I will take the validation!

Sounds nice, although I do like whites better. Riesling or pinot grigio.

You take the whites and I'll take the reds, erika, and between us we can cover it all. Riesling is not for me - I don't even like the grapes - so I'm always happy that someone else can enjoy my share

I splurged and got everything I was considering. They will deliver it to my workplace and I feel like having a case of wine under my desk will somehow improve my days at the office as I slowly deplete it (by bringing a bottle home now and then, not by drinking during meetings, as pleasant a prospect as that sometimes seems)

There's a "vertical tasting" of 2015-2018 that is intriguing just because vertical tastings are always interesting but would I ever really do that and can I distinguish between pinots enough to make it worthwhile?

I feel like that would be interesting as a wine flight but not as bottles because I would not open them all at once or drink in quick enough succession to remember how they compared.

Yeah, that's a problem, meara. I mean, in theory I could pour myself a half glass of each and reseal the bottles while I compare, I suppose, but that doesn't really seem satisfactory. Ideally, I think I'd want 3 or 4 other people to sample them with me, but organizing that seems daunting. We'll see.

Mom has confirmed that she ordered thanksgiving dinner from Whole Foods, although not turkey or sweet potatoes this year so we'll be making those. We tried braised turkey legs last year and they didn't take very long and came out great so we are doing that instead of the pre roasted turkey breast that has been our usual. She said WF's sweet potatoes were too sweet, which I don't recall but doesn't surprise me. Our traditional sweet potato casserole recipe is out of one of those huge compendiums of recipes like The Joy of Cooking that starts with "for every cup of sweet potato add..." specific measurements of orange juice and brown sugar and what have you. The way we have always made it is to roast a bunch of sweet potatoes, peel them and mash them, eyeball the results and calculate additions accordingly. Well, one year after I had moved out I tried following the recipe by actually measuring my sweet potatoes (since I was only making enough for me that was much more manageable) and ended up with a much higher concentration of all the additions than how we usually make it, so we must consistently underestimate the initial sweet potato recipe and hence add a lot less sugar. So it makes sense than anyone else's version is going to seem too sweet.

I am chatty today! I don't know where that is coming from.

I am chatty today! I don't know where that is coming from.

It's good! Roll with it!

I'm pretty sure "too sweet" is not a thing for me with sweet potato casserole. My S-i-L makes what is said to be the Ruth's Chris recipe, and it is SO sweet and SO fucking good. But, I mean, really, it's dessert. And better than any pumpkin pie I've ever had, so... there you go.

BEVDOG!!!

That’s all I have for now.

I’m so happy this place exists.

This place is happy you exist, msbelle. Beep!

I have the COVID. Mostly I’m coughing and running a v low grade fever that’s making it impossible for me to get warm even though it was 70 here today. Pretty sure I got it at the memorial service I was at on Saturday. Last time I got COVID at my cousin’s funeral. People should stop dying.

I made these sweet potatoes on Sunday. They are very simple but delicious:

[link]

I’m so sorry, Lisa, but I’m curious: Did you get the booster or not?