Christmas

oh! in the spirit of tying up loose ends, heres a post i havent published.

**

Jon and I had a lovely time in Wisconsin this year. We arrived to the comforts of a rainy Christmas, which eventually turned into more wisconsiny blizzard-like conditions. boy, have o forgotten how to dress for and behave in the snow!

Ashley’s learning how to drive this year, so it was kind of neat talking to her about how snowbanks are more similar to car-wrecking-mounds-of-terror than fluffy-pillows-of-happiness that your car will just bounce off of.

After an afternoon flight, Christmas eve was spent at the Eggers house, and then the grimord-side went out for sushi on Christmas day. While different, both events were really nice. After sushi, my mom/sister came over to the Eggers for some co-family games. I think the co-family time was my favourite part of the weekend.

One of the most challenging parts of a new marriage is working on finding new traditions that work for everyone. Holidays seem to be the most difficult because there’s just such a limited time to work with. I was talking to a coworker (who’s family also lives in the same ‘hood as his inlaws) about that recently, and he said it took them about ten years before no ones feathers were ruffled over timeshare. there’s just not enough time in a weekend and not enough vacation days in a year.

I just realized that I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I thought I did. I’m so much more comfortable taking pictures of THINGS rather than people.

all in all, we ate a lot of tasty food and were able to visit with more people than I thought would be possible.

more later!

Wine Dinner Weekend, Part 1

I thought I should clean up some stuff that I meant to post this fall, before we get into all the christmas-and-oh-yeah-im-moving-to-japan stuff…

Despite a wicked headache that lasted nearly nine hours on Sunday, we had an *awesome* weekend of awesomeness. What’s that you say? You want to hear more?

Saturday morning we jumped in the car and headed down to Portland. Taking a recommendation from Ross (who i met in japan), we had lunch at a really interesting middle eastern restaurant. For some reason, I don’t have any pictures. I can’t remember what it was called or what country it was from.

We’ve talked about this before. I have the memory of a goldfish. It’s why i take 9000 pictures. When i dont, this is what happens!

After lunch, jon and I went over to Jaciva to get a anniversary cake. Jon’s so awesome and incredible. He ordered a mini-version of our pink champagne wedding cake for us to much on in the hotel room that night. Happy late anniversary to us! Because we were headed off to a vegetarian thanksgiving the following weekend, we picked up this uber cute chocolate wishbone. Apparently I love kitschy things.

What kind of day in the Hawthorne district would be complete without a visit to a brewpub? Keeping in mind that we have a wine-dinner in about 5 hours, we dragged our over-stuffed selves in for a sampler tray at Hopworks. Hopworks is one of those places that a coworker of mine has been recommending to me for ages – it was great to finally get in there and try their stuff!

Wine Dinner Weekend, Part 2

After Hopworks, we headed down the highway to the Willamette Valley. I was a little miffed that Lady G (our gps) took a different way than I was used to, but in the end it all worked out. On the way down, we noticed that Eggers Acres was open – turns out it was nut season!

We stayed at the McMenamin’s Hotel Oregon, which is just down the block from Bistro Maison (the restaurant we ate at after the wedding). It’s so charming. There was a weird secret-garden type of a patio outside of our hotel room:

I wish there were more hotels like this around the country – I would only stay in them! There’s so much character and they’re not expensive, and who cares if you have to share a bathroom with everyone on your floor.

Before the wine dinner on Saturday night, we wandered around downtown McMinnville for a bit. There are the cutest shops – I almost wish we had picked this spot for our home base on the wedding weekend!

By now, you may have guessed that the weekend was planned around Elk Cove’s fall wine dinner, which (in addition to drinking spectacular wine for free) ended up being wildly entertaining in unexpected ways. I wish I had pictures of our table mates, but i thought taking them may embarrass jon, and I was already doing a pretty good job of that without the camera. I try *so* hard to behave, but after a few glasses of wine it’s usually all downhill. I remember one time a few years ago he said “when we started dating you were a lady. (implying otherwise for the present tense. hah.)

