Welcome to Nashoba! Would you like to do a wine tasting?

Well, here's a little bit of news: I got a job! Don't get too excited, it's a part-time job and it doesn't pay well at all, but it's super duper fun. I work at the tasting bar at Nashoba Valley Winery, and soon I will also be a tour guide (side note: I apparently say "tour" funny.  I say it "too-er". This was brought to my attention last weekend by two girls who thought perhaps I was Canadian).

What do I do? Why, I serve people wine. We do tastings every day, and you can sample any of our many fruit and grape wines, spirits and beers. I also apparently have morphed into the bartender-psychologist (seriously, that was NOT in my job description). This aspect is awkward and uncomfortable thus far so I try to avoid it when possible, and steer conversation towards our wines.

this is where I hang out on the weekends, ready to pour!

Nashoba has many award-winning wines, I like our little display near the big tasting bar

Nashoba started out as an apple orchard, and was purchased by a home wine maker in the late 1970s. We have a lot of heirloom apple varieties you don't really hear about (ask me what they are in a few weeks, though!) and we therefore make several apple wines. My favorite of the apple wines are the Cyser (a honey apple wine) and Chrystleton (an apple and elderberry wine).

We currently grow St Croix, Cabernet Franc, Lemberger and Vignoles grapes, and we're planting more. Our St Croix and Vignoles are our estate wines- one of the things I've learned so far is that "estate wine" means the all of the grapes in the wine were grown at our vineyard, as opposed to a wine where the grapes were grown elsewhere and turned into wine at our winery, or a wine composed of both our grapes and other vineyard's grapes.

We recently released a 5 year old whiskey, made using the old wine barrels. Oak barrels can only be used 2 or 3 times for making wine, but then they can be used for whiskey. This is useful, because they cost a fortune. Upwards of $1000 per barrel! I never would have thought they'd be so much. Barrels are made from oak because oak appears to be the best in letting the aging wine breathe and avoiding mold growth.

We have a number of sweeter spirits with fun names: Northern Comfort is a cognac-style spirit with a lovely maple flavor; Foggy Bog is a cranberry brandy, and Silk is a delicious peach brandy.

Finally, we have beers, one variety of apple cider and one variety of pear cider. These are always on tap for tasting, and available in growlers and bottles.

I decided I wanted to work at Nashoba because I go there SO MUCH. With every wine tasting or winery tour, you receive a complimentary Nashoba wine glass. I have 2 cases of Nashoba wine glasses in our basement, not to mention all the ones in the kitchen cabinets, and we've only been coming here since March 2009. We began my bachelorette party at Nashoba, and celebrated our first anniversary in picnic form with some of our nearest and dearest. I've tasted every single wine they have, and I can tell you about them. One day I was browsing their website to find the wine of the month (one wine is 10% off each month, currently it's the Amora blackberry brandy) and I saw they were looking for a retail associate to work at the tasting bar and give tours. I've really missed giving tours since my Hillstead days, so it seemed perfect.

One day after work, at the end of a week where I'd had a lot of questions about our beers, I decided I needed to do a little research. You know me, I'm not much of a beer drinker (although after the VT Brewer's Festival, it's changed a bit!). Up until then, I'd only tried the Wattaquadoc Wheat, a wheaty beer that's maybe a hair too bitter for me, but still drinkable, and the Blackberry Ale, which it lovely and pink and my favorite (defintely not everyone's favorite!). After trying all of the rest of the beers, the only ones I can add to my drinkable list are the Farmhouse Ale, a nice and simple light beer, and the Eight Hills Smoked Lager, because apparently I'm odd and like smokey things more than most people. From left to right in the picture above:

Eight Hill smoked lager (not overly dark, nice and smokey)

Farmhouse Ale (light and not too bitter, kind of a refreshing summery beer)

Barley wine (noooot for me)

Summer Stout (lighter than most stouts, but still too malty for me)

Heron Ale (too bitter for me! but very popular)

Bolt 117 (German style lager, too hoppy)

Blackberry Ale (faaaavorite! nice and fruity)

My favorite wines are:

whites: Vignoles (slightly sweet but still crisp)

reds: Renaissance (flavorful red, not overpowering), Chrystleton (apple and elderberry, classified as a red but much fruitier, and very unique)

fruits: Strawberry Rhubarb (sweet but not sickly sweet, the rhubarb cuts it down nicely), Cranberry Apple (like cranberry juice? You'll love this one), Semi-sweet blueberry (lovely blueberry flavor, not super sweet), Raspberry dessert wine (liquid raspberries. delicious)

Spirits: Northern Comfort (anything with maple is the thing for me!)

As you can tell, my wine describing skills are still developing. But I know what I like!

Come visit us, we're open 7 days a week, 10-5 Sunday through Thursday, and 10-6 Friday and Saturday. I work most Saturdays and Sundays at the tasting bar, check with me before coming if you want to be on my tour, and I can tell you when I'll be on!

