Wines I've enjoyed lately, along with the price point at my local shop.

Yellow + Blue Torrontes, $11.99


Distinctive white wine.
Argentina's grapes taste like
Grapefruit; also, floral.

This box wine's not gross.
It's environmentally
Friendly (and holds more.)


Protocolo (2006) $6.99

A full-bodied red --
Black cherry, but not jammy.
Mmmmm, tempranillo.


Dona Paula Los Cardos Malbec, $6.99

My favorite grape,
If I had to pick -- malbec!
Big, dark, full-bodied.


Marqus de Caceres Rioja Rose, &8.99

A good summer wine-
Don't be afraid to drink pink.
It's crisp, and not sweet.

I'm a bit pressed for time at the moment, so instead of doing an actual review, I'm just going to make a recommendation for any coffee lovers who happen to be in the Birmingham area:

O'Kafes Coffee. Their tropical rum flavored coffee is my favorite. Pumpkin spice and Snickerdoodle also rock. Not too strong a flavor, not too little, and not sweet.

Also, they will ship it to you.

Yesterday, I threw some things in the slow cooker, and the end result was delicious and took minimal effort.

I took a pork roast, seasoned it with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, and seared it in olive oil. Then I put it in the slow cooker. I poured a can of beer on top of it, and then poured a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce into that and stirred it all around a little bit. I left the cooker on low for about ten hours, during which time the apartment smelled amazing.

I pulled the pork out of the cooker, pulled it apart with a fork, and stirred the remaining beer/chipotle sauce into the pork. Our serving options were thus: on a hamburger bun with pickles and BBQ sauce, or in a tortilla with chopped cucumber (which is nice, because the peppers do impart a little heat to the pork).

Voila! Easy, beer-tastic food from the slow cooker.

I neglected to mention the end result of my awesome culinary adventure into cured fish. The gravlax was delightful.

The end steps are as follows: Undo your plastic wrap and rinse away the brine and spices. Pat your gravlax dry with a paper towel (I forgot to do this and it was fine) and then press it, flesh side down, into finely chopped dill. (My dill was roughly torn, not finely chopped, and it worked okay.) Then slice diagonally along the grain. I also cut mine in half lengthwise, as it was going to two different homes. Here's a picture of one of the plates, only slightly snacked on:



It turned out reealy well. It had an almost anise-like flavor to it, and it was delicate and melting, with hints of brine. We served it on a thinly sliced baguette with chopped red onion. I just had some for lunch on salad with just a little olive oil and vinegar. Heaven.

Notes: I could have sliced it thinner. Also, next time, I think I will slice it off the skin before I serve it, because it was a little awkward to have to cut each piece off the skin. Not big-time awkward, but irritating. This was much easier to make than I anticipated, and well worth planning ahead for.

The latest issue of Saveur* focuses on salmon, and I decided I wanted to try to make gravlax, because it is delicious. Also, it sounded easier than I thought it would. I took pictures of the process:

( and here they are- lots of them )