Elk Cove set up a tasting station at the bar, and let all the wine club members taste the fancy stuff that they don’t always have in the tasting room. While we’ve had all of these bottles singularly, we’ve never gotten to taste them all side by side and see which was our favourite. Turns out, jon and I have different favourites!

The room got a little crazy around the wine-and-appetizer section:

I would have never guessed that a pinot noir inspired fall wine dinner would have moroccan food. Somehow, it all worked out. I can’t wait to go back next year and see what they cook up.

Wine Dinner Weekend, Part 3

All things considered, not being able to remember 1 of the wineries we stopped at isn’t all that bad. 7 is a LOT of places to stop at in one day.

• Tyrus Evan
• Canas Feast (bricco)
• Troon
• Angel vine
• the one in the barn – on the main street.
• Lange
• Torii Mor

Our first stop was at Tyrus Evan – a place that, even though the wines were good, they weren’t good enough for the price point. $40 is just too much for your low end wine. Here was where I reaffirmed my love of Red Mountain and all things Ciel du Cheval. mmm. they grow some tasty grapes there.

Canas Feast surprised me. For some reason, I had expected their wines to not be good. I don’t know what gave me that impression – I ended up liking lots of different things! We left with a bottle of sangiovese and a red table blend. Their power was out, so we tasted wine in their garage-like tasting room, lit by the small rays of light that crept through the open door. The man that was working was both jovial and knowledgeable. I’d definitely recommend stopping in next time you’re in Carlton.

There was another winery in here somewhere, but I can’t remember the name of it or any discerning details, only that we almost bought a case of merlot (because it was on sale) and that they had neat art.

After that we stopped at Troon and then Angel Vine. Troon, makers of Druid wine, isn’t all that awesome. They had a really well decorated tasting room, but i thought their format was a little odd. They wouldn’t tell you the price point on the wines until the end, which I’m sure was well intended but actually turned me off a bit. Jon got a bottle of port, which was perhaps the best thing (imo) on their list.

Angel Vine – makers of zinfandel. The previous weekend we had had some friends over for zinfandel and Jessi/Elvis commented on how zinfandel is 52% more likely to be punned upon. So when we saw the sign outside that said “zinners welcome”, we laughed and stepped in. This place was a bit odd too – because they are a new winery, they were selling futures rather than bottles. We managed to walk out with an older vintage of something we had tried. Perhaps it was the high amount of wine that I had just consumed, but the wine maker here reminded me of what my dad could have been, had fate taken a different turn. The guy that was pouring for us had the spunk and character of my dad 10 years ago – back when he was making plans for a vineyard and before the life had taken it’s turn.

Wine Dinner Weekend, Part 4

At this stage of the day, I was really happy to be heading to lunch. 5 wineries in 3 hours had taken its toll on my sobriety! Even better, i was really happy to be eating at Bistro Maison for the first non-wedding time. Even though they brought me the wrong lunch (and after I had just been talking about how much I don’t really like the main ingredient of the lunch they DID bring me!), everything was really tasty.

After the meal, they put a bowl of (fresh) nuts on the table to crack open. Really cute touch!

At this stage of the day, I was exhausted, headachey, and ready to go home. Since we had two more places we wanted to check out, I tried to be the best sport I could and we headed up the road.

Our first stop was Lange – an ultra conservative Pinot place that sells a bottle in stores for $35, but who’s median price in the tasting room was closer to 60. Pinots made in the old world style, that is to say: thinner, more austere, and burgundian, are just not our cup o tea. We’ve kind of been weened on NW pinots, you know? I’ve come to love that rich, earthy, suppleness that comes only from oregon. They often taste like mouth fulls of dirty & cherries, leather & thyme, masculine & feminine. A little like a butch man wearing a dress, trying his best to be like his dainty cousin but really doing something extraordinary all on his own.

I saw some Lange on the wall at a co-op in Vermont!

The last place we hit on the way home was Torii Mor. I was slightly disappointed. We have a bottle of Torii Mor on our shelves, and I really liked it. It turns out, it was a different label than the rest of the wines that they make. Kind of a let down, but the japanese garden inspired tasting room was really neat to stand in!

After a 3 hour drive home, we unpiled our loot from the car: