Odds and Ends

Yesterday's "bargain" at the market was some imported tomatoes that looked just great sitting in the display. Even though one would think 'south' at this time of year, the yellow on vine tomatoes were actually Canadian in origin, eh. The red Roma's were from Florida and the yellow grape tomatoes were Mexican so we covered most of the north American continent.

They wound up being peeled, seeded and chopped and tossed into a pan with some olive oil and crispy pancetta chunks, garlic and shallots. The only sad part was that there was no fresh basil. I mixed in some pecorino Romano cheese and tossed the whole thing with some fresh tagliatelle for a faux mid-summer feast.

I was auditioning a new wine for the 'house white.' The 2006 Mas Des Bressades from the Costieres de Nimes is a blend of Viognier and Roussanne. Bright, fresh and fruity and affordable at $8 a bottle. It might be just a touch low on acid, but it's QPR (quality price ratio) is good enough to get it some strong consideration.

We are down to the last two bottles of the 'house red." There is no more 2005 Vina Alarba Old Vines Grenache in the marketplace. It was a great little Spanish red for $7 a bottle, but the search is now on for a replacement. It is getting harder and harder to find a good wine in the under $10 price range.

I had a nice conversation with my neighbor this morning. He is the one who puts out the cracked corn for the squirrels which have become Scott's and Ellie's current raison d'etre. He was puzzled as to why the tree rodents weren't eating as much corn as they used to and why they weren't around as much. I replied that "it's spring so it must be breeding season." He seemed to accept that excuse and we left it at that. It's nice to see some green in the ground instead of brown and white.

There's a new, roaming cat in the neighborhood that's been spotted a couple of times so if the squirrels have finally abandoned the area the dogs can start to work scaring away the new feline.