NEW YORK NEW YORK – We had ten for dinner tonight. I catered it myself. The trick in this number is to minimize last-minute preparation, for example by planning on side dishes that are served at room temperature, spring veggies with a bagna cauda sauce (substituting finely chopped chorizo for the anchovies), green pea puree and a warm potato salad. The entree, a butterflied leg of lamb marinated in yogurt, was an easy last minute roast, so the only last minute cooking activity was carving the lamb. Here we are at the table taken with my Leica Monochrom and 50mm Summillux lens.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We had dinner at home last night with David Young, a friend of long standing who is relocating to London (which makes some sense because he’s English). We opened a couple of spectacular wines: a 2004 Cheval Blanc and a 2003 Hosanna. Cheval Blanc is a St. Emilion; St. Emilions are classified and Cheval Blanc is one of two Premier Grand Crus. Because of this it has gotten expensive – out of reach of most mortals – but I happened to have a bottle lying around. Hosanna is a Pomerol, but is adjacent to Cheval Blanc just across the border between Pomeral and St. Emilion. Christian Moueix bought the Hosanna vineyard in 1999 (it was then called Château Certan-Giraud) and since then has been producing a wine similar to Cheval Blanc.
This was my first side-by-side tasting of these wines. Both are inky dark; both are powerful wines, both have tannins that are fully under control at this point; both have a wonderful rounded and complex nose and long finishes. The Cheval Blanc came out of the bottle slightly acidic and tasted unfinished. We decanted it and as the evening went on it become softer and rounder with a finish that went on forever. Both were lovely wines.
We finished up the dregs in three single malt bottles after dinner.
Here are the remains of the day photographed this morning with my medium format Leica S and 120mm macro lens.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Once again I’m distracted – really having trouble getting into the moment and seeing. A day of shots at random with my Leica Monochrom and 18mm lens. Here we are on the cheese isle at Fairway.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – We had dinner with our friends Gary and Diana Fisketjon; Diana grew up in Mississippi so she’s an expert at a roux based gumbo, which was very, very good. Taken with my iPhone.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – We had a dinner at a local restaurant with Kimball Chen. He is serious about his wine so the table setting was dominated by glasses and bottles:
BREWSTER NEW YORK AND WARREN CONNECTICUT – Another day of shooting fall foliage with my Monochrom. This time with a 35mm Simmulux FLE lens. I focused on relative close ups to find some textures that the black and white camera could get some traction on. On the way back to New York this afternoon we stopped at the Red Rooster Drive-In in Brewster. Not many of these left. There’s a nice outdoor eating area; we overheard the conversion of some seniors at the next table: “Now isn’t this better than Macdonalds?” Yup.