Coming soon!

to a blog near you!

Recipes!

I had a cocktail party this past weekend, and I have bunches and bunches of recipes to share. I just need the time to type them all in.

Here's a teaser:
amino acid-free DMEM, 1 liter
Choline Chloride 4mg
Ca pantothenate 4mg
Folic acid 4mg
niacinimide 4mg
CaCl 200mg
Fe(NO3)3*9H2O 0.1mg
MgSO4 120mg
KCl .............. oh wait. That's cell culture media, not food. Oops!

Yeah... work's been busy. Starting a new project in a completely different system has been a bit trying for me- I sincerely miss knowing exactly what I'm doing and why.

Well, here are some of the food recipes I'll share by the end of the week:
pear, blue cheese and pecan tart
tomato tart
strawberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting
cosmopolitans

Except for the cupcakes, these are all things you can whip up in about 30 minutes. They're easy but so, so tasty.

Not knitting, but possibly domestic.

I scrubbed floors today. In lab. Our floors are filthy.

Why, you ask? Well.

I was doing a pulse-chase experiment, which is basically a very, very radioactive experiment. It's kind of scary, the amount of radioactivity this experiment uses. This morning I was doing part of it, getting ready for a 2 hour incubation, and I was wrapping the sample tubes in parafilm (kind of like saran wrap) to make doubly sure there'd be no leaks, and whoops, one fell.... and popped open when it hit the floor, spilling half a mL of highly radioactive liquid on the floor.

This event required about 7 hours of decontamination. I scrubbed the floor with a harsh detergent, checked my progress with a Geiger counter and something a bit more sensitive (a scintillation counter), scrubbed more, scrubbed more, scrubbed more. Then I stepped in radioactivity, so we had to bag my shoes and a labmate was kind enough to run to my car to grab my gym bag, in which were sneakers. More scrubbing. Then I scrubbed with an abrasive, Comet-like soap, which finally (finally!) made a difference in how radioactive the floor was.

Then the guy from environmental health and safety swooped in to continue/finish the decontamination, thank god. He has mostly decontaminated my shoes, and will give them back when they're clean, which might be tomorrow.

But not only was this frusterating, scary, annoying and painful (my torn minuscus does not like kneeling to scrub floors), I had to cancel a lunch date and totally screw up my experiment schedule. I'm going to finish this experiment tomorrow, and I will not have shakey hands.

So now I'm exhausted, but I'm relieved that the floor is now safe again.

We call things that register on the Geiger counter (i.e. are radioactive) "hot". Things that are not radioactive are "cold". The floor was really hot. I kinda felt like that website "hot or not" as I assessed what part of the floor was hot, and what was not so hot. Also, luckily, I am not hot. EHS guy wanded me to make sure.

Celebration!

Friday was my thesis defense. I successfully defended my doctoral thesis, and now just have some revisions before it's really official.

/Phase1

, as Clint put it.

I handed in my thesis yesterday. Two weeks from today, I will give an hour-long public seminar on my thesis project and have a 2-3 hour private oral defense.

Rather than being nervous about that, however, I'm listless and have no idea what to do with myself. Thesis filled my time such that I didn't eat meals, but snacked while writing or revising. I have a good deal of work to prepare for the 21st, but I'm taking a mental vacation today.

And last night, I celebrated. I left lab super early (4:30!) to go shopping, and I bought gifts for swaps and for friends for Christmas (including one item I bought 3 of, but would have bought 6 or 7, if only they'd had more). I spent $80 on groceries, which included nice crusty bread, a pound of gruyere and a bottle of sauvignon blanc, and dined on cheese fondue (I've lost weight from the thesis, so I figured I could have fondue for one night, and not have to worry that I won't get to the gym). I knitted (finished 2 items, one for a swap and one for Christmas) and baked cowboy cookies. The cowboy cookies weren't that impressive, yet I'll share the recipe anyway. I found them rather bland, even with chocolate chips, coconut, oats and pecans. The dough was pretty good, though (and cookie dough goes nicely with pinot noir), but mostly because I love oatmeal cookie dough.

And during my absence from blogging, we had an absence of FFE swap questions of the week- nice coincidence for me.

Question of the Week #6

“What seasonal knitting projects are you looking forward to?”

I don't think I'm really doing seasonal knitting projects, I'm really just trying to pump out all my Christmas and baby gifts asap. After that, I may start my wedding shawl, because I'm getting close to choosing a pattern. Also, in February, I will be living in Massachusetts, so there's a move in there to interfere.

So, lame answer, but nothing specifically "seasonal".

Oh, except maybe a christmas tree hat (ravelry link) that my SnB is doing as a KAL- although they're meeting to decorate the knitted hat a week from yesterday, and I'll never have it done by then. So I'm not sure I'll knit it, but it's so cute.

Yay!

