Day 36: Sunday Rituals, Fashionistas & the Season for Shared Illness

Sunday, October 21
10:17 p.m.

This week’s 11:00 a.m. Mass was presided by the Bishop of Oregon.  I was late because most of the regular street parking was closed off.  It was a good service and I flipped through the weekly bulletin to review the upcoming opportunities for service, a theme that’s been preached in the recent sermons. 

I met Susan and her mom for weekly after-church brunch at Blue Hour.  We were astonished at how crowded it was, and at how many fashionable people were there.  The table next to us was speaking in Italian.  Turns out it is Portland’s fashion week, which is a little funny to us.  I wouldn’t go and describe Portland as fashionable, not like a New York City, Paris or Milan.  Portland is uniquely stylish.  But fashionable, not so much.

After brunch, I got home and finished cleaning.  I vacuumed and cleaned the bathrooms.  I didn’t feel like making dinner, but went to Safeway for groceries for the week and Pacific Breeze for some pho soup.  I was feeling like I was catching a cold.  The harvest staff has been passing around this weird cold with a dry, unproductive cough.  I was feeling the same symptoms.  My nose was suddenly non-stop runny and I was feeling achey.

I went to bed early in hopes to nip it in the bud.

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Day 35: Gourmet Green Chili & Russian Dolls

Saturday, October 20
11:50 p.m.

Today I worked in the tasting room to get to know the wines better.  I ended up in meetings with co-workers for the first half of the day.  I spent about two hours helping out in the tasting room.  We were very busy, which was nice for this time of year.  The rains cleared in the afternoon and we were bestowed with two beautiful rainbows.  We could see the end of each side.  It was a remarkable view of the yellowing vineyard slopes.  The sky was an interesting, smoky gray with dappled light and swirls of blues.

After work I did a load of laundry, changed my sheets and ran the dishwasher.  Kerry called and told me we were going over to our friend Brenda’s house for dinner.  On my way to Portland to meet them, I went to Whole Foods and picked up fresh, organic red-leafed lettuce, organic French radishes and heirloom tomatoes for a salad, as well as those yummy Capricornio almond cookies I brought to the harvest crew on Wednesday, candied walnuts and a wedge of Piave cheese from Italy known for its hazelnutty flavors.

Brenda made a lovely pot of green chili with special beans and she topped it with a corn tostada.  Sides included baked autumn squash and the red leaf lettuce salad with French radishes and heirloom tomatoes, dressed with a blue cheese vinaigrette.  We sipped on an un-oaked Chardonnay and an Oregon Auxerois, a varietal related to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  For dessert, we enjoyed the almond cookies, cheese and candied walnuts while we watched a French film called Russian Dolls, a sequel to one of my favorite French films, L’auberge Spagnole, the “Spanish Apartment”, an artistic, engaging romantic comedy.

It was a nice, relaxed evening with friends on a cold, rainy night.  The weeks of gray and rain have already begun to take its toll on the mood factor.  This seemed like the perfect way to spend a Saturday night.

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Day 34: Car Tows, a Side Trip to Carlton & Finishing off with a Tirage

Friday, October 19
11:49 p.m.

When I left for work this morning, my car wasn’t where I left it.  I only panicked for a second, realizing my car had been towed.  Annoyed, I walked over to the rental office to find out where my car was.  I had left my car alongside a curb that was partially painted yellow because there were no spots available at 9:00 p.m., when I had returned from the vineyard crew dinner.  All of this made me decide to purchase a covered parking spot to avoid a parking shut out.

I had to get picked up by a taxi and brought out to the tow yard.  That cost me $40 with tip.  Then, I had to pay $165 for the tow.  I tried to breathe and manage the stress of this unnecessary expenditure.  It would have been easy to be angry and upset all day.  I had a good cry at the rental office and quickly got over it.  What’s done was done.

I met with two of my co-workers at the house of our director of consumer sales.  We worked through our 2008 event schedule and discussed aspects of our wine club.  We took a break around 2:00 and went for a late lunch at a new spot in the small wine country town of Carlton called Cielo Blu.  It was kind of disappointing.  Perhaps this was because of our late arrival.  But the floors were dirty with pieces of garlic and other food spillage.  My salad was very average.  The service was slow and not very helpful.  The young woman’s exposed belly was very distracting.  And the severe classical music was strangely off with the theme and mood of the open pizza place.  This place could benefit from some upgrades and improvements.

