Le vin de Bourgogne est le vin des rois*

The ride out to Dijon-Ville went through rolling hills in fog that made for a scene like a Cloudy Bay label. From Dijon we transferred to a local train that took us to Beaune, where we started off the day with lunch and a glass of wine. Foolishness! I forgot I'd be drinking wine all day. To add insult to injury, I liked my lunch wine better than most of the stuff I tasted later. But we did taste some good wines.

First stop, the cellars of Marché aux Vins. Self-guided tour, 16 bottles of wine to try, which all began to taste the same around #7 or 8. In fact, they were mostly puckery, raisiney wines that dried out my mouth and made me glad for the spittoons. I was a little bit sick of wine by the end of the tour--a personal first--but I sucked it up and we moved on to Patriarche pére et fils for 13 more samples.

The Patriarche was truly incredible and worth the visit. They stocked four or so million bottles of wine in a labyrinthine fifteen square kilometers of cellars (the biggest in Burgundy). I liked the Fleurie so well (despite being the cheapest wine we tasted) that I bought a couple of bottles to take home. It was representative of the dry grapey taste shared by most of the Burgundies I tasted, without being overpowering, and also adding a sweet floral note on top of what was already a lighter, fruitier body compared to its more sour cellarmates at Patriarche and even more so v. the Marché vins, which I found less palatable overall.

We were done with wines then and wandered around town. Beaune was a healthy-seeming mix of old and new, and we found a working artist's studio with abstract paintings that I really enjoyed (see Alain Seguin's work at a super-crappy website here). Sadly, there were no prints for sale and we couldn't pony up the cash to buy an original. It would have been a bastard to stow in the carry-on bin, anyway.

And that's what we did in Beaune, Burgundy! Tomorrow, God willing and the creek don't rise, I'll tell you a little tale of how we celebrated our first anniversary in Champagne.

Categories: wine, travel

*"The wine of Burgundy is the wine of kings" --Louis XIV

Explicit lyrics, SG in the mix

We had a cracking good thunderstorm last night and a nasty fight. It has been a while since J and I got really mad at each other; it is a good thing for couples to argue and vent some steam now & then. Some would say that periodical scuffles are the common element in all successful long-term relationships. More important than the bickering, though, is the making-up afterwards. If you skip that part then you're in trouble.

All of which just to say that I haven't got around to those France wine posts yet, sorry sorry, I'll do 'em soon. Right now the job search takes precedence and then I've got tons of other chores begging my attention. So.

SG staus update: unemployed as of 8 October, '05. Which means I need a new project (besides job-hunting) to keep me busy. Introducing a warm-up activity for November's NaNoWriMo: the October Three Week Writing, Uh, Project (or ThreWWUP)!! I know, believe it or not, that was the least crappy acronym I could come up with. Little help here? Anyway, I'm going for 60,000 words before this month is over. That should put me in the right frame of mind to shatter last year's record for November.

Categories: life, work, writing

N.B.

"If all people want is to see something they understand, they shouldn't go to the theater. They should go to the bathroom."

--Bertolt Brecht

In the market for a new Muse

I think mine is broken? Anyway it's been a while since I've heard from her. Sporadically I get some inspiration. Shakespearean poetry novel disaster, creativity is all over the map, missing the bulls-eye by a million meters. Sudden desire again to do The Novel, the big one I put away in a box after slaughtering it last November but it reconstituted reincarnated and grew, magnetically gathering new perspectives and plot arcs and it's slavering to escape--"you can write me better now"--time to surrender. Start over from scratch. See what it's become.

I had other plans, different stories, but I can't move on until this one's told right. Why wait until November? How can I with looming unemployment and screaming ideas poised on the tips of my fingers and the prospect of entire free days alone at home. Shall I project a world?

Categories: writing

A balancing act

I strive for balance in my life. Most people probably do, I assume. Still no matter what I do there's always something out of whack. But I do seem to trade security in one area for insecurity in another; case in point, I quit my job without a backup plan, but we can stay in our house throughout the winter. It was for sale when we moved in, and has apparently been taken off the market as of last weekend. Good to know that I may be unemployed but at least we won't be on the street.

What else is upcoming in the month of ROCKtober? Many exciting things are about to happen!

• Tomorrow is a very thrilling annual bonsai auction & sale hosted by the MN Bonsai Society. I probably won't buy anything, but it's fun to see all the tiny trees.
  
• If you are interested in mushrooms like I suddenly am, than you may want to join me at next Monday's meeting of the Mycological Society!
  
• I am working at the Sibley Bike Depot every Monday evening until 8:30. Stop in and say hello.
  
• The weekend of the 14th is for the St. Paul Art Crawl. Don't miss it!
  
• You will help me get a job. Please.

