The Whole30 Day 27: All I Can Think About is Wine

Total honesty here.  Aside from the several days a week or so ago when I was feeling downright grouchy, this Whole30 experience hasn't been bad at all.  I've been lucky, of course, that my husband not only signed up for this journey with me (albeit a tad grudgingly at first), he's jumped right into the spirit of, well, "the whole" thing.  As I speak, he's busily preparing yet another breakfast recipe that is Whole30 compliant.  Seriously!  Not only is he making it, he went on-line to purchase the odd-ball ingredients that are virtually impossible to find in a normal grocery store.  Can you say "he's awesome"?  He is.  This one is some sort of compliant "cereal" with apples and date syrup.  A few mornings ago, he made a phenomenal breakfast casserole with sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts, onions, an entire package of bacon (which he drove to Whole Foods to acquire) and eggs. You might be thinking, "Yuck!"; let me tell you, it was anything but.

So, yeah.  We've experienced a lot of new recipes, figured out how to modify many of our tried and true ones, and spent a lot of time together these past days talking about food, shopping, and hanging out in the kitchen together.  We've brought our parents along for the ride and I haven't heard any of them complaining about the fare we've served them. We do not know for sure if we've lost any weight (weighing is not allowed until Day 31 (which is "The End")), yet, I can see Mr. B's lost weight by looking at his face and I know that it's very likely I've shed some myself.  

We've established new rituals to replace our 6:00 cocktail hour and sipping on wine while watching Game of Thrones. Now, we walk Hesed a bit after 6:00, then come home and prepare our dinner. If we watch a movie or a TV show, tea is our "treat".  You may have picked up on a little of my waning enthusiasm on this point.  I MISS MY WINE.

I've said it before, I'll say it again.  For anyone who drinks on a routine basis (more than occasionally), I think it's a great idea to, every once in awhile, forgo it.   Frankly, this probably isn't a bad thing to do for anything we may wonder if we have an addiction to.  Who wants to spend their life with happiness, satisfaction, joy or (fill in the blank with your own desired state of being) dependent on a substance?  Ok, I'm not judging those who have bona fide addictions here; I'm talking about the majority of us who think we cannot go without something, but, we really can.

Off soapbox.

So, yeah.  I'll be glad when I can drink my vino.  Vino with dinner, some good vino shared while having a long conversation with my Mom or my friend Syb, enjoying a special bottle of Zin with Mark, sipping on wine while playing cards with Mom B.  Not to mention, I will have two months worth of wine club wine waiting for me at Cheers to Wine!

Four.  More.  Nights.

Other than my bizarre cravings for ice cream and donuts last week, I've been lucky in that I've not experienced an urge for something I routinely ate but had to give up.  However, yesterday I was fumbling in my purse pocket for my phone, which seemed to be really crammed down in there more than usual.  I finally got it yanked out, and along with it came a myriad of purse lint:  hair ties, five thousand ball point pens, a crumpled tissues (I hope it was clean), and a lone miniature size bar of Hershey's Special Dark.  I stared at it, while images of Richard from the movie "Somewhere in Time" gazing in horror at a penny he'd pulled from his pocket ran through my mind. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you'll have to check out the movie.

For those who don't know, I could exist on:  Red Wine, Cheez-Its, and Dark Chocolate.  I saw images of myself unwrapping the chocolate and gobbling it down, looking guiltily about me to see if anyone had seen me.  

Thankfully it came out of the purse wrapped, otherwise, all bets may have been off; the few seconds it took me to consider unwrapping it were enough to bring me to my senses.  Back to Day 1 for a tiny piece of stale and partially melted chocolate?  Nah.  Sorry, Richard. I had a choice, you didn't (but, seriously; how did you manage to get back in time with a 1970 penny in your pocket?  Script-flaw).

Four more days (and nights) to go and we'll be in Reintroduction Mode.  This is when we'll need to be brutally honest with ourselves: Does anything we add back cause us to not feel so great?

More to come!

Mrs. B

PS

The cereal, along with apples and date syrup, is yummy! Sorta like Cream of White minus the wheat and the cream.

