The Family Celebration

You can choose your friends but not your family.

That old adage about friends and family is absolutely true.  And most of the time it comes out in spades right around a celebration of some sort.

It's too bad because so often we end up ruining the celebrations that should be so special.  

It's been a crazy couple of weeks in the Loux household.  In mid-May I decided to move and in the meantime I've had more travel come up than the first few months of the year combined.  Which is why I didn't get something posted the last few weeks.

My niece graduated from High School in Michigan a week ago and we made the trip up to Michigan to celebrate with her and the family. It seems as though this part of the summer is filled with special celebrations.

Whether it's a wedding, a graduation, a birthday, Mother's and Father's Day we seem to gather to join the celebration.  But sometimes I don't love that they involve family.

That wasn't the case this past weekend but it too often can be.  Everyone has their own idea of how things should go and so often don't want to give up their ideas for the good of the celebration. And, that's a good thing because celebrations so often involve food and wine.

This celebration involved a lot of wonderful food and both family and friends.  It was fun to see all the food coming out.  One of the things I hate to see happen at any party is to run out of food.  I've been to celebrations where there's just enough food.

What so often ends up happening is that people don't end up eating.  They nibble instead of eat.  Especially those come and go as you please type of events. That's exactly what this graduation celebration was all about.  All day Sunday people came and went and filled their plates with food and enjoyed a beverage of their choice.

What I loved was that there was a little bit of everything on the tables. In addition to the pulled pork, BBQ sauce and salsa we brought up, there were two types of meatballs, fruit and vegetables with dip. There were all kinds of chips as well.

No one went away hungry if they didn't want to.

But more than that what I loved most was listening people talk and laugh and share stories together. I watched as my niece greeted everyone with hugs and thank yous. I have a very special place in my heart for all my nieces and nephews.

In the midst of the baggage of life, there's nothing like the unconditional love of the niece or nephew to make you feel OK when the whole world seems to be against you. This was a wonderful celebration of my niece's graduation and I wouldn't have missed for the whole world.

So, Kara, as you embark on this next step in life let me share my congratulations on your success.  

A Little Iron and Wine

First let me apologize for the lack of posting over the last few weeks.  Sometimes life conspires against you and that's been the case for me.  Lots of travel, a move and some personal challenges have made it difficult to get some posts written.

While I'm not yet unpacked, I am back to my regular Monday schedule. Last weekend was my first Ravinia concert of the season.  For those of you who aren't in the Chicagoland area, the Ravinia Festival is an outdoor concert venue. They have concerts pretty much every night from Memorial Day through Labor Day.



You can get yours at the Ravinia website here.

What I love about Ravinia isn't so much the music but that you can picnic on the lawn.  An afternoon drinking some really good wine and eating some really good food.  The problem for us is that, too often, I can't seem to push the easy button.

Over the last couple of years, we've perfected the experience.  We have the perfect picnic bag (complete with wheels and space for 4 bottles of wine and plenty of cooler space.  But that still, too often, means schlepping chairs and tables and . . . well you get the idea.

Last year we utilized one of the upright grocery carts but it turned out to take up so much room in the trunk we moved on to a folding wagon. I only have one thing to say to this folding red wagon . . . Genius! The only draw back are that the front wheels and the handle are independent so it can wander a bit.

The Wine Army on the move!

Over the years we've added a couple of Crate and Barrel "Table in a Bag" tables to our Ravinia outfit.  They come in very handy. Now it's just a matter of adding food and wine.  As I mentioned, I have just moved so everything is in boxes out in the garage. It makes for a difficult time creating for Ravinia.

Laying out a spread and pushing the easy button, the approach we took was a three course meal.  Course 1: Cheese, fruit, olives and a little Genoa Salami. Course 2 included a pasta salad with shrimp and some vegetables and artichokes with a roasted garlic aoli. For course #3 our friends Nick and Annie brought an out-of-this-world rhubarb/strawberry crumble.

