Two
Wednesdays in a row! It's almost like being a kid in Upstate/Central NY. That said, I wouldn't mind being up there for the historic snowfall, reminiscent of the Blizzard of '66 and the snow of 1993. It's getting there that's the problem. For the fun of it, I keep checking the
Syracuse.com website, and occassionally, even the
forum for Cortland County.
Guess who turned 15 since the last update? Carly! She's off to a good start on her 3rd quarter grades, which is a good thing. We're looking forward to lacrosse tryouts, eventhough she broke a piece of
Hardiplank siding last weekend with her lacrosse skills. She's signed up for a field hockey camp at William and Mary this summer.
We had a few friends over for dinner last Saturday night, and once again, we included an
Olive Oil Tasting--all extra virgin from
Olio2go, of course. The tasting table featured:
Gourmet Sardinia Fruttato,
Titone DOP,
Vittorio Cassini Classico,
Olio Beato, and
Santisi Novello 2006. Our guests could appreciate the freshness of
Santisi, the smoothness of
Cassini, and the intensity of
Fruttato.
Titone was the overall favorite, and I used that for the field greens salad--along with splashes of white balsamic vinegar and red wine vinegar--one clove of garlic.
Our appetizers included a selection of
olives (thanks to
Wegman's olive bar), marinated mozarella balls (my own creation), peppery cheeses, bread and crackers.
The salad was served as a separate course along with bread from
Wegman's and one of their gourmet/European/restaurant butters.
The main course was Tom's specialty --an unnamed pasta dish with chicken, red and yellow bell peppers, and mushrooms in a reduced red pepper cream sauce. Yum.
For dessert, we had another tasting, although unintended it turned out to be fun. I had two chocolate desserts from
Trader Joe's the
Chocolate Ganache and the
Chocolate Decadence. It turned out that everyone wanted a small slice of each, for comparison tasting! I'm not sure we had a clear winner, as both were devoured.
In the world of
olive oil, we've had a challenging learning experience in the process of importing. It's been a long journey and the arrival of San Macario Novello continues to be ....imminent. We've had a very helpful
customs agent, been held up by Homeland Security, and continue to wait. It left the port in La Spezia, Italy on January 9th. Our pallet arrived at the port of NY on January 25 (I think), and there's been a long wait for release due to the extra inspections. We'll never know what in the container caused the VACIS exam or the complete unpacking of the container.
I hope to spend part of this snow day working on the Constant Contact announcement for the arrival of San Macario, and also working on pages for Olio2go's new web site. Launching soon!
There hasn't been much time for knitting lately, although I finished a scarf on Tuesday morning and wore it the same day. I bought the yarn when Maureen and I journeyed to Uniquities in Vienna on December 30.
The books: I keep scaning the travel books and am ready for a return to Italy. I'm also continuing to read the Donna Leon mysteries set in Venice. The current book on my nightstand is Death at La Fenice. Before that, I finished Dressed for Death.
