Various & Sundry: Edible Rex vs. the Yankees vs. Matt Damon with a glass of champagne

Brr...it's rather chilly here in Northern California. Oh, did I say something wrong? Oh, so sorry. I'll see if I can make it up to you.

How about having someone tell you the story of Oedipus Rex? Always a cheerful little tale, isn't it? Well, what if I told you this version of Oedipus is performed by vegetables? What do you think now?



I think that Jocasta is one hot tomato.

I loved Jim Naughton's take on the theological worldviews of the Yankees and the Mets.

For what are these Yankees but heirs of theological rationalism in all its rigorous and systematic glory? Temporally, Derek Jeter and his brethren may dwell in the humble surround of the southern Bronx, but spiritually they are native to the Athens of Aristotle, the Paris of Aquinas, and the Rome of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. 

And what are these Mets if not mystics in polyester pants, cleated apostles who encounter God in an ecstatic flash that redeems long years of famine. Their Savior led them out of the wasteland of the Phillies and the Expos, and into a land flowing with milk and commercial endorsements. Their God has made the desert (the Hebrew word is 'Flushing') bloom.

If you happen to be in Napa and are in the mood for champagne, this sparkling wine trail map and guide might come in handy.

If, on the other hand, you happen to be in Morocco and want to find Matt Damon, all you need to do is go ask at the American Embassy.

Various and Sundry: Andrew, Advent, Aid, and Autism, among others

"I'm not barking at YOU."

Happy end of November! It's the feast of St. Andrew who, to my astonishment, I've never written about. This is especially egregious since we have a dog named Andrew who's registered name is Tollwest Quack Come and See. Did you know that according to legend, "young women should note the location of barking dogs on Saint Andrew’s Eve: their future husbands will come from that direction"? Too late now. You'll have to wait until next November 29th. I wonder if Andrew is the patron saint of single women because he was a fisher of men...

Of course the feast of St. Andrew means Advent is nigh, and I loved this collection of the 42 worst nativity sets, some of which I admit I like, and one of which I bought for my mother. It's not this one, though.

This spinach salad with warm bacon vinaigrette looks delicious, doesn't it? And it contains an actual vegetable! (And lots of bacon.)

In other food and wine news, I appreciated this post about teaching people to appreciate the pleasure in wine with flavors that sound awful: minerals, barnyard aromas. And it goes beyond that to talk about appreciating those things that challenge us -- in food, in art, in life.

[I]f we think more deeply about pleasure, we realize it isn’t always so straightforward or even comfortable. After all, why do so many of us love sad poems, disturbing horror films, or intense, subtitled psychological dramas. Why am I capable of loving Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska” or The Smith’s “Meat Is Murder” or Elliott Smith’s “From a Basement on the Hill” — while at the same time I can enjoy T. Pain, Taylor Swift, and dancing with my kids to Psy’s “Gangnam Style”?

Here's a really touching story from Bill Murray about Gilda Radner.

In obituary news, I have two impressive as hell women to bring to your attention. First is Vladka Meed, "who with her flawless Polish and Aryan good looks was able to smuggle pistols, gasoline for firebombs and even dynamite to the Jewish fighters inside the Warsaw Ghetto," who died this week at the age of 90.

The other is a woman named Maria Santos Gorrostieta who was found dead on November 17 at the age of 36. She "was a former mayor of the small Mexican town of Tiquicheo and became famous for her refusal to be cowed by the drug gangs battling for control of the western state of Michoacan."

A doctor and mother of three, Maria Santos Gorrostieta served as mayor from 2008 to 2011. Over that time she survived at least two assassination attempts, including one that killed her husband Jose and another that left her body peppered with bullet holes and scars.

May she rest in peace. My prayers are with her family.

You may recall that last week I posted the parody video of Radi-Aid: Africa for Norway. As a follow-up, here's a terrific interview with the people who created the project, explaining why and how they did it and what they want it to accomplish. Good stuff.

