2nd Annual Blessing of the Vines

We had the second annual Blessing of the Vines with the Janks and Kruis families.  Matt roasted a 5 pound beef tenderloin to perfection in Sharptooth's Inferno along with some baked potatoes and corn on the cob.  I baked some superb pain au levain and we had 2 fantastic bottles of wine, the Fugitive, a petite sirah blend from Dry Creek, and J2:10, a cabernet & nebbiolo blend from Mexico.  Ryan brought the J2:10 and made us figure out the signigficance of the name.  A fantastic wine and brilliant name!

We lost 3 vines over the winter and so asked the Very Reverend Phil to bless all the vines this year! ;)

Wine and Werewolves

Wine and Werewoves was an EPIC NIGHT with Tyler Lyle who we hired to come play a house gig in our backyard.  We had been preparing for weeks.  The morning of the gig Matt awoke early to fire up Sharptooth's Inferno.  We baked about a dozen loaves for the gig.  Set up followed throughout the day and we were so happy the Janks were here to help us.  The guys picked Tyler up from the airport around 2 and took him back to our house where we promptly filled him full of our most authentic and delicious Tucson food- Guerro Canel carne asada tacos.  I served Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne and Monte Xanic Calixa red wine (cab/syrah blend) which is one of Mexico's finest.  After a leisurely lunch of getting to know Tyler we gave him some time to chill and get acquainted with Luke's guitar.  Jeff arrived late afternoon and helped us all with last minutes stuff around the yard and thankfully he also took photos throughout the night for us with his sweet camera.  See his awesome photos here.

Gates opened at 7:30 and Tyler was playing by about quarter after eight.  We had 40 people all together.  Tyler took a break a few songs in so people could get more wine and snacks.  We had a plethora of wine (Champbrule, Luc Pirlet Chardonnay, Summit Estates Riesling, Vasco Sassetti Sangiovese, Montecillo Rioja,  L.A. Cetto Cabernet Sauvignon, & Line Shack Cabernet Sauvingon).  Plus we had fresh baked bread from the brick oven, cheeses, a tray of dessert bars by Betsy and a big platter of strawberries from our neighbors.  Tyler played many more songs, including my favorite of his, By My Name, which he had to relearn for me as its one of his oldest songs, and Matt's favorite, A Journey of Infinite Recognition, another oldie.  Tyler ended and we demanded an encore so he took a bit of a break and then ended the show with One Legged Woman.  The concert was awesome!  We tried to record the audio and video but unfortunately it didn't work (Jeff recorded a few songs which you can watch on his photo page linked above). Tyler brought a bunch of copies of his new album to sell and even though no one who came to the gig had ever heard of him they loved him and he sold a slew of his CDs. For those who bought CDs they got entered into a raffle in which we raffled off an autographed bottle of one of Tyler's favorite bottles of Bourbon.  When the music was over we kicked people out within about a half an hour or so.  This was for two reason, number one we needed to quiet it down and get all the cars off the street before we got complaints from our home owners association and because there was an after hours high end whiskey tasting for just a few guys and Tyler.  All in all the night was AWESOME except that I got sick that night and had to go to bed soon after the show.  The next morning we filled Tyler full of coffee and Los Betos breakfast burritos before we hauled him back to the airport.  

I will never forget how I was walking around the corner into my backyard the afternoon of the gig when I heard a very familiar voice singing, live.  A voice I listen to almost everyday and here it was live in my own backyard.  Awesome.

Blessing of the Vines

Our very good friend Phil happens to be the pastor of our church so we asked him if he and his family would come to dinner this week in the vineyard and do the blessing of the vines for us. Now we are not Roman Catholic or superstitious or even real wine growers for that matter so this may sound kind of hokey and you're probably wondering what is this all about.  Well, we have designed our backyard to be a beautiful and inviting place for fellowship and ministry.  This is the area we use for gathering over food, books, wine, cigars, discussion and whatever else God may give us to gather over in the future.  So Phil did pray a blessing on the vineyard but mostly for the fruit of all that goes on in this special place. It was actually one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard Phil pray and it filled my heart with great joy.   And then we had a very nice meal together of garlic flat bread, prime rib, baked potatoes and asparagus, all made in the brick oven. We also shared our very favorite wine (Souverain Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon 2007) with the Kruis family since it was such a special occasion with special friends.  May God continue to bless the vineyard and our lives!

Visiting Janks and Kino Bay

At the end of February we headed down to Mexico again to see the Janks.  Of course we had our normal tradtions of eating tacos, having our steak dinner, wine shopping and playing spades and we also  went to the beach for the afternoon.  The four of us plus their 2 dogs crammed into Ryan's Jeep Wrangler and drove about an hour or so west to Kino Bay where we laid on the beach, played in the waves, and had a friendly tournament of bocce ball.   It was really windy that day but still lovely to be at the sea.  Kino Bay is not really for tourists so we shared the beach with a only a few locals.   Here are some pics...

Whiskey Tasting with Benjamin

 Mid summer Matt hosted a whiskey tasting at our house.  Sixteen men attended and we made 18 pizzas from the wood fired oven.  It was a lot of work and we were grateful to have Sandi's help for the evening.

The tasting was led by a friend of ours, Benjamin, who is whiskey expert and a very interesting character indeed.  The guys tasted through 8 different whiskies and at the end everyone got to have a real pour of a whiskey of their choice before the bottles were raffled off to the attendees. A very fun and informative night.  Thanks Benjamin!

Tamal Party causes Earthquake!

Ok, so its been a good 6 months since I've posted. But I've had good reason.  I swore off all extracurricular activity so I could focus on studying for my level 2 sommelier test which I finally took last month.  Now that the exam is over it's time for me to play catch up!

At the end of June some of the men folk got together for a weekend of fun in Albuquerque while some of the ladies stayed behind in Tucson.  Yunuen, Betsy and I spent a fun evening together making corn tamales, which turned out fantastic!  We used Marcela Valladolid's recipe

Later that night as Yunuen and I were sitting on the couch watching some Friends we felt a flutter go through the house.  Yunuen asked me if I felt anything and I said it felt like a heavy truck had gone by and rattled the house.  About a half an hour later Ryan text Yunuen to see if we had felt the earthquake.  We looked it up on the news and sure enough Tucson had experienced a little earthquake at about 10 PM. Thankfully this is an extremely rare occurrence in Arizona and we can laugh about it with pictures like this:

Bread Baking Brings Friends Together

Last month I taught a bread baking class in my home to some ladies from my church.  We baked 3 loaves together; a white sandwich loaf, a loaf swirled with pesto and roasted red peppers and a crusty artisan loaf.  Here are a few pics of us at the end of the night hanging out while the bread bakes and then eating it fresh from the oven.  Great fun!

The Rottmans used the bread class as an excuse to come down from Phoenix and stay with us for the weekend. We were able to have an early dinner with the Rotts and Janks before the Janks had to head back down to Mexico.

First Official Pizza Dinner

Last month we had our first official pizza dinner at the oven.  We invited our good friends the Kruis family and the Dunlap family.  We baked 6 pizzas and after dinner baked a batch of bread as well.  Here are some pics from this historic wood fired oven event.

Dana building pizza

Matt loading pizza

Fig & Gorgonzola pizza

Betsy and Shelly

Nick, Silas, Caleb & Phil

Matt removing the coals for bread baking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

breads baking

finished breads