Wine for Creatures of Habit

My father recently suggested that in this blog, I spend more time on food and wine pairings and less time on "psychic revelations about my youth".

This suggestion caused me to ponder....which caused me, of course, to have a psychic revelation...

I am so used to the way I write this blog, it is a kind of ritual, so to speak. And it made me think of how much we, and other animals, are creatures of habit.

I brush my teeth the exact same way, every time. I have a specific way i wash my face, put on my various creams and hair products, put on my make-up, and if I try to do these things in a different order, I inevitably forget one of the items, like blush, or the eyeliner on one of my eyes, and I wind up looking a bit...odd.

If Steve and I go to Half Moon Bay, one of our favorite places in this area, we always go to the same place and do relatively the same thing. One day Steve suggested going to a different beach, and i immediately felt agitated. "But...but...that's not what we DO!!"

Our puppy Tuco, is, we realized recently, even more of a creature of habit than we are.

On the weekdays, Steve gets up around 6am, takes Tuco out for a pee, and gives him his breakfast. Then he puts Tuco back in his crate and leaves for work.

What Tuco doesn't understand is the concept of a weekend. So even though Steve doesn't need to wake up at 6am on Saturday and Sunday, right around that time, Saturday and Sunday, there goes Tuco, barking away to the sound of his interior alarm clock, telling us it's time to give him his breakfast and take him out. Because that is what we normally do every day.

The same goes for the ritual around actually eating his food. As soon as Tuco hears the sound of a Tupperware container being opened, or the sound of his metal bowl on the counter, he comes running into the kitchen, where he lies on the floor and waits for his meal.

Once we have finished preparing the food, we have him go into his crate and lie down, then we say "OK!" and he runs out, and either sits on his mat or goes right to the place-mat, depending on where we have put his food.

Then he eats, and when he has finished, we give him an extra lick of food off the spoon, and out of the measuring cup. Then mealtime is over.

The other night, Steve was already asleep, and I started to prepare Tuco's lunch for the next day, thinking it would be fine since he'd already had his dinner. Boy, was I wrong.

The second he heard that Tupperware open, there he was, by my side, staring up at me with those eyes. I tried to ignore him, figuring he would remember he'd already eaten and go back to snoozing in his bed.

I finished preparing his food, put everything away, put Tuco in his crate, and tried to get in bed.

Tuco went berserk. I was violating every part of the ritual...this is not how we do things!!! What was I doing??!!

OK, I thought, I'll give him one of his little frozen treats in his crate, and after he eats that, he'll go to sleep. Wrong again. As soon as he finished that treat, the barking started again.

And that was when I realized it wasn't about the act of eating; it was about all of the rituals we do surrounding the eating. Those were what he needed to do.

So that's what we did. I let him out of his crate, and then I had him go back in. Then I said "ok" and he ran out, and I gave him the tiniest bite of food, let him lick the spoon, and put him back in his crate. Where, perfectly contented, he went to sleep, ritual completed.

The final one I'll mention is our trips to Peet's coffee. There is a Peet's a couple of blocks from our house, and almost every day we walk Tuco there, sit outside with him and enjoy a drink. He loves going there. He skips ahead as we get closer, head up, and beelines straight for an outside table.

The problem comes when we try to walk him on a different route, or indeed, try to take him somewhere other than Peet's. He knows the different routes to get there, and if he senses we are not going that way, he will lie down and refuse to move. Be it in the middle of the sidewalk, or the middle of an intersection, he will lie down and not budge, so your options are to pick him up, drag him across the pavement like a sack of potatoes, tempt him with irresistable treats, or turn around and walk toward Peet's.

I have tried them all, with varying degrees of success. I have run ahead of him with an open can of baby food, which is effective but messy; and I have pulled him, but people look at you strangely when you walk around dragging a limp dog behind you, and I have tried to pick him up, but often he just lies down luxuriantly and waits to have his belly rubbed, which is very cute to the passing motorists who laugh at me stuck there in the middle of the road with my prone pup, but a bit frustrating for me.

So often, he wins, and we head over to Peet's. It is, after all, what we do.

My wine for Creatures of Habit is a 2005 Skipstone Ranch Oliver's Blend red wine blend from

the Alexander Valley, CA.

