The Crush

This year was the year that Tom and I decided that we were going to make wine. It came from us talking about our ideal jobs, and where we’d want to be, and we both had the comment that “it would be great to own a winery at some point, that would be the ultimate dream.” So then we sat down with a pen and paper and thought, what would be step 1 for being able to do this. It was decided that starting off as home winemakers would be a good step in the first direction.

So in late August I ordered 200 lbs from Stillwaters Vineyards, a winery in the Paso Robles area that caters to home winemakers. They let you come pick out the grapes when the brix level is at the proper range, which is somewhere between 24-26 (Brix is the measurement used for sugar levels in foods and liquids, fyi.) Luckily for us, the brix got to that point at the only weekend that we both could meet and pick them up. So, Tom took the train down from San Francisco , and I drove up to Paso Robles where we would rendezvous for the grape pickup. We both arrived at about 2, and headed to meet Paul Hoover, owner of the winery.

When we arrived, he showed us our grapes, which were Cabernet Savignon grapes. “There you go guys, all yours.” Whoa whoa whoa…this just wouldn’t do. We both didn’t travel 3 hours to just grab some grapes and run. So we told him “this is our first time making wine, any suggestions for us?”

Well, he instantly changed his tune. We went right to the back, and what he started as a five minute pick up, turned into about a 3 hour tutorial on the full winemaking process. It was awesome.

This is how the winery ferments their wine. Big, fairly open containers that the crushed grapes sit in. It made me feel better looking at this, because I realized that wine in general isn’t really made in a sterile environment. There was a healthy dose of fruit flies around, and we actually saw a praying mantis crawling around the tanks. I guarantee a few fruit flies ended up in the wine.Think about that next time you toast your expensive bottle of wine.

He also showed us the tanks where they do their secondary fermentation. Huge barrels of wine. bubbling with carbonated bubbles that get released through those airlocks on the top. I'm having a tough time grasping the idea that I'm going to be get my wine to even do this.

The grounds were awesome, and after our tutorial we retired to their tasting room, where we sampled a lot of their best wine. We'll see how ours stacks up...

The next morning was when the crush started at our house. We had friends and family over to help us, and we needed it.

After putting the wine through the crusher, we needed to pull the stems off of the grapes. This was a serious job, and it was good that friends were there, because we needed everyone's helping hands, reaching in and pulling out all the stems. What we thought was going to take an hour ended up taking about 4 hours.

We added sulfites, yeast nutrients, and what we thought was the yeast. Two days later the must hadn't heated up at all. Panic time! After a series of furious calls, Tom and realized that we hadn't actually added yeast. Sweet, it's only the most important aspect of wine making. I drove up the the Culver City Brew Co on a rainy, miserable day after work and got the yeast before they closed. It was added, and almost within hours there was a temperature change in the vat of must. So, the grapes now sit in their skins for a week as part of the "primary fermentation."

A lost friend, or just nutrients for my plants?

We lost a good friend the other day. My fish, Oscar, finally keeled over and died after swimming around in my aquarium for almost 5 years. I’m not sure if you can tell in the picture, but this fish was a HOG by the time he kicked the bucket. He ate goldfish (and many of my other aquarium fish) en route to growing to be at least 2 lbs by the time he finally died.

It was a sad experience taking him out of the tank, especially because there was 2 or 3 times where I thought he was dead, and went in to pull him out, only to have him start swimming for a day or two, almost like he was trying to prove that he wasn’t dead yet.

Once he was dead, I decided that the best way to honor ol’ Oscar was to plant him in the ‘garden’ as a way to help nurture the soil, and plants that I plan on growing over the winter. So, I dug a grave, and shoveled him in there. I added a couple of scoops of compost on top of him (filled with earthworms, in order to help with the de-composing…) and then patted dirt over the hole of his grave.

Now, I know this is disgusting. Trust me, I know. But now that I consider myself a full-fledged farmer, I can look at the circle of life as a complete circle, from fish to farm; and I don’t really have any problem eating some nice romaine lettuce, or sugar snap peas that will be growing over the grave of a lost friend.

F$&*ing Squirrels

Now I've got another enemy of the garden. I've come out a couple of days to find holes dug in a lot of the pots, with dirt scattered everywhere and general root damage occurring to many of my plants. I was not happy about it at all.