Adventures in Clemmons, NC: Part Four

I'd best finish this up as soon (my sister in law is in labor as I blog this) I'll have two much anticipated little babies to blog about :-)

So, after Buck Shoals, we hit a few wineries that now I don't really remember. We ended up at Flint Hill Vineyards, another newish winery (at least new to us) http://www.flinthillvineyards.com/ . All that we sampled there was tasty, but, in particular, they had an excellent Chambourcin that was spicy and smokey; sort of tasted like a mouthful of cigar smoke. I know that probably sounds gross to some of you, but, really, it isn't. The smoke grabs you by the throat and the wine begs to be drank with BBQ steaks, a hearty lasagna or stew, and, of course, sipped while puffing away on a fine stogie! We bought about 1/2 a case of this. The lady that was pouring (and I think she was part of the family) told us they recently opened up a restaurant at their winery were they serve "fine" food and only their wines. Might be worth trying one of these days.

Next, on to Thistle Meadow Winery http://www.thistlemeadowwinery.com/?www.catchwine.com which is one we've been to before. We like tasting at this one in particular at the Wine Festival because they are ORGANIZED. They have the tasting area sectioned off with sweetie wines on one side and drys on the other. Then, even more so; whites on the left, reds on the right. AND, they have a list of what wines are being poured in what section. Not that 1/2 of the people tasting pay attention, but, we like this set-up and, usually, there isn't a huge line for the dry reds (go figure) so we can step right up. This year, we tasted their gamut and ended up taking home a few of their Shiraz, Old Vine Zinfandel and Carmenere (A LOT of this one!)

Finally, we tasted and bought once again from Round Peak http://www.roundpeak.com/. They have a real well-rounded selection but, in particular, their "Italian" Reds are a stand-out. Unfortunately, we thought we bought and paid for their Reserve Sangiovese; but, when we opened the box the next day, it was their "normal" Sangiovese which was nice, but NOT as nice as the reserve. Luckily, they didn't charge us the reserve price. We also took home a few bottles of their buttery Chardonnay and a Nebbiolo. They were NOT pouring their Sweet Niagra, which tastes, in essence, like very good grape juice (but it's wine). We bought some a few years ago and still have one bottle; keep meaning to serve it a brunch or something cut with some Prosecco.

Mr. B relaxes at picnic time

After pretty much tasting everywhere we wanted, we settled in for a big lunch of burgers and potato chips (and a bottle of Riesling from Rock of Ages). Let me tell you, this was an excellent switch to our process (eating). It definitely helped with the tipsyness and likely kept us from buying more wine than we really wanted (we ended up with enough as it was).

The crowd as seen from our spot under the shade tree

We went over our tasting notes, selected what wineries/wines/how much and, after resting a bit, went and methodically bought our wine. This year, we elected to have the wine "shipped" up to the front gate of the park where they had a tent set up for folks to pick their wine up on their way out. This made a lot of sense to us (especially after the aforementioned cart tipping over fiasco of 2006). After ordering, we went back to our tree to share a bottle of Buck Shoals Gold Mead (but, we only drank 1/2 of it because Mr. B had to "drive" to the tent and then back to the B&B).

Mrs. B enjoys some honey mead

After packing up our picnic gear, we walked to the car, drove to the tent, got our wine (we had our own table so that might tell you how much we ended up with) and went back to the B&B to settle in for the remainder of the evening/night with another picnic of good stuff that goes great with wine!

Ok, I guess I have ONE more entry to go on this; our golfing outting and our excursion to the restaurant Sunday night. But, that might have to wait for a few days!

