I keep trying to like Rose’ while also trying to be frugal.
Generally speaking, Rose’ and frugality don’t play well together, but this one’s not bad.
For $8.99, Dark Horse makes a Rose’ that maintains enough smooth and buttery qualities to make it perfectly drinkable.
Initially, a very bright and crisp wine, I noticed that it mellowed out considerably by the second day. I prefer second day Rose’ and it is excellent paired with a big spinach salad topped with Chipotle Ranch dressing.
I call this my homework wine, for obvious reasons.
Smooth and easy sipping, a little Rose’ helps to drown out the residual bad music that eight hours of stapling idiocracy has left in my brain. Even now as I write this on a Saturday morning, snippets of the insufferably bad music played all day at work still rattle around in my head.
Right now it’s Rachel Platten. Now, let me warn you, I only share this link as a cruel joke. Misery loves company and I think that if I should have to live with the ghost of this horrifically bad song in my head then someone else should too.
Thank you for calling the suicide prevention hotline. Please enjoy the music while your party is reached. And by the time a representative finally picks up the phone, there is only dead silence on the other end.
So anyway, back to the wine. Xavier did not like this one at all so that just meant more for me, which is fine because I have a lot of homework.
I picked this up on Friday night to celebrate another week of not killing anyone at the nations largest retailer of staplers. One can only take so much stapling idiocracy before it becomes necessary to turn the down the volume on the situation.
Enter stage left: Wine, wine, and more wine.
Xavier and I killed this bottle during the pilot episode of Game Of Thrones (we’re starting over from the beginning), which was so enthralling that I forgot to get any photos of the wine in a glass until the show, and dinner, were over.
You can bet it was good though. We paired it with bread-less cheeseburgers and asparagus.
The tasting notes describe it as having an aroma of spearmint but whoever wrote that was clearly chewing gum at the time. Give this Cabernet Sauvignon a few minutes to air out and open up and it is a wonderfully full bodied and smooth, slightly smoky, cab that tastes like gone.
To be clear, there is nothing minty about it.
Xavier said it gave him a bit of the red wine headache. I, however, slept the night away unscathed.
Smoking Loon is located in Chile as are many of my recent favorites. I think I’m beginning to see what Kricket was saying about other parts of the world tasting better than California.
In any case, Game Of Thrones reminded us that winter is, in fact, on it’s way and on Friday Xavier told the head Staplers that we are moving to New Mexico at the end of the year, effectively letting the cat out of the bag and bringing us one step closer to making our exit.
I won’t mind leaving this place before winter arrives.
In the bustling historic district of downtown Frederick, Maryland there lies a little bit of home, sort of. I have been living on the east coast for almost three years now and if there is one thing this New Mexico native misses, it’s New Mexican food with our signature Green Chile. New Mexican Green Chile is known to many farmers as the Anaheim Pepper. It grows fabulously well in the hot and dry climate of New Mexico and southern California and, depending on ripeness at the time of harvest, the Anaheim Pepper may be served either red or green. During my time here in Maryland, I have discovered that most Mexican restaurants have never heard of Green Chile, but that doesn’t mean they have nothing of value to offer.
During my first trip to the east coast to visit Xavier (back before he was promoted to the rank of husband), he took me to Cacique in an effort to make me feel at home. I ordered the Chile Rellenos made with Poblano Peppers and asked the waiter if I could get them “with red and green”? He raised an eyebrow and asked, “Red and green what?” After an awkward moment of staring at each other, I said, “Never mind, the way you usually make it will be fine.” Our waiter did not know what Green Chile was but the Chile Rellenos he brought me were fantastic. At the end of our meal, Xavier asked if I enjoyed my food and I remember saying that, “It’s different than the Mexican food I’m used to but it’s very good in its own right.”
Since this fateful first meal, Xavier and I have eaten at Cacique Restaurant many times, including on our wedding day, and it has become my favorite restaurant both because it reminds me of home and because of the unique dishes they offer that are not available at most Mexican restaurants in Albuquerque. It is worth mentioning that the front cover of Cacique’s menu reads “Fine Spanish And Mexican Cuisine” and, while they may not know what Green Chile is, they have some excellent Spanish offerings including an amazing steamed mussel appetizer that I wouldn’t expect to see on the menu at Little Anita’s or Taco Sal anytime soon.
Every dining experience at Cacique begins with being seated either inside the upscale restaurant or on the tiny and crowded, but exclusive and cool, sidewalk patio. The streets of downtown Frederick are never boring and there is no better place to sip a mojito or margarita and watch the endless parade of interesting people, weird cars, and dogs in costumes than the patio at Cacique.
