essex wine report

I recently heard on the news that Oscar Peterson passed away today. My condolences go to his family, as he was a great man and musician. A quintessential Canadian; who as the child of immigrants, rose to the highest heights of his profession. He was simply the best at his craft.

It was said that when OP walked into a club the pianist simply gave the instrument over as no one could outplay Oscar.

I am listening to a pressing of “The Trio Live from Chicago” …this is when he was at his zenith with Roy Brown and Ed Thigpen. This man was sooo good.

I, and all jazz fans will miss him. He was an ambassador for Canada and basically a good guy, but we must rejoice with the music he made, as it will be with us forever.

The band in heaven has just added one great player and that famous Massey Hall session can now take place again. Man, I bet St.  Peter will be sitting in the front row.

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bon noel

Next week is Christmas so I guess I will give you my advice for fixing the bird and choosing the wine.

For the bird I would suggest a free range fresh bird. These are just so much better than the commercial birds which we grew up on. I know that they are available from Wagner Estate and there you can get strudel and a lot of other goodies. Also keep in mind that organic meat is there too. Sanson has some too and real beef is just soooo nice. It just tastes better.

To me it doesn’t have to be organic it just has to be real. I am still in mourning over the closure of Vincent Poultry at the market. I was a 3^rd generation buyer of their chicken and am just damn mad they aren’t open anymore. But I have John and Linda from Calabria Pizza sourcing me some real chicken and they know where the real food is. Their restaurant is all local food and good so I hope that when I am not afraid to have some pizza and 2 beers (without getting arrested on the way home…don’t get me started on this bit of fascism….I have close friends who won’t venture out even though the wife doesn’t drink…. the fear is that is she has a glass of wine she could get arrested for .05 and still be legal but charged(sorry nor really charged for kinda d.u.i.  and her insurance company is told) I can get a new chicken connection. The reality is that good chicken has always ran around and to be raised in a cage is simply cruel….so is killing it but then hey I’m a carnivore. Running around builds muscle and taste. The meat won’t just shrink up and its just better.

The same with turkey, or beef, or buffalo. Why does duck taste so good, or boar. I hate pork but love boar…why??? It runs around and eats berries and not just corn. Corn softens meat but ruins it. It’s like we don’t have teeth. Get grass fed beef, age it and I bet it just is better. I loved the beef in England, which tends to be grass fed. It is just more real. Oh yes it isn’t as tender and hasn’t the marbling but as the cattle are not penned up in an environmental hellhole..a feed lot…they gotta be more healthy. I am told our livestock are not steroid and penicillin freaks but hey putting a billion cattle or hogs in close confinement cannot be good. The runoff is horrific and an environmental nightmare. We have just managed to get our human waste cleaned up and now we make cities of hogs to do the same type of pollution. It’s called BOD…bacterial oxygen demand and when waste hits the river the microbes grow and eat the waste…well they consume the oxygen and the river or lake dies. That is the fish and plants cannot live as they cannot breath. This doesn’t talk about the viral, bacterial or stray antibiotic issues either. Its better to get your meat from a small farm. I try and will try harder but its really tough to do.

This bird will need to be brined. This process involves immersion of the fowl (or pork piece) into a saline solution. As the body has saline in it, the cell walls (which are semipermeable membranes) allow the saline in to puff them up. This is good as this prevents the turkey jerky effect. Now one can use this saline to carry in flavour. I particularly like cinnamon and sugar and cloves and bay. Use sea salt or kosher to avoid iodine (yuckkie) and don’t make it too strong. Immerse the bird overnight et voila…c’est bon dindon. Then cook it low and slow…not at thermonuclear level and just let those protein strands unravel. This also prevents the jerky syndrome.

Sweet potatoes are wonderful. Please do not, I repeat do not, boil them. Steam them or roast them. Boiling them makes them moooshy and tasteless. My secret is to mash them with cultured butter (the good stuff and actually the real stuff…like our ancestors made…me mum used to tell me butter churning stories from her youth) and the pour in a liberal amount of Jack Daniels (Single Barrel is my choice or maybe Gentleman Jack…yummy or Maker’s Mark..so nice too) then smooth them out with heavy cream. Add salt and pepper and yum yum yum eat’em up!!!

For frozen corn I give no advice nor any microwaveable dreck, but I do just love Pillsbury Crescent Rolls from the tube….very odd I know but when they are on sale I’ll just eat a tube or two for dinner.

Now for wine. For turkey I will suggest either a light Pinot Noir (Sprucewood’s would be perfect) or a Gewurztraminer.

The Pinot is a wonderful choice and if you have a snobby Yellow Penguin drinker, it will really mess him/her up. A light red wine with subtle taste. Not syrup and sweet and ……….It would complement the bird nicely and besides it ‘s a Christmas colour.

