A First for a First

We seem to be celebrating a lot of firsts around our house these days. We've just had our first child, and with that come first smiles, first giggles, and first attempts at rolling over. (We've also had some not-so-fun firsts, like first mosquito bites and first blood, when I cut her fingernails JUST a little too short!).

On the wine front, we celebrated a fun first this week: for the first time, we cracked open a bottle of First Growth Bordeaux. Some friends of ours received some very good news after a very long wait, and we wanted to celebrate with them. So, as we sat in our overgrown backyard among the diseased apples that kept falling from the diseased tree, dressed in t-shirts and flip flops and dining on nothing fancier than a baguette, blackberries, and some bucherondin, we let the guests of honor ceremoniously uncork a 1976 Chateau Lafite Rothschild.

Most people drink Lafite while dressed to the nines in an haute French restaurant. There's probably much pomp and posturing in the selection and ordering of the bottle, and there's probably some kind of ceremony around the uncorking and decanting of such a prized and praised selection. I imagine the wine is also consumed with cuisine much finer than what we had on our patio tables, likely some kind of roasted game, seasoned perfectly with herbs specially selected to match the characteristics of the wine's particular vintage. We had salami that was probably too spicy for the wine. But at least the cheese was French...

In all honesty, 1976 wasn't the best vintage for Bordeaux, and the wine probably should have been opened ten years ago. But there's a part of me that believes that a great bottle of wine waits for, and then rises to, the occasion for which it was created. And there's no doubt that this was a great bottle of wine. The front of the palate was spectacular, with all the smoke and leather you'd expect from a Bordeaux. It thinned out quickly and the finish was much too short, but like an aging Broadway diva reprising a role from younger, better days, you could still see in this wine the superstar that it was in years past. A wine from lesser soil and from a lesser producer would have faded long ago, but the Lafite lingered on until its services were required.

I think some would say that this bottle was "wasted," but I disagree. Yes, wine is meant to be consumed, not simply collected, and this collected bottle would have been better consumed years ago. That said, why hang onto it any longer, for some grander, more "special" occasion? Today IS the occasion. Ryan and Julie, we're so glad we had occasion to celebrate with you!

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I wish I had a picture. This blog needs more pictures! I could take a picture of the empty bottle, but that just wouldn't be the same as a photo of the empty bottle, decanter, salami, flip flops, and diseased apples. Oh well.

Sara Writes Margarita

The cravings first started in, oh, early September, before I had told anyone that I was pregnant.

Ryan and I were at a Mexican restaurant with some friends, and man did I want a margarita! My virgin strawberry blend was little more than an Icee with an umbrella and a sugared rim, and it just wasn't going to get the job done. I wanted the tequila, I wanted the Cointreau, and I wanted it on the rocks. This was going to be a long nine months.

I had never been much of a straight-up margarita drinker. I had had a few watered-down, blended strawberry margaritas in the course of learning my way around a bar, but they just seemed to me like kid drinks that someone had slipped something into. You couldn't really enjoy the alcohol that was hiding in all that fruity sweetness. (I realize that this is why some people like blended strawberry margaritas, and I can't actually hold that against them.) My favorite memory involving a strawberry margarita involves my mom and me, one too many of the aforementioned beverages, and a Christmas tree. Decorating for Christmas has never been quite as fun as it was that year!

Anyway. Until I went to Mexico a few years ago and tried the straight up lime on the rocks with the salted rim thing, I wasn't really a fan. I'm still not a fan of the salted rim thing, and some purists will dock me for that, but so be it. I'm not really a tequila snob--yet--so pretty much any type will do, but I don't really care for Grand Marnier so I prefer the versions made with Cointreau, and sometimes, sour mix. A fresh wedge of lime is a must. I'll take it on the rocks or blended, but I'm starting to prefer the rocks version. It just seems purer.

Back to the cravings. I'd always heard that women craved strange things when pregnant. I didn't really crave anything bizarre, like chalk or detergent, but I did crave things that, while normal foods, I had never really consumed much of before. Like pastrami, and corned beef sandwiches. I have no idea where that came from, but I sure became a connoisseur of Reuben sandwiches during those nine months. And margaritas. The problem with this craving was that I really couldn't indulge it, and as we all know, the cravings you cannot indulge become the cravings you cannot shake.

I think it was the worst on Stroller Shopping Day. My mother and I headed for a swanky baby-gear store to check out strollers and carseats. This was in January, I think, on a cold, blustery day--just the kind of Seattle day that makes you want to head south of the border for a while. We were in that store for hours, driving strollers around, taking them apart and putting them back together, measuring which ones would fit in the trunk of the hatchback, comparing weights, discussing braking mechanisms, wheel bases, adjustable handles, color schemes, and oh yeah, price. Then we had to figure out which strollers were compatible with which carseats. Did the carseat we like come with a base? How heavy was it? How long would the baby fit in it? Could it work with the jogging stroller we wanted? What kind of attachments and accessories did we need?

You can see where this is going. After a few hours, literally, of all this gear wrangling, I REALLY wanted a margarita. I just wanted to escape the consumerism, the "but it's for your baby" sales pitches, the exorbitant prices, the ridiculous designer patterns (it's a carseat!!) and the custom-ordered craziness. I wanted to relax, preferably on a sandy beach, and if not that, than somewhere close to it. It was close to Happy Hour by this time, maybe my mom and I could go somewhere, she could order a margarita, and I could have a few sips...I was obsessed!

Well, I didn't indulge the craving. We went on to another store, and later, went to a pub and had Reubens for dinner. But I have never forgotten how badly I wanted a margarita that day. For as much as I dearly love wine, it was not what I craved while pregnant. I had some wine, of course (read previous blog postings for proof of that!) but when it comes to craving, it was beer and margaritas.

Since Calla has been born, my taste (and preference) for wine has returned. I've enjoyed some wonderful wines (and not enjoyed a couple of bombs, but oh well) during the past three and a half months. It's BBQ season, too, so I've had a beer here and there. But I have not--until last night--finally sated the margarita beast within.

When some girlfriends asked to get together after work, I knew this was my chance. Happy Hour. We met at a Mexican restaurant and tequila bar not too far away from home, and slid into the booth just under the deadline for ordering at happy hour prices. I barely had a chance to scan the menu, but I spotted it just in time. The Top Shelf Margarita. Tequila (I neither remember nor care what particular kind), fresh lime juice, a float of Cointreau...sign me up (without the salt, please!)

It was perfect. Plenty sour, a definite lime-y zing. Cloudy from the Cointreau, and with more substance and complexity. Refreshing, yet not so sweet that you could sap it down too quickly. The perfect sipping margarita. The appetizers were good and cheap (although the nachos could have had more cheese, come to think of it) and the company and conversation were excellent. I caught up with some girlfriends, all of us going through major life changes. We talked about our new babies, our engagement, our new jobs, new homes. We laughed, we encouraged one another, and we gave advice--solicited and otherwise--while each enjoying a slightly different margarita. I'm pretty sure I would have had another Top Shelf if I didn't have to go home and feed Calla in a few hours. But one was enough. The beast has been slayed, the craving satisfied.

Ryan and I are thinking of going to Mexico in the winter.