Homeopathic Coyote

When I think about house pets and domestic animals in general I think about how I felt as a child growing up around cats, and dogs …I think about how mean I was to cats and how after witnessing the frustration and anger that crappy, seemingly un-trainable cats and kittens brought upon my parents and then eventually to my entire household, It makes sense to me that as a young adult I really had no affinity, affection or appreciation for the little furry critters. Over the years, regardless of my disdain and overall antipathy with them, I somehow managed to acquire them as packages or baggage-like amendments to live-in girlfriends and roommates and over the years, if I really relly think about it and try to isolate the good memories of cats or scenarios where cats brought some version of joy into my life there are more than I expected but certainly not enough to flip the coin.
Since I’ve been married and have had children, my remote appreciation and acceptance has grown – largely due to the fact that my children love them but also because in early 1998, I allowed my lovely wife to convince me that we needed one. Sure, I was hesitant but also willing to give it a try. To make a very long prelude a bit shorter, this newest cat (Tia) was like a pivotal benchmark in my life on many levels. I consciously chose to let go of the irritability and hateful attitude toward cats in general and took on a wholly new perspective as this cat became closer and closer to me and my wife. She (Tia) behaved more like a Hollywood dog than any cat if id ever known. I spoke to her in what I like to believe was a good mix between what you might expect to hear if Elmo was speaking Arabic to small orphan children and how my the entire hygienist staff of the my kids pediatric dentist office speak when preaching the importance of brushing your gums.

In any case this cat was amazing. She never had a litter box – which had been a major factor in the “no cats allowed” position I took for years. She would squawk at the door until one of us got up and let her outside to do her thing. Even when we lived in Colorado, in the dead of the winter, she would dutifully, pounce across the drifts of snow out into the dark night to find her little zone. Never in the house which meant the obvious and also that meant that every walk-able surface of my house wasn’t covered with invisible fecal bacteria etc..etc… So after, witnessing the births of my 3 kids, almost 11 years later , four different states, and an amazing track record of just being the best damn cat around, …she disappeared one day. We had just moved into a new home 3 weeks earlier and after the typical “keep the cats indoors for a few days to adjust” régime, we let them out into the new yard to explore and do what they love to do. Everything was cool for about 2 weeks then one night she just didn’t come home. As her disappearance set in and the posters we didn’t take down were fluttering in the wind from the telephone poles around our neighborhood, for the first time in my life I felt really distraught and saddened about a pet. A neighbor was chatting with my wife weeks later and the topic of her disappearance arose. She exclaimed that the neighborhood was riddled with Coyote and that no one in the hood ever left their cats out all night anymore and that if you did, you would basically be inviting the Coyotes to an easy low cost buffet. It goes without saying that I was as disturbed with this news as my wife and have since been thinking of what a royal meal with coyote as the center of plate protein might look like. Who eats coyote anyway? Eating canine has a certain nauseating twitch to it but nevertheless im sure that at some point, the little shysters have taken some lead and wound up on a kebab right? So, if my theory stands tall and true, here is the plan. I take a seat in the corner of my backyard, dressed in military camo (which I don’t own), with laser guided rifle ( which I don’t own), some vintage night vision goggles, ( I may have these) and I sit and wait,….just sit and wait till one emerges from the woods and begins sniffing around for the t-bone bait. With an unobstructed sightline and a clean shot, ill come out blastin like Yosemite sam take the beast down, field dress it a la minute, and butcher it into roastables, grindables and such. From this wild coyote, ill prepare a lovely braise, rich with wine, and herbs. The idea is to prepare some ravioli, and using the braised Coyote as filling, ill make enough to invite 40 or 50 friends from the neighborhood to a Decatur meets Italy dinner party. Unknowingly, a good percentage of folks that live within 2000 feet of my house will ingest my very special coyote creation and by doing so - much like how homeopathy works, the collective spreading out of the coyote will ward them ( the Coyotes not my guests) off and magically send them to another hood where they are not part of the active food web. While this may sound obscene to most, I assure you that as a “primi” course, the raviolis will be flanked by fabulous courses, great wines and the best ingredients I can commandeer. All this for my long lost little “tia” you say?...”Well, yes”…I Reply. “Yes” RSVP ASAP

It’s been a while right ….whew!... needless to say even for me it feels like an eternity since I’ve made a post and for that im very sorry and a bit embarrassed. So,…here we go ….

