My refuge: Traveler's Club Restaurant, a.k.a. the Tuba Museum, in Okemos, MI. It's that, too. More restaurant than museum, since the tubas hang from the walls unlabeled, and the specialties are draft beers and buffalo burgers. I'm having both, as I wait for the man-phobic cleaner to leave Jane's house. Today's pint: Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale, with "a punch" 8.5% abv, from Founder's Brewery in Grand Rapids; today's 2nd (and final) pint: Nut Brown Ale, from Michigan Brewing Company in Webberville. And if I get spirited, I can buy the Barack Obama presidential coffee cup here or the PB&J ice cream bar. This is one of my favorite spots on a Jane trip.
June 22, 2009
Why every wine-drinking American should make one trip to France
To see how wine should be priced. I'm in East Lansing, MI, on Jane's deck, laptopping, sipping a wine purchased last night, Puydeval 2007, from the Pays d'Oc (i.e., Land where they say Oc instead of Oy [today, oui]). Our French house is there, in the Pays d'Oc. Puyvedal is quite nice: 60% cabernet franc, 30% syrah, 10% merlot. A sunny personality with a rind of plum, mid-fruity.
Cost here in Michigan, about $14 at the local rip-off wine merchant, Dusty Cellars. (OK, not that bad. Pretty typical, actually.) As Mr. T liked to say, "I pity the poor fool..." who has to purchase wine in America, where a $35 bottle of wine at Dusty's is seen as mid-range. Oh, duck! Quack, quack. Wine is NOT a luxury good. In France, a $10 wine is mid-range. And quaffable-to-delicious-to-shockingly lovely and different.
February 05, 2009
Handtini
There is a semblance to Maori art.
January 03, 2009
December 31, 2008
How to serve the best beer in the world
It takes a little work, but it's worth it.
Cut a lot of brush during the green months. Pile it in your "work garden," the one that's not for visitors. Wait for a snowy day.
Today was perfect. Dry, light snow accumulating to 6 inches. Temperature: 17 degrees Fahrenheit. Translation: you can build a throbbing fire outside and not burn anything down, such as the house.
Activities in the snow are exhausting (the three-pound fleece-lined boots) and exhilarating (the rosy cheeks). Beer is a perfect companion.
Go get any favorite beer. Today, mine was English-style ale from Carlson Craft Brewery, Branford CT. An oversized 1 pint 6 fl.oz. bottle, big as two kidneys. Recommended by my favorite beer-guru. I snugged the bottle down into the snow; think alcoholic mortar round dropped down the tube.
Burn brush for four hours; wind gusts to 15 mph. Every five trips or so, dragging fresh-cut limbs to the fire: sip. After four hours, the beer will start to freeze. That's what you're going for.
Outdoor semi-freezing produces the best beer in the world. As you start to encounter flakes of ice in your beer, flakes the size of confetti, slush beer, you'll notice a remarkable change in taste. More intense. Stingingly so.
December 07, 2008
We collect masks
Not serious collecting (who has the money?), but admirably when we can. Meet Bolivian tin work, using discarded cans for the "Slave King," a stock figure.
October 21, 2008
Organizing the wine
When in France there are few chores I rush to, but.... I DO like to rearrange my wine supply and write notes on the boxes: where we bought the wine, when it should be opened (some will wait 10 years), how long it should breathe (four hours for the meaty reds), the price. It's all improperly stored in the attic, our only spare locked space; it's survived the rough handling.
These are memories by the bottle. We buy only from vintners in our region, the Languedoc-Roussillon; mostly from vineyards where we've done a tasting. The region is a quiltwork of tiny winemakers tucked away in small towns, where they produce limited quantities that seldom travel further than some discriminating restaurant in Paris, if that far.
In the U.S., wine was marketed as a snob's pursuit. Here, it's part of the diet. A 9 euro ($12) wine in France is expensive.