Look! It's my thesis!


Now I can get back to my regularly scheduled life... for the weekend, at least.

This is turning into a thesis blog.

Ok, update.
Chapter 2: check.
Chapter 3: Version 3 form (maybe final?)
Chapter 3 Appendix: same as above.
Chapter 1: version 2 is with Charlie
Chapter 4: version 2 is coming along and will get to Charlie sometime tomorrow.
Abstract: version 2.0, needing some more tweaking before it gets back to Charlie.

Figures
Chapter 2: check.
Chapter 3/Appendix: minor tweaking, adjusting brightness/contrast, fussing with labels, etc
Chapter 1
1.2: almost check.
1.3: borrows heavily from 1.2, so won't take too long
1.1: um, not started yet, hopefully won't take long- it's all mindless ppt cartooning, though.
Chapter 4: one figure, almost check.

Then I have to do the intro text: table of contents, list of figures, acknowledgements, dedication. Then assemble the entire thing.

Non-thesis update: um, the GSC Halloween party was rather dismal. Bad music, lots of drunk 23-year-olds (apparently everyone pregames, although everyone only get 2 free drinks now, and it's expensive to buy, so I don't really blame them.) Although I had cheez balls, and I love fake cheez flavor. I liked my costume. I wish I'd had friends there so there were pictures of me that were not solely for the purpose of photographing my costume.

I cast on my color swap knitted item. I stayed up too late last night and got quite a bit done- I should get to the 50% complete point tonight.

I baked more apple cupcakes yesterday. However, no time for frosting, so they're more like apple muffins. Still, yum.

I'm exhausted. I'm tension headache-y. My headache meds take the headache away but leave me nauseas- so which is worse, headache or nausea? Yesterday was nausea, today I'll go for headache.

Charlie said this is the hardest part of my graduate career and he was so right.

Catching up

I've been up to quite a bit lately, too much to spare time to blog about it.

In order:
My FFE swap spoiler sent me a package!!! It's all sorts of awesome. She sent Everyday Food's Great Food Fast, a book I've been lusting after since it was released. I can't wait to try some of the recipes! Also pink super, super soft sock yarn that's already queued up to be flutter-by socks. A pattern for Wendy Bernard's Somewhat Cowl (yay!!), a red and black draw string bag that's so going to Florida with me in a couple weeks, and some treats for Pansy. Pansy was pleased.

Saturday we went apple picking. We came home with 20.5lbs of apples, which have been baked into apple crisp, eaten, and pondered. I'll make more apple cupcakes tomorrow, and maybe also apple pie (or apple pie this weekend), and LynneP (I think) from the Sha-recipe Swap on ravelry sent a recipe for apple pie bars that I may also try. I wonder how those would go on the plane? Hmm.

The rest of the weekend was spent working (and knitting in the breaks), because YESTERDAY I HANDED IN MY THESIS. and ok, this is just draft 1 of the thesis, and to my advisor so he can look it over before I revise and hand in to my committee, but still, this is a huge relief. I'm taking tomorrow off to 1. celebrate, 2. rest, 3. catch up on all the stuff I've been ignoring (like birthdays- hopefully my family will understand and not get annoyed with me for not calling the birthday people- also cleaning, putting away laundry, doing laundry, etc etc.). I'm also taking tomorrow off for some scheduled condo nonsense, which is less exciting.

I finished my chevalier mittens (photos soon) and cast on a pair of fetchings originally meant for my color swap partner, until I remembered she's allergic to wool, and that's why I'd planned to go to WRY to buy her alpaca, I knew there was a reason! However, I'm not happy with the previous two pairs of fetching that I've done, as I used horribly inappropriate yarn (knitting bulky yarn on size 5s just to make the gauge right is not so clever), so I'm keeping the current fetchings.




Finally, FFE Swap Question of the Week #4: What are you going to be for Halloween?
Last year I meant to be Persephone (white gauzy stuff, a pomegranate), but I took ill and my 103 fever prevented me from doing any celebrating (however, the Halloween party I was planning to attend was extremely lame- I wish various powers that be would stop shutting down the Grad Student Council's social events). Since I never had a Halloween last year, I believe I'll pull out the gauze and buy another pomegranate and try again.

Speaking of Halloween, Clint and I are very excited that next year, we might get trick or treaters! I don't know what's up with New Hampshire, but I've not once seen kids trick or treating here. I was mildly surprised when no one came trick or treating at my condo complex the first couple years I lived there (actually, my first year here, I was stuck in lab til 8pm and was so, so upset at the thought that kids were coming to my door and I was missing them), because one side of the street is all houses, most with kids, and my complex is 70 units where you don't have to enter any doors to get to the unit doors, so very safe, and no one comes. Even driving around on Halloween night at dusk, I see no kids. It's strange. I hope Massachusetts celebrates, because Halloween should not be a holiday just for 20-somethings and college students!