Good Meat Store

I like the local meat/deli/liquor/specialty store (Nick's of Clinton).   They offer good specials each week.

For example, this week they are offerring Filet Mignon for $12.99/pound.  That may seem a lot, but they trim the membrane off and slice it to choice for free.  And I have them save the trimmings to grind up for The Mews (they love it).

But more importantly, I cut the steaks into 4 oz sections, which is all I need for a meal about 2x a week.  Which means my Filet Mignon steak is only $3.75. Try to beat that at any restaurant, and I cook it just as well, LOL!  And rib-eye and delmonico is often cheaper.

Yeah, chicken and pork is cheaper (and my routine meats) but a small steak is good sometimes.  

And they special order my favorite wine when I order 4 cases at a time.  And discount the price.  4 cases does last a while for me.  So a couple days ago, the manager actually called me to say that my favorite wine was going on sale this week and did I want to delay pickup until it was "officially" on sale?

Well, I normally order the 1.5 L bottles as being a little bit less expensive at $16.49.  But the smaller ones at 750 were going to be $6.99, so like $14 per 1.5L.  $2.50 less per volume for the same amount!    So I said to order 6 cases.  No point in passing up a good sale.  It's not like the wine will go bad sitting in my cool basement!

Don't get me wrong.  I drink 2 glasses of wine with dinner and I'm not worried about that.

There are other good things about the place.  For one, it is the only place I can routinely find eggroll wrappers.  And some of their produce is usually cheaper than the local grocery stores.  And they actually have ripe Golden Delicious apples.  The local Safeway thinks they should be green.

I love Nick's...

Quest For Wine

 I have been trying to find a decent inexpensive replacement for a Old Vine Zinfandel I have bought for a decade.  The winery shut down.  Some research suggested other Old Vine Zin (or course) but also Malbec and Merlot.  Visiting my regular local meat/deli/liquor store (weird combination, I know), I bought 3 Zinfandels, a Malbec, and a Merlot.

The first thing I noticed was that the price had nothing to do with how much or little I enjoyed the wines.  The 2 most familiar and drinkable were 1.5 L bottles and the cheapest.  And neither was a Zin!  Of the 2 most expensive Zins, 1 tasted "acidic" and the other "dusty".  I don't actually know the "wine terms" for that, but that was my impression.

One Zin was "OK", but at $17 for a 750 bottle, I wasn't very impressed.  Why is it that I liked the cheap Zin but not "better ones?  LOL!  The Frontera Malbec (Argentina) at $10 for 1.5L  was closest to the Twisted Zin I can't get anymore.  The Mondavi (Private Selection) Merlot 1.5L at $17 was better.

I'm obviously not a wine-snob.  I like what I like.  And the foods I cook probably have a lot to do with the wines I like.  So what wine I drink with dinner has a lot to do with my choice.  I mean, I cook a lot of different foods, but I do tend to use the same spices and such.  Regardless of whether I cook chicken, pork, shrimp, or beef, there is garlic, oregano, and sometime ginger involved.

So, after tasting a variety of other Zins, some Merlot, and some Malbec, I'm probably going with the Malbec for regular dinner and Merlot on occasion.  The local meat store will special order as many cases of either as I want.  It is easier just to order 6 or so at a time (so that I don't have to bother them to do it often).

I am sure you were all just waiting anxiously to see what I decided...  LOL!

  -------------

BTW, is there a difficulty commenting on this blog?  I get lots of visitors but no comments lately.  Has something gone wrong with my blog settings?  Or am I just boring everyone to death?

cavebear2118@verizon.net

General Stuff

I have some assorted items to catch up mentioning...

First, I have given up of the existing camera.  The color is shot.  It makes Lori and Ayla look a bit orange, it blotches the color of even a solid wall, and it starts at 0001 every day (even though I have it set to continuous).   

I have a smartphone, but I haven't learned how to navigate around in it , and I'm not likely to learn how soon).  So I bought a new camera.  Very simple inexpensive camera ("for kids and seniors").  Well I don't need much.  In fact, half my photo-processing effort is reducing the quality of the pictures...  The current one takes 3-5MB pics and I keep the processed ones to 200-300 KB for the blogs and forums.

Second, I have been having problems getting at my Feedly reading list for a month.  I keep getting a message that it can't load.  I tried to find the problem several times with no luck.  So please forgive my not visiting and leaving comments lately.

Today, I "fixed" it.  Which actually means I discovered I was the problem!  About a month ago, I eliminated cookies (on advice from my AV app) and added some extensions (on Safari's advice).  It caused problems and I don't know how to undo the extensions.

