Eat thy bread with joy. Drink thy wine with gladness

Two wines marked my day enjoying the company of two different friends.

Powers Syrah 2006
I found this wine to have the essence of dark fruit, crisp yet smooth, immediately fruity, and easy to drink. Would like this wine alone or with food. I had it with scallops wrapped with bacon, it was fine with this but I think I'd have really liked a wine with a wee bit more astringency to balance the richness of the scallops, bacon and sauce.

Cline Zinfindel 2007
This wine came to me as dark fruits and a bit peppery yet after finishing the glass I was left feeling a little ho hum. Definitely easy-drinking and versatile yet it lacked character to me and I wasn't compelled to order it again. This wine I had with a cheeseburger and quesadilla.

A little work. A little more play. Tomorrow I'll catch up!

Make That Change (Rosé)

Are you interested in what Dr. King said and thought during his short yet influential lifetime? The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Volume III: Birth of a New Age, December 1955-December 1956 will intrigue. (you can buy it from the Amazon link on the right). I was reminded about this book during Michael Jackson’s memorial where I heard one of the passages:

Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. Even if it does not fall in the category of one of the so-called big professions, do it well. As one college president said, A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and Earth will have no pause and say, Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.

I hadn’t intended on watching the memorial but I grew up on MJs music and his service brought back memories. As were billions of other viewers, I was urged to look at the person in the mirror and ask her to change her ways. The memorial spoke some powerful message to me. One was Don’t Hesitate. Create!

Have done some photographing and harvesting flowers, took care of a flat tire, spoke with a client, collected driftwood for a fire meditation, harvested an abundance of herbs, made some marketing pieces, and am preparing to finish a batch of limoncello and make some canned pineapple jam. Don't Hesitate.

A couple'a quick n easies:

Dehydrated potatoes with homemade compound butter (sundried tomatoes, garden herbs)
Garden lettuce and mint leaf salad with homemade apricot vinaigrette

Marinated chicken (in the pot, left; ready to eat right) cooked in herb-infused olive oil and a lot of dried garden mint, fresh rosemary, ground pepper
(The uncooked marinade was just some soy sauce, sugar, and powdered ginger. The chicken marinated for half a day. Simmered in a small wok)

**The astringent nature of the Dante Reserve 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon went REALLY well with this meal**



Pasta (cooked)
Sauce: saute together pesto diluted with water, herb-infused olive oil, thinly sliced smoked sausage, grape tomatoes, ground pepper, salt, chopped baby asparagus, chopped mushrooms (in the pot, left; ready to eat, right)

 **I had a glass of Paradiso del Sol's Rose Rosé Paradiso with this. It was alright but this hearty pasta could have used a mild-bodied red**

Confucius Says (Cabernet Sauvignon)

“What the superior man seeks in himself; what the small man seeks in others” – Confucius

This afternoon as I was driving down the highway I knew that I did it again. I jammed a log in the gears of a conversation with somebody close to me because I expected them to do something that I, in my own way, wasn't doing. Wisdom of many traditions offers warnings and guidance as to the boogaboos of Expectations and Attachments. Until I reach the utopia where my own house is spic n span I’m better to keep my broom a sweepin’. Follow me while I sweep on over to one of my freshly uncovered treasures, Dante Reserve 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. You're gonna like this!

Found for $6.99 at the local wine merchant from Michael Pozzan Winery. When I connect with a wine at this price with a glowing write-up I'm checking it out. To me this wine smells of dark fruit, is mildly astringent (14.9% alcohol content), and finishes with cedar and a spicy flavor. Some tasting notes indicated I wasn’t at home base (I never am!) but was definitely on the field. I drank this pretty, dark red Cab solo and also with a hearty mushroom Swiss bacon burger. I can imagine hooking it up with a multitude of culinary sins and think it'd be a killer choice for a party -- you'll score with your friends and it won’t empty your purse.

Since it’ll go swell with summer Q I’m offering another uncooked marinade recipe for you to try: 2 cups soy sauce, 1 cup pineapple juice, ½ cherry, 1 ½ tablespoon brown sugar, 1 clove crushed garlic, ½ teaspoon ginger.

Confucius says Salute! and keep your eyes on your own glass.

It all starts with a dream -- Happy 4th -- (Rosé)

“If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse” – Walt Disney

It’s such a nice day. A nice and wonderful mid-80s day for the 4th and we’re rarely so lucky here in the Puget Sound. I’m still enjoying the bottles of Paradisos del Sol Winery’s 2004 Rosé Paradiso that I found in the back of my wine cabinet. A friend teased me about drinking this "old" stuff but it drinks fine to me and friends I’ve shared it.

