oh hey.

I quit smoking. It's been a little more than a week now.

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Made something really delicious last night that I've never done before: grilled asparagus. They were amazing, and so easy there's no recipe. Take your asparagus, unpeeled, maybe trim the less-pleasant end off if you want (I didn't, as you can see), slather them a couple of glugs of olive oil and toss liberally with coarse sea salt. Put them on a hot charcoal or gas grill for 2 to 4 minutes per side (let's say they have two sides, so turn them once) until they've got good grill marks but they're still far from limp. That's it. I don't have any pictures of the cooked version, sorry, but they were really really good.

Something else that was quite tasty was this tiny piece of pumpkin pie with a scooplet of Häagen-Dazs Caramelized Pear and Toasted Pecan ice cream.

We don't normally talk about this sort of thing here at VDuck, but it must be mentioned that the Robert Biale wines we had last night with our steak and asparagus were stupendous.

Dad has been a fan for a while now, and I have always liked the Biales but thought they were a bit overpriced. I'm not so sure anymore: last night he opened two Zinfandels that were just spectacular: a 2005 Stagecoach Vineyard and a 2006 Monte Rosso. We've been drinking a lot of Zin since I've been here and these were head and shoulders above the rest, especially the 2005. Could it have been the asparagus we wonder? Or the ridiculously high alcohol content (15.8%)?

You know what? We just can't answer that, because we know absolutely fucking nothing about wine. And with that, we bring this episode of Oenology Corner to a close here at VDuck. Enjoy!

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