmaltzier music at times became intrusive, especially towards the end of the film, but that's a small quibble.

I'd be very interested to know how well this film does within South Africa - I hope it connects with audiences there in a big way, although the melting-pot of languages used may mean that only literate audiences that can read subtitles will be able to appreciate it.

It was interesting to see that all of the victims of the gang's crime in the movie are black. I liked that the stereotypical view of crime in SA being perpetrated against white people was challenged. The film showed that there is a class of wealtyh black people in the country, and also highlighted that the target of petty crime is more often the people living and working in the townships. Still, avoiding having a white family targeted seemed a little contrived. (Would the movie have provoked a backlash of protest, or come across as racist if it had included crime targeted at a white family?)

On a side note, this was our first foray to the schwanky new cinemas at Lincoln Square, and I must say I like them. They serve Tully's coffee and good ice-cream, have cushy leather* seats that recline and have folding armrests. Sadly, the theatre was almost empty, but that meant we could pick great seats and enjoy the film without obnoxious neighbours.

---

* Prolly not real leather, but nice anyway.

Guess Hu's coming to dinner

Visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao had dinner on Tuesday nigth with Bill & Melinda Gates at their Medina home.

I wonder what Hu ended up choosing from this menu?

Thembi's AIDS Diary

There was a very moving segment on All Things Considered yesterday evening: an audio diary from a young South African woman who has AIDS.

Read about it and listen to the segment here.
Read an interview with her here.
Thembi will be travelling around the USA between now and May 4th. (Sadly Seattle is not on her tour list)

Pittsburgh visit

Here's a little bit about our trip a few weekends ago to Pittsburgh. {A} has already written a bit on her blog about "Operation Snow My Mum", in which we deceived her mom in a most sneaky way and got her on a plane to Pittsburgh without her knowing where she was going. (OK, she probably knew once she saw the tickets... But she didn't know for sure what was up until then.) Even when we pulled up at the airport she was still not sure whether we had meant to go there for dessert - our excuse for driving so far south after dinner at Firenze. The flight was a red-eye,connecting through Detroit. I had not fully appreciated why these things are called "red-eyes" until this trip - you definitely feel crusty and not too fresh when you step off a plane at 7:30am after 6 hours of travelling. Detroit airport is quite cool, by the way - defintely a nice option to transfer through. We were met at the airport by {J}, got our rental car, and headed out with him directing. (It's so nice having someone that knows their way around directing you - makes driving a snap, although I can't take any credit there since {A} did all the driving for this trip, and did a brilliant job!) The airport is about an hour outside of downtown Pittsburgh (I'll call it Pgh for short), and we drove through a mixture of rolling green hills, some with forests of spindly trees (no evergreens here). We passed a mixture of urban and suburban buildings right next to the highway, some of the houses abandoned and rather sad looking. {J} said you could snap one up for $15k!

The final approach to Pgh was a tunnel through Mount Washington (really more like a big hill, heh). You pop out the other side of the tunnel, and BOOM - there's Pittsburgh! Pretty cool... (There area LOT of bridges in Pgh - it makes Portland Oregon look tame) The rest of the morning is a bit of a blur - I remember walking around downtown and getting our first look at the Cathedral of Learning. This is a very cool-looking gothic building, and despite its church-like appearance, it was in fact built originally for academic use by the University of Pittsburgh. The inside is very grand (picture Hogwarts from Hatt Potter), and has a huge open commons room in the center of the ground floor. There are also the 27 Nationality Rooms - classrooms decorated to evoke various nations, such as Japan, England, etc. The rooms were closed when we were there, but we got a small look at them via peepholes :) We also stopped outside the museum of natural history and got this cool picture of the dinosaur statue outside. (We came back to the museum too close to closing the following day, so we never got to see the interior - something to definitely do next time!)


We grabbed some much-needed breakfast and caffeine at a nice diner close to the university. (I gorgot the name - {J} will have to refresh my memory). Despite the caffeine, by this point we were all almost falling asleep where we sat, so we headed off to {J}'s apartment for a snooze. {J} lives in a cute old brick apartment building. (In fact, most of the buildings in Pgh are brick - very different to the west coast). We walked up a few blocks to a little commercial area and had afternoon tea at a cute little place called Te Tea. Very friendly owners ({J} and his friends are regulars here, so we were treated like royalty...) {A} and I realized we don't know of a comparable tea place in Seattle (which is sad), so if anyone knows good tea places, let me know. (The criterion are (a) a nice, relaxed atmosphere and (b) a good selection of tea, including good black teas.)
http://www.teamap.com/states/state_WA_Distance.html has an impressive list of places for us to try...

Anyway, back to Pittsburgh... We joined {J} and his Economics colleagues for a barbeque party that night, which was great fun - one of his friends is Jamaican and made some amazing-looking Jerk chicken. Our band of merry vegetarians headed off to a nearby Giant Eagle to buy some goodies, and I was really impressed with the store. ({J} says it used to be pretty sad, but was recently overhauled to compete with a Whole Foods that opened nearby.) The quality and selection of cold meat, fresh meat and fish was incredible - better than the Whole Foods we have near us...

The following day we headed down to The Strip - a district dominated by a long road full of cafes, delis, gift shops, street vendors, restaurants, ... The atmosphere was very lively and there were tons of people milling around enjoying the sunshine. A great little deli provided some breakfast, La Prima provided a great cappuccino. (You know you're in an area with a lot of Italians when you ehar the customers in the coffee bar speaking Italian and there are notices from the local consulate/embassy on the walls.) The most amazing place for me was definitely the Italian grocery store we visited: Pennsylvania Macaroni Company.

A sprawling layout of rooms with old beat-up wooden floors, each room filled with an incredibly array of goodies from Italy and elsewhere. A whole room was dedicated to cheese and cold meat, another room had huge vats of olive oil waiting to be tapped-off into your own bottle (or you could buy a cheap bottle there). Tons of great bread, pasta, sauces and convenience foods. The only thing missing was a selection of Italian wine. Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, it turns out, are even more strict/weird about alcohol sales than Washington state is. You can only buy wine and spirits in state liquour stores - no grocery is allowed to sell them. Some specialized beer stores are allowed to sell beer, but not wine of spirits. (There was one store we went into on the Strip that sold their own wine brands, but you had to buy $50 or more, and wait at least a few days for delivery).

The Italian grocery store did have one beverage that I ended up buying: Chinotto from San Peligrino. The bottle caught my eye for some reason, and I immediately thought of China Martini, an Italian amaro liqeuer that my uncle first introduced us to in South Africa. On the off-chance that this had a similar taste, I bought some. Indeed, this was amaro-flavoured soda! Yum! Now I just need to find some in Seattle. I'll check the Italian deli store in Pike Place - they are likely to be the best bet. (Anyone know of a larger, less snooty Italian grocery store in Seattle? Something more like Penn. Macaroni Company?)

Our return hike to the car took us past the Church Bew Works, so we had a late lunch here. As the name implies, this is a brewery inside an old church. They've kept the exterior unchanged, and made minimal changes to the interior too, so you sit at booths made from the old pews. The altar is now devoted (rightly, IMHO) to the production of beer, with huge shiny kettles serving as the focal point.

A great stained-glass window high in the opposite wall cast a colourful image onto the glass shielding the kettles... Their beers are yummy too, so if you like beer I'd definitely recommend coming here. (Nice food too...)
Sunday was mostly spent inside the Fipps Conservatory - a huge conservatory (that's a glass building with plants in it, fer dummies like me). They have an amazing collection of orchids, lillies, tropical fruit trees, a japanese garden with several bonsai, and a butterfly room. (The butterflies will mostly still about to hatch from their pupae). Really nice - it's a pity we left our camera in the car, but you can get a sense from these pics. (I hope they don't mind the link).

