Resolutions for you January 3, 2011

Moo-Moo Bossy Cow is here to tell you how to live your life. She doesn’t emerge too often, but she’s been watching this blog from the sidelines for some time now, and she is currently pushing me out of my Ikea office chair to put in her two cents. She says she can’t take it anymore. And so, I give you, Moo-Moo Bossy Cow. Let’s hope the Ikea chair made for skinny Swedes can withstand her bovine butt:

1. You people who don’t watch TV? Nobody cares. If you’ve never heard of Dexter or The Bachelor or The Office or even Sesame Street, we’d all like you to shut up about it. In 2011, you should resolve to just keep quiet when the Losties are pining for more Shirtless Sawyer, because nobody is interested in steering the conversation around to your not having/watching television.

2. By the same token, you people watching every permutation of Law & Order, CSI and NCIS? You are screwing up the ratings system. Also, those of you watching Two and a Half Men? Stop it. Stop it right now. It’s because of you that delightful people like Julia Louis-Dreyfuss get their shows cancelled and untalented abusers get rewarded with the biggest paychecks in sitcom history. Resolve to have better taste.

3. Resolve to scoop the cat litter. Every day. You know who you are.

4. Congratulations on buying a new shower curtain. Now, please resolve to leave the shower curtain closed after showering. By opening it, you are trapping moisture inside the folds of the vinyl curtain, and that is what is causing the mold and mildew to build up.

5. RSVP. RSVP. RSVP. Say it with me, people. R-S-V-P. You can do it. You were all raised better than that. I know this is true because I know all of your mothers.

6. Resolve to not damage the psyche of kids. A card that reads “I didn’t know what to buy you for Christmas because I don’t know what your interests are,” is NOT GOOD ENOUGH for a 13-year-old boy. You know who you are. Shame, blisters, and mysterious itching be upon you until you get your head out from betwixt your buttcheeks and figure your shit out.

7. Resolve to make your life suck less by not cutting off your loved ones just because they don’t live up to your exacting yet unspecified standards.

8. Resolve to laugh at your own religion once in a while. It will make you a nicer person to be around. And make you less likely to be, you know, a terrorist. That goes for Christians, too.

9. Not to get too New Age-y, but with everything you choose this year, ask yourself how it makes your life better. Ask, “Does this purchase/chocolate bar/third glass of wine/bit of gossip/nail color/phone call/blog post/tweet/Facebook status update help me reach my goals or help someone else reach their goals in life?”

10. Resolve to edit. Nobody wants to know exactly what your adorable kid is doing every second of every day. Well, that’s not true. Somebody does want to know, but those are the people who really should NOT know. If you know what I mean.

Back to you, Too Many.

– OK, thanks for that. I think. If I had known you were going to take dead aim like that I might not have invited you to guest blog, Moo-Moo. Then again, cows cannot be counted on for subtlety.

Rumblings December 31, 2009

So, here’s an even better reason why I haven’t done a “Wine for your Weekend” selection for about three months now. I guess if I was brave and European, I’d still be drinking a glass of wine with dinner, with nary a worry about the possible negative effects on the Li’l Peanut who’s been along for the ride since September, or thereabouts. Americans and their American doctors are very specific about alcohol, though. Wine is very much on the bad food list. So is beer.

I could make a case in favor of allowing myself a little taste now and then. My own Auntie Bonnie, back in the 1970s, was prescribed one bottle of beer every day when she was pregnant. Doctor said the yeast in it was good for her. I’ve seen pictures of Auntie Bonnie when she was pregnant, and I have to say my nose is starting to resemble her enlarged preggy schnozz. So it follows that I might have a similar body chemistry as she has. Ergo, why not a little Guinness with my grilled cheese sandwich? Or with my Flaming Hot Cheetos. Or with my block of cheese.