Gewurztraminer has many advantages. If you can say it you look quite urbane. If you like some spice on your turkey it will stand up nice. I would avoid the full blown cajun/cayenne dry rubbed smoked or deep fried variety where only a good beer would suffice but any other would work. The local product is just so good that it’s a no brainer. May I suggest CREW, Mastronardi or Pelee Reserve as they are just that good. I think I will serve a Gewurztraminer. A Riesling would be nice too. I am so conflicted.

Now for dessert. Pie??…chocolatty stuff?? ….well go for Ice Wine. I just love the locals more than Niagara’s. They are lighter and seem to me have more wine taste. Last year I brought some of Muscedere’s and was a hero. Of special note is a second pressing wine. Erie Shore’s makes one that they call a winter harvest. Lighter, less sweet and still fine tasting. If the desert it more in the chocolate vein I suggest a Raspberry Ice Wine. The regulars ones are good too, but raspberries and chocolate are yummy yummy yummy

Now if you want to be different and bold, serve a sparkling one at dinner. If so there is only one choice for me and that is Mastronardi’s. It I amazing and would grace my table if I was going in that direction.

In your celebration please take a moment or two to think about our brave lads in Afghanistan who are without their families for the holidays. The positive Karma will be good for them and you too…

Well there is my advice and I hope you have a Great Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

You know that I have to do this but I have to. It’s an unwritten rule that every writer must do a Christmas gift list……

If you have drawn the name of a wine lover for Christmas, allow me to give you some ideas.

1) wine well this is a no brainer but fraught with danger. Give a white lover a red and you could be expelled from Christmas dinner. Give a big red lover a Grand Cru Alsatian and you will just get a puzzled look and a mumbled thanks. Try to not get too far from their comfort zone. I mean really close. If they like Yellow Tail….well get them a real wine. But you’re eukered as a real wine has taste so well …don’t bother.
  Try a better bottle of the type they like or something similar. Big Reds..well try a local Meritage or maybe Bird Dog from Sanson. Or maybe to give them a mind**** get them a bottle of D’Angelo Pinot Noir. That will mess them up as they will go “oh a Pinot..isn’t that nice (oi a foofoo wine)” then when they open that monster…hahaha!!!!! jokes on them. For white wine drinkers it is easier. There doesn’t seem the snobbery so I may suggest one of the local oaked Chardonnays.

  Actually a better choice would be bubbly and if you want to give a good one get some Mastronardi…its fabulous and it will surprise them and make you look like a connoisseur.

2) gadgets if you are buying for a guy go for a gadget. We just love em…

  corkscrews-  I may have too many, but there are some really cool ones. You can get antique reproductions that have all kinds of moving parts and brushes, brass ..nice..or that one that looks like a torture device

   bottle sealers-  you get a pump and some nifty caps with valves….multi parts valves pumps….what else do you need, I never seem to need to recork a bottle but someone may

  cooling sleeves- give the joy of advanced thermodynamics to you friends and allow them to keep their white wine cool. There are many styles and I find that yes they do work well. Not a great present but one that they will find useful

  thermometers- a wine bottle thermometer does nothing for me…don’t give it

  drip rings-  I was given one a while ago and soon lost it…I found it again and do find it useful….when I can find it.
3) books  here is a good idea. A nice wine book makes it look like you really care about your friend’s hobby or it can actually try to help your friend if they drink Yellow Penguin….think of it as a kind of intervention

4) glasses this one is another good one. Buy some expensive glasses and then every time you go to the home…..check the glasses to see if they are used or if one is broken. This will give you loads of guilt ammunition and if used properly can get you banned from both gift giving and the family…both good things to me.

Well there you go. I’ve given you my best advise. Have a Merry Christmas!!!!

It’s cold and yucky outside so I need some comfort food and since we got a great deal on some ground beef, spaghetti and meatballs it is. Well actually I made Mario Batali’s sauce and my own meatballs and put it on some Tagliatelli. So we needed some wine…well since Mastronardi is such a good Irish name, I felt that the wine should work.

The wine is the Cabernet Sauvignon and one I haven’t had before or at least in ages. Music well it was Sponge Bob but that was changed and music no exist in kitchen and we ate late, so it’s Anthony Bourdain’s travel show which is too cool to miss. He’s a bud of Mario so that makes him cooler. I always wondered who the smartass was - who was always on Malto Mario…well it was Anthony.

This wine is quite dark but not bloodlike. The aroma is very nice…mellow. I usually dislike Cabernets. But this one is quite nice…another preconception hits the deck…oh well. I don’t smell oak but I get the fruit…again I am not good with fruit as I never ate a lot….I grew up poor….naw, that’s not true…I was just starved….no, that’s not true either….it was just the finest of the Anglo/Celtic cuisine for me growing up…fruit..that was candied for fruitcake so I just don’t know my fruit. It smells wonderful though and not at all aggressive.