For whatever reason, cat blogoshere shows up like a Word page, but I discovered that if I click outside of the "page" I get the normal view.  I need to dig into the settings...  But it occurred to me yesterday that the Feedly "can't load" message looked a lot the same.  So I clicked outside the message and WOW, there was the normal Feedly view with the list of cat blogs!

Made me feel pretty stupid, but I'm glad I can get at Feedly again.  So I'll be visiting and commenting again soon.

Third, I got some confirmation that my regular Twisted Wine Cellars winery has closed.  They are offering (I saw on Go-Daddy) to sell their URL for $400,000!  That pretty much settles my question of whether they are closed.  

Which is a real shame.  I really liked it and it was inexpensive ($9.99 for a 1.5L bottle).  One site said "This Old Vine Zinfandel is medium-bodied with aromas of black cherry, red currant, blackberry bramble and a hint of spice. Concentrated ripe fruit, dark berry flavors and black pepper carry through to the palate while nicely balanced acidity and plush tannins lead to a lingering finish".  Not bad for an inexpensive wine, LOL.  

I'll be going to my local wine/deli/meat place to buy a dozen bottles of different zinfandels to see which I like best for the future.  Might try a few pinot grigios and merlots, too.  They were listed as "similar to zinfandel" at a site I found comparing varieties of wine.

I emailed a wine-blogger who invited questions (and didn't seem like a wine-snob) but I haven't gotten a reply yet.

I usually only have 2 small glasses with dinner, but I do look forward to it and I don't like most wines.  On occasions when I stay up all night, I do have more.  😃

Fourth, TV could get annoying soon.  Not so much because of the writers' strike, but because the future of 3 of my favorite shows's future is "iffy".  'Archer' is an animated spy-spoof and the next season has not yet been renewed.  'La Brea' is expected to return, but no season premier is scheduled.  'Ark' seem planned for a 2nd season, but no date is set.  I worry about 'La Brea' and 'Ark' because they seem to have an irregular and short season, so you never know what might happen.

My other favorite show (other than MSNBC and CNN news) is 'Real Time With Bill Maher'.  It is not news, but it is "topical" and he has some very unusual guests.  I have a fondness for intellectual sarcasm, and he is a master at that.  The writers' strike will affect his show.

The other channels I watch won't be affected (Science, History, National Geographic, Smithsonian).

Fifth, Superglue is dangerous stuff.  The adjustment buckles of 2 of my suspenders (braces to some of you) won't stay tight and the clips to the pant waist come loose sometimes.  I could buy new ones, but I have a repair-it mindset ("Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without").  Well, OK, I don't do the "do without" part, but my first instinct is "make it do".

So I decided to set the adjustment buckles in a correct place and then superglue them there.  If the elastic weakens and stretches after that, I'll give up on them (or more likely, find some other use for them) and get new ones.  So I set about supergluing the adjustment buckles.

That's when superglue becomes evil!  The first time you open one of those tiny tubes, it works fine.  Afterwards, it is always a problem to get more out.  Sure, there is a tiny pin that is supposed to keep the outlet open.  It doesn't.  

So I was squeezing the tube to apply the superglue to the buckles and nothing came out.  I cut the tip shorter, and it came out in a blob.  Which was OK because I spread the blob on the suspenders with a toothpick.

I didn't realize I had gotten some on a fingertip and then touched my thumb to the finger.  Don't worry, I acted quickly and apply some mineral oil to the spot.  They separated with a bit of pulling.  A slight shell remains but it will flake off in a day or 2.  This isn't my 1st experience with superglue on skin, LOL! 

The next part of the suspender renovation is to add thin rubber pads to the past clasps.  Some of my pants have a belt holder strip (that gives thickness) at the right place; some don't.  So I plan to use rubber cement to attach thin patches of that rubbery shelving mesh inside both sides of the clasps.  It will grip better.

That's enough for one day...  Thank you for reading this far!

A Lost Wine

"I am rather sad today,

My favorite wine has gone away.

It was not one wine-lovers love,

But fit my pallat like a glove.

 

It went with everything I made,

From chick to pork to steak saute'd.

It thoroughly did suit my taste

And now I'll find no more of it.

 

The winery has closed, it seems

To end 10 years of vinous dreams.

I'm sure this hits them harder, though

I'll also miss them, don't you know."

 

   .................

 

Seriously, I started drinking wine 20 years ago.  I graduated from "too much beer all day" to "just enough wine with dinner".  I tried beaujolais, merlot, cab, burgundy, other red wines before discovering zinfandel.  I liked that best for the fruity but complex flavor.  And, as I said in the poem, it suited my cooking style.  I tend toward small amounts of roasted meats, some stir-fried veggies, or spaghetti with meatloaf tomato sauce, and vinegary tossed salads (heavy on the tomatoes).

