Rockin' Rocca Wine

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The winning wine at the last Winey Women meeting was from Rocca Family Vineyards. As you can tell from my lips in recent pictures, I’ve been dabbling more in red wine, thanks to former reader Lindsay, but have been sticking with a Cab. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Rocca I sipped was a Merlot!

The Roccas, Mary and Eric, are a former dentist and (current) physician that decided to open a winery. I can certainly relate to their dream!

I tried the 2008 Merlot. While I’ll tell you it’s “good” and “ doesn't stick to your throat,” the real winemakers on the website will tell you that this Merlot “… is a beautiful example of the elegance and seamlessness that made so many of us fall in love with a great Merlot in the first place. While it certainly reflects the depth and rich, sumptuous fruit of the 2008 vintage, this bottling expresses those characterizes with exceptional balance and refinement.”

Not only do the Roccas have a tasty Merlot, but they've also produced an award-winning Cabernet Sauvignon.

The only negative to the Rocca is the price…$45.00. Save this one for fancy dinners – not weekend pounders ; )

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What's Your Wine's Profile?

In my last post, I mentioned that I was hosting the next Winey Women meeting and that I had a special “social” theme.

I can now reveal that my theme was…WINEBOOK!

Each club meeting, we each discuss the PROFILE of the wine that we bring, so I had an idea to create Facebook-profile-like boards where each member could fill out information about their wine.

For this night, I asked everyone to bring a wine that was someone’s first and last name. At the party, each women went through the wine’s name, origin, bottle date and most importantly alcohol content!

During the party, we used LIKE fingers to rate our wines. At the end of the night, I handed out LIKE stickers and the wine with the most thumbs up won a prize.

After almost 20 bottles of wine, we then held a little dance party with bedazzled wooden spoons Shot of Mom made for us to use a faux microphones!

Here’s how I pulled off the Winebook party details.

Wine Book Boards

·         You can print the document below on 8x10 paper

o   Note that the “Wine From” area is for the name of the person that brought the wine

·         Then, if you take it to Staples of FedEx Office, they will print a large poster (18x24) in black and white for under $3.00 each! Color costs about $21.99 each. My Wine Club didn’t mind that I skimped for them ; )

·         I then taped each paper to a corkboard while we wrote, but if you have flat walls, that could certainly work. Just make sure that the Sharpie doesn’t leak through the paper on to your wall.

Like Stickers

·         I printed the Like symbols on sticker paper for people to “like” a wine at the end of the night

Like Sticks

·         To make the sticks, I bought blue and white foam paper and sticks

·         I think printed out a large Like symbol and used it as a template to cut the blue part

·         Then, I cut out the white part and hot glued it to the blue. Finally, I glued the symbols to the stick so that they could be flipped to like and not like a wine

Oh and please don't suck Zuckerberg on me for trademark infringements. This was all in good fun! 

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Say My Name: Wine Named After People

(I love you Paperless Post)

This weekend I’m hosting the next meeting of the Winey Women. I’ve created a top secret theme that I’ll share with you all after the party (the invitation copy reveals some clues).

On the invitation, I asked everyone to bring a bottle of wine that is someone’s name. I did a little research to serve as thought starters and there are actually a lot of wines out there named after a person. Here are a few I found and of course I’ll learn more this Saturday!

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·       Robert Mondavi: This dude is super important in the US wine world because he created marketing strategies and technical improvements to the wine making process that brought worldwide recognition for the wines of Napa Valley (thanks, Wikipedia!). Bob, as I call him, was the one that pushed for wine makers to label wines by grape variety rather than generically. Oh and Bob was a frat boy – he’s a member of Phi Sigma Kappa. Maybe they should think of that next time they reach for the Franzia for frat parties.  

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·       Francis Ford & Sofia Coppola Wines: You likely know of this father, daughter duo. Both are famous Hollywood directors. Francis has a rather large collection of award hardware for movies like The Godfather, but what you may not know is that he released Peggy Sue Got Married, which stared his nephew Nicolas Cage! With George Lucas, he worked on Captian EO featuring Michael Jackson. Sofia is pretty rad too – she won an Oscar for Lost in Translation and was the first American woman nominated for an Oscar for Best Director. And she made the movie Marie Antoinette – which was rather awesome.