The wait staff is always well dressed and polite and the most important dish they will bring to the table is the chips and salsa, which are made from scratch daily. I have enjoyed a lot of salsa in my day, most of it in New Mexico, but the one that stands out the most is the freshly made salsa at Cacique. With an absolute perfect balance of tomato, cilantro, onion, lime juice, and jalapeno, the only other salsa that may have come close was from the old Territorial House Restaurant that was operation in Corrales between 1972 and 1987. Like the Territorial House, Cacique also sells their salsa to go although they have not yet started packaging it for sale in grocery stores.
Cacique offers most of the same types of dishes that one would expect to find in New Mexico. They have enchiladas, chile rellenos, burritos, tacos, and chimichangas but, at Cacique, these dishes are just a little different. The most notable difference is the absence of Green Chile but the sauces they use are made of different types of peppers and are delicious in their own right. Another big difference is a conspicuous lack of corn tortillas. If you order enchiladas at Cacique, they are made with flour tortillas. I have never been a fan of the traditional Spanish rice, usually served as an obligatory space filler on standard issue plates of New Mexican food, but Cacique uses a completely different seasoning on their rice and it’s amazing! Speaking of obligatory space fillers, in New Mexico it is possible to order any type of beans you want so long as pinto is your bean of choice. At Cacique, many of the dishes come with black beans.
Tied with the salsa for first place, my other favorite thing about Cacique is their unique way of serving sopapillas. In New Mexico, sopapillas are usually brought to the table in a basket and many restaurants bring them automatically. Everyone knows the sopapillas are to be filled with the honey (syrup) that’s already on the table and enjoyed as a dessert of sorts. Cacique also serves sopapillas but they are listed as an actual dish on the dessert menu. The reason for this is because when sopapillas are ordered at Cacique, they are brought to the table on a huge plate, arranged around a hefty scoop of vanilla ice cream and topped with cinnamon and powdered sugar. Your dining companion may need to roll you back to your car afterwards but it’s well worth the caloric splurge.
Being a New Mexican living in a foreign environment can be tough, and even lonely at times, but comfort food is an effective way to feel at home. To my fellow desert dwellers, should you find yourself adrift in the foreign land of Frederick, Maryland be sure to get yourself a curb side table at Cacique and don’t forget the margarita!
Wine from the Devil’s Locker puts it over the top.
I don’t know why the waiter decided to tell me about the all the foo-foo wines first. I mean, I was trying to look grown up. I wasn’t even wearing a Hello Kitty tee shirt or anything.
Anyway, I chose the Merlot because it was the only one on the wine list that I hadn’t already tried.
Fair warning, pull up your grown-up pants before indulging in this one. Made from Merlot grapes grown in the Central-Valley of Chile, it’s rich, deep, and clearly not from a box. That one glass made me walk a little sideways.
Absolutely excellent and velvety smooth when paired with a bold flavored dish such as steak fajitas.
Vanilla, oak, smoke, and chocolate. Oh yeah, and grapes. A wickedly attractive concoction full of bad-assery and sophistication.
But you have to buy the books, and the colored pencils, and then spend hours actually doing it.
Some call it therapeutic, exhausting is more the word I would use. To balance this need to feel artsy with a laziness inherent to most human beings there is Recolor; a fun app for the iPhone. Coloring via touch screen followed by fun textures and filters. In a nutshell: art for lazy people.
It’s a nice alternative to slamming one’s head into the wall while reading the news.
I usually like Pinot Noir, and I wanted to like this one, I really did.
But I didn’t.
Hard to put a finger on exactly what it is. The box says something about tasting like cola. They call it cola, I call it unfortunate.
Something mid palate hits all the wrong notes.
But that’s just me. Xavier thought it was alright. He drank more of it than I did but we ended up throwing part of it away in favor of something better.
The blessing and the curse of boxed wine is that it comes in large quantities.
I’m generally a fan of Bota Box but won’t be buying this Pinot Noir again. On the other hand, the RedVolution and Nightkawk Black are both very good!
Hold on to your hat, friends. This one is good, really good.
Xavier and I didn’t mean to kill the whole the box in 3 days. Personally, I blame the box. I mean none of this would’ve happened if it weren’t there in the first place.
In looking back at my notes, I wrote exactly this: “tall glass of chocolate milk”.
Xavier said, “a glass of Johnny Walker because it’s Dyn-o-mite”. Interpret as you will.
Plum, blueberry, chocolate, vanilla.. Finish is smooth like silk.
One of the very best boxed wines we’ve tried thus far.
And check out how beautiful it is in the candlelight.
Trust The Devil You Know 