Because the doctor says so, that’s why. My very sweet, very young, very calm and very cool OB took the time to answer all of the questions that spawned from my paranoia after reading “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” She says despite my weight, I’m the perfect candidate to be preggo. She says, despite all the warnings to the contrary, I can dye my hair and use acne medication. She says I can take Tylenol for headaches, and for this mucus-shaped alien creature that now lives in my sinuses and in the back of my throat, causing me to gag every five seconds. She said it’s OK that all I want to eat is Sonic Frito-Chili Cheese wraps. She said I’m allowed to do lots of things, but that I am most definitely not allowed to drink alcohol.

So I’ll take it. I’d rather be a pregnant, cautious American than a brave, wine-drinking pregnant European anyway. Besides, as far as I can tell, they don’t have Sonic in Europe.

Wine for your Weekend: Trinity Red by Fairview Winery October 2, 2009

OK, this one might be a little unfair to you all — you can’t buy this one in stores.

In fact, even if you tripped over a bottle of this award-winning red in your rural Indiana wanderings, you wouldn’t be able to purchase it. However, if you ask nicely, you might get a bottle for free.

Fairview Winery is a hobby of my uncle’s in DeMotte, IN. Sounds like a pretty complicated hobby that doesn’t reap many monetary rewards. In fact, I’d guess it’s a drain on the pocketbook, as he’s known to give most of it away. Aside from the complicated state laws and licensing and health codes and other fun stuff that a professional retail winery gets to deal with, it would cease to be a hobby and become a job. He’s already got one of those.

Anyone who does not understand the point of giving away bottle after bottle of something you worked so hard to make does not understand one of life’s most basic joys. Cheerful giving.

This week’s cheerfully given bottle is called Trinity Red because it’s a blend of three grapes: merlot, cabernet, and … something else. No one could quite remember the third grape, but that’s OK. It speaks for itself, as a gold medal winner in a statewide wine competition. No surprise there; as soon as I opened it I smelled it. Blueberries and merlot loveliness.

I offered a glass to the husband, who does not like dry reds as a rule. He wolfed it down even as I scolded him for not letting it breathe. Someday I will learn to let red wine breathe in secret before offering some to the hard-headed German. “Good,” he proclaimed, just before stomping off to storm the castle with the rest of the Visigoths. High praise from the ale drinker.

And so it was I alone who enjoyed the looking, the swirling, the holding aloft, the sniffing, the chewing. Yes, the chewing. Try it sometime. And then I tasted apricots. And then, that tiny little bite of cabernet at the end. Wonderful. Let the beer connoisseurs have their “tastings” all they want — and I include myself in that category from time to time — there is nothing like a good, complex bottle of red.

Even better for the Dutch Calvinist, nothing like a FREE bottle of red.

And, according to Indianawines.org, my uncle also won a 2009 Gold Medal from the Indianapolis International Wine Competition in the amateur category for something called Peach, Grapefruit, Banana, Papaya and Chard. Whoa. Forget the pasta, we’ve got a square meal right here.

To get yours, just ask. Better yet, show up to the family gatherings with your empty bottles. He’d sure appreciate them. But don’t crash the party, that would be weird.

(Just kidding about the Visigoth thing, honey.)

Wine for your Weekend: 2006 Bandit Merlot September 25, 2009

It might be the tastiest cheap California merlot disguised by tacky, gimmicky packaging.

Most wine box designers spend a lot of time carefully creating packages to say, “It’s OK. I’m adorable and recyclable and nobody will judge you as the blousy, romance-novel-reading, boxed-wine drinking lush that you are.” Or, if  said wine is from Target, the box says, “Technically, I’m a cube, not like those other guys at Wal-Mart. I also come in a cute portable style like an adult juice box, because we here at Target appreciate your hipness and sense of irony. Unlike Wal-Mart.”

It’s all about making consumers feel better: both the snobs and those who wish not to be seen as a wine rube. I freely admit to being both of those things, which is why when I’m drawn to the sale tags at Meijer, I chalk up the tacky factor to Research. I’m doing this for all of you, not for me!