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·       Charles Shaw: Chuck’s name is on the line of extremely cheap wine sold at Trader Joe’s. Fondly referred to as Two Buck Chuck because of its $1.99 price tag, in 2013 the retail price went up to $2.49. The company that makes Charles Shaw is actually headed by Fred Franzia – formerly of Franzia Brothers wines…and I know you’ve heard of Franzia!  The urban legend is that this wine is so cheap because of a bitter divorce between Charles and his wife, so she set the price cheap to tarnish his name. However, my research shows that the wine is really cheap due to an overabundance of California grapes. And the fact that the company is run by a Franzia!

Do you have a favorite wine named after a person? 

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DIY Fail: Kate Spade Bow Cardigan

Lately I feel like my craft projects have turned out a little less craftacular that I hoped.  

When I first saw THIS Kate Spade bow cardigan, I thought – I can make that.  

So I bought an Old Navy cardi and some ribbon and went to work. Unfortunately, it turned out a bit awful.

(Image on the left: Kate Spade) 

Let me state a few facts:

·         This cardigan with the black trim was on sale – so I bought it for the potential craft fail

·         Michael’s was having a sale on ribbon – this meant that the larger size black ribbon was all gonesies

·         I did NOT glue the ribbons – I pinned them on, so the cardi can be saved/re-done

My step by step instructions if you want to attempt this

·         Purchase supplies

Supplies:

·         Cardi: $12.00 on sale at Old Navy

·         Ribbon: $2.50ish at Michael’s

·         Used pins and sewing materials from craft box

·         TOTAL: $14.50

·         Cut ribbon and test out some sizes of bows – the size is used here was about 8 inches

·         Start making bows

·         Pin the bows to the cardi – don’t sew them first so that you can get the spacing right

·         Sew the bows

Sew simple, right?! (pun intended).

Final Verdict: I’m going to skip the purchase and given that I didn’t sew the bows, I think I’m going to take them off and just wear the cardi plain. 

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Yep. My Feelings Exactly.

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Happy Freaking Friday! 

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Reader Mailbox: Girls' Night in Pittsburgh

Co-Worker Brittnee writes:

“I’m looking for Girl’s Night Ideas in Pittsburgh. I was thinking about a Painting Party”

Boohyah! I'm so excited for this one. I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for some time now!

If you were looking for a paint party, there are a lot of companies that now offer that:

·         Paint Monkey in Lawrenceville

·         Art Bar they set up events in a variety of spaces

I’m still torn on that idea – I don’t know what I would do with the painting. Maybe my pink palace cubical?

My girls nights always tend to include alcohol, so there’s…

·         Penn Brewery: They have live events on the weekends and offer tours on Wednesdays (the times aren’t ideal)

·         Wigle Whiskey: Seriously, this place has been on my list forever.

·         Pittsburgh Winery: A new spot that just opened in the Strip

Non-alcoholic, there is…

·         Brunch at the Frick or Phipps

·         Cooking classes with Enrico Biscotti, Chop, Wok, Talk, or Sweetwater Center for the Arts

·         Note that Sweetwater has specific Girls Night Out parties too!

·         Improv at Steel City Improv

·         Visiting a psychic

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The schedules aren’t released, but Pittsburgh Citiparks offers Cinema in the Park. When it warms up, I also love the drive in!

A few quirky things that are currently on my Pittsburgh bucket list are:

·         Attending a Banjo Club show on the North Side on a Wednesday (the shows are free)

·         I’ve been itching to go roller skating for a while now and I found these alternative skating parties, but the “suggestive” attire hasn’t sold me just yet – however, I wonder if Sue still has my LA Gear jacket. Hey, it’s on the attire list!

Okay – now your turn. What’s your go to for a Pittsburgh girls’ night? 

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It's a Cardi Party: Celebrate Mr. Rogers Day

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True Story: I really didn’t watch a lot of Mr. Roger’s growing up. Shot of Mom wasn’t a fan of the show, so she would change the channel after Sesame Street. However, I did catch some episodes at my grams. My favorite ever was the trip to the Crayola Factory to see how Crayons were made (thanks some random person I fanned on FB).

Fast forward to 2003. After a long night (and morning) out celebrating my 22^nd birthday mom calls to wish me a Happy Birthday and breaks the news that Mr. Rogers passed away on my birthday. This sent me into tears (and if you know me, you know I never cry). I blame it on the fact that I was still drunk.

