Cooking on a rainy day

On the list for today:

1. Make dashi to cook rice in
2. Cook rice for onigiri
3. Prepare salmon salad for onigiri filling
4. Make onigiri
5. Cook beans for mini black bean burgers
6. Make mini black bean burgers
7. Make lamb, potatoes, broccoli, and salad for dinner
8. Stir-fry veggies for a couple days' bentos

Oh, and I need to buy beer. Whew! Quite the workout in the kitchen. :)

Wine-ing filter. Well, not really a filter. :)

I went to Kappy's for beer today, because pierceheart said he'd like "healthy meat, veggies, and beer" at dinner tonight. Unbeknownst to me, today was the day of the Fall Wine Tasting there. Oh, OK! I tried a number of very nice wines, ranging from honeyed Pacific Northwest rieslings to big, bitter Italian amarones. I got to chat with a number of wine merchants, most of whom seem to be really nifty people, and a random Yorkshireman who was knowledgeable about all things Scots and kilt-related, for some unknown reason. It was lots of fun. I bought three wines: a malbec blend, a pinot noir, and a nice zin/syrah blend for the man of the house. That last was a bit pricier than I usually get, but I figured: hey, it's his birthday. :)

I rediscovered how much I like a good malbec, and I think my man would love a good amarone.

For beer, I ended up with a nice big bottle of Ommegang for dinner tonight, and some gorgeous Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale for general drinking. But the wines were a nice surprise. And it's gratifying for a woman who fancies herself a good cook and a good eater and drinker, to be told she has a good palate. :)

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When I got season 1 of True Blood for pierceheart as a birthday gift, I didn't think I'd much care for it myself. But...it's good. It's good. I thought that if you put vampires in New Orleans, you always got the same old Anne Rice/Poppy Z. Brite/all the people who want to be them kind of shit. But no. This is original and fresh and creative in a lot of ways. I like the characters. Some of them are quite unexpected. Good stuff!