What would Jackie do?

I just finished reading the novel “What would Jackie Do? An Inspired Guide to Distinctive Living" by Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway”. The cover’s synopsis describes the book as,” From fashion to finance, a sophisticated and entertaining guide that shows readers how to attain the elegance and practical smarts that defined Jackie O". This piqued my interest because who better than Jackie Kennedy, our first lady of culture, to emulate as I try to add a little culture to my life.

I found the book to be a quick, easy read that lived up to the author's promise to be entertaining. It contained a surprising amount of trivia about Jackie's life that I hadn't previously known and found interesting. If you are looking for a biography of her life, however, I am sure there are biographies that are superior. I was disappointed in the books ability to inspire me to live a more distinctive life; I found most of the advice either obvious or not particularly relevant to my life.

What I did take away from this book was a heightened admiration for this woman who had been blessed with so many gifts; a great education, money, status and connections. In spite of all this, she was never afraid to roll up her sleeves and immerse herself in whatever project she was working on. Her projects included writing, photography, couture style, historic preservation and how to pair authors with book projects. She treated those who worked for her with respect; I don’t recall a single member of her former staff writing a tell-all novel about her life. (In her will she bequeathed $50,000 to a beloved servant, but left her sister nothing.) Most remarkable of all though was Jackie's ability to reinvent her life three times over after enduring major setbacks that would have destroyed most of us.

Transforming wine into vinegar

The summer after I graduated from high school, I participated in a foreign exchange program spending three weeks with a host family in the Province area of France. Upon my departure, the family gave me two bottles of wine to take home to my family. Once home, I placed the wine upright on a shelf in my family’s basement never giving it a further thought. Surprisingly, those two bottles of wine reappeared, sans labels, a few years ago in a box of memorabilia my mother had saved from my youth. Considering that I am the oldest of six children, I find it pretty amazing that this wine remained unopened all these years. I have decided that I will serve it to my family the next time we are all together in my home. To this, my youngest brother has remarked that the wine most likely has spoiled and will taste like vinegar. Is this possible? Doesn't wine improve with age?

I discovered that wine can indeed be transformed into vinegar; the word vinegar means sour wine in French. It is caused by a process called oxidation. This occurs when wine is exposed to the sun or if the cork becomes loose and the wine is exposed to air. Proper storage is the key to preventing oxidation from occurring. Wine must be stored in a cool environment with no direct sunlight and the bottle should by lying on its side or upside down at all times. This keeps the cork moist with wine and swollen against the neck of the bottle. If the bottle is stored upright the cork begins to dry out and shrink. After a few months, air may begin to slip between the neck of the bottle oxidizing the wine. Also white and rose wines are meant to be drunk while young and fresh not stored and not all red wines are meant to be aged; only those with generous fruit and firm structures are up to the task.

The two bottles of wine, a red table wine and a bottle of champagne, that traveled all the way from France in my suitcase, spent twenty years standing upright on a shelf in my parents basement, a year or two in a box, and four years standing upright behind the bar in my basement, have most likely been transformed into vinegar.

Milwaukee's Broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion"

Milwaukee's broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion" will air again this Sunday, February, 26 at noon on WUWM-FM (89.7) .

Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Garlic Cream Sauce

Both my husband and I enjoy cooking, but I will be the first to admit that my husband is the chef in our household. Our cooking styles are very different. I always use a recipe, never deviate from the instructions, and always carefully measure the ingredients. If a recipe contains an item I don't care for I search for an alternative recipe. My husband uses a recipe as an outline, varying ingredients to suit his palate, and altering temperatures and cooking times at will. Needless to say, his cooking style has led to some interesting menu items.

His latest creation, Stuffed Chicken Breasts, was so delectable that I must share:

Stuffed Chicken Breasts with Garlic Cream Sauce
6 skinless boneless chicken breasts
6 slices Gruyere Cheese
1 1/2 cups spinach
Marinated red peppers
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 T. flour
1 T. olive oil
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pound chicken between two pieces of plastic wrap to 1/4 inches. Top each half with one slice cheese, 1/4 c. spinach and 3 to 4 slices red pepper. Fold in half, pinching edges together; sprinkle with salt & pepper. Dredge chicken in flour; heat oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium to high heat. Add chicken; cook 5 minutes on each side. Place chicken in a shallow baking pan; bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes or until done.

Sauce
2 T. butter
1 tsp minced garlic
3 T. flour
1 (3 oz) package of cream cheese
1 can chicken broth
1/2 tsp pepper
In small saucepan, melt butter, add garlic. Cook for one minute, then add flour and cook until smooth and bubbly. Add other ingredients, stirring occasionally, until sauce is smooth and thickened.

Pour sauce over chicken and serve.