After lunch, we went back to finish up our meeting.  About an hour later some of the tasting room staff came over and we drank a bottle of Argyle bubbly before we all headed out to an industry colleague’s home in Newberg for a winery neighbors’ party.  It was a fun evening of networking and enjoying good wine.  A couple of highlights included a rich Lirac from the Rhône Valley and a decade old triage bubbly from Oregon.

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Day 33: Una Cena por Las Familias del Viñero

Thursday, October 18
9:50 p.m.

I was invited to go to a vineyard crew end of harvest dinner at Mazatlan restaurant in McMinnville.  This was a special, unique occasion to meet the vineyard crew, our seasonal workers.  I sat at a table with a couple of cellar crew who came out to say thank you to the vineyard team, along with a couple of guys who are part of our regular vineyard staff.  We talked about food, mostly.  I got a lesson on authentic Mexican cuisine, versus the Americanized~Mexican fare found in most Mexican restaurants.  This is most obviously seen in enchiladas, I’m told.

Two of the crew finished their dinners, except for the jalapeño pepper.  I asked if they were going to eat the peppers.  They looked at me as if I were crazy.  I love hot, spicy food.  I told them I’d eat one of the jalapeño peppers.  Again, they looked at me as if I were crazy.  It’s funny how some peppers have zero heat, and then the same type elsewhere can be muy calore!  It all depends on the seeds, and where the peppers are grown – I’ve heard the hotter and more arid the region, the hotter and spicier the seeds, which supplies all of the heat for the peppers.  Well, this particular jalapeño was definitely grown in Hades.  My face turned tomato red, my eyes watered, my forehead even produced a couple of beads of sweat.  The guys at my table all laughed out.  It was pretty funny, even if it was at my own bravado-bearing expense!

The best part was after we ate, our vineyard manager handed thank you gifts to each crew member, to include a cool, black ball cap and a really nice, blue jacket, both with embroidery of our logo.  Many of the workers sons wanted to wear the caps, so I went around taking pictures of fathers and sons in the logo gear.  They were all so proud.

I was really happy that I got to be a part of this evening, getting to meet and thank our vineyard crew for their dedicated work this harvest.  These aren’t simple people who just pick fruit.  They are very skilled labor, trained in the delicate work of cutting and removing fruit quickly and efficiently.  Our vineyards and wineries couldn’t exist without them.

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Day 32: Cucina Italiana at the Vineyard

Wednesday, October 17
11:15 p.m.

It was a Cucina Italiana today at work.  Or, as my co-worker, Jen, an east coast Italian, and I called it, Eye-talian Night.  We prepared lasagna and sausage and peppers for dinner.  I ran over to Bridgeport Village in the morning to pick up hazelnut and pistachio gelato from Tutto Bene.  I had picked up Italian cookies, as well, including a fantastic Capricornio cookie shaped in a horn and made with almond paste, egg whites, sugar and topped with almond slices and a fine dusting of powdered sugar. 

We got to work as soon as Jen made it back from the grocery store, picking up all of the ingredients.  I put on my apron and she donned a chef’s shirt with this funny name tag she found on a rental table cloth that read:  Sheila Solomon, Mother of the Groom.  All day she was Sheila.  I was Giada, as in the Food Network Italian-American maven.

As the harvest staff came in and out of the kitchen all day, we gave them New York Italian attitude, frequently yelling out, “Aaayyyy, paesan!” and “badda bing, badda bang!” We created an event.  And it was a blast.  We set the table in the cellar and lined up bottles of Chianti in the sign of a cross and lit candles.  It was pretty funny, in the cellar setting it looked rather gothic, as if we were going to make a sacrifice.

I made a bowl of baked gluten-free ziti and we all dined together.  The lasagna didn’t hold its squares, mostly because we used no-cook lasagna pasta that didn’t hold so well.  It would have done better if we didn’t slice into it right after pulling it from the over.  Either way, we were told it tasted awesome.  The harvest crew seemed to love the dinner.  And they were super excited by the gelato and cookies.

After, a few of the crew members came up and helped us clean up in the kitchen.  It was a fun day of preparation and hard work, but well worth it!

 

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