Posted by: Becky St. Clair in Scenery on
Nov 30, 2009
It was a chilly fall morning in Walla Walla. At six a.m. I donned my jogging pants, thick socks, and a jacket, tied my jogging shoes, and slipped quietly out the front door. The yard, still shaded from the morning sun by my house and a few yellowing trees, crunched under my steps. My shoes left footprints in the frosty grass.
I took a deep breath of the autumn air and thought to myself that although it was cliché, it was true - the air was crisp. It was probably 20 degrees outside, and though it was a weekday, there were surprisingly few people up and about that early.
As I worked up to a slow jog, I plotted my path for the morning. I had started walking and jogging only a couple of months prior, and was up to about a two-mile loop. I enjoyed morning walks the best; it was quiet and somehow inspirational.
My route took me across one of the busiest roads in town, past some well-manicured lawns and browning flowerbeds, along a gurgling roadside creek, and past an apartment I'd lived in just after college.
Posted by: Denise Slattery in Wine on
Nov 23, 2009
As you begin to hash out the details of your fall wine tasting intineries in Walla Walla, I thought it might be useful to provide a lexicon of terms
Often associated with this time of year....in alpha order! Cheers -
| Arrghhh! |
The forklift is out of propane |
| Barrel-Down |
To move the finished, pressed-off wine into barrels |
| Beer |
The winemaker's favorite beverage |
| Crush |
The time of year when your phone calls will not be returned |
| Character |
That which makes the wine distinctive and some of the people you may meet in a tasting room! |
| Dry |
When red wine registers at minus 1.5 brix and the sugars have all been converted to alcohol |
| Ebulliometer |
Instrument used to measure the level of alcohol in wine |
| F*%&! |
Someone left the valve on the tank open! |
| Free Run |
Wine from the must that doesn't go through the press |
| Grapes |
What we make the wine out of, silly! |
| Hard Frost |
When temps fall below 28 degrees for more than a few hours. |
Posted by: Andrew Holt in Art on
Nov 16, 2009
"Romeo and Juliet", William Shakespeare's love story for the ages, has been modernized countless times, each director trying to put it into a context that hopefully provides new meaning to the simple but heart wrenching tale that has been the standard for love stories ever since the old bard brought it to the stage.
Whitman College's modernization of "R & J", which just finished its run at Harper Joy Theatre, utilized an urban setting of modern culture mingling with themes from "West Side Story." The prominent part of the set consisted mostly of a cold city street with concrete walls, ramps and porches; even Juliet's window tower was grey concrete. And the fight scenes between the Montagues and the Capulets involved switch blades and the darting, almost dancing choreography reminiscent of "West Side."
The Capulet boys wore tight white short-sleeved dress shirts rolled up to show their biceps, accented with solid black ties, grey cargo pants and black boots. Father Capulet wore a dashing tailored suit and the women sprightly colored dresses circa the early 60's. Paris was portrayed as a preppie who could have walked right off the Princeton campus yesterday.
Posted by: Catie McIntyre Walker in Wine, Food on
Nov 09, 2009
It's that time of the year when every food and wine related magazine's focus is "turkey talk." And with every article, the standard Q&A suggests Pinot Noir is the wine to pair with turkey. Blah-blah-blah and blah!
Hey Pilgrim, do you see a lot of Pinot Noir in the Walla Walla Valley? And when you consider that we celebrate the holiday with an abundant feast of savory and sweet, why limit yourself and your guests to one kind of wine?
The Bird: Every Spring many Walla Walla wineries release a variety of crisp rosés from Cabernet Franc to Sangiovese. These pastel colored wines are softer and less tannic offering the right amount of acids to balance the richness of the turkey. Hopefully, you already have a few Walla Walla produced rosés in your cellar as they sell out quickly. If you're one of those people who tout, "I only do redsss," think about softer and fruitier Merlots and Sangioveses or even an aged Cabernet Sauvignon. If your cellar is looking a little empty L'Ecole No 41 often has a selection of library wines available for purchase.
If you are a white wine drinker and want to highlight the buttery flavors of the turkey, ‘taters, and gravy, there are several aromatic white wines that will enhance the main dishes. Check out Locati Cellars Pinot Grigio, Seven Hills Pinot Gris, SuLei Cellars Rousanne or go bubbly with Tru Cellars Blanc de Blanc.
Posted by: Sam McLeod in Food on
Nov 02, 2009
I wrote a newspaper column a couple of weeks ago about how I'm learning to cook. I got a flood of mail from women who, like my wife Annie, want to retire from cooking and get their husbands to take over in the kitchen. They wondered whether I might have any advice to offer. Well, of course I do.
If you'll follow these directions to the letter, pretty soon your hubby will be cooking while you sit at the table reading the newspaper, thinking great thoughts, tapping your foot, waiting for him to bring you a glass of wine. So, let's not screw this up. Okay?
Here's your Achilles' heel: you know how to cook and therefore have wisdom to share.
Here's my suggestion: keep it to yourself.
This is your man's new job. It needs to be challenging. So let him cook on his own, even if he has to learn a lot of lessons the hard way. You wouldn't think of going out on the golf course to whack his ball for him. So don't go into the kitchen to help him. Hands off.
This may be as hard as anything you've ever done. After all, you're going to see him doing things the wrong way. He's going to mess up some-maybe a lot. Some of his dinners will be debacles. It's okay. Debacles are memorable.
