no news is good news...

...it's funny. i didn't realize that it's been almost 6 months since i've put up a new post. funnier still is that the last post was titled "i heart portland" only because the decision has been officially made and i will be moving to portland in the middle of july! it's been great in california and at paul hobbs winery, but i've decided that i want to go back to the cellar so that's what i'm going to do at penner-ash winery this harvest. wish me luck and adios california!

i don't even know if anybody is still reading this thing or checking in on this thing, but there will most likely be more posts once i'm in my new "hometown".

please come back and join me on my new adventure in the rose city!

(in case anyone was wondering, yes, i'm still with jon [gasp!] and he'll be joining me in portland in the fall as he starts chiropractic college)

i'll just leave you with my delicious lobster from canada (eh) that was only $7.99/pound in a great chinese grocery store on clement street in san francisco...mmmm...fiesty lil' one...

i heart portland

so i just got back from another trip to portland...4th one...in fact, it's the most visited city that i've never lived in, which is rare since i usually like going to see new places. granted, each time i go, it's for a different reason where i see different people and different places. this time around, i went with jon so he could take a look at wscc's campus. this visit was also more of a exploration of portland and (since i'm with jon) an eating marathon. i hadn't really trolled around the different portland neighborhoods yet, so it was interesting to see them all. my conclusion (besides the obvious fact that i heart portland and i'll be moving up here soon)...portland has some of the most creative and interesting cocktails in its bars/restaurants/lounges. the best was from the teardrop lounge where i had a cocktail called "the freedonia", which is made up of foie gras infused armagnac, costa rican coffee, some other liqueur that i can't remember, and pistachio gastrique. strange, but so smooth. of late, i've been getting back into cocktails and even starting to like gin...maybe this past harvest kind of put the kibosh on beer and wine for me temporarily.

oh and did i mention the eating? we had a lot of good recommendations from a friend of jon's and we tried many of them and they were all quite tasty. our favorite restaurant was "pok pok", a thai restaurant, that we went to twice...couldn't get enough the first time around! you can see the bar in the background below...i didn't take many photos...it was basically grey and cold in portland...but please enjoy the one below of mt. shasta. you can also see my rubber duck collection in the corner. tom stransky gave me the red one randomly one day and just the other day, someone left the white one on my car windshield in san francisco...

gobble gobble gobble

happy turkey day...yeah, i know...it's december, but it's been incredibly busy at work and i'm just now getting around to posting a couple of photos from my thanksgiving. this year, i decided not to go home due to the expensive plane tickets and the possibility that i would have to work over the long weekend. instead, jon hosted a small gathering of friends and we cooked thanksgiving dinner. it was a great night where the drinking started in the afternoon and most everything went off without a hitch. i even rallied to go out to the elbo room for some dancing later that night.
paul hobbs winery provided me with a 17.6 lb willie's organic turkey...biggest thing i've ever tried to cook! but it was a beautiful turkey. we wrapped it in aluminum foil and baked it for about 4 hours (an hour or so too long since we were distracted by our oysters on the half shell and champagne) before removing the foil, basting with herb butter, and baking for another 30 minutes. i thought it was quite tasty, but jon thought it was a bit dry. well at least it looked delicious as you can kind of see below...sadly the photo of our thanksgiving table as well as our guests didn't turn out quite light enough, but below is our side table with a view of the candy pumpkins and pumpkin pie. my 1st attempt at a pumpkin pie...i've never been a big fan because i always thought pumpkin pie was a little too heavy so i found a pumpkin-chiffon pie recipe where there was added honey and whipping cream...mmm...and i hadn't even added the honey-brandy whipping cream and candied pecans on top yet :) all in all, it was an awesome thanksgiving. i give thanks to my friends, family, jon, and the fact that we're going to have a democrat in office by next year...cheers to that!

trick or treat!

it's amazing...we received our last lot of grapes october 24th...chardonnay grapes, no less. there's still a lot of work to be done with the cabernets that are fermenting in tank. also, my work load in the lab is steadily increasing as i'm monitoring all the barrels with the 2008 pinots and chardonnays. but, this week will be my first week with 2 days off...in a row! i don't know what i'll do with myself. i do know that i'm starting to have the energy to call my friends again, many of whom i haven't talked to in ages.

