By "haunted," of course, I mean that every time Carl and I have moved, we've had to drag all of this printed paper along with us. For all of these decades and moves (including ten in our first ten years together!), I still hadn't been able to get rid of very much of the paper because I wasn't sure where it ultimately fit into my life. All of that academic scholarship, both on my part and then the work of my students, ranging in age (through the years) from third grade through grandparents, burdened, but I wasn't sure what to do with the artifacts because I wasn't sure if I was done with that part of my life. To steal a literary metaphor, was I ready to close those chapters?

The delicious response to that question, FINALLY, has been YES! This spring I've found myself with enough clarity about different facets of my life to be able to have one of the greatest gifts of maturing as a human, which is discernment. In the cold early months of this year, I purged and shredded and purged and shredded.

Fortuitously, as my academic career took its place firmly in my life's rear-view, I began a new practice to, ahem, fertilize future projects: I started to learn about composting! I now have two double-barrel compost bins 1/3 full of kitchen waste and 2/3 full of--you guessed it--the shredded compositions of bygone days of scholarship and teaching. Seems quite fitting that old literature and rhetoric assignments are finally truly being recognized for their bullshit qualities! 

It was my idea this time. Inspired by a recent episode of "Top Chef" in which the contestants had to put together seven courses of food, getting progressively hotter on the Scoville scale (the measure of hotness of spicy peppers, with jalapenos scoring around 5,000 and Carolina Reapers around 2,000,000), I put together a little tasting test for Carl and me. I used peppers, but not spicy ones. 

Curious about the taste differences among different colors of bell peppers, I bought one each of the four most common colors: green, yellow, orange, and red. Without tasting them ahead of time, both of us (blindfolded) tasted all four and then tried to identify the tasting order. 

Our senses of sight cut off, we definitely focused more on the smell, taste, and crunch of each pepper. I was actually amazed how different they are, some keeping their flavor more buttoned up and others being very generous with sweetness and even perceived salt. I'd recently charred red peppers for use in a dinner recipe and had been impressed by how fun that process was and how versatile the skinned roasted peppers are. Without any "control," however, our perceptions of the four colors/flavors were subjective, each pepper judged on its probable position within the rainbow-colored lineup. Would I be able to taste red?

We ran through the lineup twice and got slightly different results each time. The most intense moment for me was when, the second time through, the use of the blindfold actually started to mess with my sensory organization. Because my eyes were open but I couldn't see, I felt sort of "off." After tasting the four colors blindly and making my guesses, I panicked a little and told Carl to wait. I relaxed into the impressions that had just been made and all of the sudden I could literally SEE that the order I'd told him was wrong. With more clarity, I could see they'd stacked up as:

GREEN: closed off, vegetal
YELLOW: slightly more juicy, slightly sweet
ORANGE: slightly salty; juicy and full of flavor
RED: the sweetest one

I told him my new guesses (the pepper order was random), and all four were correct. 

Synesthesia is when impressions between two or more different senses interact with each other, like being able to hear music or see flavors. While I don't consider myself a full synesthete, I've been interested in the idea for a long time, because when I was a child I really did have mixed sense impressions, knowing (for instance) that every letter of the alphabet had a definite color. While this has faded somewhat over the years, last night with peppers on the tongue and a blindfold on the eyes, I had a clear sense of how amazing sense perceptions can really be.​

I did a bit of research later and found out that all bell peppers begin as green peppers, then turn colors as they ripen, depending on the variety of pepper. So the green pepper I'd selected could have eventually turned into one of the other colors--though we'll never know which! This spring I'd like to look for purple bell peppers. Can you imagine--a peck of purple pickled peppers?

Cheers to the many senses and colors of good taste!

The central recipe in the movie's big restaurant dinner party scene is called timpano (also related to a timballo), a massive Italian pasta-and-everything-else dish which is baked inside a crust inside a Dutch oven. It is a truly ridiculous many-layer multi-day endeavor. Perfect for me!

I found a user-friendly vegetarian recipe version online and spent two days doing the various tasking, which included boiling the eggs, making the tomato sauce and ricotta, charring the red peppers, rolling out a crust as big as our table--quite the event! My dad helped me assemble it in the Dutch oven, and then we all waited two more hours to see if the thing would behave and release when the oven (all 23 pounds of it!) was inverted. I certainly was holding my breath.