All too soon, we had to head back to the airport for our return trip. Pittsburgh was great fun, and much prettier than I had anticipated. It has a very different feel to other cities in the US I've been to (mostly on the west coast), and you definitely can see and feel the history all around you.

More pics here. (Note: You need to login as a friend/family to see all of them...)

The gospel of Judas

Judas: This is what really happened from the Mail & Guardian is interesting. The National Geographic Society unveiled the leather-bound Gospel of Judas Iscariot, supposedly written in AD 300.

I always thought it strange that Judas was villified by most Christians and that his name has been synonymous with neing a traitor, when he was supposedly helping with God's "great plan" for the salvation of mankind. It seems someone had to turn Jesus in, and Judas was the lucky one to get to do it. (I wonder why God didn't just have the Roman soldiers find Jesus by accident, or have Jesus hand himself over? hmm...)

I've recently gotten re-interested in the Gnostic gospels after reading some interesting quotes from the Gospel of Thomas in a great little book of aphorisms. (The World in a Phrase, by James Geary) There are some real gems in this book, and it gives a really interesting sampling of various philosophies over the ages, with little biographies and anecdotes about the various philosphers, authors, and wits that created the selected aphorisms.

As a result of reading this book, I have a few books about the Gnostic bible from the local library waiting for me to read them...

PS: The Dead Sea Scrolls will be in Seattle later this year. Does one go despite the high liklihood of encountering freaky religious nuts? Hopefully the freaky history nuts will outnumber them... :)

Update: 4/10: Slate has a story on the manuscript's history:

After it was found—the official story is that this happened in the 1970s, but it was probably much earlier—shadowy figures in the black-market antiquities trade took the text to Europe and kept it out of public view. The reason for their secrecy was not theology, but greed. The sorry tale is a narrative of venal irresponsibility.

Decoding the cherry nose

Reading and decoding wine reviews can be tricky or just downright amusing. Take some of these for example:

• This is a sultry, sensual wine with a huge palate presence of smoked meat and spice. Velvety red fruits literally spill from its sides.
• ...thick with flavour yet chocked with interest, the plummy, meaty, peppery drive aided by gorgeous flourishes of tar, sap, violets and reduced pan juices. The tannin make-up is exemplary, as is the cedary, suave, quality oak. Is it bitter on the finish? Yes, but in a sophisticated way.

This audio segment from NPR's Weekend Edition tackles this topic:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4604068

http://www.stratsplace.com/hawkins/winetaste.html has what looks like a comprehensive glossary of wine-tasting terminology. Now to write a review that would put Parker to shame! :)

Indian Recipe: Spinach and mixed vegetable curry

So, I was a little confused when I wrote a few days ago about the new wine blogging event. Of course, only the host gets to decide what the food/recipe is, and everyone else is meant to then make the recipe and suggest wine pairings.
The first event is live here...

But, I'm going to stick to my guns and post an Indian recipe and then post later about the wines we drink on Sunday... Here's a recipe from Ramola Parbhoo's Indian Cookery for South Africa:

Bhaji Nu Sakh : Spinach and mixed vegetable curry
400 g spinach, washed & finely chopped (fresh is better than frozen)
2 large onions, chopped finely
250 ml (1 cup) frozen mixed veggies (I like a mix with some frozen lima or soy beans in it)
4 potatoes, diced (waxy ones work best)
15 ml (1 T) dhunia-jeero (corriander-cumin powder)
2 ml (1/2 t) salt
10 ml (2 t) sugar
5 ml (1 t) green masala (green chili, ginger, oil and salt blended together)
For the Vagaar:
125 ml oil
5 ml (1 t) jeero (cumin seeds)
2 ml (1/2 t) rai (mustard seeds)

Preparation:
In a large dish, mix the chopped spinach, onions, mixed veggies, potatoes, salt, sugar, and spices. Toss well.
Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the cumin and mustard seeds and brown for 10 seconds. Add the vegegtable mixture. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes on low heat or until the vegetables are cooked.

The Wine for Men that enjoy being Men

Ready for some wine that'll put hair on your chest and strip the grease off your intake valves? Ray's Station has started a wine advertising campaign targeting men explicitly. Gems from the BBC news story:

• No white wines - they're for the ladies only, apparently. (I guess that goes for rosé too)
• No pinot noir - it's too light and delicate.

The BBC story mentions wines from other countries that use "silly names" to attract customers, including "Goats do Roam" from South Africa. An earlier news story talked about how wine that uses animals on the label sell better than wines without.

My prediction is that soon we'll see techy geek wines and anime-themed wines to appeal to Microsofties. How about some Chardonnay Champloo or Parity Error Pinotage?

New wine blogging event

Andrew Barrow over at Spittoon has suggested a monthly blogging event to complement events like Wine Blogging Wednesday. Briefly, his idea is to get people to try combining food and wine and blog about the results. More info in his post here.

The idea sounds like a fun way to explore new food recipes and possibly new wine, or just be more adventurous about pairing wine and food. Seeing as I'm doing an Indian food & movie nigh next weekend, I think I'll take the opportunity to try doing a post about pairing Indian food with wine. I have a few off-dry wines in mind, I'll let you know it goes in a few weeks.

I'll post a recipe from my South African Indian recipe book on the 4th...

Robert Parker on SA Wine

It's not very often that Robert Parker waxes lyrical about South African wine, so this comment from him on a bulletin board was cool to see:

"Fabulous South African wine-ANWILKA
Funny to me commenting on this wine after tasting 225+ rather astonishing 2005 Bordeaux this week,but this is the finest red wine I have ever had from South Africa.... a partnership of Bruno Prats,Hubert de Bouard,and the Klein Constantia folks.This debut release, the 2005,a blend of 37% syrah and the balance cabernet sauvignon, is world class stuff....as one might expect from the people behind it.... the first release... there are 42,000 bottles from their vineyards in Stellenbosch,and it is priced to sell for about $40-45 in the USA...release is imminent.... exceptional wine...."

It's interesting that only 10% will be sold in South Africa (for around $30 a bottle, compared to around $40 in the US). The 90% destined for the international market is being sold via the Bordeaux negociants - that must add a bit to the cost? (Does that mean the wine also gets shipped via France?)

Oh yeah... Take that Jeremy Clarkson! :P

Garagiste are offering this wine, and I'm tempted to try some, but will have to wait a while since I already have a heavily overloaded wine fridge. If you try some, let me know how it is.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Everyone's Irish today! Some Slate pics...
Which makes me think of Irish Coffee. It turns out there's a small controversy over where it originated. Maybe not in Ireland as this Wikipedia page states lore would have it, but in America at the Buena Vista Cafe in San Francisco.

Wherever it was invented, it's yummy. I remember my folks making them at home for guests at dinner parties in the late 70's and early 80's, but they seem to have gone out of fashion a little. When was the last time you saw an Irish coffee on a restaurant menu? And for that matter, why is there a dearth of Dom Pedro's on American menus? :)

Slainte!

Fun with Pandora

Thanks to Carrie, I've discovered Pandora - a fun way to discover new music. It tries to learn what sorts of music you like based on artists and songs you add your "radio station". You can then vote for similar songs that Pandora picks, and it will include your feedback in future music.

It reminds me a bit of MusicPlasma (now LivePlasma), except that Pandora streams the music to you for free, instead of just showing you related bands and letting you browse for albums. Both have slick UI designs, with Pandora's being a nice alternative to the standard web page/tab sheets/popups design - very appealing and easy to use. Vista's new Start menu uses a similar approach, but is not as fluid.