For the most part everything was put together Sunday morning between errands and such.  As for the wines, I mentioned earlier that I had moved. What that means is that my wine cabinet, though moved, is still empty and all of my wine is on the floor of one of the bedrooms.  That means wine selection had to be a bit of a hit or miss approach.


Frankly, I think I hit.

The wines chosen were a 2011 Seghesio Pinot Grigio, a 2009 Chamisal Vineyards Chardonnay, Seghesio's Defiant and Venom.  I brought along the Seghesio Dionigia but we didn't get to it.

Nick and Annie with our pre-concert cocktail!

Actually, we almost came with just two bottles of wine. I had the wine in the picnic carrier but pulled the white wines to put in the fridge before we left. I had the trunk packed when I remembered the wine and made a quick dash upstairs to grab it.

After setting up the tables I pulled out a little summer cocktail I like to make.  It begins by creating a rhubarb simple syrup and then adding rum, tequila, seltzer water and mint.

I think it would be equally good as a non-alcoholic drink as well.  However, it can be made as strong as you like.  I mixed it with two parts rhubarb simple syrup, 1 part tequila, 1 part rum. They go down smooth and easy . . . a couple of them would put me down for the night so I recommend 3 or 4 parts syrup to 1 part rum and 1 part tequila.

As you can see, we spared no expense on the serving dishes

We then opened up the Seghesio Pinot Grigio. I had heard from Nick earlier that Annie liked Pinot Grigio and I'm a huge fan of this one.  It's a great summer wine.  Actually, it's a great wine all the way around.  I'm more of a red wine person but you won't get me complaining about this one.

You also won't get me complaining about Chamisal Vineyard's Chardonnay. My sister-in-law has a hard time with the oakiness of most Chardonnays but they have a great stainless version that she absolutely loves.  This is their "middle of the road" Chardonnay. 

We ended the evening by introducing Nick and Annie to two of my favorite wines: Defiant and Venom.  Perhaps it's because the name matches my sometime personality. This delicious blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Aglianico quickly became one of my favorites.

When I first started to seriously look into wines, I thought that blends were just a way for the winemaker to drop in some really cheap wine and try and pawn it off on the unsuspecting consumer.

I couldn't be more wrong.

I'm beginning to believe it's really where the winemaker gets a chance to show off his talent. And in this case, Ted Seghesio is a gifted winemaker. Taken by themselves these wines have a distinct and unique taste but when you put them together --

it's magic. 

While I was going to end with the Dionigia, it turns out the Venom was the close for the night.  This sangiovese is quite different from the Defiant.  Grown on the home ranch, it gets its name from the hill upon which the grapes grow -- Rattlesnake Hill.

Photo of Rattlesnake Hill from Seghesio's Facebook Page and Richie Knapp

Pete Seghesio told me last summer that when he checks the vines up on Rattlesnake Hill he drags a shovel behind him to make enough noise so that the venomous citizenry will move along and not be a problem.

On my last visit I picked up a t-shirt as a souvenir. It's black with a quote from the winemaker: "Venom -- the antidote for every bad Sangiovese you've ever had."

He's right, you know.

The Venom was a delightful end to a wonderful evening.  Mostly, I've talked about the food and the wine and didn't really touch on the music at all.  I guess that while I really enjoy the music, that's not what the Ravinia experience is all about.

This night's concert featured both Dr. John and Iron and Wine.  I guess it's a pretty eclectic mix with a musical icon and a relative newcomer.  It was a wonderful evening with some of Dr. John's more recognizable tunes and a few more obscure tunes. 

Perhaps the most interesting happening of the night was happening on a blanket not too far away from us.  My friend, Nick, took this picture on the sly.  Ravinia is good for a lot of things but I think this goes a bit too far.

Actually, this was one of the more tamer images from the evening.  I'm pretty sure that they had no idea who was playing or why they were really there.

They left at the intermission and missed the entire set from Iron and Wine. Frankly, I would have thought that Iron and Wine would have been more their style but perhaps they had other things on their minds.