Amazingly, it actually turned out pretty well. It's just that at some point, either while slicing it into massive wedges or looking at everything that came with it onto your plate, you can't help but shake your head. I used to think LASAGNA was the most labor-intensive dish--when my mom made it, it was a true labor of love. Our timpano wasn't exactly elegant, but we could certainly taste the good intentions and all of the mounds and mounds of tasty ingredients. 

Like consuming an apartment building full of food. 

What ultimately matters, of course, just as in the movie, is that the effort put into food to share with those we love is effort well spent, well spent indeed. We had a gloriously warm and silly evening., well stuffed.

Salute!!

What happened? I had the brilliant idea of baking a cake as a surprise for Carl's belated birthday dinner using a stout beer brewed by Dylan. After Carl left for the winery yesterday morning, I started getting my baking stuff together, then stopped to realize what a futile thing I was embarking on, trying to surprise a winemaker with a cake after baking it in his own kitchen. There was absolutely no way, I thought, that I could disguise the aroma of the cake enough to keep Carl from knowing that a cake was in his future. And not just any cake--a gooey chocolate stout one!

As I started working, the part of me which loves a challenge tried it on for size: Was there any possible way that I could cook other things AFTER the cake whose aromas would keep him from being able to find the "pea beneath the mattress" of his chocolate surprise? As the morning kitchen started to warm with the smell of butter and Dylan's dark beer, I decided to amuse myself by giving it a try.

As soon as the cake was out of the oven, I ran it down the hall to a bedroom and put it on a tray to cool behind the closed door. Then my other tasks began. I started by thin-slicing five white onions and starting them to caramelize to become toppings for the pizzas Dylan was planning on making for dinner. That gave a lovely warm umami undertone aroma to the place.

As the onions stewed, I baked banana-chocolate-oatmeal bars, so that any lingering scent of the cake could take cover underneath the sweet baked goods' signature. Then, I put in beets to roast for a salad.

When Carl came home, he opened the door to a spill of scents designed to get him off the scent of my motive. He commented on how good caramelizing onions always smell. I thought I had actually pulled it off--and right under his highly-trained nose!


P.S. When the cake came out after dinner, after we had sung and Carl blew out his candles and we described the collaboration behind this chocolate-stout cake, he said, "Ah! I thought I smelled something like that!"

The idea? A cocoa tasting.

Although I have always loved the idea of hot chocolate, for most of my life (including as a child as as a mom) my experience of it has been a thin chocolate moment wedged between a burnt tongue and a mouthful of not-yet-melty marshmallow. I vowed to change all of that for our happy hour today, baking raspberry shortbread and Lebkuchen. The latter were an absolute joy for Carl--I finally got "right" his beloved taste of spiced cookies from childhood memories from Germany. With a snappy little lemon glaze? Yes, please. Who cares that Christmas is now a full month in the rear view?

I bought various commercial cocoas and read a bunch of different recipes for hot chocolate, in anticipation of our hot date. We agreed the best-tasting one was Equal Exchange's Dark. Excellent chocolate flavor, if you prefer dark to milk chocolate like we do.

AND...I found a recipe that's a complete an utter antidote to the sad hot chocolates of my childhood and my sons'. It's from a post by "Hummingbird High" and is dramatic and fun to make, since it essentially involves making fluffy chocolate whipped cream and adding it to hot vanilla milk. So dreamy!

I have vivid recall of a movie I watched called Perfect Sense, from 2011 (and starring Ewan McGregor). In it, a strange epidemic causes people to lose their sensory abilities, beginning with smell, and proceeding through taste, hearing, and sight. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 seemed to bring the gut-wrenching science fiction scenario to life, as we became aware that loss of smell and taste (ageusia​) are some of the most prevalent symptoms of the virus. It seems to bring new life to the idea that a person can "lose their senses."

During the many months of the pandemic shutdown, our family remained particularly vigilant about our risk to the virus, agreeing to let Carl be the one deciding what kinds of risk he would take on, while the rest of us tried our best to keep our risk as close to zero as possible. The main reason for our caution was out of concern for Carl, on whose health our business and employees all depend. Basically, we all protected each other and protected him not because he was at high risk or in poor health, but because his strengths are so vitally important.