If you want to listen to some of the stuff I like, here's a station I've built. (Click to listen in your browser)

Happy Pi Day!

Today is 3.14, so of course it's also International Pi Day! How often do you get to celebrate something that is both transcendental and irrational? "What's pi?" you ask?

PS: In the USA today is also National Potato Chip Day!

Some South African wine news

The good: South African wine estate Vergelegen wins the "New World Winery of the Year" accolade from Wine Enthusiast Magazine.

The bad: Recent power outages in the Western Cape have jeopardized the production of wine this year, especially white wines that need careful temperature control. (Stormhoek mention the power outages here too.)

The ugly: Many people don't like SA wine, especially the home-grown varietal Pinotage, saying they taste green and unripe. Stormhoek claim to have made some "world-class Pinotage" that doesn't have this problem, so I'll have to see if/when it is available here.

25/$25 Dinner @ Brasa

Dinner here on Sunday was good, but not stellar. It was clear that the portion for the 25/$25 promotion are scaled-down from their regular menu - generally I don't mind, as long as I feel I'm still getting good value. At time, Brasa felt like they were pushing their luck...

Inside, Brasa is warmly decorated with booths along the outside wall, an open kitchen, and lots of dark colours. The overall ambience is fairly posh, but inviting and intimidating. For some reason our table had no table-cloth, which I thought was a bit tacky. Some tables are wood, and lookd OK without a cloth; ours wasn't wood.

Service generally was excellent. SLightly irritating was that they left 4 or 5 empty wine glasses on the table until quite late in the meal. I was even served a glass of wine which was put down right next to an empty glass for my setting... A waiter brought out appetizers and gave them to the wrong diner, which is not something you expect in a fancy place like this...

Food-wise, everything I tasted was good to very good. We were served really nice crunchy bread with very fruity olive oil to use for dipping. The 25/$25 menu works like this: you get to pick any starter and main course on the main menu that is marked (with a cute piggy icon). So the choice is very good compared to the average 25/$25 restaurant which usually offer 3 options for each course.

I had the Mediterranean mussels, and then poached black cod. The mussels were very small, and I think I had all of 8 in my bowl, but they were very tasty! Alyssum had a really interesting tomato and orange soup, followed by good wild mushroom risotto. (The presentation for her risotto was a bit sad). Others had the strip steak (which looked very good and was the most generous portion served at our table). One of us ordered the carpaccio for a starter, and finished it in 3 bites, again a victim of the tiny portions.

For dessert I was disappointed to see there were only 2 options for 25/$25 diners, both quite similar: a mascarpone cheesecake with pistacchio crust, or frozen lemon mousse. Waah! No cheese option. (There is an impressive-looking cheese selection when you walk into the restaurant - reserved for higher-paying guests, no doubt).

I had a great glass of white wine: billed on the wine list as Big House White 2003 Ca' Del Solo. I thought this might be Spanish, but Googling it now I see it actually Boony Doon Ca' del Solo from California. (2004 vintage info here). The 2003 was nice and refreshing, with a mineral tang, good acids and a firm but smooth finish. The wine list is very good, with a nice wine-by-the-glass selection, some interesting Spanish wines, and a "Cliff Notes" section with several wines around $30.

Overall, this was worth the money and I'd recommend trying Brasa during the 25/$25 promotion. Assuming the portions are normal-size when you pay full price, they're worth checking out outside the promotion too, although this is on the more expensive end ($15-ish for starters, $30 for mains, $10 for dessert)

"The greatest match ever played"

Normally, 300+ runs in a limited-overs cricket match is a decent score. A score in the high 300's would be unasssailable...

Before Sunday, no side had ever scored more than 400 in a one-day international, but Australia managed to hit 434 / 4. South Africa still managed to beat them, though! With one ball to spare, SA hit 438 / 9.

Unfortunately I didn't get to watch this match, although it looks like they'l be making a DVD of it. IOL have a nice summary of the match here.

Jeremy Clarkson on South African wine

You know him - he's on Top Gear. He's sometimes irrititating, but always entertaining.
Well, he was lucky enough to be invited to South Africa on Jaguar's tab.
http://driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,12529-2068235_1,00.html has his impressions on the country, the wine, and the Jaguar XK. (Read the article, it's fun)

Now Stormhoek has an open invitiation for him to visit their winery, so that they can show him some smaller stainless steel tanks and explain the difference between pressure guages and temperature guages.

Perhaps they can get the Stig to drive a fully-laden minibus around the Top Gear racetrack in return?

New music releases

There have been some interesting new CDs released in the past few weeks:

• William Orbit - "Hello Waveforms" - his first album in 5 years or so. After a few listenings, I quite like it but find it a little too spaced-out and mellow. It's follows in the same veign as "Pieces in a Modern Style", although there are some vocal tracks. I still prefer Strange Cargo 3 and Hinterland. Good news is that he is supposedly releasinganother album later this year.
• Beth Orton - "Comfort of Strangers". I love her voice, but it took some getting used to. No review of the album yet - I need to listen to it more.
• Bic Runga - "Birds". An incredible singer/songwriter from NZ. Instead of an Amazon link, the link on the left is to the HMV site in Aus, where you can order a special edition which includes 5 live tracks. Neil Finn plays piano on the live songs and plays on the album. I've just ordered this, so no review yet.

25/$25 Dinner @ Yarrow Bay Grill

Worth $25? Hells yeah!

Yum! This place is consistently excellent - this was our 2nd visit for dinner during the Twenty-Five for $25 promotion, and as before, everything was superb.

The restaurant has a great location, right on Lake Washington with a wonderful view. It's definitely a posh place, normally too expensive for me to visit except for special occasions. The Beach Cafe downstairs is a nice choice if you want a less formal meal. The service was very good, right from the moment we walked in. The maitre d' made welcomed us promptly, offered to take our coats and ushered us to our table. Our waitress was great - friendly and prompt, but not intrusive or trying too hard to be friendly.

(At one place that shall remain nameless the waitress thinks it's a good idea to grab your shoulder or praise you for each order as if you're in kindergarten and just ate all your peas!)

I had:

• Seven-spice calamari. Served with a scallion aioli and spicy soy dipping sauce.
• Sole fillets with broccolini, mashed potatoes and crispy fried onions.
• Cheese platter (Penazul, St. Andre, La Leyenda)

Alyssum had:

• Bibb lettuce salad
• Jalapeno and cilantro ravioli
• Meyer lemon meringue

All the food was delicious. My calamari was crispy on the outside, not oily, and tender on the inside. The aioli was minimally spread under the calamari, but added a nice rich flavour, and the dipping sauce was the perfect counterpoint. The sole fillets were nice and thick, firm and tasty. Excellent mash and broccolini, and the crunchy onions not only made a nice garnish, they tasted good too. The cheese plate was incredibly good - the three cheeses were at the perfect stage of ripeness, just the right temperature, and served with a yummy dried fruit preserve and almonds. My only small peeve was that the waitress didn't clue me in to which cheese was which.

For future referrence:

• Penazul: Spanish blue cheese. Buttery, sharp and tangy.
• St. Andre: French triple-creme soft cheese. Rich, mild, but more flavour than brie or camembert.
• La Leyenda: Firm Spanish sheep's mild cheese aged for one year (rubbed with oil and herbs) and then soaked in solera brandy for 4-5 days. Nutty and crumbly.