A relatively new winery, the 2005 was their inaugural vintage, and is a Bordeaux blend of predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot with small amounts of Malbec and Petit Verdot.

This wine is ripe and fruity, but not overly so, with beautiful black and red fruits along with earth and spice. What is so nice about this wine is its round plush mouthfeel and balance. Neither alcohol, acid nor tannins shout out to be heard. Instead they all work together.

A while back, at the restaurant, we had a delicious venison dish, with a dried cherry sauce. I think it was cherry, there may have been some other berries in there too. But the sauce was kind of sweet and fruity, and that is what I would want to eat while drinking this wine.

However, since i can count on no hands the number of times I have had venison with cherry sauce in my own home, I would also just drink this wine by itself. With Steve.

It's kind of what we do.

Wine for Why I Can't See the Movie Contagion, Part Two

I think my obsession with cleanliness really took hold when I lived in Brooklyn. One trip on the NYC subway should be enough to male anyone want to take a Silkwood shower.

First there are the close quarters in each individual subway car. Especially at peak travel times, there is not a sneeze or a cough that is not shared by one and all.

Then there are the poles on each subway car, which you have to hold onto when there are not enough seats to go around. These poles are invariably greasy and slimy, and do you know why? It's because many people have sneezed into and/or licked their hands and then gripped these poles. You and I then get on the subway, grasp these same poles, and then hop off the subway and get a bagel, which we, of course, eat with the self-same hands that have just been touching the Ebola pole.

Add to this the fact that I once saw a man cutting his toenails on a subway car, and you can understand why my ideas of what was clean suddenly changed drastically after time in NYC.

People sometimes think it is odd that I don't wear shoes inside my house, and that I ask visitors to remove their shoes as well. I was raised in a house where we didn't wear shoes inside, so for me it has always been the way things are, but I continue to do it, because when I lived in NYC and walked around those streets, I realized how much disgusting matter was on those streets, and how much of it probably adhered to my shoes.

When I thought about how, if I walked into my bathroom with those filthy shoes, I was transferring that filth to my clean bathroom floor and then stepping in that dirt when I was nice and clean from the shower, I vowed to never wear shoes in the bathroom or house again.

Have I taken it too far? Probably. Especially when you consider that once you start really thinking about the nature of dirt, germs and transference, the realization hits that nothing is ever really and truly clean.

And there is mounting evidence to show that all of this cleanliness, and use of anti-bacterials is in fact creating stronger and stronger bacteria and viruses and weakens our immune systems.

But even though I know this, I also know that, were I to sit through a movie which spends two hours focusing on the minute and insidious ways in which germs spread and transfer, with disastrous results, I would be unable to resist the temptation to carry Clorox wipes with me wherever I go, and wipe down every one and every thing I come in contact with.

And let's face it, that might just be perceived as odd.

My Wine for why I can't see the movie Contagion, Part II, is not a wine at all, but rather a recipe for macerated strawberries.

I bought some beautiful organic strawberries from Trader Joe's the other day, and I took a few handfuls of them and cut them in quarters.

I put them in a bowl and added half a tablespoon of super-fine sugar, a tablespoon and a half of Cointreau and a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh mint.

I mixed it all up and covered the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

They are absolutely delicious, goo enough to just gobble up with a spoon. Or, my favorite, spooned over vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.

a flavor that is sweet, refreshing and, of course, clean.

Wine for Why I Can't See the Movie Contagion, Part One

I am, admittedly, a bit of a clean freak. Especially when it comes to bathrooms and kitchens. I have gotten a bit of a reputation at work, where I am constantly wiping down liquer bottles and spraying Windex on the bar.

One of my co-workers has told me that I can't see the movie Contagion because I will wind up walking around in a plastic bubble, or refusing to leave my house.

At the very least, I told him, I'm going to start spraying everyone who approaches me with Lysol.

I wasn't always so clean. In high school, I went through a dirty phase where my room was a mini-dump. It wasn't full of dirty food-plates or bugs or anything, but rather piled ankle-deep with clothes and magazines.

When friends came over, rather than actually clean up, I simply threw my bedspread over the offending pile, and hoped no one would notice.

