Friday, January 29, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Winter Wine Land
Winter Wine Land is something that I attended for the first time last year. It is and affordable, all you can taste wine tasting weekend that includes hundreds of wineries all over the region. This was actually a discovery made by my sister, who has bought boyfriend and I tickets for the past 2 years as our Christmas presents.
Let me be honest, I’m not a wine connoisseur. I judge on a scale of gross to grape juice. Until I moved in with boyfriend I did not own a corkscrew and used a screw and hammer to remove corks from any bottles of wine that I ever bought that were fancy enough to have something like a cork rather than a screw top. Before last year I had never been, or really had the desire to go wine tasting despite growing up about 20 minuets from wine country.
How I was really sold on Winter Wine Land was the food pairings. Each winery has elaborate food pairing, which last year included massive amounts of paella and chocolate, and this year included various stews and comfits prepared by well known area restaurants such as Zin. The winner for this year, as far as food pairings go, were the Hog Island Oysters. They were heavenly! While I quietly poured my white wine taste into my sisters glass, snuck two raw oysters, and topped them with the signature ‘Hog Wash’ my sisters boyfriend boldly bellied up to the serving table and downed at least a half a dozen.
We visited the Russian River Valley and the Alexander Valley over the course of 2 afternoons. We went to about 5 wineries each day. I would highly recommend this event to anybody who would like to go wine tasting but has a tight budget. Tickets are about $30 if you purchase ahead of time, or $40 if you get them the day of.
Remember to designate a driver as you get pretty loaded if you are not classy enough to spit out your tastes(or far enough out of college to let good alcohol go undrunk). The DD gets a coffee mug and there are alcohol free beverages at each stop.
Let me be honest, I’m not a wine connoisseur. I judge on a scale of gross to grape juice. Until I moved in with boyfriend I did not own a corkscrew and used a screw and hammer to remove corks from any bottles of wine that I ever bought that were fancy enough to have something like a cork rather than a screw top. Before last year I had never been, or really had the desire to go wine tasting despite growing up about 20 minuets from wine country.
How I was really sold on Winter Wine Land was the food pairings. Each winery has elaborate food pairing, which last year included massive amounts of paella and chocolate, and this year included various stews and comfits prepared by well known area restaurants such as Zin. The winner for this year, as far as food pairings go, were the Hog Island Oysters. They were heavenly! While I quietly poured my white wine taste into my sisters glass, snuck two raw oysters, and topped them with the signature ‘Hog Wash’ my sisters boyfriend boldly bellied up to the serving table and downed at least a half a dozen.
We visited the Russian River Valley and the Alexander Valley over the course of 2 afternoons. We went to about 5 wineries each day. I would highly recommend this event to anybody who would like to go wine tasting but has a tight budget. Tickets are about $30 if you purchase ahead of time, or $40 if you get them the day of.
Remember to designate a driver as you get pretty loaded if you are not classy enough to spit out your tastes(or far enough out of college to let good alcohol go undrunk). The DD gets a coffee mug and there are alcohol free beverages at each stop.
Friday, January 15, 2010
I Turn in Applications Like It's My Job!
I have been submitting applications for Post-bac premed programs all over the United States. It has been about 6 years since I had to write an application essay, and although I have been dreading it, it is even worse than I remembered. How do you not sound uber boring, but still convey your maturity? I always want to give cheeky answers to show my disdain for the formulaic application process. I think it might be better if I could send pictures and audio clips, although I’m not sure how well that would do for my maturity level score…
The typical application asks for the following:
Please include your resume, and a 500 word essay that gives your academic autobiography, reasons for wanting to enter the field, reasons for choosing this school, also please be sure to infuse your personality into every word and explain away any blips on your record.
Done? Please write and essay on your most significant healthcare experience (despite this being an application to enter into a pre-med program)
Finish that? Please now write a quasi optional essay that includes anything else you would like to tell us.
Also, please track down your SAT scores by remembering the user name and password you created when you were 16. And if you could include your ACT scores which are not recorded electronically unless you took them after 2008.
Please hunt down a college professor from your 30,000+ student public university and have them write you a letter of recommendation.
Furthermore we have added more boxes to the race and ethnicity section some of which more accurately describe your race or ethnicity than the old boxes that you have been checking since your entered kindergarten. But remember, self identification is king and a change now could affect scholarship and financial aid.
The typical application asks for the following:
Please include your resume, and a 500 word essay that gives your academic autobiography, reasons for wanting to enter the field, reasons for choosing this school, also please be sure to infuse your personality into every word and explain away any blips on your record.
Done? Please write and essay on your most significant healthcare experience (despite this being an application to enter into a pre-med program)
Finish that? Please now write a quasi optional essay that includes anything else you would like to tell us.
Also, please track down your SAT scores by remembering the user name and password you created when you were 16. And if you could include your ACT scores which are not recorded electronically unless you took them after 2008.
Please hunt down a college professor from your 30,000+ student public university and have them write you a letter of recommendation.
Furthermore we have added more boxes to the race and ethnicity section some of which more accurately describe your race or ethnicity than the old boxes that you have been checking since your entered kindergarten. But remember, self identification is king and a change now could affect scholarship and financial aid.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Earthquake Relief
Please consider taking a moment to make a donation to Haitian medical relief. Two organizations accepting donations that you are probably familiar with and who have long established programs in Haiti:
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Holiday Gift Baskets
This year for Christmas I planned ahead. Unusual and uncharacteristic I know.
I made blackberry jam, apple butter, and fudge, packaged and sealed them into cute, pint sized mason jars, and printed out little labels at work. Next stop was the dollar store where I got plastic baskets that kind of look like the ones for collecting eggs. I shredded newspaper and then customized the baskets according to who I was giving them to. All of them had the three homemade goodies and then a couple of extras. For my older sister and her boyfriend we had a six pack of nice beer and a chocolate bar. For my younger sister, a bottle of Martinelli's organic sparkling cider, chocolate, and several photocopies of a particularly good Christmas card we were sent, and for our neighbors, a dozen of the eggs that the family chickens had laid. Grandma got a necklace that I bought from a street vendor, and Boyfriends mom got a scarf bought from an amazing Etsy shop
For our friends in Portland we also made fun gift baskets. We made them Bloody Mary kits with the previously described horseradish vodka. They included Worcestershire sauce, celery salt, lemons, organic tomato juice and olives stuffed with various morsels.
It was amazing and surprisingly inexpensive! The best part is I have extra goodies left over to give to people who write me letters of recommendation. I am going to have to try this planning ahead thing more often!
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