Chef Ralph

Wine,

ahh, just the word can bring pleasant thoughts of rich intense bodied reds just waiting for their turn. Over the last 5 years Mrs. Chef and I have been molding the wine cellar into a place where we keep some of what mother nature has given the earth: the grapes of wine. We have tried many different types, styles and price ranges. We have joined and stopped different wine clubs over the years.  We love Amavi, Robert Biale and most recently Quiliceda Creek (which,  I might add,  I was on the waiting list for over 2 years just to get onto the mailing list.  Try to buy a bottle and you’ll see why).  Last year for a gift Mrs. Chef bought me a subscription to a program called uncork. It’s from Australia and seems to be just the program for monitoring what you have in your cellar at any given time. When you have over 250 bottles, they tend to all look the same just lying there on their sides waiting for their turn at the dinner table.  This program allowed us to make sense of these bottles and to find the ones that were ready to give themselves to us during dinner or with friends. The thing that surprised us was how many bottles were yelling out to be drank…pick me yelled the 2000 Hedges Red…no, me yelled the 1999 Canoe Ridge Merlot. You see without a program to track the bottles, we missed some of the best wines that were ready today!  Today we are drinking 2 bottles a week and drinking the 2001 and 2002 vintages now.  It’s my opinion that 90 percent of red wines at least 7 years old are good, no matter the price range. It hard for most folks to wait that long to drink it. Most people pick up a bottle at the grocery on a Friday and drink it that night. Next Friday, same story.  This year I decided to get help with managing the cellar, keeping the bottles turned and just general housekeeping. I think the girls are doing a wonderful job ….don’t you ?

On a cold saturday night in December, we got together with our dinner friends CJ & C and headed to Snoqualmie to dine at the Woodman Lodge.  It seems odd that they call it a Lodge, as there is no where to sleep at the restaurant. But we didn’t go there to sleep, we were there to eat! And eat we did, We started with drinks and appetizers, or as the menu calls em…hors d’ oeuvres…another misuse of a word.  We had calamari, witch were served with 2 sauces, both great and hot artichoke dip, which was also good. We all split 2 different salads, we had the grilled romaine heart with bacon/blue cheese dressing. It was amazing! CJ&C had the caesar salad and said that was good as well. For dinner I had the peppercorn New York Steak, cooked MR with a side of brandy peppercorn sauce. It was as good as I had ever had. Mrs Chef had the Wagyu beef filet mignon, and was impressed with the upgrade over regular filets. CJ had the Cioppino seafood linguine and didn’t have alot to say about it, but did finish it with a smile. I have to say that C , well, I don’t remember what she had, but I did remember that she had asked for her veggies on the side and they didn’t come that way. A a matter of fact we all 4 had asked for something other than the stock meal, such as my request for no chives with my baked potato and none of us got the added request with dinner we split a bottle of Abeja 2006 Cab and it was the highlight of the evening. We split a mostly uneventful dessert and left full after two and a half hours of good times. The meal was great, the service was fine, a bit more attention should have been with the special request. Charging me 5 bucks for a sauce that should have come with the steak seem a bit over the top. All in all we had a great time with great friends, and would do it again.

This morning , like many in the past we were woke up to the sound of the phone ringing. We didn’t recognize the area code so we let it go to voice mail. Well to our surprise, they left a message. It was from an ambulance company. You see, my dad who lives in a nursing home in Kentucky has been in and out of the hospital a few times in the past couple of months. Every time he goes to the hospital, it’s a ride in an ambulance. My head is spinning trying to keep up with the trips to the hospital much less the 23 different doctors and different pills etc. Well I called these folks and they  wanted to actually tell us that they had over billed us 9 dollars and some change. After the lady who had a huge accent (West Virginia) was finished giving me all this great news about the 9 bucks. I asked her if she had my address. She said she did, that she had gotten it from the hospital. I asked her if she knew what time it was where she called…and she melted into the I’m soooo sorry. I didn’t know you were two hours earlier…Imagine how sorry she was when I told her it was actually three hours earlier!  This is nothing new…no, not at all. It seems that everyone on the East coast that uses a phone in their business just assumes that if there up we’re all up. A doctor has the record for the earliest, you see he makes his calls in his office before his day gets started so as to catch folks before they head off to work, well doc, that 4:15 worked out just swell ! So now hear this you east coast reveille folks….not only do we live life a bit slower over here on the left coast, but we do it a little later in the day!

