We went out of town this past weekend It was a welcomed change to the world of NYC Summer 2006. No matter how much I love this stink-hole with it's fine eating places and grand buildings, the city sometimes succumbs to the crazed retarded ramblings of seemingly every other person who passes me. Are the people in this city just more retarded this summer? Or is it me? (And I don't mean like retarded, but really retarded retarded. Stabbingly retarded. Hilarious raping retarded.)
My parents were married forty years ago 1966. Yow. We took one of the popular aeroplanes and flew down to the mountains of Western North Carolina. Land of the Sky they call it. This was the welcomed change. Lush and sunny (which was a change from the grey and rainy of NYC the week before (remind me to tell you the rainy story from last week)).
My parents are in this passive-aggressive passive relationship with their never-shows-up-ever lawn guy. Their yard is slowly turning into some sort of crazy jungle which I am sure all the animals love, but it feels like the trees are devising a plan to take over the whole yard and then the house. So, their yard looked like a crazy person's yard.
My little brother and his wife and their little booper were there as well - I have a hole in my jeans from rolling around on the floor with the dogs and/or babies.
Sunday was the actual anniversary day and I got to fix dinner. Mrs. Robot's mother had dropped off some tomatoes from the garden so those got sliced up and paired with buffalo mozzarella and basil as a little appetizer. Man. Fresh tomatoes are so... fresh. We served it with fancy champagne. (Champagne note - Baby got a finger of champagne when his mom wasn't looking. He sat there in his little chair and seconds later made a sound that I believe was his version of "yum". I like to think that it was a reaction to the champagne and not gas.)
For dinner we did fine little filet mignons from the goofy organic grocery store in town - they were tasty. It was my second time doing steaks and my parents don't have a grill anymore so I did the 2.5 minutes of each side in a skillet and then about 10 minutes in the oven. They actually came out very nice.
Old Ass Wine What I was most excited about was the wine I brought. I found it on winebid.com - which I heartily recommend if you are ever looking for old things to drink. I found a moderately priced bottle on their site from 1966 and it turned out to be in decent condition.
Old corks like to disintegrate so I suppose the trick is to use one of those spanner/prong type jobbies. I recalled this after I put the corkscrew in and it went through the cork like butter. But not in the good way. In the crumbling way.
I used two knives to pull the majority of the cork out, but there was still a good bit floating in the wine so I poured it all through a carafe via a coffee filter. That seemed to work.
Château La Gaffelière 1966 What does a 40 year old bottle of wine taste like from a chateau that at one point was a leper colony? Not bad. Very drinkable. Smooth. A bit of the vegetal thing going on. Earthy. Lepery.
It didn't taste like pee. Mom and dad happily drank their glasses. Great fun.
Oh, let's not forget the angel food cake with strawberries and whipped cream (whipped by Mrs. Robot). That was swell.