Apparently this Bandit merlot is by the same guys who brought us the unfortunate Three Thieves giant-jug-o-wine. You know, the one with the silhouette of the three horsemen on the cover and a screw top? Yeah, the one you bought because it was ironic for someone like you to have a great big wine jug — because the same people who bought that jug would never, EVER, be seen wheeling around a grocery cart with the un-ironic Gallo jug. But the joke was on us, folks. As much as I am a fan of screw-tops, I’m afraid the Three Thieves jug is just undrinkable, so much that I wonder if the horsemen on the label could have any connection with the apocalypse.

Bandit Merlot, however, is lovely. A nice, solid, dry red. Good for porch sitting on a fall evening, lasts long enough for the sun to go down, and it will still be there when you finally retreat inside to watch a new episode of Glee. Because this is a big bottle. Ten bucks gets you 1 liter, which is about a bottle and a third.

As for me, I used that extra third to make a surprisingly good pasta sauce the other night. I know it was surprising because I heard someone say “That was REALLY good” while he cleaned up the dinner dishes. It’s not an exact science, but if you’re up for a “little of this, little of that” cooking, you’ll like this:

Start by heating up the garlic and herbs in some olive oil. I saw this once from a nutty vegetarian cook on PBS, who said “You have to let the spices and the garlic bloom before you do anything else.” She’s totally right, and now I do this every time. Then, toss in some chopped tomatoes from Mom and Dad’s garden, and let it cook down for a bit. Then add some milk, flour (just a tad) and butter, and whisk to keep the clumps at bay. Then pour in some of the wine, keep stirring until the sauce is a wonderful smooth pink concoction. Finally, just dump it over the macaroni. You’re done.

I used to be afraid of my husband’s random way of sautee-ing things, and in a sense I still am. However, if I’ve learned anything from that “Julie & Julia” movie, it’s that you can’t go wrong with a little butter and a little wine. Those two things will forgive a multitude of imprecise kitchen sins, including the habit of not using measuring spoons. Although I cannot guarantee any results, especially if you, like me, enjoy the wine straight up whilst cooking.

If you do end up with a hot mess in the kitchen, at least you will be left with something amusing to read on this tacky wine package, including ten fun facts listed on the back, in what I like to call “Ransom Note” font. Number ten will make you feel better about your kitchen struggles: “You can crush this bottle on your forehead when your done.”

OK, cute. Tacky, but cute.

Wine for your Weekend: Gato Negro 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon September 11, 2009

It was late afternoon. The house was clean, the dog tuckered out from the sun, I’d finished all my writing for the day, and I’d clocked an entire hour on the Wii Fit. The Husband was on his way home to get ready for our date night (dinner and then the animated movie “9″), and then I looked at that bottle of Chilean red that had been patiently waiting for me to notice it. I picked it up and looked closer. A screw cap. Even better. Yes, I was indeed meant to have a glass for the first time in what seemed like months.

I’ve been holding back on these wine posts lately, for several reasons. One being a very boring explanation about how much money it’s costing me to burn through a bottle a week.

The other involves me realizing I might be indulging in too much of a good thing. There’s nothing quite like cold hard facts, in the form of worrying triglyceride numbers and a call from the doctor.

I know what you’re thinking. Red wine is supposed to be good for the heart. It is. I’m no expert, but I have a hunch that when said glass(es) of red wine shows up as superfluous calories at the end of every day, you end up with a lot of extra simple sugars, and the heart-healthy effects become sort of a wash. Or worse.

So, about a month ago, the Husband and I embarked on a new journey together. We made a pact not to eat or drink any extra calories after 7 p.m. After one week of that, we agreed to enhance our new lifestyle with lots of water. Just doing those two things alone had a staggering result on my wine intake. Dealing with the urge to micturate all day long and having to interrupt every task to run to the bathroom because of all that water drinking really makes a girl not even want to look at any liquid beverage after 7 p.m.