My roomate Jared alerted me to the problem on a Sunday: "dude, I just watched a squirrel bury a peanut in one of your plants!" Seriously? A squirrel is burying nuts? I thought that was just a wives tale, about squirrels burying nuts to get ready for winter. I saw it with my own two eyes though, and you can see from the pictures what I found this morning when checking the plants.



It looks like a peanut from a ballpark, where is Mr. Squirrel getting his hands on these things? Is one of my neighbors handfeeding him these things as a joke?

I'm one of the biggest animal lovers I know, but when it comes to defending one's own farm, serious measures need to take place. So I had to dig into the garage and find one of my toys from high school, the ol' 45 caliber BB gun that brought me so much fun and disrepute when my friends and I toted these around shooting each other with them. I haven't gotten a clean look at Mr. Squirrel yet, but when I do he's going to get 'tapped' by a bb or two, just so he knows which garden he shouldn't be messing with.



Some positive growing news though. Check out this morning's tomato harvest. The heirloom tomatoes are still going strong. Also, this small tree is a mango tree. The last time I ate a mango I stuck the pit in a pot of dirt, and a beautiful little tree is starting to grow from it.

Farming ain't easy

So I've learned it's not all roses and butterflies trying to grow our own veggies. It turns out that it's more difficult than I thought to get a full salad from my backyard pots. The damp weather in Hermosa seems to be an issue. There has been a white, powdery substance that formed on all the cucumber and squash leaves. It seems that it's a mold/mildew that is the result of too much humidity/water. I've had to constantly trim back a lot of the leaves, and it seems that after getting a few cucumbers, the vine might not be ready to produce any more.



Here's how the garden looks now. You'll notice that the heirloom tomato plants are HUGE. They are starting to tower over the neighbor's fence, and the tomatoes are getting so big that they're folding a lot of the plants and almost breaking the roots.




Here's some of the tomatoes. A lot of them have eventually ripened into a deep red, but in all honesty, I've eaten them so quickly that I forgot to photograph them. I actually prefer when they are a little greener, they're not as sweet as the fully ripened ones. They're really beautiful.




The one squash that grew has gotten to be a considerable size. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why so pale, mr. squash? I'm not sure, but the interweb says that they should taste about the same. We'll see, I'm going to saute it soon, and hopefully not gag over the flavor.




Is it wrong that composting is still one of my favorite activities when it comes to the garden? As I tell my friends...I'm a soil man. I keep the food scraps in a wooden bin, on top of our concrete backyard, but somehow the compost inside has become overrun with red wiggler worms. Literally, there's probably 100 worms in there, chomping their way through all my food scraps. They probably are all a little tipsy after I added the leftover vodka-infused watermelon after the 4th of July...






The avocado tree and grapevines are growing nicely though. No fruit on either, maybe next year though? If you look closely, you can see how the grapevine is wrapping itself around the stakes








And of course, if I'm going to get fruits/veggies produced, I'm going to figure out a way to incorporate it into a drink. Here's a Friday after work, I made a "Pimms Cup" drink garnished with a homegrown cucumber, and sliced a green tomato as a snack.

Southern Hospitality

Yesterday I was sitting on my back deck after work enjoying a book, when my neighbor came out on his deck. He's got all white hair, with a great droopy dog 'stache to boot. He also loves to grill, which is usually when we will have our conversations. His grill is sweet too, a huge stainless steel set up, at least 6 ft long, and he is always grilling things that he apparently just hunted (he had quail on there a week ago.)

I put my book down for a moment and went inside to grab a glass of water, and when I came back he was standing there with something wrapped in tinfoil. When he saw me, he threw it across the deck my way.

"Here's a little tri tip I've been slow cooking, and chicken with my homemade rub. Let me know what you think, when I open my restaurant I'll be serving this."

Now, before I give you my response, I have mention that the book I'm reading is "To Kill a Mockingbird." It's an American classic, and one of my all-time favorites that I recently picked up to re-read. Atticus Finch is the coolest guy around, and reading about how he talks to his kids about what they should and should not be doing to ol' Boo Radley always gets me.