Unfortunately, what actually happened was that one of my friends came running into my room, and the moment her foot hit that bedspread, which covered a slippery pile of magazines and catalogues, she went flying. It was like she was on a slip and slide, only instead of sliding on a film of water, she instead went sailing on a sea of Seventeen Magazines and J-Crew catalogues.

I would like to say that that moment caused me enough embarrassment to force me to finally clean up my room, but I'm not sure it did. My mother would probably remember.

All I know is that my parents actually had to fumigate my room when I left for college. It was that bad.

When I moved to Los Angeles, my apartment was kept clean, but my car became the repository for all things paper and discarded. Again, there were no dirty food or drink containers, but the back seat filled almost to the window with newspapers, magazines, school notes and papers I no longer needed, empty shopping bags and who knows what else.

A guy I was dating got in my car for the first time, looked in the backseat, and said "You know, if I'd seen that first, I'm not sure I ever would have gone out with you."

The exterior of the car didn't fare much better. From the time I left Boston with my friend Maria, and drove the car cross-country, to the time I sold it 4 years later, I didn't wash it. Not once.

I lived in a neighborhood with abundant street parking, and so that car sat outside, all year, under trees, covered in bird poop and pollen.

Only when I was about to sell it did I finally wash it, and my sister and i took it to a carwash and watched as it went through the jets of soap and water, and watched as the guys who buff and dry the cars actually worked on it and laughed. Actually laughed at how dirty it was, even after the washing.

The paint had gone from a bright, shiny maroon, to a dull version of the same color. It had certainly lost its luster. But that car had bigger problems: it would only go about 45 mph on the freeway before the engine light would come on (25 mph if I was driving uphill); the windshield wipers went on one day and wouldn't go off; and the passenger side window rolled down and then steadfastly refused to roll back up. So honestly, i didn't feel too bad that I had neglected to wash it.

I fear this post is getting too long, so I will leave off here for today and continue next week with part two: the clean streak begins.

My wine for why I can't see the movie Contagion, Part I is a 2005 Domaine Drouhin "Laurene" Pinot Noir from Oregon. We carry this particular wine by the half-bottle at the restaurant, but if you can't find this vintage, i highly recommend you try any of their Pinots.

The Drouhin family lives and makes wine both in the Dundee Hills of Oregon and Beaune, France, in Burgundy. Their Oregon Pinots balance beautifully the fruitiness of Oregon with the earth and slightly more reserved character of a Burgundy. The 2005 is quite rich, but still bright with acidity, fruit and spice.

Personally, I also really like that all of the Drouhin wines are made by Veronique Drouhin, one of the small number of female winemakers out there.

They have a wonderful website for Domaine Drouhin Oregon, where you can get info about the family, the estate vines and the wines themselves. I highly encourage you to try one.

Just remember to wash your hands first.

Wine for Our Puppy-Child

The longer that we have Tuco, the more it seems to me that the experience of having a dog from the time he's a young puppy really is very similar to that of raising a child.

Not just in the amount of time and energy they require, but also in the way in which both force us as adults to re-experience the world with them, go through a whole variety of firsts and milestones with them: first car-ride, first bath, first night alone in his crate, first trip to the doctor/vet, first shots, first day of kindergarten, first time away from Mom and Dad.

All the experiences we take for granted and no longer even think about, suddenly illuminated as new, confusing, exciting.

We gave Tuco a baby carrot to eat the other day, and he had no idea what to make of it. He ran around it, he sniffed at it, he picked it up in his mouth and dropped it. Steve finally went over to him with a baby carrot of his own, and showed Tuco that what he did with it was to bite it in half. Tuco immediately did the same. And there is was...yum...carrot...a whole new thing to eat.

We also have begun taking him to the beach. So many new smells and sensations that I no longer notice half the time. To me now, the beach is a whole entity, one solid concept. But watching him at the beach, I suddenly saw again all of the parts that make up the whole: the sand, and how different that feels to stand on than sidewalk or grass; the bits of shell that litter the sand, along with all of the different pebbles, all of those will smell different to Tuco; the bits of seaweed everywhere; the smell, sound and feel of the water itself.