Since summer is all about the Q (at least in my family) I thought it’d be fun to share some easy recipes because girls can’t live on wine alone! Here’s a super easy recipe for an uncooked marinade: ¼ cup soy sauce, ¼ cup sherry, 1/3 cup honey, ½ teaspoon powdered ginger. If you're a foodie you already know how to cook with one hand and hold a wine glass with the other.

This morning I saw a sculpture that a friend did, a cool little egg-sized clay creature. I didn’t know that 15-odd years ago she used to do a lot of sculpting and received a partial scholarship to Cornish. Her family wasn’t able to make up the difference so she wasn’t able to study. She’s a multi-talented girl and has created another successful opportunity for herself. This afternoon I was walking the beach and saw a yard sale so I scooted across the road to check it out. Met the guy who lives there, his name is Steve. With all the beach traffic today he decided to have some friends over and try to sell some nice wine glasses and body care products. He didn’t have any limoncello glasses (damn) but we had a nice conversation and I learned he also created a successful opportunity for himself.

Walt Disney’s dream fertilized dormant seeds of imagination and magic in the hearts of young and old. He made people smile and feel good. His creations still make people happy. Independence Day -- a chasm between fireworks, bbq, and beer and independence from the King of England. The United States of America -- land of the freer than most.

My glass is raised to dreams and all who have the courage to follow them. My glass is lowered to my heart to dreams and those afraid to follow them -- my prayer, that we all find the courage to do so. Cheers!

Bread Wine & Blue (Rosé)

“Time is the best advisor” – Pericles

This evening’s light summer pasta is nicely paired with the fruitilicious, deep rose hued Paradisos del Sol Winery’s 2004 Rosé Paradiso that I opened yesterday. This is an easy, easy wine to drink and soooooo beautiful to look at. Roses and Rosé are good for the spirit.

It’s sunny and warm, a bikini day the mid 80s, and for some reason an uninvited shade of blue has darkened my doorstep all day. In spite of that I got the dog walked at the beach before it got too hot for her or too crowded for me and I continue this day with a smile in spite of some disappointments. Time. Will. Tell. The only funk I want to get down with is on the dance floor (RIP Michael Jackson, and I raise my glass to your your music and moves).

Uncle John’s Original Bread Book arrived in my home yesterday. A book full of Old World artesian recipes that emigrated to America during a master baker’s journey from Germany. Copyright 1961, 1965 in good condition with a subtle hint of a comforting used-book smell that whispers nostalgia of kitchens past. The paper and binding feel happy to hold – is it the lingering energy of over 40 years of cooks and bakers? If you’re as excited about this book as I am you can buy your own via the Amazon.com widget on the right.

This 4th of July weekend kicks off my exploration of Grüner Veltliners – scrumpdillyicious wines from Austria made with white-wine grapes of the same name. I am SOOOOOO looking forward to the journey of these Gru-Vee wines partly because wines that aren’t popular in America excite me and partly because groovy is such a cool word. If you wanna get your groove on, come see me on the 4th.

It Ain't Easy Bein' [you fill in the blank]. (Rosé)

Sittin’ on the deck, lookin’ at the beach, waitin’ for sunset, and keepin’ life light and rosy with a glass of Paradisos del Sol Winery’s 2004 Rosé Paradiso.

It’s deeply colored Rosé that’s more refreshing than sweet. Yummy sipped alone or drank paired with lighter warm-weather fare. No oak, just light and fruity. Friends Barbara and Paul own this Eastern Washington winery where they create some seriously delicious wines, grow some produce, and give home to a variety of animals. Thinkin’ about the day and lookin’ at my green tomato plants probably reminded me of Kermit The Frog’s precious little song It’s Not Easy Being Green:

It's not that easy bein' green;
Having to spend each day the color of the leaves.
When I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow or gold-
or something much more colorful like that.

It's not easy bein' green.
It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things.
And people tend to pass you over 'cause you're not standing out like flashy sparkles in the water- or stars in the sky.

But green's the color of Spring.
And green can be cool and friendly-like.
And green can be big like an ocean, or important like a mountain, or tall like a tree.

When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why? Wonder,
I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful!
And I think it's what I want to be.

