9:30 pm last night and I'm moving kitchenwards to set up the annual New Year's Eve wine and food feast for Mrs. Doctorlew and myself when the power
goes out. And, of course, not only no lights but no heat and it's 20 F outside. No feast, just bread and butter and water in the dark as the house heads
toward freezing. Every 3 hours the power company says restoration in 3 hrs, Came back in 11.5 hours. Next time I'll have a pack of candles, flashlights,
and a radio with live batteries someplace I can find in the dark.
- Get Your TTG News Here!
- Trip Reports
- Travel Photos
- Top TTG Travel Tips
- United Kingdom & Eire
- France
- Italy
- All Europe, All the Time
- United States & Canada,
- The Caribbean, Mexico, Central & South America
- Africa & the Middle East
- Asia & Oceania
- Getting There
- Cruisin' Along ...
- Food & Wine II
- The Best of the Rest ...
- TTG Archives: Weekly, Monthly & Holiday Threads
- TTG Archives: General
- Food & Wine Archives
So Happy It's Thursday -- The First Rant of 2009
| Author | Comment | ||
|---|---|---|---|
 TheRealDoctorLew |
So Happy It's Thursday -- The First Rant of 2009 |
Lead | |
|
Posts: 664 (01/01/09 10:38:29) Member |
|
||
|
simone1a |
|||
|
Posts: 4638 (01/01/09 12:20:37) Destination Moderator |
Let's look at it this way: The rant started in 2008, the last kicker to a really bad year. Hopefully everything is repaired and you are good to go now.
I worry what would I do if it is extremely cold and no heat, I hope you got creative last night. I have a corner in a closet equipped with emergency supplies, I can't always count on batteries though, they keep disappearing no matter how I hide them. In my case, NC is the first place that has made it imperative to keep an emergency kit. Do over - have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. |
||
|
elainesl |
|||
|
Posts: 12042 (01/01/09 12:40:33) Board Moderator |
I hope you salvaged the feast and can enjoy it today!
And you owe yourselves a couple of hot toddies! |
||
|
Meesthare |
|||
|
Posts: 488 (01/01/09 14:20:28) |
Our furnace conked out on the first below-freezing day of the winter here a few weeks ago. The "emergency, 24-hour response" promised by the place we
bought it from 2 years ago said they could be here on Monday (it happened on a Friday). We decided that wasn't good enough, and phoned another
"emergency, 24-hour response" company. They said they could be there on Wednesday.
So we went back to the first place; they agreed to come on Monday and in the meantime we used our propane fireplace to warm the house. It doesn't do too bad a job, but it was getting pretty frosty upstairs until some friends lent us a space heater. Fortunately our power was working! On Monday morning the emergency fix-it people phoned and said "Um, it's not a really good day ..." I told them they were absolutely right, it wasn't a really good day; I was recently out of the hospital and wasn't especially enjoying the wintry weather. They did manage to send somebody over, who looked at the furnace, noted that it didn't seem to be working (!!), tinkered with it for a minute, and got it going. I suspect he whacked it with a hammer. He told us he had no idea what was wrong with it, but it seemed to be working fine; maybe there's a glitch in the circuit board. It's been perfectly OK since, but we're hanging on to the space heater just in case. I think you're right, Simone - 2008 had some strange karma! Let's hope for better things for '09. |
||
|
MikePinTucson |
|||
|
Posts: 4412 (01/01/09 14:36:02) Board Moderator |
Maybe the whole problem with 2008 was that we DIDN'T have a TTG GTG. But that will be remedied in 2009, so it HAS to be a better year.
No rants here. It has warmed back up, and will be in the 70's (F) here again today. Lovely New Year's Day weather. |
||
 Gardenridge |
|||
|
Posts: 2004 (01/01/09 14:52:21) |
We had small TTG GTGs around the country, though. I went to one in San Diego, and I think there were some on the east coast ( of course, the east coast...
it's a little like "if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound." Right, Mike, we have to stick together on this.)
