I'm Not a Connoisseur: Ironstone Old Vine Zinfandel

Rating: 84/100

I'm Not A Connoisseur: The Velvet Devil

Rating: 50/100

As The Tomato Grows

Tomatoes. What are they? Fruit? Botanically. Vegetable? Culinarily. Delicious? Absolutely. Sliced on a plate with a little bit of salt and pepper, they make a tremendous light snack. It is something you can feel good about. So why not grow and harvest your own? Well that is exactly what Maggie wanted to do. And so we did. Since we don't have a good place to grow them, we tried the hanging growers. We got a couple of tomato plants from Whole Foods and a few bags of soil and went to work. My pick was named "Jaga." Maggie's was "Big Rainbow." Planting was a little bit of a chore, but we eventually got them situated in the potters and hung them on a couple of screws that were already drilled into the beam on the ceiling of our patio. Then we played the waiting game.

A Wedding And Then Some

Maggie's friend Patti got married this past weekend. We made a nice little trip up there to witness the occasion. The destination was a little town, Wheaton, Illinois, about 40 minutes to an hour from downtown Chicago. It didn't start off so well.

Simon The Cat

We had a cat. A cat named Simon. Simon the cat, to some. He was a temporary resident. A favor to Maggie's friend while her house recovered from mold irradication, mold to which she was deathly allergic. For two weeks though, he was ours.