One thing I know for sure is I’ve been sleeping a whole lot deeper by letting my metabolism shut down from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. Another thing I know is I’m feeling better. Not that I felt noticeably bad before that post-blood-test phone call from the doc.  It’s just that now, I feel like I’m back on a vitamin regimen, even though I’m not. (Yeah, that’s another boring story about money.)

This week I got a little reminder to be kind to my body and my spirit, even while I’m in the midst of this get-healthy boot camp lifestyle. This reminder came in the form of me. Well, not exactly me. Someone who could be my long lost twin. She’s shorter than I am, and of a different nationality. But we have the same complexion, hairstyle, face shape, affinity for fitted black tee shirts and — whoa — the same body type. The difference is, she loves her little roly-poly belly. And I do not love mine. She can do amazing, wonderful, mesmerizing things with that belly, not the least of which is comfortably exposing it to a class of 50 strange women.

She is my belly dancing instructor, and she is me in a parallel universe. This is the universe where I’m not raised by Calvinists to be embarrassed and overly modest about my curves; where I don’t make apologies for my astonishing cup size; where my hips and the “junk in my trunk” are free to move on their own, separately from the rest of my body; where I do not get indoctrinated by well-meaning but overheated Southern belles on the necessity of wearing tummy-controlling garments under tee shirts in the summer; where I do not bother to ask the Husband or anybody “does this outfit look OK?” or “does this shirt cling too much on the muffin top?”; where I’ve never even heard the term “muffin top,” for that matter; where my saintly mother’s agonizing self-consciousness does not rub off on me; where I’ve told every man or woman who ever uttered an unsolicited comment on my or another woman’s weight to eff off.

This Woman, this Parallel Me, actually had me and the 50 other strangers lifting up our shirts and touching our own bellies this week. In two different places. And then, she made us pooch them out as far as they could go. This is not something we nice Calvinist women like to do. We would rather forget we have these things called bellies, and instead get our exercise by abusing our bodies with running, power-walking, cold-hard machinery at the gym, and then get back to tending the tomato plants. A good dose of guilt and repression also helps burn off calories the rest of the day. We certainly are not interested in isolating the different muscles underneath our bellies. Nor do we like to think about strengthening those muscles in order to rhythmically shake a jingly-jangly scarf. After all, that could lead to sensuality, which we all know is a gateway to a whole lot of other extremely fun things we’d only feel guilty about later.

At the end of class, Parallel Me reminded us to spend the week practicing our moves, taking in a bit more potassium to support our muscles, drink lots of water, but most importantly, to be good to ourselves. Relax. Take naps. Have a glass of wine.

So I did. A nice, fruity, medium-bodied dry red. Just one glass. To clean the pipes, and to be good to me. All before 7 p.m.

Wine for your Weekend: Chateau Ste. Michelle Chardonnay 2007 August 7, 2009

There are a myriad of circumstances that can affect the taste of wine. A cat licking the outside of the bottle won’t be one of them, I hope.

See, our cat has this problem. “Hi. My name is Yoko. I’m an alcoholic.”

I’ve got this bottle sitting in front of me on my desk as a reference, as I do every Friday morning. And, like every Friday morning, I’m shooing the cat away. Any kind of bottle, glass, or receptacle containing or having recently contained juice, beer, wine or anything with an aroma similar to these things, must be watched carefully at our house. If you take your time drinking from your frosty mug, or leave your wine glass sitting on the coffee table while you go get some more of the husband’s famous guacamole, you’re going to have some competition. Whatever it is, just pick it up and take it with you. Unless you like the idea of sharing cooties with She-Who-Spit-Bathes-Herself-In-Public.

If I’m being totally honest here, I have caught this cat with her head inside my wine glass a time or two, and have seriously taken a few moments before deciding to dump it out. And there has been more than one time when I’ve come back from the kitchen, looked at my glass, looked at the cat, looked at the husband, asked “Did she?” Heard “Uh … I have no idea,” looked back at the glass, looked at the cat again, got a feeling in my gut that the cat appeared suspiciously satisfied with herself, and went ahead and drank the wine anyway, praying that the alcohol does the job of killing whatever diseases might be communicable from feline to human.