Alyssum was also very happy with her food. (She usually gets stuck with no real option at these dinners, being a vegeterian). Her salad was very simple, just really fresh good lettuce, good blue cheese crumbled on top, and a nice dressing. Still, getting something this simple right is an art. Her ravioli was very tasty - a nice creamy sauce and good flavour from the peppers without the heat. Her dessert was very good - meringue that was crunchy on the oustide but not overdone and powdery inside, nice lemon curd, and an interesting pastry with poppy seeds top. The cream was a little unneccessary, but that's a small niggle.

Tsotsi is a winner!

Woohoo! Tsotsi won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last night! (My previous post on the movie is here.) Congrats to the director, actors, crew and all involved!

Jurgen Fauth & Marcy Demansky make a valid point:

"The award is well-deserved, but we're disappointed with the Academy for seriously shortchanging the category.The nominated world films--Paradise Now, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, Joyeux Noel, Don't Tell, in addition to the winner--were listed with a notable lack of enthusiasm by Will Smith without so much as a clip of the films while their posters scrolled by in the background. Even animated shorts and sound editing got a montage--and Sophie Scholl's Julia Jentsch flew in from Berlin without getting shown in the broadcast once."

Anyway, I hope this means that Tsotsi will now be shown by a Seattle cinema or two.

Term-o-the-day: Conspicuous Consumption

Since I finished reading "The Undercover Economist", I've moved on to "A History Of The World In Six Glasses". So far it is excellent, and it introduced me to new term: conspicuous consumption. I love it! I perfectly describes so many things you see in modern life... From designed clothes, flashy cars, palatial homes, to snobby wine collectors and Whole Foods addicts. (Myself included)

If it's new to you too, Wikipedia has a good overview of the term here, and a related topic: Veblen goods.

Speaking of wine, I encountered term in the chapter of "Six Glasses" dealing with this drink. I didn't really appreciate how much ancient Greek and Roman attitudes to wine have influenced our modern views - very interesting!

Wine snobbery abounds nowadays... And since reading the two books above, I'm beginning to feel that I need to push back.

I've been on a"rare wine" mailing list for a while now, and have bought a fair amount from them. Their wine blurbs often make amusing reading, being laden with "wine speak", pretentious descriptions, insider references to other snooty wines (e.g. "the poor man’s Clos de Pape or a more rugged Vieux Donjon"), and frequent spelling mistakes (that ruin the snooty image they're trying to create!)

There are obviously many factors in determining wine prices, e.g. prices for California wines. Supply and demand, cost of production, etc. But it seems a large part is also the perceived snob value of the wine - People think: "If it is expensive, then it must be better, and it also will impress people more, so I'll buy it." In most cases I'm sure people wouldn't be able to tell their $100+ wine from a $15 or cheaper one.

Portland trip

We had a great long weekend in Portland, and I thought I'd share some of the places we discvovered so that you can check them out if you go.

5th Avenue Suites:
This was our 2nd stay here. Reasonable rates, a great location in downtown Portland within walking distance of many things below. Friendly service, very nice suites, they have free WiFi and daily wine reception (which I haven't tried yet...)

Teuscher:
Yummy Swiss chocolate truffles! We stumbled (we do a lot of that) upon a Teuscher store in San Francisco a few years ago and fell in love with their truffles, so now I make a point of visiting their stores whenever I can. I still like their champagne truffles best...

Portland Art Museum:
They currently have an exhibit of artwork and antiques from the house of Hesse (think the Hessian from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"). The exhibit is incredible - I think I enjoyed the everyday objects from their houses as much as the paintings, but this one is a stunner. (More pics here). Sadly we spent so much time on it that we didn't get to see the rest of the museum. We'll have to go again!

Plainfield's Mayur:
A good Indian restaurant with a nice veggie selection. The food was good, but not stellar, so if you're expecting something like Bukhara, you'll be disappointed. An insane wine list! (Would you drink a fine Bordeaux with Indian food, though?)

Caprial's Bistro:
A nice suburban bistro with a simple menu. I can recommend the house salad and seasonal fish (escarole). Other items were not as good (chickpea stew and the lemon chiffon & white chocolate dessert). Their cocktails are yummy (Alyssum had the Chocolate Orange Martini), and I discovered a superb new blonde ale from Bridgeport - Supris.

Mother's Bar & Bistro:
We went here last time we visited Portland and loved it. This time they are in the middle of a relocation/remodel, and were temporarily serving breakfast in a nearby restaurant. The atmoshpere was not as good, but the food was still good (maybe not quite as good as the previous time) and service was spotty. We'll give them a try again once they're in their new location.

Powells:
This is not a realy discovery - no trip to Portland is complete without a trip to Powell's.
I stumbled upon a cool series of manga books about the Buddha. Sadly they didn't have volume 1 (there are 8 volumes!), so I'm thinking of ordering vol 1 online and then seeing if it is as good as it seems.


Oregon Wines on Broadway:
Somehow this got deleted when I published this entry initially.
This is a charming little wine bar on Broadway (near Teuscher), small and cosy with a few comfy booths and the more outgoing patrons chatting at the bar. They specialize in Oregon Pinot Noirs and have a great selection. They also have 36 or so wines open and available by the glass or to taste (DIY flight of wine). I tried 3 pinots: 2004 A to Z, 2003 Cameron something-or-other, 2003 Carabella
The A to Z was the lightest and least impressive, and the Carabella was my favourite - almost chocolatey, smooth and powerful.

Tsotsi

Some lekker news! "Tsotsi", a South African movie, is one of the contenders for Best Foreign Film at this year's Academy Awards. See the Official website, Miramax website.

• Tsotsi is township slang for a thug or gangster. Tsotsies speak their own dialect of slang called Tsotsi Taal. Another distinct kind of slang called "gamtaal" comes from Cape Town, mainly used by coloureds* - here's a list of some of the words.
• The film is based on the novel by Athol Fugard, one of South Africa's most famous playwrights.
• I remember the writer-director, Gavin Hood, from his first big break on SABC TV in a soap-opera about rugby players called "The Game". Here's an older interview with him about his breakthrough from TV into film, and another about his short film "The Storekeeper".
• Gavin was also in what sounds like a dreadful Hallmark miniseries of "King Solomon's Mines" - Patrick Swayze played Allan Quartermain.
• NPR's Morning Edition interviews Gavin Hood and lead actor Presley Chweneyagae here.
• The movie should open in Seattle this Friday, but I'll have to make a date to see it next week some time.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the Oscars this year, partly because of this, but also because John Stewart is hosting!

* This term gets raised eyebrows from my American friends, but is still the term used inside South Africa, even by coloureds when describing themselves...

Random links and musings

Some random links and musing today...

• Volkswagen has a funny advertising campaign, Un-pimp my ride
• Thomas Jefferson's love affair with wine
• Acidity makes wine delicious
• Steph gives Salish Lodge a thrashing in her Valentine's Day review. To be fair, M+S are incredibly hard to please... I've been here only once and thought it was good, but overpriced. Their hot chocolate is absolutely incredible, though - think Starbuck's Chantico but better, and made at your table. We asked if we one could come just for dessert, but the waiter snootily said that luxury was only available to guests staying in the lodge. (Dumb attitude...)
  Have you been to Salish Lodge? What did you think?
• We're off to Portland tomorrow for a long weekend. This will be my second visit to the city, and I'm looking forward to visiting Powell's, the Japanese garden, and exploring downtown on foot. Perhaps I'll post pics next week :)

Cheese and wine reunited after brief hiatus

There was a minor upset in the wine bogging sphere last month when a university study supposedly concluded that red wine and cheese did not mix well. The same sentiment was echoed in Kevin Johnson's book "How to Enjoy Your Wine", in which (if my memory serves me well) that most reds don't pair with strong cheeses well, and a better pairing is a sweet white wine like a Sauternes.