When I was a teenager I did a little bit of modeling. Part of that experience included an agency called Kathleen Peck Modeling School. Not many women of color in that industry back then and my ethnic “look” wasn’t vogue. They measured me and said my calves and thighs were too big, my skin was too dark (so they lightened it with cosmetics), my lips were too full (so they thinned them with cosmetics), my hair wasn’t bone straight, and at 5’7 I was too short. I wasn’t super skinny or white and I always felt un-pretty every time the make-up artist would make my lips smaller and lighten my skin. Some years later ethnicity was more celebrated in the industry and I had a better experience at a different agency until I got nixed from a Brittania runway gig because my legs didn’t look long and thin enough in their jeans. Brittania was the shit back in the day.

Spending most of my youth in a mostly white suburb also fomented a silo of peer pressure, self-dissatisfaction, and deep feelings of un-pretty as I tried to fit in to keep my ass from getting beat up in those abusive and hostile surroundings.

But as the Fates would have it, I was reminded again today (as I often am in my adult days) about how fuckng cool it is to be ME. I love my brown skin and how it becomes even more caramel-ly in the summer. I love my lips. My legs are pretty dang strong and athletic, I love that. And even though humidity is serious kryptonite to my hair, I can wear it straight or curly and pretty much every way in between.

That frog and I, we were tight, and …

When green and Me is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why? Wonder,
Kermit’s green and I’m Me and we’ll do fine, we’re beautiful!
And I think we’re what we want to be.

Thanks Kermie ♥ I LOVE YOU.
Hmm ... I wonder if frogs like Rosé.

Theory: What goes around, goes around again. (Pinot Gris)

After sitting on The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death by Stanislav Grof, M.D. I finally decided to crack it open. Fanning through the pages my eyes caught a quote preceding Chapter 10 from French philosopher and writer, Voltaire “It is no more surprising to be born twice than to be born once.” What follows is way freakin’ more than I intended to share here and in the process I tapped out that bottle of 2002 Pinot Gris from Lake Chelan Winery http://www.lakechelanwinery.com/ from yesterday.

The phenomena of karma and reincarnation in its cultural, scientific, religious and quantum concepts was laid out in an easily-read, entertaining, and thought-expanding discussion. The subject isn’t at all new to me yet my brain felt like a helium balloon.

Grof sets the foundation for reincarnation and karma being core to Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Tibetan Buddhism but the idea of these concepts are universal. Everybody lives, everybody passes on, everybody lives again … not just somebodys. He includes a mention of great Christian theologian and thinker, Origen of Alexandria, (I haven’t thought about this dude forever) who ruminated over the cycling of souls during his life in 185 – 245 A.D., and also an eloquent quote discussing the rub of reincarnation from Sholem Asch, a scholar, novelist, dramatist and essayist who passed away in 1957.

Referencing research and a case study by Ian Stevenson, the section on Spontaneous Past Life Memories in Children discusses a wowing account of an East Indian boy, Parmod Sharma, who recounted spot-on and verified memories of a life he claimed to live as Parmanand Mehra who passed away just 18 months before Parmod was born. Note of interest: Stevenson’s research “… shows that about 35% of children who claim to remember previous lives have unusual birthmarks, strange physical abnormalities, or rare birth defects that correspond closely to a wound, often fatal, or scar on the body of the deceased person the child remembers being” .

Yet something else to ponder in the section on Spontaneous and Evoked Past Life Memories in Adults, “In situations of extreme emotional intensity, the sadistic arousal of the torturer and the inhuman pain of the tortured increasingly resemble each other. Similarly, the rage of the murderer merges with the anguish and suffering of the dying victim. This emotional fusion seems to be instrumental in karmic imprinting, rather than a specific role in the experiential sequence. According to the insights of the people who have had past life experiences, whenever two individuals get involved in a situation where their emotions reach this state, they will repeat the same pattern in their future lives, but in alternating roles, until they reach the level of awareness necessary to resolve this karmic bond.”

And if any of you are interested in energy work, transpersonal hypnotherapy, the Silva Method, yadda yadda yadda you may be intrigued by this, “In many instances my clients who had experienced karmic sequences identified the karmic partners featuring in them as being specific persons from their present life – parents, children, spouses, boyfriends and girlfriends, and other important figures. When they completed reliving the karmic scene and reached successful resolution, they felt that the respective interpersonal partners had been so deeply part of their experience that they themselves had to feel something similar and might have been influenced by the experience. When I became sufficiently open-minded to try to verify these insights, I discovered to my great surprise that they were often accurate. The persons whom my clients had denoted as their partners in the karmic sequence experienced dramatic positive changes in their own feelings toward my clients at exactly the same time when the process was completed. This extraordinary synchronistic liaison between the events in the session and the changes in the attitudes of the “karmic partners” could not be explained by linear causality. Often these other individuals were hundreds or thousands of miles away, and they had no knowledge of my client’s experience … The timing of these synchronistic happenings was often remarkable; in some instances they were minutes apart … This aspect of past life experiences, suggesting nonlocal connections in the universe, is similar to the phenomena described by Bell’s theorem in quantum-relativistic physics … “

