The Little Words Mean the Most

I buy their wine from time to time > the crazy, wonderful things they just said >

 

Napa Valley Sauvignon Blanc
A pale straw with a neon chartreuse rim, the wine opens with leaner aromatics than previous years: white nectarine, bosc pear, flint, wet stone and hints of pineapple and lemon custard. A coating entry with plump grapefruit, honeydew, a touch of lemon, pith and extra cream excite. Bright acid on the finish quenches and ends with a note of granny smith apple.

Cause
Everyday a largely mostly anonymous workforce of men and women labor hard in the vineyards and wineries of Napa Valley. Most of them have left behind not only their country of origin but also their husbands, wives, and children in order to make a better life and find a small piece of the American Dream. To help them realize this dream, we at Orin Swift Cellars are happy to continue our tradition of supporting Puertas Abiertas (Open Doors), by donating $65,000 to their worthy causes each year.

 

Simone and I got career-busy decades ago.

 

         Over time we pretty much stopped cooking.

         A few years ago a chef-made gourmet-takeout place est. itself 20 minutes away by car. For instance, on this week's menu? Cajun-braised wild-caught salmon and roasted sweet potatoes. Bless your heart ~ and not in the ironic way. In the refrigerator way: Coming soon to our plates.

         Our rationale: in our 70s, taking no real pleasure from cooking anyway unless we did it for friends — but quite familiar with 1- to 3-star Michelin-rated restaurants in France — we are richly supportive of local small business, exemplified by this gourmet takeout. They know us by name; the longer-lasting staff anyway. That's so nice!

         Local friends we once cooked for? They've faded like worn-out towels. We sincerely mourned their loss for a decade, as they erased us from their must-see calendars. Apparently we could no longer help them nor their offspring. Our chief philosopher, Joel, advises: Those things happen; don't dwell.

         One of my earliest and best rhymes:

         Friends, they come and go. Like pee-holes in the snow.

 

My First Kiss / My Last Days

 

Normal.

         You, too?

------

 

What's normal?

         I watched my surprise mentor/recent friend/devout Buddhist John Haydon die at 53, consumed by a cancer of absolutely no use. John had a use, to human progress anyway. The cancer overwhelmed John's torso and killed him, painfully.

         Guess not.

------

Before my first kiss, I figured life would turn out pretty normal.

"In the end." Who knew what the END was? I was a freshman in high school.

I was a brain attached to a bag of bones attached to an unregulated sack of hormones.

Catastrophe at that point?

 

 

Jean-Claude's SECRET recipe for cassoulet: First, swap out the oven

 

More on that tomorrow.

TODAY, a documentary photo in our entryway of a typical Saturday morning's shopping expedition to the outdoor market in Pézenas.

Starting at 10 AM: head of fresh lettuce; wine from a favorite local vintner, Mas des Auribelles, who opens her garage door around 11 AM just for the Saturday market crowd; bread sticks presented as a gift to us (we bought a lot) by the Italian pasta maker who prefers living in France because the politics aren't as crazy; a bag of his mixed raviolis; fresh tomatoes; a couple of jars of tomato sauce for pasta; the sausage-maker was having a buy 3, get one free special: we bit, including the filet mignon saucisson; in the bag: one night's meal of pork roast; Sim One's cheese (Pomerol); more sausage including liver sausage (the darker one); my cheese (a mix of cow and sheep; nutty, almost sweet); and take-away chicken pad thai.

A good marché en Pézenas: lots of convo; fresh pasta, roasted poulet, ancienne tomatoes, tasting at a local vintner, & Sim One bought herself a cold-weather puffy vest (because this farmers' market sells cheap clothes, too); it's snowing in the Pyrenees

 

The Case Writers dine out in San Diego

Mr. Lepp, Ms. Love, Ms. Eustace, Ms. Cohn, Ms. Hopkins, moi

Saturday morning marché followed closely by Saturday noonday lunch. Dinner with "poverty chicken"? Not so good so far

 

OK!

 

We have this 19th-century house in the Occitanie, south of France.

 

It has a fancy-pants self-cleaning oven of some French make.

Or Belgian. Or Venusian.

 

The oven door locks while incinerating interior spills. We were hoping to reheat our roasted chicken purchased at the outdoor marché in that oven. So I took charge of the inscrutable controls. And now the oven door is firmly locked. Incinerating. On the 2nd hottest day of the century in France. And no setting will release it.

We have the microwave as back up. And air conditioning.

Nobody likes me anymore.

I go, you go, we all go, for aligot

 

 

What Fab made us, with Jean-Claude on the sausage grill. Yes, fellow Irish descendants, aligot is whipped potatoes blended with a special melted cheese

Locally-distilled whiskey, with fresh oysters, at The Farm, outside Seattle

Steven Screen, The Better Fundraising Company, at the sink, shucking oysters. Me, holding my as-yet-unopened gift bottle of Bainbridge Organic Battle Point Wheat Whiskey, a "world's best" winner in London. Getting ready to hold a planning meeting the day before our two-day intensive workshop at The Farm. Things rapidly spiraled out of control. Photo by Chris Davenport.

Almost home: last trip for awhile, to Poulsbo, WA, for "Work Less, Raise More" intensive workshop at The Farm, hosted by Steph and Chris Davenport, with Steven Screen, lead

 

CLICK on any image to expand and smell the wildflowers

First stop: pastries from Sluys', maker of "Viking Cup"s, among other Norwegian delicacies, at the end of the morning line out the door [in off-season]; fresh-harvested local oysters plucked and shucked by Steven Screen; the mossy apple orchard at The Farm (an outgrowth of The Nonprofit Storytelling Conference); the learning environment (out the window? bald eagles chase sea otters and snow-capped majestic peaks); the squirrel mascots are nuts; and Steven S. explains DM offers to front-line, already-hyper-accomplished fundraisers from TX, WA, DE, PA, FL, LA, VA; who have sometimes made 10 times as much per appeal post this training