Oh Boy! Sunday Night with Litre.

Good evening to you! I missed the hoops last night as I was working at the restaurant. It was a very strange evening but ended up being lucrative as it seems to be the way in this place. I feel in my old age my experiences have made me far better at this gig and the money I am taking home shows it. Here is a conversation between busboys* last night who are both 18ish and one is going to McGill University next year so I really don’t know where this came from.

Bboy 1 “Man, I want to be a server here”

Bboy 2 “Dude, you need at least 5 years experience, like the two new guys.”

Bboy 1 to me “5 years? Hey how long have you guys worked in restaurants?”

Me “Since I was 18 and I am 45″

Scotty ” Since I was 18 and I am 38″

Bboy 1 “Shit! That’s a long time.”

Me “Yeah lads, you started off at the top of the mountain instead of at a place where you could gain experience then come to a place like this. However you boys do alright tips wise so it would be comparable to a server at a family restaurant.”

Bboy 2 “If you have a real job then why are you here?”

Me “You see 3 of the 5 us working tonight? We are older, been doing it a while and treat is as a hobby that pays because we love the game. If I did it full time I would be a murderous drunk.”

*Note, they do not bus tables, seem to just polish cutlery, reset tables and polish glass ware.

I am a huge fan of Foals from Oxford and they have a new album coming out in June. This is the second single and I really like it.

Dumb travel story time. (Short one today)

I slept in a cemetery in Venice due to me getting back to the hostel too late as it was at a seminary you see and I did not know it had hours of operation.

However the next night I was sure to be back in time and a whole gang of backpackers were smoking Amsterdam’s finest in the common area when I decided to head off to bed. Well, about 20 minutes later the monks came in and kicked everyone out and as they were all leaving I informed them that the benches at said cemetery could easily hold someone over 6 feet tall. One guy from Cinci (I remember like Pepperidge farms does) tried to NARC me out and the monk was having none of it. I was in bed when it went down and the monk thought that I had learnt my lesson from missing the entry time the night prior.

Wine lesson time

Today we head to Sicily! Why? I have no idea as this is somewhat of a Karen Carpenter job.

What do we know about Sicily? Warmer climate than up north where we have delved into on earlier. Sicily has always been famous for their Marsala sweet wines and I even think Yeah Right did a Chicken Marsala back in the day but we wont get into that today.

Due to this climate one of the first wines you should think of is the white dessert wine Malvasia. This is a large group of grapes that we’ve probably never heard of that are white or very light red who do not get much skin contact in the fermentation. This is a sweeter wine that pairs well with desserts which has a very high sugar content due to the heat and grapes used. This style of wine is grown all over the Mediterranean and its roots are from Greece. You’ll also find Malvasia in Slovenia, Spain, Croatia, Greece, Portugal the country, and the United States. Predominantly though it is produced in Italy and Portugal at 44% and 42% of the worlds output respectively.

On to the red that you should be looking for from down on Sicily.

Nero d’Avola grows fantastically in that hot maritime climate. It isn’t the best that they have on offer for reds but it certainly is what you will find at your local liquor store and will not be nearly as expensive as its brothers from up north. If you love big Cabernets and Syrahs then this is the affordable Italian grape for you. You get licorice, ripe plums, black cherry and a hint of tobacco from most of them from Sicily. At the restaurant I serve this as an alternative to the big American and Canadian reds that people are accustomed to and it works out quite well. Pair with meats, bbq, ripe cheeses or drink alone as the tannins on this one are not too overpowering.

If you dive deep in to this affordable stuff you will notice there seems to be 2 different ways that the mafia local wineries make them and it really has to do with how long they rest in oak. You get very fruit forward cherry tasting wines when they aren’t in oak and deeper chocolate flavoUrs when they are aged.

Sports tonight!

There is some hockey, some professional basketball but more importantly it s the Women’s NCAA final! The ‘Cocks against the Fightin Horatios! The game is at 7 pm DFO time which is Central and I believe that is due to Internet Dad being in St. Louis. Home of the most delicious pizza in America!

Be well and next week I may give a BOTG from the Canadia game last weekend that was absolute heaven. (I did get to meet our keeper who was a beauty)

Balls or Don T brought this comedienne Eleanor Morton up a week or so ago and I went down a rabbit hole of her humoUr. Quite funny, mostly it is Scottish tour guides who don’t give a fuck but this one is good too.