Mrs. B

Adventures in Clemmons, NC: Part Three

After Black Wolf, we headed over to Lake James Cellars, http://www.lakejamescellars.com/ which is one of the wineries we discovered in 2006. Now, in all honesty, we were sort of two sheets to the wind by the time we ran into Lake James Cellars in 2006; we bought some of their wine, and, it was just fine. What I recalled about their wines was, although they did have some "fruit" ones, they were not cloyingly sweet. In fact, their Lineville Mist tasted exactly like fresh green apples. Since we know some folks that come over and visit us DO like wines on the sweeter side, we figured we'd better stock up on a few GOOD bottles of sweet wine. Lake James Cellars also has a more than decent Pinot Noir-ish dry red wine and a wine in the "ice wine" style (we finally drank the bottle we got in '06 at Easter this year). This year, we elected to buy a few bottles of the Pinot Noir-ish (they call it Shortoff Red), a few of the semi-sweet red (nice slightly chilled), the Lineville Mist and the "ice wine". That's what we THOUGHT we bought, anyway. When we opened up the box the next morning, we discovered NO ice wine, only one bottle of the Lineville Mist, and two bottles of something called Southern Magnolia, which, as it turns out, is a Chardonnay-ish wine with peach flavor. Uh, well, I guess we might make some white sangria out of that!

On to one of our new favorite places, Buck Shoals http://www.buckshoalsvineyard.com/. Man, I wish I'd thought to get a picture of the winemaker, Dana. He was something else; he looked like someone that makes booze in the "hills" of NC; think Grandpa Jones with a long grey braid, grey beard, and John Lennon glasses; rail thin and wearing old blue jeans, a plaid shirt and suspenders! That was Dana.

The Real Grandpa Jones

Imagine him with no hat and add a long grey braid and beard and you've got Dana!

Anyway, when we got over to Buck Shoals, not many other tasters were there so we had Dana all to ourselves. He was highly enthusiastic about his wines and almost giddy about pouring them for us. He was so thrilled about his new addition to his line, the blueberry mead, that he started pouring the wines all out of order. No matter. They were all really, really good. Right off the bat, we told him we didn't like sweet wines overly much to which he replied, "Well, then, I hope I can change your mind about something today!" He told us that they make their meads using honey and water and that's it. We first tried the "gold" mead (just that, honey and water); slightly chilled. I was amazed at how unsweet it was. It's hard to describe just what it DID taste like; it had a bit of a sharp honey taste but it was real mellow. Since we didn't pass out, he next gave us the blueberry mead, which turned out to be one of the standouts of the day. A little bit of tangy blueberry, a lot of that mellow honey; oh, wow. Now, I'll admit, I probably couldn't sit there and drink glass after glass of mead, but, it sure is a nice switch from "the usuals". We also tried his apple mead (frankly, he made us try everything) which WAS sort of sweet, but, he told us a lot of folks warm it up in a crock pot (like a hot cider) for the holidays. We could imagine that being fantastic, so, we bought some of that, along with the other meads and something called Vitto's Pride, which was a full-bodied red.

Dana told us that his winery is about ready to offer their own apple brandy and some other "distilled" beverages. This is one place we might have to just get into the car and visit one of these days.

So, we spent something like 20 minutes standing there talking to Dana. At one point, there was a foursome standing next to us and one of the "ladies" in the group was a real bitch on wheels. I think, in hindsight, that she was annoyed that we were standing there for so long, but, Dana didn't ignore them. This broad kept saying, "I don't want any of the sweet ones, just the dry reds!" to which he replied (as he had to me), "I hope to change your...." interrupted by "I don't THINK so!" She kept shoving hers and the other three glasses under my right elbow to put them onto the table. He would start to pour something while describing it; she'd snatch her glass away saying "I don't want THAT!" When he started talking about the meads, she said, "No! Too sweet!" one of her group standing behind her said, "What is mead?" and she said "It's really sweet, like Muscadine!" I turned to her and said, "No, it's not; it's made with honey and it is not overly sweet at all". She looked at me as if to say, "Who the hell asked YOU?" Well, I didn't care; I thought she was being rude to the poor winemaker who was so excited about his wines. Finally, she trounced off with a sniff.

You know, I don't mind the folks at the festival who line up to get all of the sweet wine. I find it amusing; but, hey, if it is what they like, that's cool. And, it is interesting to talk to the winemakers and the other patrons who know a thing or two about wine, even if some of them might be a tad snobby. But, there is nothing worse than a person who THINKS they are a wine snob but, in reality, doesn't know shit about wine.