Well, trusty Slate sets the record straight: Say Cheese! Turns out it goes fine with red wine.

when I spoke Tuesday with professor Hildegarde Heymann, who supervised the study, she told me that the New Scientist had misinterpreted the results, which will be published in full next month in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture (alas, not available on newsstands).

Great moments in online advertising

When I saw this ad fromTelkom I did a double-take...

Is that Einstein?!
Why does he look a frozen zombie?
Does Telkom think ghoulish physicists would inspire me to use them for my Internet access?

Perhaps it's the truth-in-advertising laws forcing them to reveal you will most likely be long-dead before they arrive to install your service... :P

Happy belated Valentine's Day

I hope you had a good one!

Mine was wonderful... We decided to stay home this year, and I made dinner for A. Here's the menu:

• steamed artichokes with jalapeno tartare sauce
• crusty french bread with soft blue cheese (duh, I forgot the name)
• fresh tagliatelle with Field Roast Mediterranean sauce (here's the recipe)
• chocolate petit fours and an apple tartlet shared for dessert
• accompanied by a 1/2 bottle of 2002 Tenuta Le Velette Il Raggio. (I added a tasting on CellarTracker too)

Tenuta Le Velette have a holiday house that looks really cute - perhaps I'll get the chance to visit the area and stay there one day?

More on television during the apartheid era

(It looks like this didn't get posted for some reason when I tried last week - trying again...)

Wikipedia rocks!
In a comment to this post, Joy asked why it was that American TV shows were shown in South Africa during the apartheid era... I didn't know, but it seems there are two main reasons:

1. The US actors and related unions/guilds did not declare a ban on their works being exported to South Africa. (If you find information to the contrary, let me know...) The British Equity actors union did enforce a ban. (British and American actors and musicians resolved not to perform in South Africa, although some infamous breaches of this occurred...)

In 1976, Equity in Britain decided to introduce a policy of refusing permission to sell programmes featuring its members to South African television. The Council of Equity also reaffirmed its policy to advise its members not to work in South Africa.

In October 1981, the board of the Associated Actors and Artists of America - an umbrella organisation of all major actors’ unions with a total membership of over 240,000 actors - took a unanimous decision that its members should not perform in South Africa.

2. From this wikipedia article:

The availability of US programming was partly the result of a co-operative venture with Universal Studios in 1980 where an episode of Knight Rider was filmed in the Namib desert in South West Africa (today Namibia), and local acting talent was involved in the filming. As a direct consequence, the SABC received the right to broadcast in American programming syndicated from Universal Studios/MCA, and through them purchased material from other studios.

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_Broadcasting_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_South_Africa

Interview with Bernard-Henri Levy

KUOW's Weekday had a great interview with the French philospher & author Bernard-Henri Levy (BHL). Listen to the MP3 podcast here. I really enjoyed listening to him...

And here's a review in the NYT of BHL's book, by Garrison Keillor (registration required or use cyberpunk/cyberpunk). Oh dear... Garrison doesn't have kind things to say! Here's a brief excerpt form his review:

...but there's nobody here whom you recognize. In more than 300 pages, nobody tells a joke. Nobody does much work. Nobody sits and eats and enjoys their food. You've lived all your life in America, never attended a megachurch or a brothel, don't own guns, are non-Amish, and it dawns on you that this is a book about the French. There's no reason for it to exist in English, except as evidence that travel need not be broadening and one should be wary of books with Tocqueville in the title.

Still, the interview was refreshing - lots of frank thoughts on the current outrage over the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, the French riots and hurricane Katrina, and the "New" Democrats...

In shaving, as in life, more is better

In America, people seem to often think more is better. Larger portions of food, bigger houses, bigger engines in their cars, and bigger cars. So, it is not that surprising to see the arms-race over razors:

The history of razors:
1850's: Invention of the safety razor
-1900s: Cut-throat razors common. A single blade, often wielded by a crusty old barber.
1903: Safety razor with disposable blades invented by King Camp Gillette. (I'm not making that name up). Introduction of mass-produced razors, and the business model of making money off of disposable blades.
1930s: Electric razor invented by Jacob Schick.
Later: Two-blade disposable razors. The war between Gillete and Schick begins, with new razor versions appearing almost every year.
Then: After years of advanced research, Gillette unveils the three-blade razor, Mach III. Blade cartridges reach stratospheric prices.
But: Schick fights back with four blades, the Quattro. Schick and Gillette offer razors with tiny motors to simulate the old crusty barber with shaky hands from the 19th century.
Prophetically: The Onion publishes an article predicting the next logical development: Gillette going to five blades!
Make it so: On Superbowl Sunday this year, Gillette finally unveiled their Fusion razor with five blades. Do I hear six blades from Schick? Dr. Seuss might have penned a line or two about that... "Slick Schick stick six ..."

NPR's Steve Inskeep bravely put the new 5-blade razor to the test.

Vin Diesel, and spilled milk...

Sorry, Julie. Not that Vin Diesel!

This article about turning wine into ethanol to run cars is interesting. Forget about having your car smell of McDonalds fries thanks to biodiesel, maybe the cars of the future will smell of brandy and witblits?
It's somehow sad that surplus wine gets repurposed in this way - imaging all the effort, love and caring that went into growing and picking the grapes, making and storing the wine ... and then, you're reduced to selling it off for pennies a gallon to make cheap fuel.

Still, I guess that is a lot better than what sometimes happens to surplus food. I remember hearing stories about surplus milk in SA being poured out onto the ground. I'm not sure why they couldn't just sell it for less, or make some cheese with it, but then I'm not a dairy farmer... It turns out the Dairy Control Board (a national body to control the price and distribution of dairy products) had something to do with it...

South Africa has also witnessed the destruction of surplus fruit and milk at the behest of control boards in order to keep up prices. Information supplied by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Uys, in Parliament during the 1968 session revealed that in the four months from 10 October 1967 to 11 February 1968 the Milk Board had issued instructions for some 2,107,000 gallons of skimmed milk to be thrown away in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Klerksdorp, and Bloemfontein. The previous
session, the Minister had stated that more than 500,000 gallons of skimmed milk had been thrown away in Johannesburg and Pretoria between 20 December 1966 and 28 February 1967, on the instructions of the Milk Board. The reason given was 'overproduction'.

More info here (logon required), or cached page here.

What did you watch growing up?

Often conversation will turn to TV shows that people remember from their childhood. Most of my American friends watched Sesame Street, which for some reason never made it to South Africa. We got to see some of the Muppet movies in the cinemas, but I think the sanctions during the apartheid era kept Sesame Street off our TV screens.

Despite sanctions, we had quite a few American TV shows while I was growing up (British TV shows were almost non-existent though...) So, I remember watching shows like Battlestar Galactica, Space: 1999, Star Trek, Buck Rogers, The A-Team, Airwolf, MacGuyver... Often shows would be dubbed into Afrikaans, especially German shows like Derrick - I guess lip-synching to German was easier. In the late 80's-early 90's they started simulcasting the original English soundtrack on the radio, so you could watch the show in its original language (woohoo!)

Some of the most memorable shows from my childhood are the kids TV shows I watched from the age of 4 or 5. Some were locally-produced children's shows that nobody outside of South Africa probably ever saw, others were imported and dubbed. Here's a brief list, with some of the theme tunes (click on the to hear them)...


Barbapapas (France):
This was one of my favourite shows when I was really young. The main characters are a rubbery family that look a lot like bowling pins, and I ended up getting some as toys.