Then there was the surprise on his face when the cold water rushed over his paws; the foam on the surface of the water which he tried to eat, the feeling of the sand sliding away underfoot as he waded deeper into the water; that sense of excitement and fear at the force of a wave; and the accomplishment of pulling a ball out of the water and bringing it back.

Just like kids, puppies lose their teeth, and go through adolescence. Tuco is just entering this stage of his development, and already we see moments of willfulness (why should I sit, Mom?), and bossiness (I want my food! I want to go out and play! I want to walk here, I don't want to walk there. Sine i don't want to walk there, I will lie down in the middle of the sidewalk. Go ahead...drag me.).

Just like with kids, we as parents have to introduce them to the world: how we walk down the street, how we meet other people and dogs, where we poop and pee and where we don't; how we behave when someone enters our home.

Just like parents of actual children, Steve and I are watching as Tuco's natural talents and abilities come to the fore. He is part Border Collie, a herding dog, and in the last few weeks, that herding instinct has made itself known to all of us.

He doesn't even know why he's doing it, but when we're in the dog park together, and another dog runs by, or can be seen running in the distance, Tuco takes off after him, swinging in a wide arc, always staying a certain distance behind, steering the other dog one way and another.

And can he run. He flies. He's only 7 months, and already he is faster than just about every other dog in the park. And it is an absolute joy to watch him run. Because you can see that he was made to do it, you can see that when he is running he is exhilarated, and free, and when Steve and I watch him, I think we then feel some of those things, too.

Finally, there are those lovely, quiet together moments. Tuco hangs out in the kitchen with me while I cook. And it's not that he's hovering by me, waiting for scraps, because he never gets any.

He just lies on his mat quietly, sometimes watching me, sometimes sleeping. He just wants to keep me company. And it reminds me of when I lived at home, I liked nothing more than sitting with my mother in the kitchen while she made dinner; sometimes I was helping, sometimes just telling her about my day.

Granted, Tuco is not chatting with me about his day, but it is that same experience of togetherness, of sharing, that makes me think of my mother, and makes me feel oddly comforted.

I don't mean to suggest that having a dog is exactly like having a baby, but it strikes me that there are a lot of similarities, more than I ever imagined, and i must say I am delighted by it.

My wine for our puppy-child is not an individual wine but rather a category: Cremant d'Alsace from Alsace, in northeastern France.

These are sparkling wines often made predominantly from the Pinot Blanc grape, and they offer an absolutely delicious and less expensive alternative to Champagne. While they may not have the finesse and richness of Champagne, they are bright, crisp and refreshing, as well as easy to drink and extremely food friendly.

Try a Lucien Albrecht Cremant d'Alsace Brut or Rose Brut. Price ranges from $13-$28 a bottle.

Wine for Doggie Doo

Dealing with any baby naturally entails a lot of encounters with matter of the fecal variety. Babies poop. A lot, I've heard.

So it is with puppies. It is not so much the number of poops our beloved Tuco does per day as it is the quantity of matter per poop. We are literally talking piles of poop. For a rather small 30-pound dog, he must generate his own body weight in poop every day.

And these are not what I would consider small-dog bowel movements; one such poop looked like it should have emerged from a 1200 pound walrus. Passers-by looked at us as if to say, "wow, that's one big turd!"

The euphamism "building a log cabin", is not just a catchy phrase. He seriously could be living in a poop-house of his own making by now.

Then there is the whole business of his being afraid of his own poop. I think we have finally cracked this mystery: sticks and mulch. In his poop.

We cannot seem, no matter how hard we try, to make him not eat every stick and piece of mulch he can find. This wouldn't be such a problem if not for the fact that these items don't digest in his tummy. They do, in fact, pass right through. Literally, you can see them right there in his poops, whole hunks of sticks and mulch.

Those bits must hurt like hell coming out, so I can hardly blame him for trying to get as far away from them as he can.

While dealing with doggie poop is not always fun, dealing with baby poop is not much better. People will comment that the advantage babies have over dogs is that they eventually deal with their own poop, while dogs pretty much leave their owners grabbing handfuls of the stuff many times a day for the next 15-18 years. And this is unfortunately true.

However, I must say that by far the most terrifying poop encounter I have ever had was with an infant for whom I was babysitting.

