Category: Me and Mine

Cabernet Sauvignon 2010, Devil’s Wishbone, PEC

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Picked this up at the winery a few weeks before Christmas on a cloudy Monday off work. The Riesling and Cab Franc I bought the same day are gone already. The Devil’s Wishbone winery is a thirty minute drive west followed by a wait for the ferry followed by a five minute ferry and another five minute drive up the hill and back to the east at Lake on the Mountain just past the park next door in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

devw3As I mentioned recently, I have started a category for Prince Edward County wine because, well, it is tasty and nearby. While we have three actual production breweries, excepting Ottawa, in eastern Ontario there are over thirty wineries in PEC just over that wee ferry. Once I was up the hill and past the park, the sign for the winery soon came into view. Up a lane and past house, there was a parking lot by the barn with rows of grapes stretching out to the south.

Inside the barn, there’s a retail stop you duck under a beam to enter and a very helpful staff person. I picked this wine out for maybe 24 or 26 bucks. I picked this one just out of the sheer curiosity of finding the grape growing so close to my house. I was smart to do so even if opening it now is likely infanticide. After writing about beer so long what do I say? That it suffers from incredibly low levels of carbonation or that it’s the colour of kriek? It’s actually light for what I am used to in a Cab Sauv, not like the deep purple reds of a mass Aussie or Chilean plonk made with the grape after beaten down in the heat of the sun down under. I am going to say cherry juice red. Scent? Maybe cherry, raspberry and a little cigar or rather a bit of raspberry jam spread on on leather baseball gloves. More of the same in my mouth with maybe rosemary, tangerine and cedar… which may be expected given the local forest growth with bracing tannic. Tart berry woodsy finish.

Both Hugh Johnson and Oz Clarke mention PEC in their 2013 guides as a newer upcoming wine zone. But not the Cabernet Sauvignon. And Devil’s Wishbone is too new for the latest edition of Crush on Niagara, the surely needing renaming guide to Ontario wines by Andrew Brooks from 2009. But it’s handy to my place and on the way.

Having A Go At Beery Long Writing With Max

I have a few things burbling away. First in line, as you know, Albany ale needs to be properly addressed – especially given Craig’s more detailed research and clearer organization of the topic. Having stumbled upon the forgotten center of brewing of America before the lager invasion, it’s worthy of a proper job. But I had a rotten 2012. Things got in the way of good intentions and an even better topic. Time passed. Colds and flues came in and out of the house. The cat died. And I watched as Boak and Bailey gave hints that they were doing some long writing about beer in post-WWII Britain. Funk deepened. Not that I have lusted for authorship but there are bigger ideas than a blog can capture.

And, there is the opportunity to write in a format that is not only longer but… weirder. I was thinking of something mixing both Lawrence Stern’s Tristram Shandy of the 1760’s with The Compleat Angler of 1653 with Dada and Duchamp added for good measure. Which naturally made me think of the man with the biggest drinking vessel I have ever seen. Surrealistically large. Max, the Pivni Filosof takes up the story:

I must say we are both very excited with this. We’ve been exchanging e-mails like two long distance lovers (minus the raunchy pics, fortunately) in order to give a shape to this project. It’s still too soon to say how long it’ll be or when it’ll be ready. What we are sure of, though, is that it will be something completely different to anything that’s so far been written about beer. The topics we are going to deal with, well, I guess those that follow our blogs can pretty much figure them out, and they will all be wrapped in a fun and perhaps rather surrealist narrative. The first words have already been smithed, the journey has just begun. We’ll see where it takes us. Be ready.

Not sure I am ready. But I do look forward to discovering how not ready I am. Especially the footnoting. I am hoping one will be scratch and sniff. A Kindle can do that now, right?

Thinking Back To Blogging When We Was Young

I heard the news about Aaron Swartz like everyone else. And then I heard another way as way back when I started blogging I belonged to the Berkman Thursday discussion group through the Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. I still get the digests via email when something is posted coming up on a decade after it was busy. This week I received this:

It is with great sadness that I share with you the news that one of tech’s bright minds and a blog group participant, Aaron Swartz, has left us. Many people are sharing thoughts about this amazing fellow. I’ll share a few links below. Some local memorials have already happened and more are yet to come. Since Aaron was on the MIT Mystery Hunt team sj and I and several other blog group folks are on, we are tentatively planning a gathering during the Hunt. If you’re participating in the Hunt, keep an ear out for more info.

