French?

I shall need a French wine this coming weekend. I began my enjoyment of the French Open last Sunday. I always cheer for the underdog unless he's playing against Nadal or Federer or an American.
On the women's side, since Venus didn't manager to make it deep into the tournament, in her absence, I shall most likely be a Stosur fan.

More to come...

Steak House

Oh, this title is true on two levels this evening: the menu and the wine pairing. The ninja and I grilled marinated filets, topped them with bearnaise and enjoyed them with a salad and our very first attempt at fried green tomatoes! The ninja did not of course share my wine pairing. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what he's drinking this evening. But I'll give you 5-1 it has tequila in it.

I paired my steak with a beautiful, big Cabernet Sauvignon called - you guessed it - Steak House. The wine is an 89-point, $11 bottle that I chose for the label (duh!) and for the price (the 91-point bottle was $26; the 93-point was $55 and the labels were absolutely NO COMPETITION!) Of course, I knew the menu and there was never a doubt in my mind that a Cab was a necessity.

In the following snip, turn up the volume. You can hear the garden fountain in the background and at the end you can hear the panting of the 15-yr old cattle dog when she walks out on the porch to see what the heck I'm doing...

The Fried Green Tomatoes, you ask? Oh, yeah. They turned out quite nice, fried in walnut oil...

The rest of the day was the usual: tennis, bumming around Oak Ridge and around in the yard and in the house. We do have a new member of the family. Creevey II. Here's his story:

Our former tabby (Creevey the First) abandoned us in the last month we lived in California. He had been two-timing us at the house 3 doors down for several months. We think he sensed we were short-timers and he abandoned us completely several weeks before we left for good. We still caught glimpses of him, but he never got close enough for us to nab him and put him in a cat crate for the cross-crountry trek.

Meanwhile, we've settled in Oak Ridge, TN. We've nurtured our flower garden through a Winter and Spring. And, now I've begun watching the chipmunks have their way with my bulbs. I'm furious. So, we visited the Animal Shelter last Saturday. I was immediately drawn to the tabby in the first set of cages. But, the tag on his cage said "On Hold", so I wandered aimlessly past several more banks of cages eyeing longhairs and kittens but being drawn back to the tabby the whole time.

I finally got up the nerve to ask about him. Turned out the label on the tag was wrong. So, we adopted the tabby. He's been with us barely over 24 hours. Not sure how it's going to work out, but so far he's doing better with the Border Collie and Cattle Dog than Creevey the First ever did.