"Mosto Cotto"

 

Should I dig around for a pot of gold in the old shed?  It's been a wild week of weather in the northwest, including a rare tornado that touched down south of Seattle.  In town we've had a wet ride on the rain train, although a flash of sun between storms brought out this double rainbow yesterday. 

It was a rare, sweet day when I didn't have to go anywhere (and didn't) so John reaped the full benefits of a stay-at-home wife.  I made one of those falling apart pork roasts for supper that we only have in the fall or winter.

And that luscious, gooey-looking brown stuff is actually the by-product of cooking Mosto Cotto, or grape syrup.

This is just strained raisins and prunes that were simmered for hours in fresh grape juice...

I couldn't let the bumper crop of white Concord grapes go to waste, especially when they have finally reached the peak of deliciousness. 

The magic of simmering

Several hours transforms a pot of unappetizing, raw green juice into an incredibly rich, dark and condensed "syrup." Little bottles of imported Mosto Cotto are expensive in specialty food stores, but you can make a good approximation of the real thing at home. All it takes is time. Grape syrup is not for pancakes-- it's used in sauces, reductions or stingily drizzled on soft cheese or desserts. 

Here's the recipe from Sunset Magazine. (I doubled it.)

Grape Syrup

1 quart unsweetened white grape juice

2 tbs. brown sugar

1/4 cup each raisins and prunes

2 tbs. balsamic vinegar

Combine everything in a heavy wide pot.  Bring to a boil and cook until it's as thick as maple syrup, down to about 1 1/2 cups. This will take a couple of hours. Add balsamic vinegar and simmer another 10 minutes.  Cool and strain. It keeps for weeks the the fridge, or you can freeze little containers of the precious stuff to use all winter.

Bon Appetite!

I love all beauteous things

Elizabeth Adela Forbes

The Leaf

 I love all beauteous things,
        I seek and adore them;
God hath no better praise,
And man in his hasty days
        Is honoured for them.

I too will something make
        And joy in the making;
Altho' to-morrow it seem
Like the empty words of a dream
        Remembered on waking.

Poem by Robert Bridges

Bertha's pit

This picture was in the Seattle Times along with an article saying "Seattle Tunnel Partners" has started digging a 120-feet-deep and 80-feet-wide support pit to give crews access to the broken drill. You might remember Bertha stopped moving under the old viaduct last December, right after choking on something and overheating.

Here's a picture when she was fresh off the boat from Japan, and the expectation was that drilling would already be finished this month. 

Well. So far Bertha has only traveled about 1,000 feet with a whopping 10,000 left to go...

We zig-zag past the waterfront construction all the time and I thought they were already digging the thing out.  But all these months, they've just been trying to lower the groundwater in enclosed areas around the drill so they can install some massive crane that will eventually hoist pieces of the machine to the surface for repair.

I thought it was kinda funny that Washington DOT set up a construction cam website to showcase their horrible mess. 
(click here)

Blogging fuel

The first Starbucks

circa 1975

I was at a Starbucks the other day getting a frappuccino and bought the 10th anniversary release of their Ray Charles, Genius Loves Company CD. It was displayed right by the cash register for impulse purchases. These duets were the last things Mr. Charles recorded, produced by Starbucks with big stars like Elton John, Nora Jones, and Willie Nelson. Of course Ray has departed us now, but no matter, they reissued his album and included a new DVD featuring the performers reminiscing and of course, Howard Schultz, talking about the Starbucks Coffee Empire. 

There was some film footage of the original Starbucks store, which really took me back.  This place is a shrine now and a major tourist attraction down at the Pike Place Market. But I thought how cool that I can remember going in that store, when there was just one Starbucks in the entire universe.

There were probably ten varieties of coffee offered in the open bins, which seemed like an overwhelming choice at the time. They preferred to sell whole bean but would also grind your purchase, although they were pretty fussy even then. They asked your method of brewing, and that's what you got: espresso or drip grind. No arguing. The manual Melitta and Chem Ex filters were the favored methods. Remember the anticipation of pouring fresh boiling water over fragrant coffee grounds?

I kind of miss that old coffee-making ritual.  The Mr. Coffee machine was invented in 1972, but only rich people had them.  If you wanted a drink at Starbucks back then, the choices were latte, cappuccino, espresso and Americano. Maybe they would throw some espresso over ice in the summer.  The words "barista" and "frappuccino" hadn't been invented yet in Seattle. But I have to say, they took their coffee making seriously right from the beginning.

Speaking of coffee, don't look for a blog early tomorrow morning.  I have to go in for one of those routine cholesterol screenings that requires a 12 hour fast. Who cares about food first thing in the morning? It's the cruel lack of coffee that gets the day off to a very dull start.

Don Giovanni

We went to the first opera of the season Sunday afternoon on a sweltering October day.  No coats, no sweaters, people in short sleeves. Really! When has it ever been 70 degrees here in late October? The gardeners will tell you something strange is going on with the weather. Everything is green and growing like spring. Maybe we'll skip winter all together? (ha ha)

Anyway, we had a nice time and it was fun meeting up with our friend Candi for dinner afterwards. Mozart's Don Giovanni is a big favorite and on the list of the 10 most performed operas in the world.  The story is based on the legends of the fictional Spanish libertine and seducer Don Juan.

Don Giovanni is sometimes called a comic opera, but I find that disconcerting. (John says lighten up.) It can be hard to see an opera through 18th century eyes. If Don Giovanni was a movie, I guess it would be classified a black comedy. That's a fine line-- some black comedies "work" and some fall flat, being neither funny or tragic.  Don Giovanni definitely "works."

There is awful stuff like murder, rape and eternal damnation, combined with masked balls, hidden identities, funny fights and romantic betrayals. Anyway, Mozart himself referred to his work as opera buffa, which is "opera of a light or amusing nature." Being Seattle, this production was heavy on the slapstick and the audience found most of it hilarious.

Well, it sure beat sitting around the house all afternoon, brooding over the Seahawk's second painful loss in as many weeks.

Changing of the leaves

Yesterday was one of those perfect Indian summer days, but this morning the weather turned wet and blustery. Who cares? We're looking forward to the first opera of the season on Sunday and it's a favorite: Don Giovanni.

Despite the prospect of long dark months ahead, everyone loves the colors of autumn. Googling around for old images of Jack Frost, I pulled up thousands of pictures of this popular cartoon character from a movie called "Rise of the Guardians."  I've never heard of it, but Nova could probably tell me about him.

I like the old vintage drawings and paintings of Jack Frost better. The legends portray this being as a mischievous sprite, like a fairy or elf with magical powers. The earliest representation of Jack Frost came from Norse folklore.  Jokul Frosti was the son of a wind god, and he used his magical artistic abilities to paint trees and to create crystal engravings outdoors during cold weather.  

by Maxfield Parrish 

Maxfield Parrish self-portrait

Unknown illustrator

 Frank Godwin

Changing of the Leaves