Noddy (UK) :
Based on the Enid Blyton books. (I also read her "Famous Five" books as a kid).

Haas Das se Nuuskas (South Africa) :
I think I watched this around the 2nd and 3rd grade. Here's an article on the creator, who also created other South African childrens' TV shows, such as...

Wielie Walie (South Africa) :
The most insidious theme tune! The title sequence had a grinning animated monkey atop a rolling a barrel as it rolled down a jungle path. The Afrikaans show was basically a variety show with adult hosts, and puppet animals that all lived in a house together. A talking crow (Karel?) and "sea monster" (Sarel) were the main puppets - the crow would sing and play a small guitar, and the sea-monster would provide the comedy (mainly by being stupid). There was also a talking worm, Bennie Boekwurm (bookworm), who would only appear after being summoned by singing flowers. He'd then pop out of the ground, adjust his horn-rimmed specs, and read a story. A gang of talking socks in a dresser also made regular appearances. Great fun!


Liewe Heksie (South Africa) :
("Dear Witch") A great Afrikaans show based on the books by Verna Vels. The characters were all puppets filmed against a black background, and were surprisingly expressive. (Somehow they would get Liewe Heksie's mouth to dimple at the corners when she smiled). The title character is a young witch that actually doesn't know how to do magic. She somehow always managed to save the day, despite bumbling her way through each adventure.

Maya the Bee (Japan):
I saw this dubbed into Afrikaans... I was surprised to see this was actually made in Japan - I could have sworn it was a from Germany or France. This was one of my favourite early animated shows, featuring a young female bee and her insect friends.
More info here.

Heidi (Japan) :
Again, I saw this dubbed into Afrikaans. The theme tune is in German, but the show is Japanese. Based on the books by Johanna Spyri. I had a Heidi LP as a young kid, probably my first record!


Take Hart (UK):
This was an incredible art show for kids. Tony Hart was a great host and an inspired me to draw and paint, plus he dedicated a few minutes of each show to show a gallery of artwork submitted by his young viewers. His show also featured a claymation animation segment, with a little guy called Morph. Morph was created by Aardman, and Nick Park's first job for Aardman was on the Morph production line. (More here)

Links:
List of lots of SA shows
When local was lekker on SA TV
Early SABC TV nostlagia site

How to get rich, quick!

The other day while browsing in a bookstore, I noticed a new book by Dave Barry: "Dave Barry's Money $ecrets". I found myself laughing out loud and eagerly flipping through the book reading his pithy take on various financial topics.

You can imagine my pleasure when I heard him on KUOW's Weekday yesterday morning, talking about his new book and being generally irreverent. You can listen to a podcast of the show by going here. (He kindly summarises Donald Trump's "How to Get Rich" so you don't need to read it.)

Speaking of financial books, I have "The Undercover Economist" waiting for me at the library. It sounds like it's in the same vein as "Freakonomics", so it should be good.

Making Scents of Wine

If you have a few hundred $$ laying around, and want to train your nose to pick up wine smells, http://www.makescentsofwine.com/ is for you! The list of aromas is impressive...
Or, if you just want to learn how to pick out spoilt wine, they have a 12-pack of "wine fault" aromas, including one called "horse", and another called "glue". (Next time you're caught huffing glue, just say you're developing your sommelier skills!)

Parody of "The DaVinci Code"

I just noticed that a South African author (Tom Eaton) has written a parody of Dan Brown's wildly popular book:
http://www.kalahari.net/bk/product.asp?sku=28346218&showlargeimage=1&toolbar=mweb
Here's an excerpt. It sounds like fun, but I'll have to read Brown's book first to truly appreciate it. (Or I could maybe cheat and just watch the movie.)

I wonder if he's any relation to my old English teacher?

I'm hung up!

Aargh!! It's stuck in my head! From a review on Amazon:

"Hung Up" starts off with samples from ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" to jump full fledge into a track that you simply will not be able to sit still through.

God damn, that sample is waaay too catchy! And it's disco! Someone help me!

On an unrelated musical note, I placed an advance order for the new William Orbit CD (first new one in 5 years!), and noticed the new Beth Orton CD is coming out around the same time, so I took a (small) risk and ordered it too. Plus, the new Lemon Jelly (which I've already enjoyed on Hayoo! Music) The final track on Lemon Jelly's new CD features William Shatner, so you know it's good. (Check out Shatner's album "Has Been")

Blind wine tasting

(updated 1/23 9:42pm - Added the Firesteed Pinot Noir I forgot!)

We had a really fun blind wine tasting on Saturday. Alyssum chose 4 red wines from around the world, and with Raymond's help, wrapped them and re-branded them Mars, Venus, Neptune, Mercury and Pluto.

It was really interesting trying to detect such basic things as grape variety without any extra information to go on. Most of the time I was wrong - guessing that a Cabernet Sauvignon was in fact a merlot, or that a Shiraz was a Cabernet Sauvignon. Next time, I'll review this nice guide to wine varieties and wine tasting how-to. Also see this more complete guide to varieties.

Surprisingly, the tastiest wines were not always from the most lauded winery. The wines and some brief notes:

2004 Rosemount Shiraz Diamond Label, S. Australia:
The best wine of the night for me. I thought this was a California or Washington Merlot - it's definitely more fruity than most Cab Sauv's from the northern hemishpere. A great nose with fruit and spice mixing with some alcohol - you know this is a powerful wine before tasting it. It has a nice full-bodied, velvety feel in your mouth, with red fruit and spice (pepper), a good middle attack of tannins that are very soft and linger for great 30 second or so long finish. A great wine to savour on its own, or to drink with a robust meal of grilled meat or with bread & cheese.

Reading up on this wine on their great website, it sounds like the growing condition in 2004 were not as good as 2002/3, so if you find one of those vintages, definitely try them instead. (it sounds like they usually get more raspberry and fruit in a good year).
Mark's score: 92%

2002 Charles Shaw Cabernet Sauvignon, California:
A surprise for me - I thought I'd be able to recognize "3 Buck Chuck" pretty easily. This one was quite impressive - maybe not as nuanced and powerful as a "great" wine, but at the price it was damn nice. A nice fruity nose with berries and oak, medium-full-bodied, sweet cherry/cassis and soft tannins mixed with some spice. A nice lingering finish.
Mark's score: 89%

2002? Goats Do Roam, W. Cape, South Africa:
Wooho! A South African wine! OK... so maybe that's not so exciting to you! :)
I've actually been to the winery - Fairview - where this comes from. The name is a fun reference to the goats that are raised on the farm to make cheese :

One afternoon, at harvest time, my mischievous son Jason and his friend Justin let the goats out of thier tower and sent them for a walkabout amongst the vines. As in the legend of the Yemeni goat herder, whose roaming flock firs discovered the joys of coffee beands, our goats picked out th best and tastiest fruit. Their choice which includes Pinotage, Shiraz, Cinsault, Grenache and Carignan, serves as our inspritation for this wine.

The "goat towers" are really cute: picture a narrow tall white tower with a spiral staircase on the outside. Great for giving the goats a chance to practice their mountaineering skills, and they have little rooms inside to hang out in when it's nasty outside.

