Two Nights Out and Then We Play Hosts

Friday night's Friends of Cognac wine- and chocolate-tasting event was a great success. Helen and Gordon met us at the Medical Centre carpark where the coach came to pick us up. It was a cold night for it had snowed again during the day--not much, but enough to make us very happy we weren't driving. In fact, as it turned out, it began to snow as we made our way by coach to Perth. Fortunately the roads had been well gritted and so were not slippy or "greasy" as they say over here.

The evening began in the Perth library theatre with a short welcome from Ian Cowing, our leader, and a brief introduction to the history of the twinning and what it entails. Then there was a slide show which was nicely put together of photos from various members' trips over the years. When that was over (and it was quite short), we adjourned to the library cafeteria for the tasting.

Most people wouldn't think of linking wine and chocolates but if the two are selected carefully for compatibility, they can be very nice together. The chocolatier was a most knowledgeable woman and a good presenter as well. She gave us just enough background information and then got right into the tasting. We began with a pink and very bubbly sweetish Cava (Spanish champagne) served with strawberry truffles and ended with a sherry made from very special raisins served with very dark chocolate truffles. Throughout the evening, the cocoa content rose, from the milk chocolate at 40% to the Valrhona Guanaja at 70% cocoa solids. In addition to the Cava and the sherry, there was a plummy red Australian Grenache/Shiraz/Mourvedre and a 14-year-old VSOP Cognac. The chocolatier has partnered with the wine merchant and I think we would all confirm that it is a very good match indeed, especially if you're on the tasting end.

Helen and Gordon decided to join the Friends of Cognac and so our friend Gordon Rae spoke with the organization's treasurer, another Gordon Rae. We are tickled that they decided to get in on the fun. Next month there will be a more serious wine tasting for our social event. On the way home the snow had turned to rain which meant that the temperature was considerably milder. We brought Helen and Gordon home with us very briefly so that I could present Helen with her quilt. She was thrilled and very touched, which made me feel very happy.

Yesterday it rained the whole day. In the late afternoon we went to Perth, parked our car in the indoor public carpark, and walked to Lakeland, a terrific British institution which features everything imaginable for the home that is smaller than furniture (kitchen items, laundry products, storage containers, small appliances, and so forth). I have been buying products from them since before we moved into The Rowans. This time we were mainly after an omelet pan and a few other smaller items.

We also stopped at Waterstons' Booksellers so I could get a replacement for the book I bought from them in December only to find pages 119 through 149 missing! (They hadn't fallen out of the book; they were never there.) It was a book written by a psychic. Don told the saleswoman that perhaps the author thought that by the time we'd gotten to page 119, we might be able to receive "messages" about what was written in the missing pages. Anyway, a replaacement copy was duly and cheerfully supplied with a sincere apology.

The final stop was at Whittard's coffee and tea shop for an espresso pot. Week before last I had coffee with Catherine Brown, a woman who is in the So and Sews and who happens to be a food writer. I wanted to buy one of her books so she had me come for coffee. She served the most wonderful cup of espresso and when I raved about it, she showed me how she did it. I came home and told Don that we had to have one of those pots. We arrived at Whittard's about 2 minutes before their 5:30 pm closing time.

We took our purchases to the car and then went to the restaurant where we had booked for our pre-concert evening meal. Cafe Tabou is a cosy and excellent French bistro where you always receive a warm welcome and come away pleasantly full and very satisfied. Last night was no exception. Don had a marvelous seafood soup starter while I had a lovely crisp mixed salad. For mains, Don had calves liver with onion, tomato Provencale, and gratin potatoes dauphinoise. I had Lemon sole with toasted hazelnuts and smoked salmon. Most unusual and really wonderful. We finished with cappucinos and then rushed off to the concert hall for a 7:30 start.

The opening act was a group from Galicia in Spain, the Celtic region. They were called Mutenrohi and gave a terrific performance. The group played Celtic rock, heavier on the Celtic than on the rock, with a distinctly Galician flavor. Having been together for 10 years, the 6-member band were full of energy and talent. The crowd was blown away by their sheer drive and enthusiasm.

It is a good thing we had them on the program for the main act, Wolfstone, were a great disappointment to us. They have morphed from Scottish rock to straight rock and the result was not particularly interesting to us. After 5 numbers, only 2 of which harkened back to their Scottish roots in any way, we looked at each other and said almost simultaneously, "Ya wanna go?" We were off. As we squeezed past the only folks to our left, the woman said to me "We should just stick with the old CDs, yes?" I had to agree. The fact is, we found Mutenrohi so satisfying that the positive feeling from them overrode our disappointment in Wolfstone, so all was not in vain.

On the way home we stopped at Tescoes to do a shop, got home, put things away, watched a Seinfeld (from season 5) and went to bed.

This morning we experimented with our new espresso pot with some of the Columbian coffee Catherine got for me last week from her family's tea and coffee shop in Dundee. The pot is a stovetop model and it took a bit of adjusting to figure out how high to keep the gas flame. The first pot of coffee had to be thrown out because I must have put too much coffee in because the coffee dribbled out between the two layers instead of getting forced up into the top of the pot. Finally, though, we got it done properly and found that we had a marvelous if time-consuming new way to make coffee. We've decided that we'll mostly use our old automatic drip pot but on those occasions when we want it extra strong, we'll use the new pot.

Don managed to get out for 9 holes at Comrie today while I read the paper for a while then worked on a new project in the studio. Now we're preparing for tonight's guest, David Sutcliffe, who's coming to have the evening meal with us. (Juliet is down south visiting with her son, daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren.)

It was another drizzly and overcast day. One of those days where the sky is totally featureless. It's supposed to rain all week so I guess we'd better get used to it. By the way, we have contracted with Mr. Jack, the builder who made our chimney wall and laid the porch stoops and pathway, to make us a soakaway in the back where we tend to get a big puddle. Now we're waiting for the rain to stop so he can do the job.