well, winter is definitely approaching...even in california. it's certainly darker in the morning when i leave for work and a bit colder. today we got our first autumn rain and it was a chill-to-your-bone kind. i look forward to sweater and hot chocolate weather though. and after these few years in california, i still miss the first snowfall.

on that note, i leave you with the pumpkins that jon and i carved this week. it was great to be a kid again...hand inside the pumpkin tearing out pumpkin guts. and it was great to roast pumpkin seeds again...mmm...

every day is a wednesday...teetering on the hump

so i'm still in harvest. i have been since labor day. it's been an odd harvest. the heat at the beginning of september brought in our 1st wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it got colder. then it started warming up a bit more during the day, which led to the 2nd wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it threatened to rain, which brought in a bit more pinot, chardonnay, and our 1st cabernet. then it rained. so now we're in limbo...waiting for the grapes to dry a bit and regain equilibrium. then, i bet you, it's going to hit us like a ton of bricks.

i love my job...i love my job...i love my job...

well, at least that's what i say to myself every morning on my way to work. ah...i've lost track of what the actual day of the week it is. to me, every day feels like a wednesday. teetering on that hump day. unsure which way the see-saw will swing...back towards the beginning of the week or towards the end of the week where a faint light glows showing the way to the elusive "day off". although, to be honest, sometimes i'd rather not have a day off, then my body is constantly on adrenaline to keep going and going. when i come back from 1 day off, my body is just more tired than before. to fully recover, one needs 2 days off in a row. well, there's always december!

at least, my life is not filled with ugliness as you can see by the photo of our estate vineyard at 7am a week or so ago before the rains came.
and on a different note. i've done a piss-poor job trying to grow my dahlias that i had high hopes for back in the summer. too much sun...not enough sun...too much water...not enough water (kind of like this harvest). so imagine my surprise when i noticed that one of the plants did try to produce a flower...albeit a quite "special" looking flower as you can see below. but a flower nonetheless! you can understand the degree of suprisedness (yes that's a word in my world) when you see what the rest of the plant looks like next to the flower. reminds me to be optimistic again...maybe america's economy won't completely crash...maybe voters this year will actually do the right thing...

hurry up and wait...

all right, here's our Paul Hobbs Winery harvest team processing our very 1st grapes of the 2008 harvest...some delicious pinot noir from the Valdez vineyard...

time to crush some fruit...

...it's crazy...it's the end of august, but it's still august and we received our first lot of chardonnay...albeit for a custom crush client, but still...it's pretty bleeping early! this means that the madness of harvest begins again. this year will be a strange harvest for me since this will be the first time that i WON'T be a harvest intern. i'll actually be in charge of a couple of harvest interns (or sample bitches as their nickname will most likely end up being :). it'll be intense and it'll be a test of my managerial skills, but it'll also be most interesting. i'll have to try to keep the blog updated on how everything goes.

well, at least i got in one last weekend in san francisco with my newly minted boyfriend (yes, that's right...mj has finally snagged a man...poor sucker...hahah) before he won't be able to see me for days on end. it was an interesting weekend as well since we went to the friday outside lands concert in golden gate park. that was madness on a poorly organized level. there were way too many people and the artist line-ups were way too close together. i only got to see half of the black keys (while eschewing beck since i assumed, and correctly, that there would be way too many people trying to see beck) before i felt that i had to make my way over to the main stage for radiohead. i didn't even get that close to the stage (as you can see from the blurry photo below). it was good to hear them play their new stuff, but i will always hold dear to my heart the concert i saw on their ok computer tour at the rosemount theatre in chicago...center section, third row...it was most amazing...almost a life-altering experience. well their light show has matured with the new technology, but they are still one of the greatest bands ever. we left halfway thru their encore because we were afraid of the onslaught of drunkards trying to get out. it was a correct decision since i heard a riot almost broke out in the tunnel that leads to one of the exits. luckily, a friend has an apartment on geary street so we got to drink beers while watching the poor souls waiting forever for a jam-packed public bus. ah, that is the way to do it...