Anyway, back to the wine: This is definitely more funk than the others - the smell is a little musty and reminds me of sweaty feet a little. The taste is medium bodied, fruity and quite spicy (green pepper) with a finish that fades in a few seconds. Not much oak, this is a straightforward expression of the grapes (a blend of many red varieties including South Africa's own Pinotage). The taste is quite unusual, so this stands out a bit from the cheap red blends that try to be smooth and innocuous. It's probably best with food like pasta or pizza.
Mark's score: 80%

2003 Christian Moueix Merlot, Bordeaux:
This is the 2nd label wine from the famous Chateau Petrus estate, and is highly reviewed online. e.g.:

Christian Moueix makes the most expensive red Bordeaux on the planet, Chateau Petrus, which sells for $1000 a bottle in great vintages (1989, 1990 and 1995) and just slightly less in ordinary years. He also makes Christian Mouiex Merlot for about $9 a bottle, and it's great every year. During the tremendous vintages, it's an even better bargain. The price disparity is so great, that it must be a 50th label instead of a second or third. Mouiex's talent and experience making the $1000 wine spill over into the $9 wine, to everyone's delight. It's available literally everywhere around town. [link]

I found it disappointing: not much on the nose, and a thin, unexciting taste with rather harsh tannins. Very dry and atringent. This is definitely not like the fruit-forward merlots from the southern hemisphere, or even the USA. Perhaps this is what "old world" merlot is meant to taste like, but I didn't enjoy it. FYI - Christian Moueix also owns Dominus in California. More info here.
Mark's score: 75%

2003 Firesteed Pinot Noir, Oregon:
This was the final wine, and my notes are a bit sparse. The colour was light red, translucent. The nose showed oak, smoke and light red fruit (raspberries), with a "funky" edge. On the tongue it felt light and the acids and tannins emerged quickly, leaving a harsh, hard short finish. Not much fruit on the palate. Light and fresh, but a little too acidic and harsh for my liking.
Mark's score: 72%

PS: Cabernet and Cabernet Sauvignon are not regions in France. Cabernet is not a grape variety either - it's just a populare shortening of Cabernet Sauvignon (the most widely-planted red grape). Cabernet Franc is another famous .Correct me if I'm wrong :)

Tweaked layout

As you may have noticed, I've tweaked the layout of my blog a little. I noticed that Internet Explorer was having problems rendering the front page at certain widths, which caused the entries to be shoved down to below the right-hand "menu". So, I've switched back to the default fixed-width template, and tweaked some old posts to fit.

I should really play with CSS some more and try to understand how to get a variable-width layout that works, but that will have to wait a while...

Oregon's bewpubs

The NYT has a story on Oregon's bewpubs, focusing on Portland. I've been through Portland a few times on my way to central Oregon, and also visited "properly" once. I really enjoyed my visit - the city feel more "European" than Seattle, and the downtown area is fun to explore on foot. Plus, you have an Powell's Books - worth a visit in itself.

Oregon has an interesting beer rule: You can bring a covered container to the pub, get some beer, and enjoy it at home... The law says:

471.253. (1) A brewery-public house license shall allow thelicensee:
(a) To manufacture annually on the licensed premises, store,transport, sell to wholesale malt beverage and wine licensees ofthe commission and export { - no more than 200,000 barrelsof - } malt beverages, as defined in ORS 473.010;
(b) To sell malt beverages manufactured on or off the licensedpremises at retail for consumption on or off the premises;
(c) To sell malt beverages in brewery-sealed packages at retaildirectly to the consumer for consumption off the premises;
(d) To sell on the licensed premises at retail malt beveragesmanufactured on or off the licensed premises in unpasteurized orpasteurized form directly to the consumer for consumption off thepremises, delivery of which may be made in a securely covered container supplied by the consumer;

Macaroni and Cheese

Slate has a fun article titled "Crusty Macaroni and Cheese" - What's wrong with the New York Times' weirdly popular recipe.

The Slate story is a follow-on to this story in the NYT, which includes a recipe for macaroni and cheese that doesn't use any bechamel. It sounds pretty disgusting - just pasta and cheese, with a little milk. It reminds me a bit of the overly-oily dish I had at Purple Cafe a while back...

My mom's recipe was pretty traditional: a cheese sauce made using bechame, some nutmeg, cayenne pepper and strong mustard powder (I think?), with good aged cheddar. I haven't made any myself for ages, perhaps this weekend I'll be evil... (Snowshoeing on Saturday will be a good way to burn off the calories!)

Blind Eating

From Morning Edition:

Dining by candlelight may be romantic, but it's tastier when there's no light at all. That's what one one French restaurateur, Edouard de Broglie, belives. He will open Dans Le Noir, or "In the Dark," in London, similar to his other light-free restaurant in Paris. His theory is that food is best savored in a kind of blind tasting, using the taste buds only. But food is not always recognized; customers are known to confuse, say, veal with tuna.

Hmm... I could see how removing the visual stimulus would encourage your brain to focus more on the taste, smell and texture of what you're eating, but is the benfit worth the risks? Imaging eating your napkin, or forking yourself in the eye. How do you know when you're done eating? (Do you shove your fingers in the plate and rummage around?)

Besides, I think a large part of the joy of good food is visual, somehow the best meal tastes even better and is more memorable if it beautifully presented. I'll be sticking with normal levels of ambient lighting for now, thank you.



For now, I'll stick withto romantic candle-lit dinners instead of pitch darkness.

Stormhoek Wine

I always like reading about South African wines doing well abroad, so I was pleased to recently stumble upon a new South African winery's blog : Stormhoek Wine
(Their name can be translated as "Storm Corner". They seem to be near Wellington, which is very close to where my mom lives in the Western Cape...)

What makes them interesting is:

• They're all about freshness. Unoaked, fresh, crisp whites are their focus. (They also make a Sangiovese Merlot though). I like this snippet from their website:

new zealand has the best tech for making white wine. but south africa has better
grapes. so obviously the "hacker" thing to do was to move the tech over to south
africa and see what happens. voila! stormhoek. "freshness matters."

• This blog entry describes their freshness philosphy and the science behind it. Now I know what "reductively made wine" is...
• They use screwcaps (exclusively it seems). This is part of their focus on freshness - reducing the oxidation and risk of wine spoiling from contaminants in the cork.
  Speaking of screwtops, the nicest one I've seen yet is from Aussie: The Zork. You get the satisfying "pop" of a cork, and can easily re-seal your bottle.
• They blog actively. They have tried to use the "blogosphere" to do some disruptive marketing of their wines. A nice example: they sent a few hundred bottles of wine as free gifts to bloggers around the world, without any strings attached. Many of the bloggers posted reviews of the wine, which ended up doubling their sales in less than a year! I say kudos to them!
• So far, they seem to be doing very well in the UK.

I haven't seen their stuff on sale in the US, but maybe Garagiste or Esquin will find a US importer?

Steerpike: Then and now

Here is a picture of Steerpike as a kitten, shortly after I got him in 2002. He had just had his first bath, and was feeling a little the worse for wear. (Hence the hiding in a wastepaper basket...)

And one from a few weeks ago. He's definitely grown, but he still is damned cute and behaves like a hooligan! :)

Less is more: The short cappuccino

Raymond forwarded me a link to this excellent article in Slate about Starbuck's elusive "short" cappuccino. It reminds me of this other story I read a few days ago in Slate, which also mentioned the sensitive pricing scheme needed to keep customers happy: make a lot of profit from most by selling them larger drinks, but offer cheaper and smaller drinks to people that are "cost conscious".

What about taste conscious customers? I guess you would skip Starbucks altogether then, and go to one of the better alternatives for coffee in Seattle: Tully's, Vivace, Caffe Apassionato, Caffe Ladro, ...

First MS patch of the year is out

Make sure you install MS06-001 on your Windows machines. (Go to Microsoft Update or Windows Update and install the recommended patches, or get it directly here.) More regularly-sheduled patches come out on Tuesday.