 

I was originally able to get it from my friendly local deli/meat/alcohol store.  Then they stopped stocking it, but would special-order multiple cases for me.

 

Then their distributor stopped offering it several years ago.  I found a store in NY that did and would ship to me.  Shipping wasn't exactly free (cost an additional $5 per bottle) but that wasn't the point.  I liked the wine.

 

That place hasn't had it available for a few weeks.  I found another place and ordered some, but they just emailed me to say that the winery had closed.  

 

I feel like I did back when Coca-Cola introduced "New Coke". 

 

So, now I need to try to find a new wine for dinnertime.  It can't be just any Zinfandel.  The Twisted Wine Cellars version was from "old vines" and that affects the taste.  

 

And it's not like I'm going to buy $20 wine.  I refuse to pay more  for wine than the dinner costs.  On the other hand, I only have 12 bottles left.  While that will last 36 meals, a month is not really a long time.  

 

One time years ago, I found a place that was based on "if you like this, you will like that".  It had charts that compared products for similarity (by user reviews).  One of them was wine.  I now wish I had saved the graph or bookmark.  I didn't find it tonight, but I will look again tomorrow.

 

Meanwhile, I'll be talking to the wine guy at the local store and see what he recommends.

 

Farewell, Twisted Wine Cellars Twisted Zin...

 

More Wine

I've mentioned before that I really like a particular inexpensive Old Vine Zinfandel made by Twisted Cellars in California.   My local source said they couldn't get it anymore.  So I ordered it from a shop in another State that is willing to ship it UPS.  

I received 8 cases Tuesday (I'm a few days behind with posts here - too many different things going on lately).  They arrive in the sturdiest cardboard boxes you ever saw, and packed with styrofoam peanuts.  Which is great for shipping but messy to unpack.  

Well, I had to unpack them all first.  They idea of having styrofoam peanuts fall onto the basement floor everytime I pulled a bottle out was just too much routine cleaning for a basement.  So, anticipating that, I had driven the car  out of the garage so I had room to work.  

The shipping boxes are large.  Too large for efficient storage.  But I had saved the smaller wine boxes from the local seller.  I set up an assembly-line transfer from the shipping boxes to the smaller retail ones.  

It was a productive hour.  Shipping case uprighted and tape cut.  Pull bottles out and let the styrofoam fall to the floor.  Put the bottles into the old boxes (smaller, but they fit).  Carry the smaller boxes into the basement (cool enough for red wine).  Repeat...

Eventually I had all the bottles in smaller more-stackable boxes all set into a corner of the basement, 8 boxes with styrofoam, and styrofoam all over the garage floor.  A snow shovel is great for a large volume of light-weight stuff.  

A trash barrel was too large for the bags I had, so I used a bar-clamp to tighten the bag.  I dumped the styrofoam in the bag from both the shipping boxes and spills.  Filled it perfectly.

I now have 10-12 months worth of a liked wine all set in stored boxes.  

Wine

I like wine with meals.  I like a particular type and brand of wine.  It is produced by Twisted Cellars and it is called "Twisted".  It is an old vine zinfandel (hence "twisted").  It is inexpensive and nothing fancy.  It gets good reviews on sites discussing affordable wines.  This is not an ad for it, I just happen to like the stuff with my meals.

So why do I mention it?  It is apparently a limited production and sometimes not available.  I found it in a local butcher/deli/liquor store years ago.  It apparently didn't sell well, so they stopped shelving it.  But I liked it enough to ask if they could special order it.  I'm a good customer, so they did if I would buy 4-6 cases of it at a time.  Well, why not?  It's not like it goes bad in a few months.

I'm so used to it now that everything else tastes a bit "off".    So when the supply dried up recently, I went searching for it.  That happened a few years ago too.  A wine store (60 miles away) in my State sells it, but says they can't ship it to me.  Yet a wine store in New York State (300 miles away) will.

I ordered 8 cases from NY last week.  It arrived in 3 days.  I am baffled by why one State can ship wine to me but my own State cannot, but laws are weird.  So I'm good for 6 months.

But the NY store was also out of stock for 3 months, and I decided to try similarly-described wines available at the local store.  You know that stuff about "hints of blackberry, after-tongue fruitiness, good palate"?  That's mostly all fake jargon.  But if a wine has the same descriptions as the one I like, it stands a good chance of being equally satisfactory.

