Jillapalooza

IM IN UR OCEAN. EATIN UR CARDZ.

Woot! It’s Wine for Me

These 2006 Idus de Vall Llach, D.O.Q. Priorat, Spain comes from vines that grow on rocky slopes, high above sea level. The impressive angles and terrain mean that no mechanical devices can be used… which means some guy’s out there, walking diagonal over the rocks all day, pulling grapes off tiny bonsai-gnarled vines. Probably in shoes made entirely of thorns. While also wearing poison ivy underwear. Apparently just how they roll in Barcelona.

I’ve gone through a lot of phases in my life. Nail polish, shoes, lip gloss, perfume, jewelry…

My most recent phase is a wine phase. I have really found a love for a great red wine, so when Nick first introduced me to woot!, I was excited to discover they had a wine.woot! If you don’t know what woot! is, then click on the links I just painstakingly entered, because time is money, and money means more wine.woot!, and it should be clear where my priorities currently reside.

Now, when Nick shops on woot! he buys things like vacuums, laptops (technically I purchased the laptop), flash drives (okay, I guess I bought one of those too), and coolers. Me? I purchase booze.

My first purchase off wine.woot! just happened to occur the first time I visited the site. I’m usually intimidated when it comes to purchasing wine because 1) I know absolutely nothing about wine, grapes, vineyards, tannins, textures, or anything else like that; and B) I’m super picky about red wine, and every time I try to explain to people what I like, they try to feed me some line about how it’s not the nature of red wine or some bullshit like that. For me, I like to have a sweet wine that isn’t so dry it makes the inside of my mouth shrivel and something not so strong as to have me reaching for a glass of water to erase the flavor.

The down side is, somebody’s going home exhausted and in tears. The plus side is that you’re getting wine with the human touch.

Although I didn’t understand the technical details in the write-up of 2006 Idus de Vall Llach, I did get the woot! humor, and that’s what sold me on these two bottles. Or maybe it was the the desire to click the “I want one!” button for the first time. I guess we’ll never have the answer.

Ruby red with mineral tones, aromas of black licorice, marzipan, nutmeg and allspice, and flavors of figs, molasses, caramel and a rich fruit compote.

Wut? I don’t even know what half those items are. When I reread this a day after ordering, I thought I must be crazy. There was no way my delicate palate would be able to handle this beverage.

Turns out I was wrong. This may just be one of the best wines I’ve ever tasted! So here it is, my practically professional quality review of this 40% Cariñena, 20% Merlot, 15% Garnacha, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Syrah wine:

It’s kind of on the tart side, but it doesn’t make my mouth feel like a desert. It’s really tasty.

I have two bottles, and I have to make them last. At least until until my next shipment comes. :D

Culture Night with BRK

It’s not very often that I blog about Culture Club, but because during dinner BRK and I discussed the difficulties of blogging, I felt it was fitting.

After a particularly arduous day at work, Kristen arrived at the njbuk residence a little behind schedule. We decided to scrap the movie section of culture night and headed to Edina to get some grub. BRK picked Salut Bar Americain as our restaurant. It’s right next to our usual digs, The Edina Grill, and was usually pretty busy.

My initial assumption was that we were going to some fancy pants American grill, like an overpriced Applebees on crack. We were in Edina, after all. When I checked in with foursquare, I was surprised to discover that Salut was a French restaurant. I’ve never been to a French restaurant before! I thought to myself. Actually, I’m pretty sure I said it out loud.

They served a mini loaf of bread inside a bag along with a little tub of whipped up butter. The butter was white and kind of pearlescent, but it was the best damn butter I’ve ever tasted. I wondered if all French butter is like that. Then I wondered if all French restaurants had a giant container of sea salt on their tables. And then I wondered why the restaurant was named “Bar Americain” and not “Bar French” . . . or whatever French is in French.

