On the way home, I bought a Valentine's Day cake with the Baskin-Robbins gift certificates. I avoided the pink "Love Potion #31" heart-shaped cake and instead went with the ugly but probably better-tasting mint chocolate chip.
At the mailbox, it looks like I'm somehow on the Quilceda Creek mailing list. Hm. Looks like cult wineries' mailing lists are now more open than they used to be; must have something to do with no one having that much disposable income these days. This stuff is $864 a case, and there's an insert that argues it's great value; after all, the California cult wines [Harlan, Colgin, Araujo, Dalla Valle Maya, etc.] cost triple but tend to get average Scores somewhere in the same neighborhood. Uh, whatever. It'd all seem less cheezy if QC actually managed to spell the word "chateau" correctly - folks, there's no x in that word.
I don't think I'm buying. However, if you'd like to buy me a case, me love you long time, unless of course if the wine sucks, in which case you're welcome to the remaining 11 bottles.
At Safeway, I found the intended dinner items - lamb roast, yams 'n beets - and also wandered through their "exciting seafood sale." They had some killer looking scallops for $10 a pound - and one package was marked as $4 a pound. Yeah, I bought it. So I now have eight giant scallops... and I'm not really sure how to cook them. I'm thinking of trying to do something to them in a saucepan with garlic and Indonesian chilli paste; I'm imagining it's something like Chilean al pil-pil style, but we'll see. I give myself a 35% chance of success.
The wine, however, should be a success. I've got a Diel 1992 Dorsheimer Goldloch riesling spätlese on ice - at 7.5% alcohol, we should be able to knock it back without collapsing before dinner. Then, it's a half bottle of the 2000 Monte Bello with dinner, then maybe a bottle of Yalumba D sparkling red wine for dessert, either pre- or post-cake. Dunno.
I'm at least guaranteeing Dan a non-repeat of last year's vinuous fiasco: that was the fucked up dinner in San José with the piss-warm white Chateauneuf-du-Pape that arrived after we'd finished eating. *shudder*
So, we'll see how things go. Dan's at the post-practice drink-up right now; I expect him home around sunset. I'd really rather be having Valentine's Day with friends, but of course that is apparently Simply Not Done. Ah well.
