Brush Valley Brewer

Breakfast this morning was a glass of juice. I could hardly believe my eyes, but the scale read 155 pounds this morning. That was my target weight. Now I have to concentrate on getting in shape, instead of losing weight. To celebrate, I did 14 sit ups. Pathetic.

Lunch was a grilled Italian sausage with sautéed peppers and onions. In case anyone is wondering, Penn State closed today because of today’s ice storm, so I have gotten to spend a leisurely day of blogging.

Dinner was a salad, a slice of whole wheat raisin bread, and two glasses of Bolla Merlot.

This is awesome! I just stumbled across this. Amazon has “thousands” of menus on their site from restaurants in six large American cities. They say they are planning to expand it to all cities in the United States.

For your convenience, we’ve added this free service featuring thousands of restaurant menus in the following cities:
Boston,
Chicago,
New York,
San Francisco,
Seattle and
Washington, D.C. You can view menus online, search for menu items, read customer reviews, and make reservations by phone. [Amazon]

They have the menu for Old Glory, a barbecue place in Georgetown, that Gretchen and I had lunch in the last time we were there. We really enjoyed it. As I recall, they also have some tasty fermented malt beverages.

Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, over at the Tastings column in the Wall Street Journal have announced Open That Bottle Night 5 (OTBN5). For those of you who are unfamiliar with the event, it is an opportunity (excuse) to get that bottle of wine you have been saving for a “special occasion” out of your fridge and finally drink it. The night is Saturday, February 28 — not too far away — so mark you calendar and make some plans to open that bottle.

Gretchen and I meant to do this last year but we missed the date. We ended up having our wine with a nice meal, just not as a part of the OTBN event. In fact, it convinced us that there isn’t any reason to save a wine for a “special occasion” because any event — say opening a bottle of wine with a nice meal at home — can be a special occasion. We learned our lesson so well that I will actually have to buy something for this year’s event. I think I’ll go for something unusual. Does anyone know anything about “Yellow Tail?” I think it is an Australian winery.

Now’s the time. Open That Bottle Night takes place this year on Saturday, Feb. 28, in homes and restaurants all over the world. Do it! Make a special meal and open that bottle. Here are some tips so you can make the most of Open That Bottle Night 5:

1. Stand the wine up (away from light and heat, of course) for a few days before you plan to open it — say, on Wednesday, Feb. 25. This will allow the sediment, if there is some, to sink to the bottom.
2. Both reds and whites are better closer to “cellar temperature” of around 55 degrees than at room temperature. Don’t overchill the white, and think about putting the red in the refrigerator for an hour or two if you’ve been keeping it in a 70-degree house.
3. With an old bottle, the cork may break easily. The best opener for a cork like that is the one with two prongs, but it requires some skill. You have three weeks to practice using one. Be prepared for the possibility that the cork will fall apart with a regular corkscrew. If that happens, have a carafe and a coffee filter handy. Just pour enough through the coffee filter to catch the cork.
4. Otherwise, do not decant. We’re assuming these are old and fragile wines. Air could quickly dispel what’s left of them.
5. Have a backup wine ready for your special meal, in case your old wine really has gone bad.
6. Serve dinner. Then open the wine and immediately take a sip. If it’s truly bad — we mean vinegar — you will know it right away. But even if the wine doesn’t taste good at first, don’t rush to the sink to pour it out. Give it a chance. If it isn’t completely gone, our guess is that it will be wonderful, in its own way, and reward you off and on during the night. Start eating, and slowly sip the wine. Over the years, we’ve heard from scores of OTBN celebrants who have told us about wines that tasted yucky at first, then became delicious. Is it the wine, or the warmth of the gathering as the night goes on? Does it matter?
7. Talk about the person who gave you the wine, or the circumstances under which you received it. This makes the wine resonate in a very sweet and personal way.
8. Enjoy the wine for what it is, not what it might be or might once have been.
9. Save one last glass in the bottle.
10. At the very end of the meal, after the dishes are done, pour the remainder of the wine into your glasses (you might pour it through the coffee filter if there’s lots of sediment, though, personally, we often like the gutsy taste of the wine with the sediment). Then drink up, and enjoy those very last moments of a special night.

And, of course, No. 11: Drop us a note at wine@wsj.com about your evening. If we include your name in our follow-up column, we’ll send you an autographed copy of our new book, “Wine for Every Day and Every Occasion: Red, White and Bubbly to Celebrate the Joy of Living,” when it is published in October by HarperCollins. [WSJ]

Breakfast was a piece of toasted whole wheat raisin bread with strawberry jam.