So I'm deep into the book when my neighbor throws his food at me, and for some reason (I don't really know why) I respond like I'm a born and raised Southerner.

"That's mighty fine of you sir, I 'preciate it very much. I'm always hankering for some good bbq, I'm-a head inside and eat this right now."

I turned around and walked into the house with my face absolutely beet red with embarrassment. Why in the sam hell did reading a book based in Alabama get me talking southern all of a sudden?

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at the American Idol After Party

While in-between jobs about 5 years ago, and needing money; I started catering from time to time for a little bit of cash. What I learned though, is while the cash is sh*tty, the stories that I come away from with are worth way more than the check I get. I've had a chance to see how the famous and wealthy party, which is usually over-the-top lavishness. Now that I have a full time job though, I try to avoid the catering whenever possible. Except for last night, when I was asked to work the American Idol After party.

The after party was in a tent on top of a parking lot attached to the Nokia Center in downtown L.A., which is where the finale was held. Now, I know when I say "tent" you think of a standard party tent or canopy you might see outside for a tailgate party. This tent however, was big enough to hold 2,000 guests, and over 200 catering, security, and event staff. It also had two 60 foot TV screens inside of it, (showing FOX all night), a DJ tower, two bars, 4 buffet stations (yours truly was running food out for buffet station #1), a dessert station, Go-Go dancers, and fog machines. It also had wall-to-wall carpeting, and plush couches and chairs, 6 photo booths, and traveling photographers.

In the interest of being succinct, I'll try and keep my observations short, and to the point:

• The crowd there took everything. And by 'take' i really mean stole. They took American Idol pillows, wrappers, cups...shoot, I saw one lady even loading her purse with American Idol cookies into her purse before she left.

• American Idol contestants are a big deal...and I know none of them. There was a bunch of them there, signing autographs and taking pictures with the fans. I asked all my fellow caterers "who is that?" and not one of us knew any of these people. What I do know is that they all seemed to try really hard to look like celebrities.

• Ke$ha rocks. Unfortunately, she wasn't there, but when the DJ put on "Don't Stop" everybody in the party got into it. And I mean everybody: the teenage girls, boys, their mom's. Dad's there escorting their kids were bumping up and down. Hell,I even saw the security guards with their dark suits and earpieces bobbing along to the music. And yes, I'll admit it- I caught myself singing along.

• Paula Abdul is the smallest person alive. She was also a walking petri dish last night. She came to the afterparty, and seemed to be the one that everyone wanted to meet. I didn't realize who it was, I just saw a crowd surrounding her taking pictures, videos and waiting their turns to meet her. When she made her way over to my station, I saw that it was Paula, still in her little pink dress and heels from the show. She hugged everybody. She also can't weigh more than 95 lbs, which only leads me to believe how small all the other celebs are on the show, because she certainly doesn't look that tiny next to Seacrest and the crew.

And last but not least, I had the same experience at this event that I've had at every other one I've catered. When you are part of the wait-staff, then you might as well be invisible as far as the guests are concerned. They won't look at you or acknowledge you unless it's to hand you an empty plate, or piece of trash.

Harvest Time!

The beets bulbs are starting to show above the soil, and from the looks of things it was time to 'harvest' one or two of them to see how they were tasting. I actually got excited to see how they were going to turn out. Before I picked them out, I wanted to find some way to cook the beet greens, because I've read that they're really high in vitamins, and easy to incorporate into a meal. So I found a recipe for a potato and green recipe:

Greens and Potato Gratin

The beets were smaller than I hoped when I pulled them out of the dirt. They came right out though, without many roots growing from the bulb. Then I trimmed off several of the greens on the other plants, because the recipe called for 2 1/2 lbs of greens. I still have 5 others planted, so I'll leave them in the soil and hopefully they will continue to grow to a respectable size.



The recipe called for a 1/4 cup of parsley...



I chopped off the greens, then wrapped the bulbs in tinfoil, and baked them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. They were extremely light tasting and delicious. As you can see, by the time they cooked though there wasn't much to them.



I blanched the greens, and then cooked them into a potato au gratin casserole. It was really delicious! Lots of cheese, so probably not a diet food, but definitely a hearty meal. And although it sounds like a cliche at this point, there is nothing better than eating food that you've grown yourself.