I was in my early twenties, and the baby was only a few days old, and his mom and I were there with him, at his changing table.

The diaper was off, so he was bare butt to the breeze, when suddenly, there was a poop explosion. Really there's no other way to describe it. Poop just projectile erupted from his bum, and sprayed everything in a ten-foot radius. His mother and I both shrieked in shock and jumped back to what we imagined was a safe distance.

The baby bicycled his legs, cooed and looked delighted.

His mother and I stood, frozen, looking at him, and then at each other in muted horror. Then slowly, very slowly, we inched back closer to him.

It was like we were both members of a bomb squad, approaching an explosive device: had the bomb fully discharged its load? Was there going to be a secondary explosion? What about shrapnel? Could we approach now? What could be considered a safe distance? I for one, wanted to put my flack suit back on, or at the very least, a Haz Mat suit.

I distinctly remember thinking, $10/an hour is not enough for this.

I almost hesitate to recommend a wine this week, lest it be known at the dog-doo wine, but recommend I shall.

The wine for this week is a 2006 Kumeu River Estate Chardonnay from New Zealand.

Now i confess, I am not normally a fan of New World Chardonnays. That buttery, oaky thing is just not for me.

But this Chard is different: it's ripe and tropical with peachy, nutty minerality. It's super refreshing and bright and kind of reminds me of a rich Sauvignon Blanc. It's really nice with seafood.

So throw away that poop bag, pour yourself a glass of Kumeu River and enjoy!

Wine for Being Afraid

One of the reasons Steve and I wanted a dog was for the relaxing, healthy benefits of pet ownership.

Especially for me, who has been known to wrestle with anxiety, the idea of stroking a pet in a quiet, soothing manner, was in itself comforting. To have a gentle, peaceful relaxing creature by your side every day, to calm me by its mere presence, held a great deal of appeal.

And so it is with great irony that I now share that we somehow chose a puppy who seems to suffer from....you guessed it....anxiety.

How we did this, I'm not sure, he didn't seem anxious when we chose him, but there you have it.

Now I am the first person to fully understand anxiety, but I have to admit that some of the things that frighten Tuco are really beyond me.

For starters, the first few weeks we had him, he was afraid of other dogs. I found this odd considering he came from a litter of six pups, and was, himself, after all, a dog. But apparently this is common, and now he plays with the best of them, but i will never get out of my mind the vision of him running away from a tiny three-month-old pug who came to say hello to him in our puppy class.

Some other things he is afraid of:

Garbage barrels. This again is not uncommon, considering they make a lot of noise when rolled out onto the sidewalk.

His new treat dispenser: it is a red, honeycomb-shaped device which wobbles if you hit it with a hand, snout or paw, and dispenses a treat out of a small hole in one side. It scares him. I don't know why.

His harness: Tuco is the only dog I have ever met who is not excited to go out. Really, not even a tail wag. When he sees us take out his harness, he runs away, tail between his legs, and we have to coax him out with treats.

This one really baffles me because we only ever take him fun places in that harness: the dog park, daycare, walks.

But wait, you may be thinking, you probably take him to the vet in that harness! Well, yes, we do, but here's the kicker: he LOVES the vet. Loves it there. We live around the corner from the vet, and often on our walks we go right by it, and we can't walk by it without Tuco going inside. He pulls me, strains against the leash, running to get in.

He has to go in, and once inside he is beside himself with delight. He gets low to the ground, he wags his tail so hard you think it will fall off, and he flops over and presents his belly to everyone who works there.

Even when he sees the vet himself, he is delighted. Remember, this vet is the man who just a few short weeks ago was jabbing Tuco with a vaccination needle and grabbing his man-parts.

He also has, inexplicably, become afraid of his own poop. Now on the one hand I can understand, sometimes I'm afraid of it, too. But you'd think since it's his, he wouldn't fear it. But he seems to. Midway through the poop's exit from the ole chute, Tuco will suddenly turn around and look at his rear end as if to say "what the hell is THAT?!" and start running away from it. Needless to say, this leads to some rather interesting poop-dispersal patterns in the yard.