Also, of course, more Paris posts are due. I still have to tell you about our trips to Champagne and Burgundy. That should just about cover it.

Are you a human being?

You'll have to prove it before you can post comments now.

Over the weekend, this blog was slammed with spam comments for the first time. I deleted all of them manually, but I know that now I've been targeted, I will continue to receive these bogus posts. Rather than disable comments, I have instituted Blogger's "word verification" feature. When you go to leave a comment, you will need to verify your autonomy by typing in a short character string.

Sorry about the hassle, but I really wanted to keep comments, and this will hopefully block the automated spamming systems. I hope it won't deter my dozens of real readers from responding to my posts. Hope to hear from all of you!

Vegetarian restaurants in Paris

quick review of Aquarius café: went for lunch. Tight-packed space, cranky waitress, confusing menu. We guessed on the food and it wasn't good, but it did end up being cheap. Our cashier spoke some English, and there was singing, but overall Not Recommended. Now for the good one:

La Victoire Suprême du Coeur was a little tricky to locate, since the side street it's on is not listed on most Paris maps. This website would have made it a lot easier, if I'd found it beforehand. It was a nice, open place painted in cool colors; the photos on the site don't do it justice. I requested English menus, which were provided. J ordered the vegetarian "chicken" and I got Seitan escalope w/ mushroom sauce.

I was glad the menus were printed in clear English, because when our food came, the resemblance to meat was remarkable. My escalope looked and tasted almost exactly like a fine cut of beef. J's "chicken," especially, was astounding. I've never come across anything like it. A hardcore vegan would undoubtedly be grossed out by the resemblance to real hunks of hen flesh. And it was 100% vegan to boot!

The desserts were equally good, but I had to cut my raving short for a long trip to the bathroom before we left. Sadly, something about that remarkably tasty food had an unsettling effect on my tummy. After I finally came out of there, I was a bit shocked by the size of the bill--apparently we misunderstood the pricing scheme--but it was easily worth every centime. That was our one expensive dinner in Paris, and we would go back in a heartbeat. La Victoire Suprême du Coeur! Best vegetarian restaurant EVER!

2003 Monmousseau Vouvray: SG Wine of the Month!

Maybe this will be a new feature on Sui Generis. Not everyone is into wine recommendations, but doing one a month seems reasonable to me. As always, let me know in the comments if you'd like to see more (or less) of this kind of thing. So, without further ado:

I'm no fancy-pants Dom Perignon-drinking wine snob, just a regular guy looking for bargain pours. I review wines that are good, cheap, and obtainable. After all, I drank some great wines in France, but I could write about them until I'm white in the face and you still wouldn't be able to buy them. So why should you care? Instead, this month's pick is a French wine that I bought at my neighborhood store right here in St. Paul, Minnesota. If it sounds good to you, then I hope you can track it down, too.



Monmousseau Vouvray is a blanc des blancs from the Touraine region (central Loire valley). Here's what you get for just $10: Cidery, sweet aroma. Lush, buttery flavor. Similar to several I've tried, except that where they tip over the edge with sticky-sweetness and are spoiled, this one goes just up to the zenith and then backs down again with a smooth finish. Perfectly balanced; never offensive.

This wine is fine on its own, but it was very complementary with the grilled shiitake mushrooms and rotini pasta that I made for dinner. Part of the reason that it blended so well might have been the fact that I used the wine in the (highly recommended!) sauce recipe. With food or without, this wine stands out as one of my favorite whites in some time.

Categories: wine

Paris: favorite places

My first post on the city was a bit cantankerous, but as I said, there were good times to be had in Paris. Here's a partial list of places that I enjoyed visiting and would recommend to anyone.

• Shakespeare & Company: new & used English-language book seller. One shop sells mostly new stuff, and its neighbor stocks old, rare, first edition, &c. While we were there, the old and rare side of the store was closed up, and I didn't get a chance to browse inside. The "new" side had a good selection and a few (misplaced?) rare finds as well.
  
• Musee d'Orsay: Best museum that we visited in Paris. Crowds were less insane than at the Louvre, and both quality and quantity of art works was vastly improved (I thought) over the Centre Pompidou. Add to that the gorgeous building that it's all housed in, and you've got a museum that's worth the price of admission.
  
• Our apartment: No matter how great or crappy our day was, it was always fun coming back to our own place in the evening. I cannot recommend this route enough. If you stay at a hotel in Paris, you are missing out on the best part of the trip!
  
• Monoprix: French grocery store chain where we shopped at least once a day. Fresh bread and pastries at the bakery, great selection of wines for me, and huge bottles of Orangina for J. Also an excellent store-brand tiramisu. Not a place worth seeking out, per se, but you probably won't need to; they're all over Paris.
  