Our other "new" favorite winery up next!

Mrs. B

Adventures in Clemmons, NC: Part Two

As Mr. B alluded to in his comment to my first post on this subject, we had a great process this time around for tasting (and ultimately buying) the wine.

While we were at the gate waiting to get in, they handed out a program of which wineries were there and where they were located. Right off the bat we were extremely disappointed to see that one of our past favorites at the festival, Rock House, was not in attendance, nor was Biltmore (no big loss since you can buy their wine in every local grocery store) or Shelton (this was another disappointment since Doc and Analee had highly recommended checking this winery out).

But, there were some other favorites there and some new ones (to us) that we thought we'd try out.

So, as earlier reported, we got into the gate, set up our picnic spot, and headed over to the wineries.

Because we were "first in the gate" and other patrons were busy getting their picnic spots arranged, there were not, at first, many people tasting. As Mr. B said, this made it far more enjoyable a) not to have to elbow our way up to the tasting tables and b) get to talk to the owners/wine makers (although not every winery we visited had informed people staffing their booths, most did).

First up was a winery that now I can't remember its name because we didn't like their wine so didn't buy any. I do remember, though, that the pourer poured the wine backwards, meaning, he started off with the dry red and moved down to the dry white (we did not want to taste any of their sweet wines). For those of you who don't know, the correct way to taste wine is from dry to sweet and typically they will begin with the dry whites, move to the semi-dry (off-dry; semi-sweet) whites, then on to the dry reds and finally end up with "dessert" wines (which is what a lot of people in NC drink like table wine...ugh) sherries, ports, etc.

We then ventured over to one we hadn't seen before called Hinnant Family Vineyards, which is located in Pine Level. http://www.hinnantvineyards.com/?www.catchwine.com Along with the standard "sweetie wines" using the predictable Muscadine grape (we heard from MANY wine makers that they don't LIKE to make sweet wine but since that is what the majority of their customers like, they do make it) they also had some dry wines. We liked (and bought) something called Norton. At first I thought that was its "brand" name and thought it was pretty funny to call a wine "Norton" but then realized I'd misunderstood the pourer when he was talking about the different grapes in the wine. I thought he was describing a meritage (or blend) of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Zinfandel but what he actually said was the grape itself is called Norton and it grows well in parts of NC but mostly in VA and KY. Well, he was right; this particular wine had flavors of all three of those grapes, finishing off with the nice spiciness of a good Zinfandel. Of course, Norton was the most expensive of the lot!

Next we stopped over to say "hi" to our friends at Rock of Ages http://www.rockofageswinery.com/index.html. You might recall that this is winery that had the Cork and Pork Festival that we went to (and I blogged about) in early May. By mutual agreement, we decided there was no sense in buying a bunch of wine from the wineries we could get to easily enough from home (plus we bought enough already from Rock of Ages at their festival) but, we elected to taste their wines, anyway, since it was hot and they'd brought along their nice "stainless" Chardonnay, semi-dry Riesling, and their two semi-sweet reds that, for whatever odd reason, we like. It might be the names; "Bushy Fork Red" and "Cork and Pork"! In any case, they sure taste great when you're warm!

Then, we went over to Black Wolf for the obligatory pictures in front of their banner (we do this every year). We tasted there, too; but, were pretty disappointed in their offerings. Like so many of the other vineyards, they brought mostly sweet wines with them (because that is what sells). In years' past, they had an excellent Cabernet Sauvignon but it was nowhere to be seen on this day. Oh well, we got our pictures, at least!

More soon on our two new favorite wineries and a few of our old stand-bys.

Mrs. B

Adventures in Clemmons, NC: Part One

We rolled back into Durham a few hours ago from our mini-vacation down in Clemmons, North Carolina.

Our primary reason for going was to attend the 8th Annual NC Wine Festival held in Tanglewood Park. This was the 4th time we've gone, and, I think we've finally got "the routine" down. More on that later.