Seeking an alternative (before the NY store had a supply of the "Twisted"), I tried an Argentinean Malbec (Frontera).  Drinking it now.  It's close but very slightly more acidic.  I could live with that.  It goes well with grilled meats, tomato sauces, and roasted chicken or pork.

But I'm glad the NY store came through with the Twisted.

A Particular Wine

We all have some favorite things.  I have the misfortune to like things that are not popular.  They tend to disappear.  I hate that.  

The latest one is my favorite brand of wine.  Not that I drink a lot of it; 2 glasses of wine with dinner.  But, as far as I am concerned it goes well with most everything I usually cook.  And it is cheap.  I don't see the point of drinking a $20 bottle of wine with a $5 home-cooked meal.  Wine is an "accompaniment", not the focus.

But I do enjoy the couple of glasses.  So when the local wine shop wasn't selling enough of it to support the shelf space, they were kind enough to special order a few cases at a time for me.  I appreciated it.  Now they have trouble even getting it from their supplier.  

The store is actually a wine/liquor/butcher/deli store and they have great specials each week, so I shop there often anywhere.  There aren't many places where you can get filet mignon trimmed and sliced to order for $10.99 sometimes or Delmonico steaks for $8.99.  Their deli dept is great, too.  

Oddly, they are the only store I know of around here where you can get actually ripe Golden Delicious apple.  

But they are having trouble getting the wine (Twisted Cellars brand Old vine Zinfandel).

There is a place in Maryland that gets it, but they don't ship and it is a hour drive away to pick up.  There is a store in New York State that will ship, but it's an extra several dollars per bottle.  I ordered 8 cases from them 2 weeks ago.  And if the local store gets more (usually 4 cases when they can get it), I'll buy all they have.  Anything to keep them trying to get it.

I have a large basement that is mostly underground so it stays at 68F.  It will keep red wine OK.  I wouldn't mind a year's supply, LOL!

I'm down to 1 case.  And just tonight I got an email saying I could expect the NY shipment of 8 cases on on Saturday.  Which means I have to stay around to sign for the delivery, but that's OK.  I leave the house about once a week.  

Hurray!

Update:  It arrived.  I was expecting a call to assure delivery between 2 pm and 6 pm, so I laid in bed after 1 pm fully dressed (I'm a real night owl sometimes and only went to bed the at 8 am), but there was just a knock on the door at 3 pm.  I was out and ready to sign for the delivery (the website said I had to) but the the UPS guy said they don't.  

But hey, 8 cases of 1.5 L bottles.  I'm good for many months!

Wine Cork Removers

I like wine with dinner.  Always have.  Not gret wine; I can't drink anything that costs more than dinner.  But this is about opening wine bottles...

Years ago, I started with a standard lever corkscrew.  It worked, sort of.

Than I got interested in cork-pulling gadgets.  I have a shelf full of them. 

For 10 years, the best one I had was a twist-top device that really worked.  But the foil cutter drove me crazy!  It often had to use a dedicated serrated Ginzu Knife, LOL!

So when I came across a Houdini cork-puller, I gave it a shot.  Its tricky, but I got the method right lately.  The foil cutter is SUPERB!  It never fails after just one turn.  But as a cork-puller and cork remover (from the device), it takes some technique.

Which is to say honestly "it works", but it takes some practice.  I'm searching for an analogy here...

One is using a bait-casting reel.  It takes a bit of practice to throw the bait, get some distance AND not have it unwind in your hand after the bait reaches the water.  Another analogy is flipping pancakes.  Or folding omelets.  Just saying there is some technique involved.

The Houdini cork remover does the cork-removal just fine.  You use the foil cutter, remove the foil, set the Houdini on the cork, and turn the lever.  The corkscrew goes right into the cork beautifully!  With some practice, you turn the lever the opposite direction and the cork comes right out.  Only took 10 bottles to get that right.

Then you have to get the cork off the Houdini.  That drove me nuts for weeks.  And the instructions say to NEVER remove the cork from the device manually.  That part still baffles me.  Why does the device CARE how I remove the cork from it?  Does it feel insulted?  Does it report improper cork removal to the manufacturer? 

Well, no.  But I'm getting better at it.  Its some trick of gripping the removed cork in the winged clamps.  I can get it off easily 8 of 10 times now.  Yes, I kept track... I do things like that.

The more I use it, the better I get.

So, if you see one of those devices, they DO work.  You just have to keep practicing on a few bottles.

Whil I will keep using it (if only to get proficient and parties), the real way to go is the outstanding Houdini foil cutter, and the  previous screw-down cork-puller.  But that would mean all I bought was a GREAT foil cutter.