It was sad news. I knew the guy was young but when I look back I really had no idea that in my late 30s I was in a chat with folk then only a little more than a third of my age. It was interesting stuff and the discussion was hopeful. There was lots to dream about. I saved stories to my blog like this one from 2004 about how blogs might make money one day. I wrote hopeful things this even though for the life of me I have no idea now what I meant to be saying. I argued. And on Thursday evenings for a while I would fire up the computer, turn on the speakers and listen as the Berkman bloggers’ group talked. There was a chat function – was it on IRC? – that allowed anyone to participate. So I have this dim recollection of chatting about blogging with a lot of people including Aaron. Maybe I just listened or watched his words pass on the screen.

At some point I got less interested in the theory. An argument point developed that somehow folk were able to appropriate the works of others. I didn’t disagree with the point as I had no clue what the heck was meant. The idea generally faded but it took a number of years for the fine points to come to the surface. No one speaks of a “mash up” world any more like in 2004. But Aaron did, I think.

I won’t connect dots and I don’t expect you would either. As was pointed out, there was depression involved. At least one pal of mine died at his own hands due to depression. It’s sad. Does not take a grand design or conspiracy or even anything that makes very much sense. But when I think of the keen interest I had a decade ago and the voices that I listened to in pursuit of that interest, his was in the forefront. And he was so young. As young as my kids now. Sad news.

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The Greatest Cease And Desist Letter Ever!!!

And just in time for Christmas…

Normally, one would not like a cease and desist letter claiming that one had breached someones intellectual property rights. I mean we as bloggers are supposed to get all hot and bothered about these things, right? We’re living in the post-legal mash up paradise promised by the Boingsters back when blogs were new, right?? Well, that all came crumbling down yesterday when the following love letter popped into my inbox:

The undersigned declares under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to act on behalf of the above referenced author, the owner of copyright in the Intellectual Property, and Hachette Book Group, Inc., the exclusive US publisher of the Intellectual Property, including without limitation, the cover and other art incorporated therein (collectively, the “IP Owner”). I have a good faith belief that the materials identified below are not authorized by the IP Owner, her agent, or the law and therefore infringe the IP Owner’s rights according to federal and state law. Accordingly, we hereby demand that you immediately remove and/or disable access of the infringing material identified below.

Frig, said I. I am a lawyer. I know when the jig is up. For a second, it was like the ending of “The Public Enemy” and I was Jimmy Cagney. But when I looked at the link I knew what was going on. See, six years ago, I posted about how great it was that I had found the text to a 1987 article in The Atlantic magazine called “A Glass of Handmade” by William Least Heat Moon, a bit of writing that was my introduction to thinking about good beer. And I tucked away a copy of the text in the articles section of this blog because I was sure it was fluke that I had found it and that I would never find it again, assuming all copies of that issue had long been sent to the dump or lodged in the back of a barbershop I would never visit. Flash forward six years and, once I realized what was going on, I removed the article from public view and, just like that, me and the lawyers at Hachette Book Group were at peace. In fact, they were quite nice about it and let me know what is going on and it is good news:

Thanks for removing the essay from your site. We appreciate it! And, yes, it is included in Here, There, Elsewhere which comes out on January 8th.

So, now no need to have the article squirreled away from fear it would disappear from knowledge. You can get your own copy of Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road by William Least Heat-Moon on discounted pre-order from Amazon right now. A little late for Christmas but as important an essay on early US craft beer as there is. I can’t encourage you to get your own copy enough.

And I can confirm that this endorsement is not part of any legal settlement!

Election 2012: While I Still Have The Power To Blog….

I better make some comment on this election, make some statement given the history around here even if the digital world has deemed blogs to commentary what 8-tracks are to fine audio media.

