barking dog

This is a picture of the crab cakes we made on the grill last night. They're topped with mango salsa and served on my new dragon fly appetizer plates. And that's the tiny fork next to it. The crab cakes were delicious.

Maybe you know Billy Collins' poem Another Reason Why I Don't Keep a Gun in the House. It's worth a look if you live next door to a small constantly barking dog. Too bad the snakes didn't get him.

I met some friends for lunch at Olives in Mankato. Karen is moving to Bangladesh to teach at an IB school. IB always makes me think of irritable bowel syndrome but I think that has an extra letter. The food was wonderful. I had the schwarma chicken salad and a glass of the best pinot noir. I'm afraid to look it up...it has to be expensive. Well, here it is and twenty bucks a bottle isn't too bad. Not your every day kind of wine but something for a special occasion.

Here's what the website says: Seductive sun-warmed rose and forest loam nuances mingle with the red fruits, along with roasted coffee bean and vanilla notes from barrel aging. There's a hint of tangerine zest on the long, fruit-imbued finish. This wine's silky flavors, bright acidity and fine tannins make an elegant pairing with grilled salmon, wild mushroom risotto or roasted turkey and lamb. The myriad of dark fruit and floral notes in this Pinot Noir come from the cool, windy Los Carneros American Viticultural Area (AVA) in the southern reaches of Napa Valley. Satsuma plum, blackberry, red rose and violet notes weave through the enticing aromas. Silky, elegant flavors echo the aromas, adding blueberry and plum to the rich fruit complexity.

Oh, man. 

There was a man at the next table absolutely expounding about nearly everything. One thing he said that made me draw my notebook out of my purse and start taking notes on his rants: If food is unarmed, I eat it. He got a little quieter after that so I only got snippets but he went on and on about astrology and astronomy and ecology. I bet it was a tiresome lunch for his pal. Uff da.

Regis and I made a trip to the liquor store late this afternoon to find a few red wines to try. Regis has always been a beer drinker but decided to try wine. I loved the Acacia wine I had today so we asked about that one. The young woman helping us found the wine buyer who called her supplier. Holy crap. We buy wine that costs less than ten dollars a bottle so this was pressure. She was very kind and offered to order up some of the Acacia by next week. We came home with a couple of other cheap bottles to sample. She showed us a bottle of 75 dollar pinot noir but that's a little rich for our taste.

We're sitting here with a bottle of very cheap Lindemann's wine and trying to make notes like we're wine connoisseurs. Damn blogspot. Keeps putting italics where I don't want them. It's my fault. I couldn't spell connoisseurs and had to google it and paste it in to my post. Hell.
So now we have a document with our wine reviews. I'm sure, since we are captivated by our imperfect lives, it will become part of the blog at some point.