Over the course of the past year or so, I’ve been looking to discover all that I could about the biodynamic principles and how might those ideas and overall concept be intermingled with wine as a finished product. We know that biodynamics propose a direct correlation between the earth, sun and moon and how exactly the natural elements on our earth responds to gravitational forces, atmospheric and barometric pressures. Biodynamics as its relevant to agriculture and viticulture suggests that the vines and the bloodlines or fluids in the vines, the ground waters and subterranean water table are predisposed and effected by these forces. So, in very simple terms a farmer following these and other cyclic processes dictated by the biodynamic calendar looks to each day to determine whether that day is one of four options. A “root” day, a “leaf” day, a “fruit” day or a “flower” day. Which each assignment correlative to the lunar and solar cycles ive begun to understand more clearly some of the what’s and why’s about how this calendar applies to the farming aspect but at the same time I’ve begun to wonder about how this calendar then might impact liquids,…say ,…finished liquids like wine. Right? So here you have a wine, made up of phenolic compounds, esters and volatile aromatics that are essentially held in by the liquid itself. We swirl our glasses to aerate and artificially fill the wine with oxygen. That O2 does what it can to become part of the air again and in this instance, dragging some of the aromas out with it. Right? Say you tasted a wine one day,….its a favorite and you know its profile. You pop the cork, you sniff the wine and you proclaim its lackluster bouquet. You’re surprised and can’t figure out why just two days before that same bottle was so expressive. You call it a bad bottle or worse yet ,,,,label it as bottle variation and eventually let it go… Right? So,…say that the first bottle was opened on a “flower” day and the second on a “root” day. The “flower” and “fruit” days representing days that support the rapid effortless escape of the aromatic and flavor compounds of the wine and the “root” or “leaf” day that hosted your second bottle represents atmospheric chaos and actually dampens the wines natural ability to release its aromatic flair. So, while deliberating this somewhat indefinable topic, I ran into a colleague that had much to say about this and reaffirmed that a few folks around the globe were really beginning to take this biodynamic calendar into the bedroom- so to speak, and consider how it might be applied to organaleptic evaluation of wine.

This is just an emerging idea. Here is a response from a California winemaker that’s been exploring biodynamic viticulture and has over the years developed a position on how this ideology may in fact be an intrinsic part of our wine enjoyment as consumers. Check what he had to say…..chew it up and then let me know what cha think

“Barometric pressure is connected to weather systems, as it changes from Low pressure to High pressure, the volatility of various components change (becoming more volatile at low pressure, less so at higher pressure). One effect that we have to compensate for because of this is testing alcohol levels, at lower pressure water (and alcohol) boil at a lower temperature, so it can significantly skew results if not compensated for. From a wine appreciation perspective, analogous, but less well understood processes occur with the aromatics, volatile acids and other components of a wine, as well as the receptors (nose and taste buds) in a human body; causing many wines to taste different depending upon the weather, with low pressure systems being associated with the wines tasting “dumb”. Why this happened isn’t well understood, but may have to do with our body taking more time to adjust to barometric changes than a wine does so our senses end up not being as sensitive to the aromatics.

Lunar cycles are a very complex system of interaction between, moon, sun and earth. As simple as I can put it, a vector of force (in this case what we call gravity) is being pulled by each of two bodies (with the moon’s force being significantly greater than the sun’s). On any given day the vector of force being pulled by an individual body changes, due to the rotation of the earth, so that it essentially negates any individual work (force over time) done on the earth. Due to the change in position between the sun and the moon; in relation to the earth though, there is predictable variability in the nature of those forces, as depending upon the time of the month, the sun and moon will pull from the same vector or from opposite vectors. During a New moon the sun and moon are pulling from the same vector, and so you have the greatest amount of force pulling away from the earth (or depending on the time of day and your location towards the earth). During a Full moon the sun and moon are pulling along opposite vectors, causing less pull in a given direction, but more work (again force over time) over a given day. When the moon is in transition between those points, there is less work over all being done on the earth. The best way to understand this is to look at a tidal chart for a given area, the flood tide minus the ebb tide shows the relative amount of work being done, with the greatest tidal differences occurring during new moons and full moons. What does this mean to wine and vines? Well during the times of more “work” i.e. full moon and new moon, there’s more disruption occurring within an otherwise isolated system (a sealed barrel of wine), therefore the best racking for clarity will occur during the intermediate points, for racking with solids you’d look to do so when you had the greatest flood tide (usually a new moon). For vines the new moon and full moon both have a stronger vector force (pull) than intermediate phases, so more sap will flow in a given direction at a particular point in time… For a glass a wine the theory would hold then that during a full moon or new moon, with the greater force being exerted, you’d have greater disruption of volatiles (aromatics and alcohol) and therefore a wine that’s not in harmony with its own constituent parts.”

