Weekend Update
Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 5:56PM A relaxed weekend for the most part.
The Lady & I attended a wine & cheese tasting class on Friday night, at the Artisinal Cheese center on 36th & 8th. 4 wines (2 white, 2 red), and 8 cheeses (at least half of which were European goat and sheep cheeses). The 4 glasses of wine combined were about 2/3rds of a bottle, and I will admit ... I had a bit more wine than was strictly necessary to the exercise (but just a bit more). The technique is apparently to:
- Taste the wine by itself ... which we duly did, taking notes about bouquets, essences, textures, and finishes (note to self: also try grandiose and meaningless descriptions such as "hint of toast")
- Taste the cheese by itself ... if required, hold nose while doing so ... I mean there were some pretty whiffy cheeses there. We're not talking your Krafts singles here.
- Combine wine & cheese ... and pay attention to texture, finish, the combined taste and so on.
We had to grade the combinations to figure out what worked best, and now that we've learnt these arcane & mysterious techniques, the Lady & I will do our best to broaden the horizons.
Speaking of broadening horizons, I picked up some interesting booze on the way over from London the last time. I forget their names, and they're over at the Lady's apartment in Boston (I'd flown back to Boston to attend a conference last week). One of them is a Brazilian white rum, made from molasses I believe ... its the smoothest rum I have ever had. The other, which I am dying to try when Dad gets here is Hendrick's gin which I believe should be taken with a slice of cucumber, rather than lemon.
Anyway, back to the weekend ...
Saturday turned out to be a record breaker hot one. The Lady & I walk in the park, along with what appeared to be half of New York City. We seem to mainly stick to the East side of the Park, as that's where we enter and leave ... one of these days, I must check out the West side. Anyway, the park was jumpin' & jivin', and we were lucky enough to find ourselves seated next to a band called Break of Reality, just as they were setting up. The group is 3 cellists (roughly broken out into "bass", "rhythm" and "lead" players) and a drummer (who played a bongo drum type of thing). The effect is not unlike Apocalyptica's music - slow, heavy ... almost ... well, almost METAL. Needless to say, I bought the CD they had on sale. Its good stuff! ... We also got to listening to a jazz quartet (I think ... might have been a trio), and I came to the realization that I enjoy listening to live jazz, but I just get bored listening it on a CD. There's something about seeing the virtuoso that allows me to enjoy what I would otherwise consider muzak. Weird ...
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