• La Victoire Supreme du Coeur: vegetarian restaurant with the best meat analog ever. For the full story on this place and another one that's worth a look, come back for tomorrow's post.
  

Fat Tire Bike Tours / Monet's gardens

We got lucky for one day in France and both got to do stuff we loved. We met early in a Paris train station with the group leader for Fat Tire Bike Tours (f/k/a Bullfrog Bikes) and took a train towards Normandy. The plan of the day was to pick up the bikes in Vernon, ride to a picnic spot, continue on to Monet's grave, gardens & house, poke around on foot for a few hours and then reverse.

The rain started during our train ride and continued for a few hours while we shopped in the Vernon market and claimed bikes from FTBT's fleet. Fat Tire is an apt name, since the cruiser-style 3-speed bikes float on huge balloony tires. The seats were ultra-comfortable, the frame weighed a ton, and the components were shiny and dialed-in. It was like riding on rails--you couldn't fall off one of these bikes if you tried. Or so I thought, until there was an immediate minor fiasco when a woman in our group pulled out into the road, saw a car, and freaked out. She fell over.

We lunched in a pretty park where Monet used to paint. Our tour leader supplied regional cheese and cider. The drizzling intensified, and we hid under a graffitied bridge to wait it out. Eventually, we had to go and took a nice rainy ride along a paved country bike trail up to Giverny. We saw the man's grave and extensive gardens (photo of the pond here). The walls of his house were covered in Japanese woodblock prints--a major inspiration for his impressionist work. I was delighted; J was hoping for more Monet.

After a few hours of touristing, we got back on the bikes and returned to town. This is where it got really ridiculous as people started walking their bikes. We are talking about giving up on a slow, easy ride with foolproof bicycles on flat ground and a dedicated two-lane bike trail. Those of us who enjoyed riding and wanted to catch our train back to Paris were dumbfounded. Why would you take a bike tour if you don't like riding bikes?

Our group leader handled this well and shepharded the slowpokes back to the stable. I felt like riding around for a few more kilometers, but it was time to go. The rain had cleared up when we arrived at the gardens, so we hung out on the train platform and talked with the leader about working for FTBT. Sounds like a fun and easy job, I was thinking about doing it myself some day, but I wouldn't have wanted to deal with our group. Moral: good times, Fat Tire recommended.

Categories: bicycles

Serenity preview

This movie rocks your socks. I give it 5,000 SGs. I don't aim to spoil anything here, but let's just say that fans of the show will adore the film, and even if you haven't seen the show it's still a great movie in its own right. The TV show was a good medium for introducing compelling characters and themes, and the big screen was a perfect venue to tie it all together in grand fashion. If you like sci-fi, I bet you will love this film. Go see it.

Paris bike culture

I read that "the French are very serious about cycling," but the Paris we visited did not match up with my preconceived notions. While we were there, I saw very few of what I would call "serious" cyclists (Lycra-clad riders on racing bikes with drop bars). On the contrary, the vast majority of bicycles around Paris were purely utilitarian.

The average bike had straight bars, basic pedals, a comfortable saddle, fenders and a rack. For some reason that I never grokked, many were "girl" bikes--partly explained by the fact that more women ride bikes, but lots of these bikes were being ridden by men.

Being a bike geek, I ogled every chained-up bicycle that we passed on the street and looked for trends and standouts. Not a single single-speed or fixed gear could be seen. And yet not a more suitable city could be imagined, since Paris is nigh entirely flat. One thing was for sure, though, these bikes got used. They were dirty and beat and old. As for brands, Peugeot was popular (as they were for cars and motorcycles), and "Decathlon" bicycles were ubiquitous as well.

We found a Decathlon store on or near the Champs-Elysees and went in to investigate. Sure enough, they sold and serviced a line of bikes along with tons of other sporting goods (think REI). I found a floor model "Vitamin," one that I'd seen plenty of and thought it looked pretty cool... being sold for 100 euros!* Had I been admiring the French equivalent of a Wal-Mart bike?

Not being able to speak or read French too well, I couldn't much tell. Suffice it to say that Parisians as a whole aren't some super-knowledgeable elite bicycling clique. They buy their bikes to use 'em, and considerations of weight or quality don't compete with low low prices. Just one more way that they're really just like us Americans.

Categories: bicycles

*121.11 U.S. dollars

Paris

Paris is like any other big city: they have crazy traffic, urban decay, beggars, pickpockets, buskers, scam artists, and homeless folk. It's dirty, noisy, crowded, smelly, and busy. It is important to understand this. Paris is not a utopia of laid-back lunches in cozy cafes and romantic sunset strolls along the Seine. But, like any other big city, it's got its charm if you are willing to search for it (and it mostly won't be where you expect).

