Remembering Trinidad

I feel like I've been very busy all weekend and yet haven't accomplished much. The laundry is still unfolded and the floors still unvacuumed. But I did scan about three dozen photographs from my trip to Trinidad 11 years ago (my brother-in-law wants them for a slide show) and I cooked up a load of Indian food. There's chana dal and a couple of other curry vegetable dishes on the lunch menu for tomorrow.

I went and saw Sweeney Todd with some friends at the Aronoff Center downtown yesterday afternoon. I liked it - but didn't love it. I was quite dazzled with the skill of the cast even so; I don't know how anyone managed to find so many people who could play a musical instrument and sing and act.

At the grocery store this afternoon I bought some wine that was marked down as discontinued. One of the bottles I purchased was Boutari Kretikos (from Crete). I'd never heard of it before, but I did a little research and it's got some fine reviews. I think I'll swing back by the store on my way home tomorrow and buy the rest of the bottles; there weren't very many and it was quite a good price.

Retsina

I just tried my first sip of the Greek wine Retsina, which is considered by some to be the "quintessential Mediterranean wine," while others describe it as being "sappy and turpentine like." I purchased the bottle back at the beginning of last summer, after I'd read a story in which two of the characters were sharing a bottle of Retsina on the patio of a restaurant somewhere in the Greek isles.

The young man who helped me find the bottle on the shelves of The Party Source said he thought it tasted like floor polish. With that thought in mind, the bottle has languished in my meager wine rack, unopened, for months. I only opened it tonight because I didn't stop at the grocery on my way home; I didn't realize I was otherwise out of wine.

Well, the salesman did it an injustice. I think it's quite delicious. I can detect the resinous flavor, but it's not overwhelming; otherwise it's full flavored and not very sweet, though I can't really describe it as dry, either.

From about.com on Retsina:

Retsina was born of the need to preserve and ship wines in pine-pitch sealed vessels. Ancient wines varied substantially in quality and tended to spoil. In efforts to avoid this, wines were often adulterated with exotic ingredients, from herbs to sea water. Due to the pine oils, Retsina was thought of as wood nymph tears, though how it was collected from those shy nymphs is not recorded.

I'll be serving this the next time I make a Greek meal.