I ended up ordering the Barramundi, which is was light, white, flaky fish. (I’d never heard of it, so I looked it up on the interwebs before ordering. Popular in Thai food, apparently.) I also indulged in a glass or two of Pinot Noir. (Note to self: Buy Cellar No. 8) And a slice of Red Velvet Cake. Come on, it’s Culture Club! BRK and I agreed it was the best RVC ever. Evar!

Oh, and also our waiter, Raul, had a fun accent and smelled nice.

After last night, I felt sufficiently cultured.

Top Five Tuesday

Because my blog doesn’t get nearly enough action as it should, I’ve decided to join Mary and Sara in a feature they call Top Five Tuesday! They are the brains behind the operation. I’m just riding on their coattails. Would it be presumptuous of me to invite my lovely readers to join in the blogging festivities? With all my traffic, I’d hate to overwhelm the two of them with participants, thus sucking all the fun out of it. But go ahead and join us anyway if you feel so inclined. ;)

Attractions at the Zoo

I’m excited that my first post is about zoos because I looove zoos!

5. Lemurs
Lemurs get me every time. They are so awesome with their little fuzzy bodies and big, huge eyeballs. I think lemurs would make good pets. Zoos should sell them.

4. Penguins
The penguins are always fun to watch. They’re always kind of frantically running around and diving into the water. Even though they can’t fly, for some reason they’re always behind glass. Probably because of the whole seeing them underwater thing. Wouldn’t be as interesting without it, I guess.

3. Peacocks
When Nick and I were in Hawaii, I dragged him to the Honolulu zoo. They had peacocks wandering about like they owned the place. One was standing in the pathway all plumed up. We kind of had to tiptoe around it and hope it wasn’t about to go into attack mode. So freaky, yes. But also awesome. And yes, this is my photo, documenting said peacock.

2. Big cats
I love looking at the big cats whenever I go to the zoo. They’re like larger, slightly more cuddly versions of Boo. My only complaint is that all they do is lie there. I seem to always miss the feeding times. There should be oversized sparkly toys we can dangle from a string or something, but they’d probably just roll onto their backs and bat at it like my cat does. Lazy bastards. Why don’t you guys just sleep all day?

1. Giraffes
I flove them. I like their long necks and their black tongues. They have by far the coolest animal print pattern. And they’re always so damn relaxed. I’d love a pet giraffe. When it’s a cute little baby, it can live in my house and help me get things on the top shelf that are out of my reach, and when it’s an adult, it could hang out in my yard and stick it’s head through the window to say hello.

tumblr.

I opened a tumblr blog today. I’ll mostly be using it to cross-post my Instagram photos and reblog, well, all the stupid crap on tumblr. I might throw on some of my favorite quotes and other random stuff that I don’t deem appropriate for here. Probably some Twilight related stuff as well. Consider it a supplemental blog to this one. Or don’t. I’ll probably get bored or forget about it soon anyway. :)

jillapalooza.tumblr.com

Happy 31st Birthday to Me

Monday marked my 31st birthday. Woo. Hoo.

It was uneventful for the most part. My relaxing evening was interrupted by multiple phone calls, which people who know me know I absolutely despise. The ones (I should say “one”) wishing me a happy birthday were okay, though. Social networking definitely won out for the preferred method of birthday well wishing.

Nick and I were going to go to the Red Lobster for dinner, but his softball game conflicted with it, so I took a rain check. Then I babysat Charlie. That was okay. She slept the whole time, and I managed to get a bit of reading done. For those of you interested, I had a late dinner of Pizza Rolls and wine, but it was the gross wine from the bottom of the bottle, all thick and nasty. I’ll have to remember to shake it up next time.

I think I’m just bummed because for the first time in three years, my birthday wasn’t marked by MSD’s Dive Fest. Even though I don’t have much drive to dive in MN during the summer, I still looked forward to the weekend. That’s okay, though, cuz I still got two doses of the cklahrs over the weekend.

So I guess I’m officially over 30. At least I don’t have children.

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