We lived there more or less like unemployed locals for two weeks and had a great time. "Loved every minute" would be a lie. "Made the most of it" is better. My favorite days by far were our jaunts outside the city, and my France return trip plans do not include Paris whatsoever. Still, I'm glad we went. Here are some highlights of big-city livin'.

• The Metro. When it wasn't too busy, we had fun riding the train system. It covers every corner of Paris and took us where we wanted to go every time we went out. Going without a car in this city would be easy (but all that traffic had to come from somewhere--out of town commuters, perhaps?)
• Proximity to necessities. On a daily basis, we could have got by without using the Metro at all, simply browsing our neighborhood's cafes, restaurants, bakeries, groceries, laundrettes and the such. There was at least one of absolutely everything we needed within a few blocks' radius.
• Apartment perks. Drinking a glass (or two) of wine on our balcony. Taking a hot bath at the end of a long day of walking. Cooking grilled-cheese sandwiches in our tiny kitchen corner. Those little details made us feel at home, and of course--thanks to J's big push to get us something that we could not do at home--our bedroom view of the Eiffel Tower.
• Assortment. An endless procession of patisseries doesn't translate into an infinite selection of baked goods, but it does ensure at least some variety. If we didn't like the menu of one restaurant, we just tried our luck with the next one down the street. We never had to go more than a block or two before finding something we could both agree on.
  
• Culture. Saved for last because it's obvious. Paris is packed with museums, cathedrals, parks, historic sites, and nifty architechture aplenty. The only drawbacks to the best tourist attractions were the half-mad packs of feral tourists. Ah, well, there's just no escaping other people.
  

Non-Paris post: SERENITY

Guess who's going to see a pre-screening of Serenity this week?

I had been hearing for a while about this TV show Firefly that might be up my alley, but never got around to checking it out. Then just the other day I saw over at Magic Cookie that bloggers get a shot at free tickets for the upcoming movie! Of course I signed up. Now that I'm going to see the movie that concludes the series, I thought it would be a good time to see what the show is all about. None of the rental stores around here seem to carry it, so I had no choice but to buy the complete season from Best Buy without having ever watched a single episode. Now, halfway through, I am totally stoked on Serenity. I'm supposed to tell everyone this stuff:

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family –squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

I bet it is going to be sweet. You can read all about it here on Wednesday morning, or Tuesday night if it gets me too wound up to sleep and I write the post as soon as I get home from the theater. You can't take the sky from me.

Viva la France!

Hope y'all liked the photos. Now it's storytime!

France was awesome. We rented an apartment in Paris for two weeks, which is the way to go. Not too expensive, but we had our own place and a kitchen for making meals and whatnot to save money on eating out. Plus we could see the Eiffel Tower from our bedroom and drink wine on the balcony, so it fulfilled all our Paris dreams right there.

FRANCE FUN FACT: Wine is cheaper than soda.

I'll spend some time in subsequent posts talking about our day trips into Burgandy and Champagne. Those were my favorite parts of the vacation. We also took a bicycle tour up to Monet's house, gardens, and grave--the only biking I did for two weeks!--man, do I feel out of shape! It turns out that my buff cycling muscles are a different group from my flabby walking muscles, and we were both exhausted at the end of every day.

We walked a lot, but we also spent a lot of time riding trains: the Metro in Paris and the SNCF lines out into the country. SNCF can suck it!! We had a bad experience with them, but there's not much incentive for them to improve customer service, since as far as I know they've got a monopoly on rail travel heading out of Paris. Anyway, I like riding trains, so we had some good times. Oh, the AirFrance bus from the airport can suck it too.

Things that didn't suck: wine! food! the weather! some museums! Again, I'll dedicate some posts to those topics, especially the two vegetarian restaurants we visited. So, lots of content coming up. I'm also answering questions, so if you've got anything to ask, now is the time! The request line is open.

Winners Never Quit

Leaving the company is so in vogue now that our HR Director didn't bat an eye when I came into her office to resign today.

"I've got some bad news," I said.
"Oh, you're resigning. When's your last day?"
"Um, the 7th. I wrote a letter..."
"That's great, thanks. Just notify your supervisor, and I'll schedule an exit interview for next week."

And just like that it was all taken care of. If I'd known it was this easy, I'd have done it a long time ago! With the safety net of this job removed, I can build up the FEAR I need to begin the hard work of looking for another one. Mostly, though, I just feel (switching metaphors now) relieved of a burden that's been troubling me for a long time. I'm liberated... free as the wind blows! Speaking of things that blow, unemployment's creeping up on me. Time to get back to that job search. Next post will be about Paris.

Categories: work

View from our bedroom window

Rows of vines, ripe for the harvest

yet more truck graffiti

Tractor in the Champagne countryside