Today would have been Mr. Roger’s 85^th birthday. While his show is still on, I suspect it isn’t as well-received by kids today as it once was. However, that isn’t stopping me from brainstorming some ways to host your own Mr. Rogers Neighborhood-themed party!

·       Attire: Cardigans are a MUST considering they were an essential part of Mr. Rogers signature style. If you are feeling ambitious, you can dress up as one of the characters from the show – Mr. McFeely (seen here with me earlier this year), King Friday, Queen Sara Saturday, Prince Tuesday and Queen Sara Saturday. You can find the official list of characters here. I can always make another owl costume!

·       Activities: I’m going to go a little crazy here, but you could rent a trolley (Molly’s Trolleys here in Pittsburgh) and make a yellow sign for it that says “Neighborhood Trolley.” Now this can go one of two ways: 1. This would be fun for kids to ride around the neighborhood in a trolley. OR 2. Trolley Parties are real popular in Chicago. Not just for bachelorette parties, but for a random Friday night. This would be PERFECT for a Mr. Rogers-themed adult party! Bring on the booze! The PBS store sells a mini trolley here.

·       The Mr. Rogers’ website is full of activities and games. Remember the stop light game? And of course you can allow kids (and adults) to create a puppet show.

·       Food: For the adults, I suggest kid-inspired food spiked versions of kids’ drinks.  I’m thinking gourmet grilled cheese, adult milkshakes and some Rolling Rock beer – you know that Fred’s from Latrobe, which is also the hometown of Rolling Rock!

·       Music: Purchase some Mr. Rogers tunes here.

·       Décor: Go big or go home. Recreate the Neighborhood of Make-Believe on some paper and hang it up on a wall. You can also make cute signs to blow up at FedEx and hang around the venue that say famous Mr. Rogers sayings like:  

o   It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood

o   Won’t you be my neighbor

o   I think I’ll make a snappy new day  

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Eat More Pi

I excel at many things in life…like twirling batons, taking jumping photos and telling random stories. But one thing that I DO NOT excel in is math. I barely know how I survived math in school and on SATs. I know how I survived it in college – I took math during the summer at community college. You only needed a D for it to be considered a “passing” credit ; )

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While I’m not good at math, I am good at drinking. So today, I’m toasting 3.14 – Pi Day. You see 3.14 is the mathematically equation for Pi. I’m really not going to tell you anything beyond that, other than you can make a Pi Day Cocktail courtesy of Drink of the Week.

The Think Geek Pi-tini (via Drink of the Week)

·       3.14 ounces of blueberry vodka

o   Measure the diameter of the glass in centimeters , then take pi (3.14) times the glass radius squared ounces of vermouth and divide by 10

·       Splash of Blue Curacao for color

·       Pour into a cocktail shaker, shake 3.14 times, and strain in a cocktail glass

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Egg-static Cadbury Egg Recipes

I’m just gonna throw this right out there – I totally love Easter for all of the wrong reasons. And when I say wrong reasons I mean I’m in it for the floral dresses and the candy.  

One of my favorite recent candy trends is Cadbury Egg hacks. That’s when people take Cadbury Crème  Eggs and turn them into something else. Here are some mouth-watering examples.

·       Cadbury Egg Cookie Cake Bars from Picky Palate

·       Cadbury Egg Easter Cupcakes from Pizzazzarie

·       Cadbury Crème Devil Eggs from Bon App

·       Cadbury Crème  Milkshake from Chocolate Moosey

·       Cadbury Egg & Peep S’mores from Amy’s Cooking Adventures

This recipe from Serious Eats is a bit crazy – Cadbury Eggs Benedict!  

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Go ROYGBIV

I love that the Disney team launched The Great & Powerful Oz a week before St. Patrick’s Day. All of the “Somewhere over the Rainbow”- type posts have totally brought out a number of Oz-themed party ideas. Which got me thinking – why not mix up your St. Pat’s décor this year by going rainbow vs. just going green.

Rainbow Backdrop via Sweet Lulu

Rainbow Cake via Meaningful Mama

Rainbow Balloon Banner

Rainbow Tablecloth via Hostess with the Mostess 

(you could totally duplicate this with streamers vs. fabric too)

Streamer Rainbow via Creative Juice

Rainbow Floral Arrangement

Rainbow Fans

Rainbow Streamers and Flowers via You + Me Events

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