Ontario VQA 2008

2008 was a rather cool summer in Ontario (though not as bad as 2009), and I was curious how the wines would turn out. The answer so far, interestingly, is pretty well, at least as far as the whites are concerned. The great bargain of the Ontario wine world, as far as I’m concerned, continuescontinue reading

Prosciutto and Porcini tomato pasta sauce

This is a variation on a basic tomato-based pan sauce. Serves 3-4 over pasta of your choice. Boil approx. 1/2 cup water in kettle and pour into small bowl over one package dried porcini mushrooms until mushrooms are covered — it probably will not take all the water to cover the mushrooms. Chop one medium-sizedcontinue reading

Aglianico redux redux

The Cappellaccio Aglianico Riserva 2004 I briefly raved about earlier was released at Vintages on May 2, and is still widely available throughout Toronto Central (though not at Manulife, apparently). We uncorked a bottle at dinner last night and — perhaps predictably — we gave it a rave review. It’s a rich dark tannic (andcontinue reading

Get me rewrite!

Did the 80 layoffs at the Globe include all the copy editors? From Joanne Kates’ review of Globe Bistro this morning: Despite evidence to the contrary, some people are afraid of eating pork. Come again?

Aglianico

It didn’t take us very long to uncork that Aglianico I referred to in my last post — we shared it with one of J.’s classmates in a post-term informal celebratory pizza dinner on Friday evening. It’s the Bisceglia 2006 ‘Terra di Vulcano’ DOC Aglianico di Vulture, at $14.95 and 13.5%, in the Easter weekendcontinue reading

Wines update

Way back when we posted a brief note praising the 2005 Rothschild Vin de Pays d’Oc Cab Sauv as a very reasonable wine for about $10. I forget exactly what we liked about it — probably some reasonable sense of cab-sauvy-ness with decent fruit and tannins. Unfortunately 2007 has been unkind to Rothschild — orcontinue reading

I need a drink

More cocktails for the recession/depression, courtesy of the New Yorker online: Nasdaiquiri Add a dozen I.P.O.’s to portfolio, wait until bubble bursts, drink all day every day. BlackBerry Sling Discover that your BlackBerry doesn’t work because you haven’t paid the bill. Sling it against the wall, then buy a prepaid phone and make some rumcontinue reading

Eating and drinking in Florence

We are both fans of Italian food and wine — J. being especially addicted to good pastas — so we tried to eat well when we were in Florence, without entirely breaking the bank. Depending on where we went and how much wine we ordered, we were generally able to sit down to leisurely dinnerscontinue reading

Bees

Re the link to the new beekeeping site: You might find this interesting — David Yassky, an up-and-coming Brooklyn city councillor, has taken up the crusade to legalize urban beekeeping.  Apparently there are quite a few underground (or more precisely rooftop) apiculturists operating in the shadows of the city.  Two links below — the secondcontinue reading

Pseudo-provencal beef braise

This is actually a variation on a lamb braise — which I like somewhat better but it’s more difficult to get the appropriately cheap cut of lamb without a large quantity of extraneous bones. It’s a good dish to make the night before for a potluck, because it seems to improve by sitting overnight incontinue reading