It's always hectic when a 0-day exploit is released (that means there is a public exploit out there without a fix from Microsoft). Lots of interesting stuff happened with this one, but what struck me was the release of an "unofficial" patch for the issue. (I just used the recommeded mitigation and unregistered shdocvw.dll on my machines. That blocks the web and image-in-email attack vectors). I was surprised to see how many security companies and media outlets pushed the unofficial patch, despite the low level of testing and risk that many systems or applications could be broken.

I wonder if we'll start seeing unofficial patches for all 0-day critical exploits? Maybe Microsoft could release "alpha" (untested) patches for people to use at their own risk? At least then they would be signed and you could validate that you're not installing malware hidden as a patch.

Mr Eaton's Poem

It's weird how luck or fate work sometimes. In this case, someone from my distant past in another country popped up in a Half-Price Books store in Redmond, WA a year or so ago.

I had a really great English teacher in high school, by the name of Mr. Eaton. (He didn't have a first name then, all teachers were simple Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so). I had Mr. Eaton from my first day in standard 6 (grade 8), and if I remember correctly, I had him all the way through Matric (grade 12). If I remember right, he was the head of the English department, and taught the "advanced" higher-grade English class for most grades. (A bit of shameless bragging there...)

Mr. Eaton was a real character - the sort of teacher that Molesworth would have vilified and drawn rather unflattering pictures of. (The irony is that Mr. Eaton introduced me to Molesworth!) Mr. Eaton would probably have come out as a micture of him and him. In real life he was an imposing 6 1/2 foot-plus tall man, with a beak-like nose and fierce eyes. He could look at the most cocky, troublesome kid and they'd instantly shut up and behave. (At least, in the 8th grade that was true... By the 10th grade he would resort to more vocal measures, and could strip the paint off a wall at 50 paces.) He would add to his severe countenance by shaving his head with a numer-1 or number-2 clipper once a year, so he looked like an escaped criminal or mental patient for a few weeks of each year. I think I heard that he lost a bet at some point, and the head-shaving were the terms he kept to from then on...

All this makes him sound like a terrible demon that you lived in fear of. While it's true he was intimidating and demanded respect and the best behaviour, he really loved English and the literature we studied. He was one of the few teachers in my school that was so passionate about their subject that you became infected by their passion. He was excited by the poems we studied. His booming bass made anything he read aloud come alive. He was also quirky and had wide-ranging tastes: as reward for good behaviour he would read us excerpts from the Molesworth books, or read short-stories outside our normal setwork. (He read us The Ruum by Arthur Porges, and I still remember it vividly.)

All told, he was one of the best teachers I've ever had. Thanks to him I enjoy Shakespeare. (OK, Maybe Will has something to do with that too...)

Anyway, that was then. How does the story come back to Redmond, WA in 2004?
Well, I was browsing the used poetry books in Half-Price Books when I stumbled upon a Penguin collection of South African poetry. The book was old, published in 1968, and such a rare find that I bought it without much thought. Leafing through the book later, I noticed a poem by an Anthony Eaton. "Hmm.... I wonder if that's the same Anthony Eaton that taught me?", I thought. (Yes, I had finally discovered his first name after a few years at school!)
Sure enough, the brief biography at the back of the book described him as having studied at U.C.T. and working as an educator in Cape Town.

It was amazing to think that of the many people it could have landed up with, this book somehow made its way to me, and rekindled all these memories!

The joys of posting

So, a quick note on why I've been quiet for so long (and why suddenly there are posts a-flowing).
The posting woes were not over, it seems. For some reason, Blogger is still unable to re-publish my entire blog - I can post new entries, but changing the template requires you to re-publish everything, and this then dies after 20-30% is copied up to my server.

The problem seems to be my web host, since normal FTP operations from IE, ftp.exe or other client, get dropped after a few operations. So...
Short-term solution: manually re-post all entries, and don't muck with the temlate for now.
Long-term solution: move my domain to a new hosting company. (It looks like Yahoo! may win - they're cheap, offer lots o' storage and bandwidth, and now have Moveable Type (blogging software) as an option.

Does anyone have any tips on how to export my Blogger postings and upload them easily to Movable Type if I choose to go that route?

Listening to...

Jonathan reminded me about the group The Postal Service - they have some really good songs on their album Give Up. You can download a free mp3 copy of the song Such Great Heights from their website.

They will see us waving from such great heights
"Come down now," they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
"Come down now," but we'll stay

Ironically, I heard this song a while back on the Garden State soundtrack, but it was a cover performed by Iron and Wine. I mistakenly though that Iron and Wine wrote the song, and that Postal Service later covered it - it's the other way around. I recommend hearing both versions - the lyrics are more evident in the Iron and Wine version, but the beat on the original is infectious.

So, Postal Service are currently on rotation in my Yahoo! Music playlist. I also discovered a similar band that I've been enjoying today: Grandaddy.

PS: The Google music search thingy rocks! It reminds me of the good days of CDNow.com, when you get artist discographies and bios easily. After Amazon bought CDNow, the info was hidden in the ads and clutter of Amazon's pages...

Viking Marching Band

At Keshav & Carrie's New Year's Eve party, Ramsey suggested we check out this video (alternate link and more info here)
Warning: weird music and animation, SFW though...

In honour of the movie, we came up with this cocktail that evening:

The Viking Marching Band
1 Mandarin orange, juiced (in South Africa, you'd use a naartjie)
1 shot of vodka (you know you want the good stuff...)
1/2 shot rum (spiced dark rum is best)
splash of grenadine syrup (less really is more in this case)
Pomegranate juice (4 oz / 125 ml or so)

Directions:
Mix everything in a shaker with ice, and shake well. Pour into a martini glass.

These were really popular... hic!

Seasonal ales

There are many seasonal brews that come around each winter, and some specially made for Christmas, so I thought I'd recommend some of the better ones I've tried this year.

Belgium makes an astounding number of Christmas beers, mostly double or trippel ales that are wonderfully rich and warming. Bottleworks in Seattle have a great selection, and when I stopped by a few weeks ago, the had some 1-year old Corsendonk Christmas Ale. I tried it last night, and really enjoyed it! It's mellow, smooth, a little nutty and spicy and not too fizzy. It reminded me a little of the Rogue Hazelnut brown ale, so try that one too if you like the Corsendonk...
Some of the newer Belgian beers can be really fizzy, I think the aging makes a big difference... I tried an Orval a few days previous and it was disappointingly fizzy.

Speaking of Bottleworks, they have recently opened a Belgian-style bar/cafe in Fremont, called Brouwer's, and I'm dying to try it. Perhaps there will be some moules et frites in my Christmas long-weekend!

Being a Seattle-ite, I can't write about beer and leave out the great Northwest microbrews that come out this time of year. Favourites from past years are the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, Redhook Brewery Winter Hook Ale and the Bridgeport Ebenezer Ale. I've recently tried the Pyramid Brewery Snow Cap Ale, but this was too bitter and hoppy for my tastes, and not very fruity or rich, so it isn't high on my list of winter ales.

Update: 1/3/2006
A quick note on some other beers I've tried in the past week or so.

A Pacific NW one that's very yummy is the Widmer Snow Plow. Very smooth and malty, nice and warming. It's sort of like Guiness-lite. (Not as bitter and charred)

Another great Belgian beer (not seasonal, though) was a bottle of Kwak . Something about the name appeals to my juvenile sense of humour. (Which is still intact despite my great age...)

I can re-publish!

As if by magic! No errors!
I wonder if it's a coincidence that I contacted Blogger support a day or two ago? I never heard back from them, but everything seems happy now.

Well, with that fixed, I'd better not waste time. Back to the interesting stuff! Thanksgiving pics and snow pics to come this weekend!