Earth,Wind & Food- an ode to Spring 2009

We're off to a beautiful start to our summer. It follows what was for me, a spring to savor as well.

Of course, the weather was crap -wet, rainy and cold. But I put on my most durable SAD shield and headed out the door in early March to build a couple of raised beds. With help from my friend Jen we finished three new beds in a day. Man, it felt so good and satisfying to build something again. And they were level!

When I was a kid I spent countless hours hanging out with my dad in his workshop watching him, helping him, just being with him. Before I was born he built our house, added on to it when Twin and I were born (kids five and six), surrounded it with a beautiful deck and outdoor patio as well as a pool (where I got a lot of exercise, running from Twin chasing me around in it), and a huge garden on our half-acre. I still cherish those days as well.

After building the beds, I consulted my Moon Sign Book and started my indoor seed planting. Nothing fancy, just dirt, seeds and water. Stuff was sprouting in six days. Awesome.

So Spring is going along nicely until one Saturday in early May when one minute we're lazily choosing a movie to see that night and the next we're flying around the house slamming windows shut from the 70-mile-an-hour sideways wind and rain. And then, the 50-foot pine tree between our house and the neighbor's unleashes itself from the earth, falling against the neighbor's house, shredding their new roof and gutters as it slides down, where it finally crashes to the ground impaling its limbs 5-6 feet deep into the earth. Silence.
Eventually, as the shock wore off, we called our neighbor at work and left a short message to prepare her. She's a trooper. Later we Skyped her husband, who was in Georgia, with the news and views.

Of course, we scrapped the movie and and consoled ourselves with the most delicious cuvee of Deutz NV Champagne. These guys have never made a better tasting NV than in the last few years. Lots of good things going on at Deutz these days.

We continued to nourish ourselves with fresh morels in creamy pasta with the most tender pieces of chicken, and washed it all down with one of my favorite white burgundies for drinking right now- 2006 JM Boillot Montagny 1er Cru-deliciously delivering all the wonderful attributes of the vintage with its nice minerality, acidity and fruit.

By the end of May things had chilled, but thankfully not the weather. We had a beautiful three-day Memorial weekend. Lots of fresh homemade Ricotta, spring antipasti with fresh vegetables from the garden, great company and fantastic wines every day- 1998 Aubry de Humbert(maturing beautifully-delicious), 2007 Schloss Gobelsburg Gruner Renner (a new revelation), 1995 Altesino Riserva ( gorgeous; Brunello magic, ) and a delightful rose' from the Basque DO Getariako Txakolina (one of the tastiest of the season)- to reminisce.

These wines and the company they keep are the very heart and soul of why I do what I do each and every day. Life itself.
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