Taste wise; it is very nice and smooth. The tannins are not assaulting me like some of the Niagara’s I’ve had. Now I taste some oak and some nice fruity tastes. I know I keep going to black fruit but its nice dark fruit and some earthy tones. Use your flavour wheel and choose but this tastes good.

Like the Merlot I tried ages ago this wine has great mouth feel. It has the unxiousness that I don’t get everywhere. It’s like when you use good Parmesan and add it to pasta to get that creaminess…really nice and wonderful.

It held up very nicely to the pasta. Not overpowering but complementary. This is something I get from all their wines. They are nicely restrained and don’t grab you. To me, that’s what I want so this wine is definitely a keeper.

I guess I am a philistine. Yes I have been accused of it in the past and I am feeling like that again.

Its funny, I quite often get accused of things that don’t make sense, but the philistine one is an oldie but goodie. I firmly believe that one has to be accountable for one’s actions. There are no excuses if you rape and pillage. No, Johnny wasn’t hugged enough so he shot all his friends. Nope, he did it and he should pay.

Unfortunately that makes me wrong. I guess this country has gotten to a point where nobody is responsible for anything and the government is the nanny. My my how things have changed. My grandfather’s welcome to Edmonton was to be mugged and beaten to a pulp. When he got out of the hospital, his things were sold. He was homeless and alone. Did he cry, and get aid. Nope, he got a job on the railway and worked as a laborer. Not liking that he scraped up enough and opened a restaurant to feed his co-workers (mostly Chinese who we treated sooo well). Then he sold that and moved to Pouce Coupe and that was just the beginning. APP’s people had a similar story so I have no sympathy for those who say…oh my oh my the government owes me. And please don’t get me started on the Depression…..

So, I’m old school. I wish I would have been able to march with Dr King, been old enough to have supported Nelson Mandela but I was a kid (If I wasn’t so poor I would have wanted to go to Mississippi a few months ago,to march for those poor kids, but I was afraid to even mention it to Terry). Opps I guess a touch of social justice came out. Now I am not against helping…no no no. I’ve taught and trained awful employees and made them good (not good for me since they were dumped on me so I would fail) counseled one thru a very bad bit (he got his girlfriend pregnant and I counseled him to be a man about it) and housed friends who needed a place. So I ain’t all bad.

But lately things have gotten me down. Out illustrious provincial government has shown just how undemocratic and fascist they are. Now if one gets pulled over and blows below 0.08 (the legal limit by the way) one now gets his/her car impounded, license suspended and get this; the insurance company is informed. Now remember no law was broken. None. Guilt of a crime with no trial or assumption of innocence. By rights they have to prove I am guilty…ooops I would have to break a law to be guilty and or be presumed innocent until I am proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  This my friends is what we went to war for in 39. I cannot believe that we have accepted this complete disregard for our rights. I am not advocating drunk driving; as I feel its everyone’s duty to drink responsibly so to not endanger another innocent person. I am just very concerned about our civil rights.

But why attack law-abiding people when the government cannot get its act together( its obvious because we can pay the fine a lot easier than a dirtbag criminal). It took me seven months and about eight letters to get the crown to actually get a protection order sorted out. I actually was told that if I was worried, I should move. Not,” this person is on probation and we will do our best to enforce the protection order”. I guess they tried their best, but explaining to me that even though all the names and or addresses of the protected were wrong the “intent” was there (I am not a lawyer but work in a litigious industry so I really liked that one). Yup, we can’t do our job but we meant well. Gee I should use that one when I design a building that falls down or when I kill a few workers through negligence.

Dalton is still blathering about “banning handguns” but Dalton, they are illegal and I bet that the guy who shot up Ferrari’s pizzeria a couple of years ago, just left his gun license at home. He only shot at cops and border guards and got what 3 months (he was on probation for a crack charge…hey but what’s that). Yeah let him sing kumbaya for a couple of days and that will fix everything. Why not put felons in jail? I’m sorry that I believe that the young offenders act is stupid and allowing youth to rape and pillage does them and me no good. Allowing them to become an apprentice career criminal with no punishment will not help when they become adults. Just look at the recent shootings in Toronto. These are kids killing kids… It’s just wrong and maybe, just maybe if we put a few away as adults we may just get the message across. It just seems that the do-gooders have taken over…unfortunately the criminal types really take advantage of this….I point to the famous Neville Chamberlain moment…yeah he sure had peace in his hand. Hitler played him like a violin. Churchill was oh so right.

Sorry for the rant but I am getting fed up with living in the people’s republic of Ontario.