Another section much too much to address here (mega complex research) is in the section Supporting Evidence for the Authenticity of Past Life Memories. Of HUGE interest and implication is The Case of Renata. In a nutshell, Renata was receiving LSD (evoked) therapy for her fear of cancer when bizarre memories surfaced in her consciousness of a life which took place hundreds of years ago in Prague – she described the life of a nobleman who was executed by the Hapsburgs during the 1621 Battle of White Mountain. Coupla years later a family member who hadn’t been seen since Renata was three provided proof of the family being descendents of a nobleman who died after the Battle of White Mountain. The thing that makes you go HMM: the nobleman died in battle meaning he couldn’t start a family. As Grof wrote so unintentionally hilariously, “… physical death terminates the possibility of further genetic transfer …” (well, duh) and “A dead person cannot procreate and ‘genetically’ pass the memory of his terminal anguish to future generations”.

The question that turned my brain turn into a helium balloon … “Does the existence of these experiences constitute a definitive ‘proof’ that some essential part of us survives death and reincarnates as the same separate unit of consciousness, the same individual soul? Despite all the extraordinary evidence discussed earlier, the answer to this question has to be negative.” That our “individual consciousness” passes on then is reborn is just one theory. The reminder that Grof timely provides is to distinguish between theory and the reality that that theory is describing … in other words the map should never be confused with the territory. Note: Them is nine words of wisdom there.

closing quote

“In the Hindu tradition, the belief in reincarnation of separate individuals is seen as a popular and unsophisticated understanding of reincarnation. In the last analysis, there is only one being that has true existence and that is Brahman, or the creative principle itself. All separate individuals in all the dimensions of existence as just products of infinite metamorphoses of this one immense entity. Since all the divisions and boundaries in the universe are illusory and arbitrary, only Brahman really incarnates. All the protagonists in the divine play of existence are different aspects of this One. When we attain this ultimate knowledge, we are able to see that our past incarnation experiences represent just another level of illusion or maya. From this perspective, to see these lives as “our lives” requires perception of the karmic players as separate individuals and reflects ignorance concerning the ultimate unity of everything.”

Pour yourself a glass of an easy-drinking red or white and imagine being One. I would have liked a full-bodied red with this but the Pinot Gris was open.

Can I touch yow puppy? (Pinot Gris)

I was just reminded of a well-known quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” An easy few words to ponder over a glass of 2002 Pinot Gris from Lake Chelan Winery http://www.lakechelanwinery.com/. Refreshing in the flavors of pear and citrus, and if I close my eyes I can almost taste that hint of oak. Or maybe I’m just imagining the oak. Well, refreshing nonetheless.

Walking along the beach yesterday I saw a Hispanic couple with their little boy. His age I suspect was about five. He was adorable with big brown eyes that radiated tangible vibes of joy. I watched him peel off from the safety of his parents and zig zag around people like a heat-seeking missile towards an older man who was walking his Jack Russell Terrier in the opposite direction. The little boy’s eyes never strayed from their target, as if by sheer will they could get that fellow (and more importantly his dog) to stop in their tracks. He boldly reached the fellow’s side and asked in a tone of youthful excitement, hopefulness, and expectancy, “Can I touch yow puppy?” The fellow looked down, their eyes finally meeting, and picked up his puppy so the little boy could touch it. That adorable little boy could barely contain his excitement, as if after a long voyage his ship had finally landed on Treasure Island.

The scenario made such an impression, as these often do, because as a kid I was in a poorly functioning environment and most boldness and adventure I felt stayed bottled up inside of me. Rarely did I ask for something with this little boy’s level of expectancy and hopefulness, as if his question was a mere formality, a required polite gesture to be extended before his request was granted. I LOVE seeing that and in my mind I cheered that little boy on and sent my thought for him out into the cosmos … Let him remain bold, hopeful, and expectant through his entire life. Protect his heart, his mind, and his spirit from those who will inevitably try to make him weaker. Let his Joy be contagious and let everyone he comes in contact with be positively affected by it. I was a much older kid before I popped the cork on my inner bottle and began to free myself.

That little boy’s joy was the source of my smile, and his smile was the source of the puppy owner’s joy. The puppy was JOY JOY JOY.

I raise my glass and toast Joy and Youth! MMM, a nice pear finish in this delightful quaffing wine.