Note: Apparently, when i wrote the following, I was so asleep that I did not make sense. I have had to rewrite the material in order for it to make sense for those who only are operating with one motor.

The Chronicle newspaper in its Wine section had an article on how twist-off closures are going to be replacing corks in wine bottles. Well, with the nasty crap that happened to me last night, yeah, maybe I would go for the twist-off. First off, I bought a new wine opener ($6.00) so that I could open my very first French Bordeaux in style. I could hear the popping of the cork and could see the elegance with which I was going to open the cork with a grandiose fluorish.

BUT, in reality, it was a nightmare. First off, the opener would not go in straight. This resulted in several insertions, which resulted in several cracks in the middle of the cork, which eventually led to a split cork. The multiple cracks caused weakness in the whole cork so that when I pulled the cork, it split into two. It did not help that the cork opener was very painful on my hands, which are delicated petals of rose. I eventually got to open the bottle, but it took me 10 minutes of struggling and much cursing.

At any rate, I am now planning to buy the rabbit which is a very modern piece of appliance that opens and closes corks without any problems. Retail of course is $60. The first time I saw this wonder was at HermitQ's palace. She took it with much fluorishing of hands and opened up a bottle of wine as easy as picking lanzones from the ground.

The Chronicle also mentioned in the article that corks were supposed to let in some air and that this aided in the aging of the wine. Hmm, one would have thought that with the science available that someone would have figured out that this is not the case. How can cork let in some amount of air? If there is some sort of space in the cork for air to go through, the liquid would have leaked through considering the pressure inside the bottle.

Chronicle also suggested Petit Sirah for BBQ tritip loins. Mmmm, another Costco revelation for me. And they said, "Thou shall have tri tip and marinate it overnight. And He was right. And the tri-tip loin was good. And all shall increase their girth and weight with the tri-tip loin."

REtong