This time, we also decided to stay an extra day and play golf at one of Tanglewood's 3 golf courses.

So, several months ago, I made an RSVP at The Manor House B&B, which is a fairly large B&B right in Tanglewood Park. We've stayed there every time we've gone to the festival and, given how much wine is consumed throughout the day, I can tell you it makes good sane sense to stay at a place one can walk from the festival grounds to after the drinking is over. Although like I said, we did things a bit differently this time around (and it worked out great).

Here's a link to The Manor House B&B.

http://www.co.forsyth.nc.us/Tanglewood/acom_ManorHouse.aspx

We stayed in #324 this time (because it had a king-sized bed). We usually stay in #322, and, even though the bed in that room is smaller, I think I prefer that room over the one we were in this time; probably because the bed, although king-sized, was not very comfortable and the pillows were AWFUL (I forgot to bring two things on this trip; my Birkies and my pillow; I guess that is technically 3). I felt like my head was on a chopping block all night long and finally gave up (both nights) and opted for NO pillow (even though Mr. B gave me the "softest" one of the three).

Ok, here are some of our adventures!

We left the house on time Saturday, dropped Lucy off at Uncle Chuck's (she LOVES going there, it's never an issue although we ran into three other dogs in the parking lot who were not quite as excited to be there as our Goose) and were on the road to Clemmons by 8:15 am.

The first of (a very few minor) snags occurred when we realized that the Bob Evans we usually stop at for breakfast (important to have a hearty breakfast of sausage gravy and biscuits before a wine festival) was closed! So, on we continued on 40 West hoping to find another; alas, we never did. After an almost 30 minute tour of the Hanes Mall exit (where there was absolutely NO places (other than fast-food) to eat breakfast but plenty of lunch and dinner spots), we proceeded to one exit prior to the exit for the festival and found a Cracker Barrel.

I have to say, NOT my most favorite place in the world, but, by this time were were both starving. Mr. B said he'd never eaten at a Cracker Barrel; I don't think he was overly impressed. Frankly, it's just TOO loud in there and there is too much crap around for one to buy ("country kitchen" type junk). But, the food was cheap enough and we got our biscuits and gravy (definitely NOT as good as either Bob's or Mr. B's, though).

Ok, on our way to the B&B to check in and then get over to the festival (that started at 12).

Our 2nd snag was that the lady at the reception desk wouldn't let us check in early. Now, this was the 4th time we'd been there and we've never had a problem checking in early. It was apparent that she was NOT going to make an exception, either. "Check in time is at 2:00!" Period. We were none too pleased and I'm sure she could tell by the expression on MY face, but, whatever.

Oh well, it could be worse, right? At least we had all of our perishables (for dinner that night) on ice in the cooler.

So, we drove down the one mile or so to the festival and got an excellent parking spot right up front (there is usually a silver lining in every cloud, right?) We could have parked the car in the manor's parking lot and walked down (which is what we've done in year's past) EXCEPT Mr. B decided he didn't feel like hauling however many cases of wine we ending up buying the mile back up the road to the manor after being out in the sun drinking wine all day. Wise of him, since, last year, he put the cases of wine on a luggage cart and started hauling away. The road was gravel and bumpy, so, one of the wine boxes fell off the cart. Luckily, nothing broke, but, I found the whole situation hilarious and got the giggles and stood there laughing at him while he attempted to get the box that had fallen off back on the cart (it took him a few tries).

Yeah, this year, we had the plan down. Buy the wine, have it shipped to the front of the park where they had a tent set up, drive the 1/2 mile to the tent, turn around and drive the 1 1/2 mile back to the manor (all within the park with a speed limit of about 10).

After we parked the car, we walked up to the gate, took out the camp chairs, and sat down to wait, along with hundreds of our closest friends, for the officials to let us in. We had to about 40 minutes out there in the hot sun; that was definitely the worst part about the day (ask Mr. B about the Cracker woman who was insistent that he moved his chair so she could put hers where his was at). But, since we got there so early, we were one of the first ones in through the gate at noon when they let us in!