Its Raining Burgundy - Springtime in Atlanta

I recall seeing a film recently where the main character meets a guy that sparks up a convo about space time continuum, quantum physics and man’s awareness of the difference between actions taken in consciousness verses those occurring in a dream state. In the scene he ultimately explained that for those that have recurring lucid dreams, the only real way to check to see if indeed you're dreaming is to reach over to the nearest light switch and flip it. If it affects a nearby lamp or bulb you can rest assured that you are indeed awake. Conversely, if you flip it and nothing happens, you can be confident that you are actually dreaming.
So last night, while closing one of our units ..like something one might dream about, under truly unusual circumstances a group of 15 likeminded folks arrived, ordered some food and over the course of three hours opened upwards of 20 bottles of world class wines. (Mostly Burgundy). The dreamlike state came on as Don Cornutt walked through the door Just as the group was departing. It was nearly 10:00, the restaurant was about to close and I had had a long day. My eyes were sore and it felt later than it actually was- but there was Don,…smiling and jolly proclaiming his apologies for being tardy. He had an insulated 8 bottle shoulder bag packed full of wine and literally blocked his friends from exiting the front doors of the restaurant. Without a trace of superiority, or pretense, this group casually managed an about face and walked through the restaurant toward a large farmhouse table in the center of the dining room. We stood making introductions and watched as Don unveiled another round of vinous treasures. For the next 45 minutes, carefree, almost “love child”, sort of dialogue ensued among the group. “ Yeah man …you shoudda been there man”….”yeah, that stuff was really supreme”..no worries,..”its all good”. As we tasted a sense of openness, generosity, warmth and general “easy going” spirit seemed to hover over the table. It’s not too often that I meet truly down to earth adults that are educated, professional, passionate about wine-tasting, sharing and learning. Especially not over a table of obscure, Burgundian rarities after hours in an Atlanta restaurant. It was sort of like my own little harmonic convergence. I walked across the room at one point, flipped the lights and ..

udder delights in West midtown

These days ive been helping out over at Ecco in midtown and my hours of professional service have been drastically altered. The one most tangible and impactful social repercussion of this change is a result of modification to my daily commute. No longer do I pass Octane coffee lounge two, three or even four times a day. If im lucky, ..and if I have the time, ill stop by on Friday morning or deliberately plan and hold one of my meetings for the week there as a way to improve my chances of getting what I believe to be one of the best if not “the” best coffee experience anywhere in metro Atlanta.

This past Friday I swung in for a meeting with a wine importer. Arriving early for a meeting at Octane ive found enables the opp for a solid but brief convo with any number of folks..whether employee or patron…im convinced that if there were some sort of gigantic roof mounted digital potentiometer that counted the combined IQ points of all the folks in the shop at any given time, passers by would soon realize that there is some really speedy synapse firing going down , righteous convo ,promising plans and brilliant intentions forming at an above average pace. I think it’s a good space to hang out if you actually have time to hang…right…surround yourself with this sort of scene and some of it just might rub off right? ..or that’s my plan anyways..so,.. Danielle was at the counter as the espresso mistress… sending her typical rippling shockwaves of good vibes and buoyant spirit throughout the joint. I asked her to make a cappuccino ( I normally just drink regular coffee). Apart from the physical beauty of the drink, I noticed that the froth had a certain density enough to prompt me to spend some moments prior to tasting just, carefully dipping, prodding and mushing the creamy head around with the back side of my demitasse spoon. The foam/froth clung to my spoon, the aromatics equally shared by the intense toastyness and sweet nutty fresh fragrance from the perfectly warmed milk prompted a convo about the milk itself. After a sip, my sense that the milk was special was justly confirmed as something about its taste,…something richer but not just In a raw fatty way,…something deeper but not in a creamy way, something more complex but not in a herbaceous way,…shone through and sent my memory recoil back to the days of yore where my hippie parents would routinely barter with the local BMW mechanic/ Jersey Cow Farmer/ College Professor for what if my memory serves me was a rinsed out restaurant sized Hellmann’s mayonnaise jar brimming with fresh, totally raw, totally unprocessed, cows milk. The flavor was like that stuff …even though it was homogenized and pasteurized and didn’t have that layer of crème floating on the surface, it was noticeably better than what I have at home now or what I can recall drinking or tasting as of late. So, ..my mount Zion of warm beverage for the week…..A cappuccino made by Danielle,….at Octane Coffee Lounge,
using …….Sparkmans Milk http://www.sparkmanscreamvalley.com/about-us/why-youll-love-sparkmans

Holla