Over lunch, I went with some people from the office here over to the faculty and athletic weight room at Rec Hall to a “Meet the Machines” session. Michelle Rockower, Strength & Conditioning Assistant, Penn State Athletics, walked us through a typical workout, showing us how to work each of the machines and answering questions. A very nice session. Thanks, Michelle. I am thinking that Tuesdays and Thursdays during lunch would be a good time to go work out. I have conflicting meetings right after lunch on some Wednesdays and Fridays are the group lunch day. I had a bag of Middleswarth Kitchen Fresh Bar-B-Q Flavored Potato Chips after I got back.

Gretchen and I made a pizza tonight. With a little help from our friends, we tried a few new things. We used bread flour — it turns out that Giant does carry King Arthur bread flour. We made sure the dough wasn’t too slack. We put olive oil on the dough before adding the sauce. And we used parchment paper under the pizza. We chickened out and baked it on our stone for 15 minutes at 420°F — the hottest the paper is rated for — but I think we will try it at 450°F next time. The paper was fine. We used a French bread dough recipe, browned up a little sausage, and defrosted some red peppers we froze this past summer and we ended up with a really nice looking, tasty pizza. While the dough was rising, we started with a few chips and salsa, and we served it all up with two glasses of Bolla Merlot.

Breakfast was a bowl of cold cereal with a sliced banana and soy milk. I weighed in at 156 pounds. Lunch was an orange — I went and ate the last orange — and a four mile walk. Dinner was mashed potato, ham and bean soup and two slices of whole wheat raisin bread.

• 12.353 Gallons
• $1.619/Gallon
• $20.00
• 246.5 Miles
• 20.0 Miles/Gallon
• 8¢/Mile
• 13 Days

Nigella Lawson, the British domestic goddess, has a column in the New York Times today where she presents two tasty-sounding comfort food recipes.

• Spiced Beef in Red Wine
• Vegetarian Chili With Corn Bread Topping

I have never seen her show — if anybody knows whether and when it plays on DirecTV in the States, please let me know — but based on this lead-in, I think I would like her.

If you are the sort of person who, when catching a train, needs to arrive at the station with time to spare, you will cook in a very different way from someone who habitually boards the train while it is inching away.

Those like me who need to arrive on time take comfort from cooking that can be done in advance. It makes us feel safe and relaxed, knowing that not too much frenetic last-minute activity will be necessary. We are not the stir-fry crowd. But even if you are a skin-of-the-teeth type who feels that planning smacks of regimentation, there will be times when you need to get ahead of yourself.

Life, after all, is not always arranged according to our own inclinations. If a crowd is coming for supper at midweek and you work late every night, then it makes sense to find the time on a Sunday afternoon to get dinner well under way. And let’s be frank: what else is there to do on gray February weekends? Finding an excuse to stay inside, and to feel good about it, can be only a good thing. It’s even better knowing that you have a dish of chili or winter-warming stew stashed away in the refrigerator for a night when you scarcely have the energy to boil water. [NYTimes]

Breakfast this morning was a bowl of organic steel-cut oats with brown sugar, soy milk, and pecan halves. I weighed in at 156 pounds.

It is just snowing insanely outside. No walk today. A friend with four-wheel-drive drove us over to the Big Onion for lunch. I had an orange before lunch. Lunch was an two slices of plain pizza, a Big Grab® Lays KC Masterpiece Barbecue Flavor Potato Chips (Now even crisper!), and a SoBe Lizard Lava. I wiped the snow off my car before going and there was two inches on it by the time we got back!

Dinner was Lo Mien with a hand full of peanuts for dessert.

Breakfast was a bowl of mixed fruit — orange and banana. I weighed 156 pounds.

Lunch was an orange, followed by a four mile walk, followed by a Big Grab® Lays KC Masterpiece Barbecue Flavor Potato Chips (Now even crisper!) — 450 calories!

Dinner was a salad with Village Eating House Sweet & Sour Italian Dressing & Marinade (No Oil) and a slice of Colonial bread.

Breakfast this morning was a mushroom and cheddar omelette, bacon, toast with strawberry jam, and a glass of orange juice. I weighed 156 pounds. I had an orange for lunch.

Dinner was a bowl of corn chowder with crumbled bacon, two slices of Italian bread, and a glass of Bolla Sangiovese Di Romagna.