I was over in the states yesterday and found an active economy. My favorite lunch spot, the Fairgrounds Inn where I have been going for at least six years now was hopping on a Friday lunch. I had the Italian Combo, thanks for asking. And I got my hair cut. The guy getting sheered next to me went on about the Biden debate. Unhappy but a bit shallow. Was there really cause to gripe? Businesses were expanding. On the way out of town, my rear passenger side wheel just about seized and we were lucky to come over the hill on #37 and see Frenchy’s Auto Repair right there. An hour was all it took to get a part delivered and see us back heading to the border. We lapped up the warm late late summer air on a gorgeous rural vista out back of the repair ship. Everyone in the place was happy and busy and working. Some were having a beer. One of my favorite things about the slice of the USA I get to see is how it is both so similar to the Maritimes as a bit of a hard luck corner of the nation but also how frankly cheerful and confident folk are. The restaurant was at a dull roar of conversation the whole time we were there. It was hard to tell if the auto repair was a place of work or a fairly hearty social club given all the people coming and going while we were there.

What will America do on 6 November? My take is that Obama has not been passed, the Federal Senate will not budge and a number of member of the House will move to the left, not the right. There will not be a throw the bums out movement. I don’t think Mitt Romney would be a catastrophe any more than four more years would. No wave of nuttin’. But the next four years one way or another will be about managing recovery. Whammo. Not sure the will be a WHAMMO!!! but there will be a Whammo.

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Garden 2012: Making Meals From The Harvest

Yellow carrots. Small onions. Mine. Bought the seeds for the carrots in early March from Stokes. The variety is Yellowbunch and the seeds cost $2.25 a packet. Been eating them for likely 2 months now. Next year I am buying ten times as much. I believe I planted the carrots from May 5 until mid-July. Some are over a foot long now. Others are tiny like those above. The green bits taste like parsley when lightly roasted. Next year the spuds will be mine as well. I am building a tower, a crib, a box. Fill with soil. Ram spuds in through the sides. Potato high rise. A spuddy ziggurat.

Great Grannie’s Favorite Pub Was A Boat

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Great-grannie passed away in 1946. Tales have been told about her ways. If you click on the thumbnail you will see the house above the car where she lived on the second floor, stepping out on the second floor ledge to wash the windows in her 80s without tying on. Sending her grandson down to the pub for a half-pint of whisky after being barred – again – for life. Plenty of slack is given, however, seeing as she lived across the road from the shipyard before, during and after the blitzing.

2mack12She had issues, sure, but she also had a certain sense of style. Her favorite pub “The Suez Canal” was actually in a village down the Clyde. I had always been told she loved the portholes for windows. Classy. I recall seeing a few portholes still still up a back alley when lost while wandering around town in the 80s looking for cousins with beer. Found one at “The George” who called out “Ets ma cuzn frae Ganeeder!” Twelve hours later…

The picture above was posted today by the local newspaper on Facebook. The smiling barman in the picture in the wee boat is local lad and former world flyweignt boxing champ, Jackie Paterson. Worth the bus trip apparently.

My Place Of Work About 160 Years Ago

My place of work in the 1850s when the waters lapped up to the stone wall of the market battery. As in a battery of cannon that protected the market. Because City Hall was built in the 1840s on part of the market square that he been there for decades before that. If you click on the picture you will see more detail. Like these bits:

 

 

 

 

To the left, you see the sign for “A & D Shaw” but I am not sure why there was a sign like that on the front of a government building. Were there businesses in the building, too? In the middle there is the detail to the left, a week glimpse up Market Street. To the right there is the same thing up Brock. The Market Street buildings are still there but there is no awning or porch on the south side as there was back then. An one of the buildings on Brock could be Sipps or Casa Domenico.

Garden 2012: Onion Harvest Day Is Now… As In Now!

onions2012Onions are no so much a vegetable as a necessity. At the old farmstead, I planted 2000 onion sets a year. This year, a quarter of that on about ten square feet of where the front lawn was removed last Easter.

They may last until Christmas. Unless I make a whopping pile of onion jam or something nutty like that. The smell of harvesting them with your bare hands is exotic. If onions, something we ate 1,000 years ago, were not common they would be a spice. Next year, more.