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion"

Last night my husband and I enjoyed Garrison Keillor's live radio broadcast of "A Prairie Home Companion" at the Milwaukee Theater. I hadn't realized live radio could be so much fun. The majority of the featured skits, songs and jokes had a Milwaukee theme. Kathryn Hauser Slusher, the shows segment producer and music librarian, read an essay on growing up in Milwaukee which culminated in her recitation of the Polish and German last names of her former classmates with perfect pronunciation. To my husband's amusement, one of the names she recited was his mother’s maiden name. The music featured local talent; The Exotics, a surf band, the 100 year old Mandolin Orchestra (supposedly the only Mandolin Orchestra still in existence) and local jazz clarinetist Chuck Hedges who joined The Guys All Star Shoe Band. My husband’s highlight of the evening came when Chuck performed “Come Sunday” a Duke Ellington tune. Pat Donohue the guitarist from The Guys All Star Shoe Band sang a cute little ditty about his days at Marquette University. Keillor even came up with a little local trivia; the typewriter had been invented just a couple of blocks from the Milwaukee Theater and Golda Meir had grown up and gone to college in Milwaukee.

My husband first discovered Garrison Keillor’s "A Prairie Home Companion" in the early eighties while camping in northern Wisconsin. He introduced me to the show by tuning in on Saturday nights while we prepared dinner. I quickly became a fan.

According to Garrison’s website Keillor developed an idea for a variety show for radio with musical guests and commercials for imaginary products after working on an article for the New Yorker magazine about the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. On July 6, 1974, Keillor hosted the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion, named after the Prairie Home cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota, at the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College, Saint Paul. The audience consisted of 12 guests, mostly children and earned less than $8. Today, A Prairie Home Companion is heard by over 4 million listeners each week on over 558 public radio stations, and is heard abroad on America One and the Armed Forces Networks in Europe and the Far East. Keillor remembers, "When the show started, it was something funny to do with my friends, and then it became an achievement that I hoped would be successful, and now it's a good way of life."

Shawn Mullins

Shawn Mullins is my most recent musical discovery. Coincidently, both my husband and I arrived home at the same time a couple of weeks ago, we had both been listening to WUWM’s Café Tonight on our commute home and we both were excited about a new song we had just heard. That song was Shawn Mullins "Beautiful Wreck". It comes from his latest record "9th Ward Pickin Parlor". "Beautiful Wreck" has received a lot of radio play in recent weeks and is up to song #11 on the Triple A Radio Charts as of the week of February 6, 2006.

The full “9th Ward Picking Parlor” CD can be heard at http://music.aol.com/songs/new_releases_full_cds?defaultTab=12.

Shawn Mullins is a folk singer and songwriter from Atlanta. He has recently updated his website. To learn more about Shawn, his new record and his upcoming tour go to the official website of Shawn Mullins at http://www.shawnmullins.com/.

Two items to note:

“9th Ward Picking Parlor” was released today 02/14/06 by vanguard records.

Shawn Mullins can be seen live in Madison, Wisconsin’s Orpheum Theatre on 03/3/2006 at 9:00 p.m. Tickets are $15.

Sancerre

Sauvignon Blanc is usually my wine of choice, so I was very excited to discover a French wine made exclusively from this grape called “Sancerre.” Sancerre comes from the Loire Valley in France. Only the wines produced around the hilltop town of Sancerre are allowed to bear the name. Sancerre is one of the original wines produced from the Sauvignon Blanc grape and sets the world standard for Sauvignon. It is slightly spicy and fruity, but crisper and tangier than other wines made from the same grape in the United States and New Zealand. This is due to the cool Loire Valley climate. Sancerre is also considered one of the best white wine matches with food. Ironically, it was the featured wine on, “Simply Ming,” a cooking show which aired on PBS TV Sunday.

I purchased my first bottle of Sancerre from Sendiks in Brookfield, Wisconsin. There were three varieties to choose from. The wine manager recommended the Pascal Jolivet for $21.49. Of course it was the most expensive of the three, but he guaranteed it to be the best. I went with his recommendation even though it was over my usual ten dollar wine allotment.

The wine label describes Pascal Jolivet as a specialist in the Loire Valley wines of Sancerre and Poully-Fume, with an estate covering several exceptional vineyard sites. They intervene as little as possible in their wine making, preferring not to add yeasts and allowing each wine to accentuate its aromas through long, slow cool fermentations. This expressive Sancerre - entirely Sauvignon Blanc - is very aromatic, dry and refreshing with a delicate note of lime blossom.

After sampling, I can not say that the 2003 Pascal Jolivet is the best white wine I have ever tasted, but I definitely was not disappointed.