Finally, on the Confirm not Conform blog, I hope you'll check out this interview I got to do with my friend Emily LeBlanc, talking about how the church can better work with people with autism. Really helpful stuff.

Have a great weekend!

10 things I've learned from working at the winery

As of this week, I will have worked at Hendry Winery for one full year, which I find hard to believe. I thought I'd mark the occasion by sharing some things I've learned from working there, some wine-related and many not.

Pinot Gris grapes can change from white to red!

1. Wine grapes are intensely sweet. Much sweeter than table grapes. I hadn't realized that, but it makes sense when you realize that the sugar in the grapes is what turns into alcohol.

2. Visa cards always start with a 4. And Master Cards always start with a 5. And AmEx always starts with a 3. I don't know what Discover always starts with because no one ever tries to use a Discover card.

3. Leave your phone number twice. I can't tell you how helpful it is when you're picking up messages to have the phone number twice. It helps you catch up with the numbers on the message. You can also double-check that you got the phone number right.

4. If someone doesn't call you back, it is likely they couldn't hear your phone number. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to not be able to call back a potential visitor because I couldn't hear the friggin' number! We want you to visit, really! We're not blowing you off!

5. Sometimes it's worth ignoring the "by appointment only" sign. As much as it pains me to admit this, because it's very disruptive to go out and deal with people who drop in, there is sometimes a chance that you'll get what you want. This goes along with the "just because someone doesn't call you back doesn't mean they're not interested." Persistence has its virtues.

6. No still means no. At the same time, if you show up without an appointment to a place that's "by appointment only" and the person says, "I'm sorry, there's no more room today," you know what? That means there's no more room today. We are not in the habit of turning people away for fun. We actually like having customers, you know. I really don't care that it's "just two people;" the tour is full.

7. Bottlecaps really are better. For many wines, anyway. Bottlecaps are actually going to be better because air won't get into the bottle. Oxidation can allow wine to be "corked," which I will explain below.

8. "Corked" wine has a wet newspaper taste. Or so I'm told. A "corked" wine, or "cork taint," is a wine affected by TCA or tricholoroanisole. (I looked that up.) At the winery, when a "corked" wine gets opened in the tasting room, it's added to the tasting as a way to help people understand what that tastes like so they don't drink bad wines. Folks keep trying to help me taste it too, so far with limited success. "It has a musty, dank smell, like old newspapers," they tell me. I haven't been able to sense it yet. Angela very kindly told me it took her a while too.

9. People taste different wines differently. Because people have different taste receptors. Some are particularly sensitive to bitter tastes so wines with high tannins (aka red wines) will be unpleasant. Not liking a highly rated wine is not a sign of moral failing. If you like it, drink it.

10. Wow, is making wine a complicated business! It's expensive, time-consuming, complex, weather-dependent, market-dependent, and just plain hard work. Enjoy that glass of wine. A lot more went into it than you know.

OK, I'm off to work!

Various & Sundry: Thimbles, wine, culture, and song

Oy! I'm glad to have a little time finally to blog. So much to blog, so little time. Let's start with the obituary pages this week:

Have you ever thought about thimbles? "Diane Pelham Burn, who has died aged 79, was an international authority on thimbles and other needlework tools," and after reading her obituary, I took thimbles much more seriously.

“It is hard for us to imagine how rare and valuable needlework tools once were,” she told an interviewer. “The British Museum has on display a last will and testament that was written around 1600 in which a mother bequeathed her treasured needle to her daughter. A single needle. It was a very important possession.”

Eye-opening.

My favorite blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates had two great contributions this week. First, on his own blog on the Atlantic, he spoke of the limits of free will--simply fascinating insight. And in the NY Times, he has an op-ed about culture as a set of tools that is nuanced and subtle and illuminating. Do check them out.

Also in the NY Times is a strange and wonderful essay from a man who looked for a writing job in the wine industry. He nails the culture in two sentences: "In California, casual equals power. The people in ties valet park the cars of the people in polos." Oh so perfect. The rest of the story about a truly abysmal interview is cringingly hilarious.

