Menu For Hope is the annual event when food and wine bloggers the world over unite to raise money for the U.N. World Food Programme. Founded by Pim several years ago, this is one holiday tradition that I hope never falls by the wayside. This year, LENNDEVOURS is offering two prizes for the fund raising raffle: WB19: Long Island Cabernet Franc Three-Pack A lot of people think that Long Island is all about merlot, but those in the know realize that some of Long Island’s best, most-interesting wines are made with cabernet franc. This lot is a simple one. It…
Posts Written OnDecember 2007
“The Persistence of Irritants” by Christopher Watkins
After Chris’s last poem, a reader and fellow tasting room employee left a comment asking for a poem about fruit flies. Chris, ever ready to please his reading public, obliged with the below. By Poet Laureate Christopher Watkins The Persistence of Irritants We began by just ignoring them, untilcomments became too numerous;we moved to disclaimers, explanations,Yes, they’re everywhere, but they’re harmless—Behind the scenes, we tried everything,even resorting to very expensive dessert wineleft out for them to expire in;In every sweetened dish they capitulated,but they did so too in bottles, in decanters, even glasses!How many times did we discreetly turn…
Next Week: The 12 Long Island Wines of Christmas
I don’t do a lot of "top 10" lists here on LENNDEVOURS. It’s just so hard for me to pare down my favorite things to such a short list. But, with the holidays under way and the shopping season in full swing, I’ve had a few people ask me for help on what local wines make the best gives and a list of my "favorite" Long Island wines of the year. Come back next week to see my 12 Long Island Wines of Christmas, the wines that I’m enjoying the most and most excited about. Think of it as the…
“December Sonnet” by Christopher Watkins
By Poet Laureate Christopher Watkins December SonnetNow the corn mazes truly are frightening;bedraggled hulking husks of a sinister thinness,looming and swaying over the tamped-down pathslittered with their fallen hides —ochre’d in the early winter darkness,they rustle at the unsympathetic winds,conspiratorial whispersinterwoven with the harsh hiss of the season. What child now dares lose themselvesamong these rasping ghouls, whose shroudscome peeling off in leprous strips? What child nowdares enter this maze of death? What child? None!For what they truly seek is not a fright,but to be startled by delight.
Food & Wine Blogger Tour of the North Fork?
It occurs to me that very few of my fellow food and wine bloggers have actually been visited the wineries on the North Fork. And, those who have, have probably chosen their destinations randomly and may or may not have ever tasted the region’s best wines. So what can I do about it? I can organize a North Fork trip for interested food and wine bloggers. This little project is obviously still in the early planning stages, but I wanted to post this so that any New York-area (or outside of the area really) bloggers are interested. The tour company…
Putting Jackson to Work in the Kitchen
He’s not walking yet, but our newest sous chef is getting the hang of prep work in the kitchen. Okay, maybe not, but as Nena was cooking dinner tonight and retrieving the things she needed, the little guy crawled over to the fridge and pulled himself right up on an open drawer. There aren’t any wine bottles in the bottom of the door in this picture, but he’s crawled over and grabbed them before. He has good taste. What can I say? It’s only a matter of time before he’s actually walking…and then opening the fridge on his own. For…
Dinner at Thai Gourmet. Drinks at Ruvo.
My mother in-law was here over the weekend to "get some Christmas shopping done." I put that in quotes mainly because we all know that the primary objective of the visit was to get her hands on her grandson. But I digress. With a babysitter available, Nena and I decided to take full advantage Saturday night and go out to dinner…without Jackson. It’s only happened a handful of times since he’s joined us here at LENNDEVOURS headquarters. After knocking around a few ideas for venue, we decided upon one of our favorite take out joints, that happens to also be…
Soliciting Feedback on My Wine Label
So I’ve been playing around with the label ideas for my 2006 cabernet franc for way too long. At first I was going to name the wine after Jackson. But then I decided that because this wine was "born" in 2006 (with Jackson born in 2007) that didn’t make sense. Of course, I wanted to have him mentioned somehow, but in a fun way. So, I’ve decided that my little negociant label will be named Jax Cellars. Any wine, beer, vinegar, etc. that I make will carry this name I think. And, you can see what I’m working on for…
4th Annual Menu For Hope: Coming Soon
Menu For Hope, the food and wine blogger charity drive started the hugely popular and philanthropic Pim will be started on December 10 and running through until the 21 this year. If you’re not familiar with the charity drive, it’s quite simple. Bloggers around the world contribute gifts, and people can buy raffle tickets for the prizes they’d like to win. Over $60,000 was raised last year for the UN’s World Food Program. As you may remember, I went a little overboard last year with the gifts I gathered from Long Island wine country. This year, I’m going to scale…
The 2007 Vintage and Howard Goldberg, the Wine Curmudgeon
Over the weekend, you may have seen Howard Goldberg’s "Long Island Vines" column in the New York Times, which focuses on Long Island’s 2007 vintage and it’s potential quality. He starts the column with quotes from Charles Massoud of Paumanok Vineyards and Roman Roth of Wolffer Estate, two of Long Island’s most respected vintners. The quotes mirrored what I’ve heard from local grape growers and winemakers. John Levenberg, winemaker at Bedell Cellars told me that 2007 was a "a great growing season with plenty of heat and good sunshine, punctuated by bouts of rain that happened upon us when our…