Let’s hope tonight’s glass is as good as last night’s, the cat love notwithstanding: This is a very good chardonnay, and a little more complex than the average. Slightly spicy with a hint of green apples. $10 is worth the price for a chardonnay that’s superior to the old reliable kind, such as one of those bottles that has, let’s say, a kangaroo on the label. Not that I would ever turn up my nose at an old reliable bottle of anything. I know Yoko wouldn’t.

Wine for your Weekend: Sangria July 24, 2009

I love to entertain. One of the many benefits of moving from the country into town is that now, people don’t have to go out of their way to come over. It’s kind of insane that we had to move from Texas to the Midwest to have this happen, and we still have a good number of close friends down in the Lone Star State, but when you live five miles outside of town and 18 miles from the nearest suburb, you might have a dinner party three times in seven years, and you almost never experience the thrill of throwing together a last minute offering of chips and dips for a spontaneous get-together.

One of our newish friends recently said he felt bad about always gathering at our place, worried that it might be an imposition. He said he didn’t want us to feel like our place was “Union Station.” Well, if our apartment ever did earn a comparison to Union Station, nothing would make me happier. After seven years of commuting across the county to meet up with friends on weekends, I’m anxious to make up for lost time (and mileage). Besides, being a host is a great motivation for keeping one’s house clean.

Now that we’re slowly making new friends, those quirkier wedding gifts are earning their keep. Last weekend, I used my margarita pitcher for something other than watering the begonias on my balcony.

True, sangria is way too pretty to hide in a ceramic pitcher and should be displayed in a large glass punch bowl to allow all the wonderful, wine-soaked chunks of fruit to float around cheerfully like drunken sailors. However, somehow the husband and I made it through our Big Fat Dutch Wedding with not a single punch bowl in sight. We did get that pitcher, though, with matching salsa and chip bowls, a gift from one of those one-of-a-kind friends who never buys anything on your registry but somehow her thoughtful gifts always knock your socks off. If you ever have one of those friends, let her know that you noticed.

And if you didn’t get that punch bowl for your wedding, who cares? They’re huge, unwieldy, take up acres of space in your cabinet and you’ll use it so seldom that every time you do haul it out, you’ll get the added treat of washing it in the bathtub because it’s too big to fit in the kitchen sink. And, you can’t even water your begonias with it. Well, you could water your begonias with a punch bowl if you really wanted to, but I don’t think your downstairs neighbor would appreciate it. So, go with a nice pitcher, or a not so nice one. Tastes the same either way:

2 bottles Yellow Tail cabernet (or your favorite red)
1/2 c. brandy
2 cups club soda
1 orange, sliced
1 lemon, sliced
1 apple, cut into bite size pieces
blueberries (as many as you want)

Let fruit soak in 1 bottle of the wine for a couple of hours to marinate. Add 1/4 c. brandy, club soda, stir and serve. You can also throw in a little sugar if you like. When the beverages start to run thin but the conversation has not (or the fruit gets difficult to stir) add second bottle and the rest of the brandy.

This might not be a totally accurate representation of our sangria from last weekend, but this is a good base to start with. The beauty of this stuff is you can pretty much add whatever you like in terms of fruit or juice, or even replace the club soda with ginger ale, tonic, or anything you like better. Most recipes for sangria will just be a variation on this theme, so go with your gut.

One last thing: if you’re lucky enough to be a hostess and doubly lucky to have generous friends, the leftover drunken fruit stays pretty tasty when kept in the fridge over the next week. Especially nice for sitting on the porch after coming home from vacation bible school, during which you’ve discovered that, despite all your efforts to the contrary, you are indeed a Woman Shouting at Children, just like your mother, your mother’s mother, and your mother’s sisters. Don’t worry. A few wine-soaked orange wedges and a healthy does of denial go a long way.