This weekend, some guy that was just released on bail for child rape, walked into a coffee shop and shot 4 police officers for no reason other than they have the job of keeping people like this from killing us all. I’m sure you have seen and heard of this as it is all over the news. The part I don’t get is time after time these bad people are let out of jail to do the same things over and over. I know people can change, but what I read about this guy, he’s not one that would change. This guy has been in and out of prison for 21 years…The system is failing us and I don’t see a way to fix it.

I write here for fun. Right now real life is keeping me from being able to clear my mind and put words down….soon it will come !

Last night we had the 2009 version of Oktoberfest.  Sauerbraten is the standard and we had mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, rolls, apple pie and German Beers etc. This year we invited the neighbors in our cul-de-sac. There are 12 houses,  and we got 12 RSVP’s. We have had parties in the past where only 50% of the people RSVP. You send them reminders or call, and well..it gets to where you don’t want to have a party because it’s to hard to figure out who is coming. I want to thank my neighbors for having the manners to  respond and come and have a wonderful evening!

It must be fall,

 it’s dark, the heat comes on in the morning and we put the electric blanket on the bed. But today I saw the Bald Eagle for the first time this season ! Sure the leaves are turning color and blowing, even falling but the Eagle has been gone for 6 months or so and now he is back.  The Salmon are swimming up the river so he has dinner at the bottom of the property.. Glad to see ya again!!

I have been a user for years. I don’t buy much and sell only a few things. (120 items) This summer I bought the series ” The Wire” (an HBO TV show).   $66.00 for all five years. That was a good price, but I was concerned that the seller hadn’t sold anything before, but PayPal claims that you won’t have a problem, so I went with it. A second red flag came up when I paid for it and the seller said they didn’t get the money from that email address and all I had to do was cancel that transaction and send it to a different email..Fine…The seller had Texas listed as the selling location, so the big red flag came when I had to go to the post office to sign a customs slip from China..Yikes. I took the DVD’s home and watched one every couple of days. After a few shows,  the movies started skipping and would stop all together! Nothing ruins a show more than missing the last 15 minutes of it. This went on with other disk until I had to contact the seller. They asked if the disk seemed scratched etc. The disk look bad, like a car had run over them. The seller quit all communications and I contacted E-Bay.. A week later E-Bay sent a follow up, and If you clicked “Still no resolution”, it gave you a phone number to call. Seems odd to me to phone an online company, but I did and within 60 seconds the rep said they would refund the entire $66.00 and as sorry that happened. The next day they called to see if I was satisfied with the outcome.  

E-Bay I see why you are a success. this type of service is far and few between…Thank you

Yesterday Mrs. Chef and I went to the Puyallup Fair. It’s also called the Western Washington Fair, and I believe it on of the biggest fairs in the Northwest. The fair is big, we have only been twice in the past 20 years, but we have our favorite things to do. We like to see the things that people make, from pies and cakes to quilts and clothing. The animals are cool, we watched huge draft horses pulling wagons and they have a show or two every day. We had bad seats but we watched a hypnotist, that had a group of 16 20 year olds, dancing and singing and it was so funny, I haven’t laughed so hard in awhile!

We had tickets to see James Taylor, and the fair admission was included. He put on a fantastic show. We both like his music and songs, but we wern’t prepared for the emotion that seeing him live and hearing the sounds brought out. It was the first concert we had been to at the fair, and we were surprised at how large the venue was.  James played, I would guess 20-24 songs over a 2 hour period and we had a great evening. Oh Sweet Baby James was a song he wrote for his nephew that was named after him. Now go listen to that song and it will seem different.

Last night Mrs. Chef and I went to cousin Marsha’s house for dinner and a wine tasting. We tasted 4 different Lemberger wines from Washington. It was a blind tasting, in that we didn’t know which bottle we were drinking. It was surprising to see the outcomes. Mrs and I both like the same wine, a 2006 Kiona. The wine we ranked #4 was the #1 favorite of the host, and their #4 was our #1..you follow? It was good to try 4 wines of the same grape and see the similarities and the differences. All in all it was a great time with family and friends.