We marched quickly through the first part of the festival and over the bridge to where the entertainment, food, and majority of the wineries were. We snagged a great shady spot, set up our chairs, spread out the blanket, and, went off to taste us some vino!

Like I said earlier, this year, we were much more methodical about when, where and how we tasted, and, it was, by far, the most successful process yet.

More on that next time!

Mrs. B

Cork and Pork Festival

Cork and Pork Logo

Yesterday was Rock of Ages Winery 2nd annual Cork and Pork festival. Rock of Ages is a fairly new winery out near Hurdle Mills (about a 45 minute drive from our house). We stumbled on it quite by accident last year and discovered that their wines are actually more than decent. Even the semi-sweet ones (using the muscadine grape). Anyway, we decided to attend this festival since it seemed like a nice way to spend a sunny afternoon; listening to music, drinking wine, eating BBQ (although we never got around to eating BBQ).

Scenic, huh?

We spent some time talking to the owner, Kevin, who explained to us the ins and outs of opening up a winery and how, if you want to have wine available on the day you open, you typically have to use someone else's grapes and make the wine somewhere else. Which is what he did (using Chatham Hill, which explained the mystery of why Chatham Hill Winery was on the label of his 2005 Merlot and Shiraz).

Mr. B

At the festival, Kevin introduces new releases; this year, it was another release of Cork and Pork, a semi-sweet red which was concocted to specially go with their BBQ sauce. Also introduced this year was a semi-dry Riesling and another semi-sweet red called Bushy Fork Red. Knowing that we planned on buying a supply of wine (we want to share it at our family reunion in August), we sampled quite a few of the wines available.

Mrs. B

Even though I don't usually like sweet wine, the Busy Fork Red went down refreshingly smooth in yesterday's afternoon heat. Judging from the crazy dancing antics of two of the ladies sitting in front of us, they'd been helping themselves to a lot of vino throughout the day! They were really amusing to watch.

Crazy Dancin' Fool Ladies

Most people, though (like us) opted to stay sitting on their butts (and not shaking them). It was a perfect day weather-wise for sitting outside and sipping wine and the winery is quite lovely.

Biker People w/ Winery in Background

We listened to both of the bands, Pizazz and The Castaways; before finally leaving around 4:00 or so. We ended up buying a case of wine, too (which we will do our very best to hold onto until August!)

Our Bounty!

Unfortunately, we didn't eat any BBQ; we had a cheese and cracker plate and MEANT to go back to get BBQ, but, satisfied ourselves with more wine.

But, hey, we can always go back to the winery and buy some of that sauce as it is yummy. And more wine too, of course!

Mrs. B

May's Wine Time!

Yep, soon it's gonna be time for wine in North Carolina!

One of our new favorite wineries, Rock of Ages is having their annual "Cork and Pork" celebration on Saturday May 10th. We've never been (the winery isn't that old; we think this is their 2nd celebration) but we have been to the winery and their wine is more than decent. So, why not; we'll go! Music, wine and BBQ (their sauce is killer), what else could be better? Check it out

http://www.rockofageswinery.com/index.html

Then, woo hoo, the NC Wine Festival will be held on May 31st in Tanglewood Park (in Clemmons, NC, near Winston Salem). We've gone three times; it's always fantastic. Tons of wineries from North Carolina; some are duds, to be sure (unless you like "sweetie" wine) but here is where we've discovered some fantastic wineries, such as Rockhouse, Black Wolf, Lake James and Shelton. More than likely, Rock of Ages will be there, too this year.

Here's the link to the festival's site http://www.ncwinefestival.com/Index.cfm.

Hey, we've got this down to an art; we stay at the B&B (The Manor House) on site, therefore, we can imbibe all we want to and be responsible at the same time. This year, we're going to stay an extra night so we can golf. They have three or four courses on the property

http://www.co.forsyth.nc.us/Tanglewood/acom_ManorHouse.aspx

The best part? Busy Season will be over and we can RELAX and ENJOY being together!

Mrs. B