Also in cringingly hilarious wine news, Tom Wark does a painfully funny take-down of a wine review. Be sure to read to the end.

The New Yorker has an article about a Gay Pride event in Uganda.

Uganda’s Pride was a weekend- long event, made up of film screenings, a fashion show in drag, and all-night (and into the morning) parties. Two hundred and fifty tickets had been sold, though, as a vivacious trans woman named Cleo told me, fifty-some people showed up on Thursday and Friday, because many were still wary about gathering in large groups. “We couldn’t have done this kind of thing two years ago, and for those that were here back then, they almost can’t believe things are safer and better now,” Cleo said. The first two days went off without a hitch, and more people, predictably, showed up for the evening bacchanals.

"Safer and better"--wow. Good to hear that. And kudos to the kuchus who are making this happen.

Burned out on the Olympics yet? Or is everything starting to take on an Olympic tinge? I loved this Olympic-level competition for national anthems. Anthems are scored by

1. Transcendence of Historical Suffering (Freestyle)
2. 200m Inculcation of Hard-Won Optimism
3. Compulsory Tingliness
4. Volksgeist, the Expression of the Spirit of the People

Which nation's anthem will bring home the gold? You'll just have to read the article and see. No tape delay available.

Report from the Zinfandel Festival

One of the perks of working at a winery is occasionally scoring free tickets to wine events, such as this week's Zinfandel Festival hosted by ZAP, the Zinfandel Advocates and Producers.  And so on Saturday morning, a friend and I headed over to San Francisco for the Grand Tasting event.  So awesome! I'd never been to an event like it, so I'm still a bit overwhelmed.

The first thing that happens when you walk in is that you get an 80-page booklet detailing all of the wineries at the event: first by appellation (where the grapes are grown); then by whether they are old vines or single vineyard wines; then by number of cases of wine produced; then by price; and then alphabetically by winery, including what vintages are on hand.

Then you hand over a ticket and pick up your glass, inscribed with the ZAP logo, that you will use to taste all the wines you care to taste and that you get to bring home as a souvenir.

Goody! A souvenir!

Then you walk a little further and a man wearing white gloves hands you a mini-baguette wrapped in a napkin.

Goody! Bread!

Then you think to yourself, "I wish I'd brought a tote bag," since you don't have the four arms required to hold wine glass, baguette, and program while taking notes on the wines you are tasting.  Nevertheless, you press on and enter...

the Grand Tasting itself...

where every Zinfandel producer from Acorn Winery to Zynthesis Cellars is set up...

with open bottles of wine, ready to tempt you.  It was daunting, and there's no way to do them all so you have to be selective.  We stopped by the Hendry table to say hello...

My co-workers, Luis and Angela (my boss!)

...and to get some suggestions on whose wine to try.  Even then, it was still too much to do; my sense of taste got burnt out pretty quickly. But with bites of bread and sips of water in between each sample, I think I was able to get a good sense of what I was tasting.

We ended up sampling wines from about 10 different winemakers, and it's astonishing how different they can be--even from one winery, going from year to year or location to location.  

Rosenblum (Alameda, represent!) was especially noteworthy for using grapes from different sources and having completely different wine profiles. All so good! D-Cubed, whose winemaker is the current president of ZAP, served both 2008 and 2007 vintages, which were notable for how different the years were.

Two of my favorites were the 2010 R.W. Moore Vineyard Zin from Robert Biale Vineyards--poured for us by Bob Biale himself--and the Mayacamas Range Zin from Storybook Mountain Vineyards.

I'm not going to say which one was jammy or peppery or had a lot of red fruit flavor, mostly because I don't have a clue what I'm talking about, but I can tell you that tasting all of these Zins at once--well, first of all, I can understand why they gave out a baguette; but secondly, it was amazing to get the sense for what wine people are talking about when they talk about the differences among wines.  They were all so distinct.  I'm sorry I didn't get a better chance to write notes while I was tasting as opposed to scribbled memories on the BART train back home. But I tell you one thing, when people talk about how wines and wineries and vintages have individual characters, I have a better idea of what they mean. It's so fun to get the opportunity to learn something about it. What a treat.

