Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Jeanna G1 Comment

It’s Marci Gras! I did my part to make sure Fat Tuesday lived up to its name by making and eating an absurd amount of gumbo and cornbread. I’ve never been to the Mardi Gras festival, but I have been to New Orleans, and our hotel was right on Bourbon Street, and we visited the Mardi Gras museum to see the floats. I was also traveling with my 7-year-old at the time, so I had to be somewhat prudent. Anyhow, I was watching the news this morning about New Orleans and how there is no parade because of Covid, but houses and yards are decorated to the nines. One interviewee said, “The parade may be cancelled, but the spirit of Marci Gras cannot!” And that is when I got teary-eyed.

I don’t know about you, but I hope post-Covid celebrations rush in like someone opened the floodgates. Potential memories are being stolen from us. Sweet memories of passing out cupcakes on your birthday or Valentines to your classmates were erased like a chalkboard this past year. Dancing like nobody’s watching on a crowded amphitheater lawn is only a hallucination. Singing the school fight song with 109,000 other fans in the university stadium must have been a figment of my imagination. Hugging and holding hands? Only in our wildest dreams. Festivals, reunions, and play dates are all fictional chapters of our now boring lives. Gosh, I even fantasize about struggling to get the bartender’s attention during happy hour!

I hope when we become a herd again, we become immune to boredom. I hope we flock together and have a parade. A day of parades all over the world with singing and dancing, and everyone has a seat together at the grandstand with a perfect view of the spectacle. But the timing of these Mardi Gras celebrations will be reversed, because we’ve been abstaining for too long, as if we’d given up togetherness for lent. It’s time for the spirit of Mardi Gras that has been hibernating in our hearts to wake up, take a real good stretch, and let the good times roll!

My Only Valentine

Jeanna G2 Comments

As much as I imagine that there must have been more, I can only think of one Valentine’s Day.

I remember walking down the busy hallway to my locker, excitement brimming, love clouding our minds. I arrived at my locker and was overwhelmed by the scent of roses. I craned my neck to see who had received them, and reached no conclusions. I resumed spinning the dial on my combination lock. When I opened the door, the loveliness of a dozen red roses saturated my unsuspecting heart. My high school sweetheart had memorized my combination from all the times he stood by my side, and then snuck in early that morning to deliver my gift.

The attention. The forethought. The simplicity. The grandeur. Love can be so complex and so simple all at the same time. But most of all, his was sweet. So, so sweet.

“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.” ~Shakespeare (Who else?!)

‘79 Vintage

Jeanna GLeave a comment

I like to compare my aging process to that of a fine wine. And what makes wine better with age? Flavor development. Flavors that were previously hidden make themselves known. The sugars and the acids come together to form something new, something even better. The same wine could taste different each year. Like wine, all the good stuff and harsh stuff in my life have made me who I am today, and I know I’ve been better some years than others.

As a child, I’d say I was a light white wine, and my flavor profile would be a combination of honey, stone fruits, and minerality, with floral and herbaceous aromas. Overall light and zesty like a Chablis!

Late teens and twenties I mutated into a Mourvèdre; meaty and full-bodied, difficult to grow, herbaceous, dark and spicy, dry, complex, bitter and astringent, but easy to enjoy, nonetheless.

My thirties transformed me into a Madeira. I was fortified with the Spirit. I was bold, sweet, and stable. A Mama Bear.

Now, in my forties, with a beautiful daughter who is coming into her own, I can, once again, do the same. The great part about this age and stage, is that I know I can, unapologetically, be whatever kind of flavor profile I want to be. So I choose a blend of old and new. Accessible (easily appreciated) and polished (well made) with great legs. A complexity that keeps delivering intriguing flavors with notes of minerality, petichor and, of course, nuttiness.

Looking back on my life, I’ve come to accept that some of the acids and some of the sweetness were beyond my control, but I know that I can control my reactions to all of it. I’ve learned from it all and know that, at the very least, I can choose the conditions in which I am stored (or restored). And as another trip around the sun is coming full circle, I like to think about how this next year might taste. And how might I make the following years even better? It’s time to get uncorked and find out!

What is your flavor profile? Or what would you change it to be?