The Golden Notebook

My latest library selection; "The Golden Notebook" by Doris Lessing sat unopened on my desk. I began dreading the daunting task of reading this 500 plus page book. For inspiration, I turned to Amazon and began scanning the reader reviews, only to find them to be just so-so. Many of the reviewers disliked the book so much that they didn’t finish it. I also discovered that many scholars considered this book to be a feminist classic. I began thinking maybe this was not the book for me; I didn’t want to spend my time reading a feminist book from the 60's that was over 500 pages long. Besides the women's movement ended in like the 80's and isn't really relevant to me in my daily life. I decided that there are just too many books on my reading list and too little time in my schedule to read this book.

I had selected this book after reading the following recommendation by Erica Jung in Oprah's magazine: This book was very important to my growth as a novelist because it told the story of a women whose various selves political, psychological and sexual are equally represented. Anna Wulf is a novelist trying to write a novel about contemporary women, but she is blocked. I had never before read a story about a woman who was seeking a way of integrating the disparate parts of her life. The journey of the book is a woman's struggle to harmonize all her passions.

Over the next couple of days I could not stop thinking about this book in relation to a speech I had heard given by Barbara Lawton, Wisconsin’s Lieutenant Governor. Her words would not stop ringing in my ears. She had informed the audience that the Institute for Women’s Policy Research had given Wisconsin a low C- grade for the status of Wisconsin women. Two issues that stood out were the gap between women’s wages in comparison to males and the fact that about a third of single mother families in Wisconsin live in poverty. She then recounted a conversation she had had with a male politician at the democratic convention. He had commented that Wisconsin was a great state that provided many high quality programs for its residents. Barbara responded by saying that may be true but Wisconsin has a lot of work to do to improve the lives of women and began informing him of the low C- grade. To which he responded by saying that he had been referring to issues and programs that mattered.

I have since decided that feminism is relevant in my life, these issues are important and I do need to read Doris Lessing’s daunting novel “The Golden Notebook”.

If you would like to learn more about Wisconsin Women = Prosperity economic development initiative please clicks here: http://wiwep.org/AboutWWP/AboutUs#toc1.

Culture through the eyes of a three year old

Last summer my brother took my little three year old niece to visit her mother's former farm, which had recently been converted into an Elk farm. They had the opportunity to tour the farm giving my niece a chance to observe hundreds of Elk in their new setting. They then toured the newly built registration center which had been decorated by mounting several elk heads on the wall. My niece, after looking around the center, turned to my brother and said, "Daddy, what do they do with the animal’s bodies after they cut the heads off the bodies and hang them on the wall? I don't see any bodies without heads."

Isn’t it interesting to see how something that our culture accepts as normal can look differently when seen through the eyes of a child?

Chateau Haut Rian's 2004 Bordeaux Sec

A couple of weeks ago I bought a bottle of Chateau Haut Rian’s 2004 Bordeaux Sec. It was affordably priced; $9.99 at Sendik's in Brookfield, Wisconsin. In the past I have typically steered clear of French wines finding them too expensive for my budget. France is currently experiencing a wine surplus which has led to more affordable prices.

Chateau Haut Rian's Bordeaux Sec is described as a medium bodied blend consisting of 35% Sauvignon Blanc and 65% Semillon. The grapes are grown in predominantly limestone soils and are fermented in stainless steel tanks. The wine is bottled six months after harvest. The result is a crisp dry white wine that has scents and flavors of herbs, lemon and a hint of lime with a long fruit finish that goes on and on. I would recommend this wine to anyone who enjoys a crisp white wine.

The Châteaux Haut Rian is located in Graves de Vayres a region of Bordeaux France. This particular vineyard produces 23,000 cases of white wine per year and 18,000 cases of red.

Here are a few interesting facts that I discovered about the Bordeaux region and their wines; most of which I found in Karen MacNeil’s “Wine Bible”:

- Bordeaux is the largest producer of “fine wine” in the world.
- 80% of the wine produced in Bordeaux is red.
- The two most important grape varieties grown in this region are merlot and cabernet sauvignon.
- Both the red and white bordeaux are almost always blends of two or more varieties. In Bordeaux blending is used to achieve more complex flavors.
- The majority of the wines produced in this area are modest dinner wines.
- Semillon is considered the soul of white bordeaux.
- Semillon is typically blended with sauvignon blanc. The two wines are complete opposites; semillon is creamy, while sauvignon blanc is acidic.
- Graves is located south of the city of Bordeaux and gets its name from it’s gravely soil.
- Graves is the only part of Bordeaux where both red and white wines are produced by most Chateau.
- Any structure can be a chateau in Bordeaux where the word refers to any building attached to vineyards with winemaking and storage facilities on the property.
- Haut is a French word meaning high, when you see this word on French wine labels it usually refers to a geographic location meaning either further north or above in altitude.