I remember the day that I realized how devastating the loss of smell and taste would be to a winemaker. Once it dawned on me, I did some research and realized that within our industry many were sharing the same concerns, particularly because the loss of these vital senses can last even after a person has "recovered" from the coronavirus. A July 2020 article in Wine Spectator and a more recent article in Barron's provide some first-reflection on how wine lovers and professionals in the wine industry have suffered from their damaged senses.

We kept the virus at bay. So, while Carl still may not be able to smell squished millipedes, his palate is still well calibrated for Petit Verdot and Sauvignon Blanc. I'm gratified that we've made it through these pandemic months safely, and that the vaccines now enable our family and employees to finally breathe a bit more easily.

One sense which has definitely blossomed in recent weeks around here: gratitude.

We were enjoying a lovely s'more campfire here on the property the other night: Carl and I, my dad, and the boys. It was a lovely evening, replete with bats careening overhead and stars beginning to become visible as the light from the sunset faded. And suddenly, we spotted her: a small red fox, snuffling through the grass at the edge of the woods. I couldn't believe it, getting the chance to see such a beautiful creature right here on the property, when I was camera-less and least expecting such a special encounter. (I snuck away to retrieve the camera, to see if I could catch our friend in the fading light.)

​The pandemic has curtailed travel for all of us, but I've had no reason to complain about having all of this time here on the home property. Throughout the past fourteen months, I have spent many many hours watching the wildlife right around us here, photoing the songbirds at our feeders and deer munching on fallen apples and snapping turtles laying eggs in the garden. I felt incredibly fortunate last summer, when another of my favorite creatures--a pair of great horned owls--became reliable twilight visitors above the vineyards. I spent tons of happy evenings sipping cocktails out of my travel mug and watching the owls watch for prey. I was also grateful for the hummingbirds and butterflies who found our zinnia garden. While we could not go out into the world, it seemed more than happy to come to us.

Looking out our windows here, I've learned many lessons about gratitude and about making hay (or picking grapes) while the sun shines. We've been fortunate to stay safe and to continue to live and thrive in a place of both wild and cultivated beauty.

But still--it was extra-special to meet this red fox (Latin name Vulpes vulpes). As it snuffled around, not minding our banter or campfire smoke, we got to watch it for at least twenty minutes. I happily clicked away, not minding the smeared melted marshmallow on my zoom lens casing.

Seriously, there's nothing cuter.

I feel the gratitude on many levels: If my dad hadn't been visiting, for instance, and if our boys hadn't been home, we likely wouldn't have had a campfire that night. We would have missed those bats and Venus and the first fireflies of the year. Somehow our return to togetherness seems to have manifested a magical night, which in turn welcomed a magical creature. For life here at Allegro, it doesn't get much better than that.

It's a little hard to capture the excitement of watching a 6'4" winemaker swinging around a huge black snake while our yard leopard Artemis was performing surprised aerial acrobatics and I juggled camera lenses. Bonnet was no shy retiring garter snake--he was none to happy about being moved from shed to woods, and he retaliated by sliming Carl quite impressively.

But ahh, Easter in The Brogue. Gotta love country living. Sometimes the best hunts are when nature finds us, just to get a glimpse of our surprised faces.

Happy Easter from Allegro, every bunny!

Sometimes all it takes is a shift in timing to bring new intrigue to an otherwise very familiar face or place. This is what was evident last evening, when Carl and I indulged ourselves in a golf cart ride around the property after sundown. I was noticing the eerie light fog which had settled in our stand of oaks, so I grabbed my camera and off we sped into the impending night.

Past the stand of trees, we rode up into the vineyard to see the rows of still-sleeping vines disappear into the mist.

As it got darker and we zoomed back down the hill toward the winery buildings, the pole lights were glowing in the night, giving an effect reminiscent of some sort of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" spaceship.

Around the winery itself, the lights were even more striking, illuminating the buildings, early-budding trees, and a nocturnal visitor.

But the coolest effect of the evening ride came once we scurried back behind the winery, to the crush pad. Because of the lights on the front of the winery, it looked as if the sun was actually starting to rise over the tanks and fermentation airlocks at their tops, like chimneys.

The shift in perspective was spooky fun. We see these scenes every day, but seldom at night, especially at this time of the year. What "dawned on me," besides the artificial sun over the winery roof, is how lucky we are to be stewards of such an interesting place, where the times of the day and year afford us different way of seeing and reward us with unexpected beauty.