Now, a little bit of a pout: where are some more TTGers who might come to the GTG in Victoria. And Scotland is closer than Florida, so there's no excuse there! |
||
|
MikePinTucson |
|||
|
Posts: 4413 (01/01/09 16:33:34) Board Moderator |
That's right, GR. I went to a great GTG in NC in 2008.
|
||
|
marieclaude560 |
|||
|
Posts: 13719 (01/01/09 17:27:16) EZop Administrator |
I'm headed to Vancouver -- it's west of Chicago right?
|
||
|
TheRealDoctorLew |
|||
|
Posts: 665 (01/01/09 19:52:16) Member |
Partial salvage. Instead of carefully balanced and orchestrated combinations of tastes and textures, the effect was modified and fragmented. The crusty bread
and French butter (and the raw milk ementhaler) went in the dark, no wine as locating and decanting 40+ year old Bordeaux was impossible in the dark. The soft
cheeses stayed in the fridge, maybe for tomorrow? Today did the rib steaks au poivre and the potato salad and crudities and dip with 1/2 bottle of 78 Sterling
as we didn't have a New year's night to sleep off the bigger bottle. Also started the French pastries and sipped a bit of the port, so today went OK.
Tomorrow the bakeries will be open again, so we can do the rest of the cheese course. Salvage, yes, but the whole effect of abundance and complementary
variety I was aiming for is a bit dissipated.
|
||
|
elainesl |
|||
|
Posts: 12045 (01/02/09 22:28:51) Board Moderator |
40-year old Bordeaux Your menu sounds superb; may you plan and enjoy it again soon!
|
||
|
Sallyoneil |
|||
|
Posts: 494 (01/03/09 00:01:16) Member |
Since we lived in hurricane country for thirty years, we became pretty used to operating without electricity. One thing we swear by is a combination
radio/flashlight/alarm that does not need batteries. It has a handle that you just twirl for a minute and that will give it power for ten minutes or longer.
It is very easy to operate and you don't have to worry about being out of batteries. I keep a little one in my car in case I need it for night tire
changing, etc.
|
||
|
TheRealDoctorLew |
|||
|
Posts: 666 (01/03/09 08:20:40) Member |
30 years after buying 10 year old Bordeaux you have either 40 year old Bordeaux or fond memories of a fine wine. I may have a lifetime supply of fine wine in
my cellar as long as I live for a very long time!
As for raw milk cheese, it's allowed in the US of A if it is aged more than 60 days. Got my chunk at Whole Paycheck. I only wish we could get raw milk soft cheeses here. I find Camembert from pasteurized milk to resemble cheese flavored soap compared to the real thing. Back in college, at a small Ivy League university in New Jersey, we were lucky enough to get unpasteurized ("certified") milk at the dining halls, and it made ordinary milk taste like white colored water. The same difference holds for cheese. If you see raw milk cheese, get some and to heck with the price. (Is this thread still a rant?) |
||
|
batraveler |
|||
|
Posts: 1508 (01/03/09 12:16:47) Moderator |
Rant: Weather, as usual. We are stuck in this -40 deep freeze and there is no end in sight. Sigh...
Rant: Pain. Awful, debilitating and horrendous back pain. Rave: The above fade into the background somewhat when we look at our Croatia house pictures, as we did last evening. Dr. Lew, we rarely have power outages here. They are usually just blips. As we are in such a cold climate things would start cracking and breaking pretty quickly if something were to happen in the winter. It wouldn't take even us hardy Canadians long to start feeling it! |
||
|
endo213 |
|||
|
Posts: 657 (01/04/09 09:09:29) Member |
Rave: Had a wonderful Christmas/New Year's week with family and friends. I'm lucky to have a large house so that I can easily sleep a lot of people.
Rant: Really, really tired after that week. Rant: Who wants to put away my Christmas decorations? batraveler: Do you know when you will be able to get to your place in Croatia? It sounds so lovely! |
||
- Get Your TTG News Here!
- Trip Reports
- Travel Photos
- Top TTG Travel Tips
- United Kingdom & Eire
- France
- Italy
- All Europe, All the Time
- United States & Canada,
- The Caribbean, Mexico, Central & South America
- Africa & the Middle East
- Asia & Oceania
- Getting There
- Cruisin' Along ...
- Food & Wine II
- The Best of the Rest ...
- TTG Archives: Weekly, Monthly & Holiday Threads
- TTG Archives: General
- Food & Wine Archives
