Tag Archives: junior league

Is Wine Tasting the Day Before a Long Run a Bad Idea?

I guess I’ll find out.

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Oh, hello there. My love for carbs knows no bounds. Cocktail party? Cocktail attire?

WHERE ARE THE CARBS?

Okay, breadsticks will do.

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Lacey’s giving me bunny ears, but I think she was really trying to plot to steal my breadsticks.

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You. will. not. steal. my. carbs.

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I sort of like my committee. Last night, the New York Junior League had our annual homecoming party at the house. This is the third time I’ve gone, and it’s always a good time: seeing all the Junior League friends I haven’t seen over the summer, bonding with my committee members, wondering why more guys don’t go to these parties. A house at least 60 percent full of women? Single dudes, please come.

After a late night out, it would have been fun to sleep in, but instead, I woke up early to go on a wine tour.

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Meet our chariot for the day. After getting in after 2am last night, we met this bad boy at a little after 8am at 40th and Lex to take us out to Long Island for a wine tour special we bought on Rue La La a few months back.

We got on the bus, and they had bottled water and egg sandwiches waiting for us in a cooler. Exactly what I needed. I ate and promptly went back to sleep, and it was wonderful.

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We arrived at Pindar Vineyards half an hour before it opened, so we walked across the street to the pumpkin patch!

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Little baby pumpkins!

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And funny tombstones. I am a sucker for a bad joke (like, I always laughed at teachers’ jokes because I legit found them funny), so I was giggling shamelessly.

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After a little while, we walked back over and it was open! Our package included five tastings at this vineyard.

My favorite was their Premiere Cuvee, a sparkling wine.

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I mean, how can you wrong with bubbles? We also tried the Cuvee Rare, but we weren’t crazy about that one either–at least not alone. It tasted like it could be a decent sparkling wine for mimosas, but really, so is Andre, and you can get five bottles of Andre for the cost of one of these bottles.

[What? I’m not still in college? Oh…]

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The Autumn Gold and Winter White were pretty good, too. I’m not a big red-wine drinker because I like my wine really cold [and, oh, red wine makes me kind of wheezy sometimes], but none of us liked their reds. They tasted old, and not in an improves-with-age way.

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My friends were really focused on picking their next wines. I’m running 20 miles tomorrow, and so I didn’t finish any of my tastes except for the cuvee and instead spent a lot of time here wandering around taking pictures.

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Next, we went to Baiting Hollow. The ambiance here was amazing–a huge outdoor picnic area and a live band–but the wine wasn’t quite as good.

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But they had food! Including these merlot meatballs, which were really good (but no, Mom, not as good as yours…)

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I got these chicken BBQ sliders for lunch, and they came with grapes and potato chips.

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They gave us a few hours here, and so we sat and leisurely worked on this bottle of wine and a few more tastings over lunch. I’m not a big Riesling fan in general, but this one was nice and light and not too sweet.

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They also had a cute gift shop, with things like…this…

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I think it’s a wine bottle holder. And I think it’s hilarious.

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The last stop was at Long Island Vodka. There was no way I was going to touch vodka and then try to run 20 miles tomorrow, so I wandered outside to take some more pictures.

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It was such a gorgeous day out.

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And this is such an awkward picture, but it was a really fun fall day with good friends.

Organization is Cheaper than Therapy

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On a scale of 1-10, 1 being “what is soap?” and 10 being “no dirt shall ever enter my home,” I’d say I’m around a 7 at trying to be a neat freak.

I have the island of Manhattan and all of its lovely varieties of bugs to thank for that. I am terrified of bugs, so if I can ward them off by staying clean, I’m more than happy to do so, especially since Bailey–literally–wouldn’t kill a fly.

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This is not the face of a killer. This is the face of a dog who needs a haircut, though.

Anyway, living in Manhattan also means less space than my suburban friends might have. It’s absolutely still worth the sacrifice for me, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t drive me nuts sometimes.

So those spices up there (which the fine people at McCormick sent me a few weeks ago) are appreciated, but their presence on my counter while I searched for a better spot was driving me a bit nuts.

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As were the insides of these cabinets. (And yes, I will not buy another thing of sea salt or cane sugar for quite some time. Promise.)

I was hosting a Junior League meeting at my apartment last night, and I like to at least pretend I’m organized (even if some of the members of my committee read my blog and know better), so I needed to find a spot for those spices, since they clearly weren’t going in here.

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So I bought a spice rack from the Container Store yesterday.

One little rack instantly made me feel more adult (do you know any college kids with a spice rack? Evan doesn’t count.), more organized and gave me a place for my spices. Like therapy but cheaper.

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I used to be nervous about both entertaining and public speaking/leading meetings, so it’s a good thing I got over that, because last night, I led a meeting. While entertaining. (Reasons to recruit one of your best friends to be on your committee? They help you host when you’re slightly freaking out. Thanks, Lace!)

We usually keep our off-site Junior League meetings really simple–some snacks (hummus and multi-grain chips), salad and pizza.

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Guys, I’m sorry if you smelled that candle from the hall and thought I had actually cooked. Psyche!

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The salad is inspired by this recipe from Tiffany, who used to be on the committee. My version last night was far more simple: spinach, dried cranberries, feta and balsamic vinagrette–with walnuts added later.

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And pizza, ordered from Pizza 33. I discovered Pizza 33 years ago late-night and have had a soft spot for it in my heart ever since.