Wine for your Weekend: Rain in Spain June 12, 2009

How about a nice, balanced red to go with some bittersweet news?

Our friends brought over a bottle of Castano Monastrell 2007, from Yecla, Spain last week, and we three wine drinkers made quick work of it over a game of mah jongg, along with some of my husband’s delicious guacamole. This Calvinette may have married a stubborn German beer drinker, but the man makes a mean guac, which paired nicely with this medium-bodied Spanish red. Festive, fruity and simple, without being clingy or sweet.

An added bonus was the screw top, a thing that I wish more wineries would embrace. There’s nothing that makes the cork particularly necessary, in my view. Besides that, the world is running out of cork. Those plastic corks are popping up all over the mid-to-low- priced wines, and I just want to tell these people to switch to the screw tops already. The plastic is more expensive, and besides that, those things are hard on a girl’s corkscrew. Even with the rabbit-style cork remover it’s a little rough going with those hard plastic hunks crammed into the bottle.

It was a good choice of wine for our friends to use as a way to deliver a bit of happy/sad news. They’re moving to Spain in the fall to continue their studies. I am not shocked by this. This city we live in can be a culture shock to people who prefer walking to driving, and veggies over meat. I knew pretty early on after we met this couple that they would not be staying here long, though I admit I hoped it would take them a little bit longer to decide where to go next.

However, we did have some success at teaching our friends mah jongg, playing through four rounds of it, with each of us winning one round. Kind of spooky, the way the circle completed itself, and not just in the game. About a year ago, we announced to our dear friends down in Texas that we were moving to the Midwest. These Texas friends, Steve and Brandy, were the ones who taught us to play the game. Brandy was taught the game by her mother, who passed away when Brandy was just a teenager, so the game holds a lot of meaning for her. And that is just fine — it’s a game that allows you to assign meaning to it, with its long, convoluted set-up of the Great Wall of China and the Flower Wall. It feels like a tea ceremony. It lets you know you are entering a game that probably goes back about a thousand years or more, so don’t feel foolish when you roll the dice to see who is East Wind, West Wind, North Wind and South Wind.

If this sounds totally unfamiliar to those of you who play some online version of mah jongg, or something called “Ultimate Mah Jongg,” there is a reason for that. YOU ARE PLAYING THE WRONG GAME, my friend. That online stuff is a bizarre bastardization of this beautiful, complex and civilized game of tiles. When you play with real tiles on a real table, you play by one of many different sets of fairly stringent rules. With our Texas friends, we learned to play a version loosely based on the Wright-Patterson rulebook. Yep, that Wright-Patterson. Which itself was fitting for our little foursome, as Steve is a former Air Force man. I say loosely because we didn’t gamble, and we were less strict about how discarded tiles could be picked up by other players, hence making the rounds go a little bit faster, and, in my opinion, more fun.

When we left the Lone Star State, Brandy and Steve gifted us with the single most beautiful and thoughtful thing I could have imagined: our own antique mah jongg set. Hand carved tiles, bamboo backing — I don’t even want to think about how much they spent (but a tightwad Dutch Calvinette like me can hardly keep from wondering, can I?). Until last week, it had been almost a year since we played, and we were so thrilled to finally meet another couple who was open to learning this strange and wonderful game. And so, perhaps it’s a little bit ironic, with maybe some Chinese magic Fu thrown in, that we left our old friends with this old game, which brought us new friends who are now leaving for a new adventure. Where does that leave us? I’m not sure. If nothing else, we’ll have a pretty great reason to take a trip to Spain.