My new job

I will have even less time to blog than before because I have a new part time job at Hendry Wines!

It's an amazing coincidence, actually. I went to a tasting and tour with a friend of mine who said, "When I retire, I want to work part time at a winery," and the woman giving the tour said, "Are you available now?" Two weeks later, and voila! I am doing data processing, taking orders, answering the phones, and generally trying to make myself useful--and absorb information about wine in the process.

If you're ever in the Napa Valley, call for a tour. I may be the one answering the phone.

Tuesday Book Blogging: Books on Wine

I have narrowed down my job search even further to a position in marketing with an emphasis on social media in the wine industry. And the more I look into wine as a business, the more fascinating it becomes. In an earlier post, I talked about networking. I'll be talking to a friend and say, "Oh, by the way, do you know someone in the wine industry?" I have been amazed how many times the answer is, "Why, yes. Yes, I do." Who knew?

So as I search and network and apply, I'm doing quite a bit of reading. Oh my, how much there is to learn! Here are three books I'm working on right now.

I actually went ahead and bought WineWise which was amazingly affordable, given its scope and beauty. Good thing it's affordable, too, since I now want to try all kinds of wine I'd never heard of before, like Viognier. So well-written, too. Very accessible. Here's a teaser:

In the world of fine white wine, there is life beyond Chardonnay. If you want that life to include vibrant spices, honeysuckle and rose petal scents, and the unmistakable aroma of lychees, then you may want to give Gewurtztraminer a try (say it five times fast: guh-VERTZ-tra-meener).

It's blending very well with the second book I'm reading, Judgment of Paris, which is a fascinating story about how California wines come to world prominence, but is a bit of a tough read just because there are so many names and quite a bit of technical information about wine regions and how wine is made. It was made into a not very good movie, sadly, called Bottle Shock, which I saw when it first came out and loved anyway, mostly because of Alan Rickman. I'll post the trailer below. Here's a teaser:

The winery's equipment for pressing grapes and aging wines was badly out of date,and the vineyards were run-down. At the Pasteur Institute, Tchelistcheff had learned the importance of cleanliness around a living product like wine, and it was a shock for him to find a rat floating in a tank of Sauvignon Blanc at Beaulieu.

You'll be glad to know that was back in 1938.

Finally, a friend of mine found a very practical book entitled (straightforwardly) How to Launch Your Wine Career. Well, here's hoping. And if you know anyone in the wine business, let me know, would you?

Various & Sundry: Good Friday/Earth Day edition

And what do you need to mark both Good Friday and Earth Day? Clearly, it's environmentally-friendly cardboard coffins! I personally think this one is most appropriate for our Lord and Savior, don't you?

I liked this obituary for Jess Jackson, founder of Kendall-Jackson wineries, who I'm sure would be buried in a coffin decorated with grapes. Interesting to compare the Wine Spectator obit with the NY Times, which emphasized his horse racing efforts.

I thought this essay by a Lutheran minister on the sexual ethics of Dan Savage was very interesting. It was brought to my notice by blogger Conor Friedersdorf who notes "that the prohibition on pre-marital sex cannot survive a society where people get married in their late twenties or early thirties; that pre-marital sexual relationships are fraught with ethical questions apart from whether they should exist at all; that the teachings of Jesus Christ might easily be applied to a lot of those questions; but that the folks who normally provide guidance in how to follow Jesus eschew that role." It makes me wonder if the sturm und drang over homosexuality over here is to distract from the fact that we're not looking at anything regarding how people by and large are living out their sexual lives over there.

Finally, in celebration of Earth Day, heed the helpful advice of this oh-so-paper-saving bulletin board.