I know I'm one to talk about being afraid of random things. Once when my parents left me alone at home for the evening, I spent the last hour before their return huddled in a corner, because I had seen someone walking in the backyard and was convinced he was going to break in. Only when my parents finally came home did I realize that the ax-murderer I had seen was in fact my own reflection in the glass porch door.

Like mother, like puppy.

My wine for Being Afraid is a 2007 Vezer Family Vineyard "Franci" Black Muscat. The Vezer winery is located in the Suisun Valley of California near Napa. Franci is the name of the Vezer's 10-year-old daughter.

This Black Muscat is a sweet dessert wine, with lovely floral notes of lilac and carnation as well as plump blackberry and blueberry. It has a bright, lively acidity which keeps is from being overly sweet, and it will pair beautifully with black and red fruit desserts, as well as sorbets and anything chocolate. It is also yummy enough to be a dessert in and of itself.

You can order it online from the Vezer Family Vineyard website for $24.95 (375ml).

Just don't bring it to my house unexpectedly: it might scare the dog.

Wine for Wine's Sake

Just for a refresher, I am currently the Asst. Sommelier and Bartender at a Michelin-Star restaurant, and every once in a while, I have a night at the restaurant that reminds me of how lucky I am to have this job, and why I love working with wine.

Periodically, a group of gentlemen rent out the private dining area of the restaurant for an evening of food and some extraordinary wine.

They each bring their own offerings, which we open, possibly decant and serve. My boss at the restaurant, who also happens to be the Master Sommelier there, is an excellent teacher, and he is always incredibly gracious in making sure I get to taste almost all of the wines that we open.

On this particular evening, the wines sampled included a 1990 Trimbach Clos St. Hune, a 1929 Chateau Bouscaut Blanc, a 1959 Chateau Ausone and 1982 Penfolds Grange.

But by far the most extraordinary offerings came at the end of the evening, with the sweet wines. First up was a 1906 Chateau D'Arche.

Let me write that vintage again: 1906. I almost can't get past the date. This wine is 105 years old.

In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake struck; Mount Vesuvius erupted; the Victrola, the first phonograph/record player was manufactured; the first officially recorded powered flight in Europe took place; SOS became an internationally recognized distress signal; the first radio broadcast occurred; the tuberculosis immunization was first developed; the first feature film was released; and gangster Bugsy Siegel, last emperor of China Pu-Yi, German war criminal Adolph Eichmann, writer Samuel Beckett, director Roberto Rossellini, entertainer Josephine Baker, screenwriter Billy Wilder, Estee Lauder, actress Louise Brooks, and director Otto Preminger were born.

This Chateau D'Arche, is a sweet dessert wine from the Sauternes appellation near Bordeaux, France. The wines are made from a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes, all of which have been affected by my favorite Botrytis Cinerea, or "Noble Rot".

The combination of sugar, alcohol and higher acidity makes for wines that tend to age well, and let me tell you, this wine has aged gloriously.

Over time it has darkened from its usual golden straw hue, and the nose and flavors have developed to those of raisin, prune, caramel, creme brulee, rum, port, butterscotch and toasted nuts, with a lively and bright acidity. It was heaven in a glass.

The final wine was one with an even more extraordinary history: a 1931 Massandra Collection A-Danil Tokay.

The Massandra Winery and cellar was built near Yalta in the late 19th Century under Tsar Nicholas II, to provide wines for the Tsar's summer palace, and specializes in sweet and fortified dessert wines.

The cellars took three years to build, with miners blasting deep into a mountainside to create a labyrinth of 21 tunnels, with air shafts providing consistent cooling and spring water adding the perfect humidity.

The Massandra Collection consists of samples of wine from every Massandra vintage as well as other European collectibles.

So impressed was Stalin by this collection in later years, that when he heard of Hitler's impending arrival, he ordered the entire Massandra collection moved to secret locations in the Ukraine.

This 1931 Massandra Tokay has held up beautifully. Though it didn't have the lingering acidity of the Chateau D'Arche, th flavors were still rich and complex, with a sweet. meaty, lingering prune flavor alongside caramel, dulce de leche and butter pecan.

Tasting both of these wines was really an amazing, possibly once-in-a-lifetime experience, and overall, a pretty good day at the office.