Wine for your Weekend: A 2006 Sangiovese from somewhere in Italy. May 29, 2009

This week we go to Italy, in my continued attempt to give the Europeans a fighting chance, and to give my love fest for Australia and California a rest.
Today I’m recommending Di Majo Norante Sangiovese 2006. Di Majo Norante is a vineyard in southern Italy, which I know absolutely nothing about. I do know that Sangiovese is a variety of grape commonly used as a blend with other Italian grapes to make things such as chianti, which I used to order with pizza in my 20s because I thought it was sophisticated.
Turns out, sangiovese grapes are super sensitive to too much warmth and have a long growing season. They’re sort of sensitive little buggers, like the Pinot Noir.
This particular vineyard grows its vines using organic fertilizers, organic pest control methods and adheres to an old-fashioned philosophy of taking care of the earth that is taking care of them. Because of the existence of sulfites in almost all wines, it’s extremely hard to come by wines that are themselves organic. So, I appreciate anybody who at least cares about taking steps to respect the soil, even if it means they don’t always get a huge yield.
This is a good, solid Italian wine, well worth the $12 price tag.
Dry, spicy, purplish-brown in color. Acidic but not overly so. A little taste of raisins and violets. Would be good with red meat, if that’s your thing. I try to avoid it, but that’s a blog post for another time.

OK. Enough of snooty Old Europe! Next week, guest producer Heather L. recommends a wine from the Hoosier State. Anybodygotta problem wit dat?

Introducing: Wine for your Weekend, blog edition May 22, 2009

It occurs to me that some people who read my blog are not on facebook, so I figured, why not blog about it as well. Besides, this way I have a lot more room to yammer on a bit longer, which is always a plus for anyone of Mesman ancestry.

This week’s pic is a Beaujolais-Villages by Georges Dubeuf, 2007. Sounds fancy, but that’s just because it’s French. Beaujolais just refers to a specific kind of grape. That is probably the first thing a person should read about if they like wine, but are intimidated by all the terminology. Find out what kind of grape you like, and wine shopping becomes ten times easier.

This week I decided to give France a chance for the first time in ages. Not because I have anything against the French, not in a corny, overly patriotic American way. I have not tried a French wine in so long because of experience. Seriously. Years ago, I worked at World Market, where, if you’re lucky enough to still have one in your city, they have a killer wine selection and better prices on the really popular brands, better even than Wal-Mart. While working there, I tried a bottle of French wine. Not LITERALLY while I was working there … that would have gotten me in trouble. Though, with the way some of the kids acted at work, you would think they were cracking open a few on their breaks. But anyway. That one bottle of French was simply awful, and I never looked back. But now that I look back on it, I think that bottle was actually corked.

The term corked just means the wine has been tainted by one thing or another along the way, and sometimes results in your wine tasting like wet newspaper. I now have learned that if you buy from a reputable wine seller, you can your money back if you think your wine has been corked. At the time, I just thought it was Clois Du Bois producing wine that was “meh.”

Although my Fort Wayne World Market is closed (more on that later) I was ecstatic to find this store called Fresh Market, which is sort of a smaller version of Whole Foods. When I saw their wine section two months ago, I thought I might pass out from joy. I don’t have to keep reviewing wine from Meijer for the rest of my life!

Now, to this week’s wine — It was surprisingly sweet and uncomplicated. Light, delicate and fruity. Not what I expected. Slightly smoky aftertaste. Nice on its own, but it does not stand up against flavorful food, especially not the kind of stinky cheese I like to serve, and REALLY not with the kind of cooking my husband does. (He could eat raw jalapenos, with the seeds, for breakfast and not break a sweat.) Much too mild a wine for our family to pair with food.

This one also tastes better when chilled, which I normally would not do with a red wine, but then again, I know almost nothing about this particular grape. I like it, but I would probably serve this one later at the party. After I’ve run out of Cab but I’m not ready to crack open the Thunderbird.

I made the wine-ambivalent husband try some, like I do every week, hoping that something will get through that stubborn, German skull. But alas. He says, “Needs sugar.” So, I live with a Philistine. Anybody with suggestions on something sweet enough for this guy, I’d be happy to review it in an upcoming post. (NO suggestions of Boone’s Farm, please, which is actually made from apples and other nonsense … I’m only interested in grapes.)

Overall, this week’s wine is pretty good … for the French.