Pages

Monday, April 25, 2011

Where Men Win Glory

My latest book selection for the Bolgia Book Club was Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. 

Our book club is a little different than most.  It has been around for eight years.  It is equal parts men and women.  The books are selected by the host.  Our order of rotation and basic rules are contained in a pickle.  The pickle is passed when the next book is revealed at the end of the meeting.  There is always food and wine (we live in Napa, after all.)

I heard about a new local book club called the "Commando Book Club" - which does not allow food or beverages.  Our group would not long survive with such austerity.



The last book we read was The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason.   I thought the Pat Tillman story might be a fitting follow up to a rather fey attempt to re-write the story of Odysseus.  There was almost universal acclaim for this book, and it is a hard crowd to please.  Don't they look hard to please, critical and picky?  In this photo they are sipping a small glass of homemade limoncello.  Do I need to provide the recipe?  The big jar on the table is the new batch - about 35 days into the first stage prior to addition of the simple syrup.  The rose is our latest Leap of Faith bottling - 2010 Merlot Rose.

We had a wonderful conversation about war, kleos, what is a justified war, heroism, epic poetry, and of course the life of a remarkable man told by one of our great story tellers.

We also had spring lamb stew:



...and a luscious savory mushroom (and chanterelle) bread pudding.



We ended with two kinds of homemade cookies and lemon milk sherbet made two ways, one with Meyer lemons, and one with Felicia's sour lemons.  After the side by side tasting, sour lemons are better for lemon sherbet.  Meyer lemons are too sweet and lack the tang of the Eureka lemons.








Enhanced by Zemanta

2 comments:

Martha said...

Hmmm, a merlot rose. Sounds good. I think you and John should bring over a bottle and we will try along with a French and Italian. Only here at this property 12 to 15 more months. Better visit soon

juliana inman said...

Hi Missy! We would love to do that. Let's see how the architecture business does this year. Watch out for posts about peonies...