1) Judd taught himself to make a pork Wellington (although he's never made a beef Wellington) This included looking up duxelles which coats the seared meat. It's a minced, sauted-in-butter mixture of mushrooms, onions, thyme and seasoning. While we cooked, we hors d'ouevred on the first Dungeness crab of the season. Meaty! The pastry puff surrounded pork was fabulous. Watch Out Thompson Christmas Dinner! 
2) After listening to Handel's Messiah on NPR (Judd is so sweet to let me sing along on all the choruses like I did during my college days) while we hot tubbed at our hotel vacation, we started hearing classical Christmas songs. We researched voice actor Thurl Ravenscroft who sings the Grinch-You're a Mean One song in the original1966 movie. Thurl also is the voice actor in SO many Disney movies, (101 Dalmations, The Aristocats...)--he voices the steam boat narrator at Disneyland and some bear in Country Bear Jamboree. But come to find out, he is most famous for one word: GRREAAAAT! Yup-- he was also Tony the Tiger of my childhood. I LOVED Frosted Flakes. May Thurl RIP: 2.6.1914 to 5.22.2005. And there must be a special place in heaven for folks whose parents name them Thurl. I guess it means strong/fort in Irish but here is what the web says:
Thurl is the 21,956th most popular name of all time.
https://www.names.org/n/thurl/about#fun-facts
3) We learned that a thing called Weeping Sequoia trees exist (like weeping willows but weirder.)They look like DR. Seuss growths, out of place in a vineyard. We had just left a frosty reception where a cleary open wine tasting room, all decorated up for the holidays, asked what we were doing here. We said we stopped by to taste wine. They said, "we're getting ready for an event; we don't really have anything open." I'm thinking, "Yeah, the door is open....." So we said never mind and went not a mile down the road. The Yakima Valley is teeming with fruit: we passed apple orchards, cherry orchards, hops-already-harvested and vineyard after vineyard. At the Hyatt tasting room we received a warm welcome. We had been only #16 and 17 patrons for the day, so the hostess looked almost excited to talk with us. We're getting more discriminating tastes about this. Just because a pricey wine is HALF OFF IF YOU BUY A CASE, it wasn't good enough to buy 12 bottles of the same thing. We each picked one bottle (which never matches) to take home.
4) Paradisos del Sol Vineyard-- "Swirl Swish Sip Sip Bite Sip." Everything on Yelp is correct (which we read AFTER our visit.) We usually choose our stops by geography (where we are at the time) and time (are they open today? Is it after 11:00?) Two thirds of customers on Yelp express their delight at the friendly staff, the quirky setting and the philosophy of pairing food with wine (always what Judd laments is lacking at most all places.) One third of reviewers complain the food-tastes were smaller than the size of a dime and came out of a pretty grimy-looking tin, and that after the owner had come across the lawn from feeding the turkeys and sheep and hog. I didn't see any handwashing going on. But Judd and I left agreeing with the majority of reviewers: it was one of the most fun tastings we've done. We visited the animals outside. The view, if not cloudy, would have stretched to include Mt. Rainer and Mt. Adams. This time of year, the view reaches across all the gone-by fruit trees and vines. We were the only tasters so got the full attention of the vintner, explaining his 10 wines and why they pair with the tiny bites.
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| dude on the left by the dog is the vintner Paul "7/8 Norwegian and 1/8 Italian" |
5) Toppenish (a town 1.5 hours northwest of us) is famous for three things: murals, the Hops Museum and the Railroad Museum. We found auténtico Mexican food at Lula's. Her restaurante wall is bedecked with award after award for her tamales. When we arrived 6pm on a Saturday, she explained they were all sold out--come back for breakfast..... unless you wanted a chicken one. We shared the last tamale of the day, even though it was "only chicken." It was still really good. And THEN we had dinner: chicken mole and chile relleno--always too much but always good leftovers.
We didn't see many murals until the next morning but it was raining so we took a very short walk down the main street to soak in as many as we could. (Probably only 20% of what decorates the town.) The valley produces 75% of the hops for the nation! Although we missed the museum, we visited "Old Timers Plaza" and saw a mural the size of a very big building portraying hops harvested by hand. (Of course, I don't know how they harvest them now.) Here's Irish Dick who, as the story goes, traded a bear cub to a saloon owner ...
Long Description from WayMarking.com:
"In about 1910, a strapping, hard-drinking shepherd called Irish Dick traded a bear cub to a Toppenish saloon-keeper for whiskey.
Some months later, the rowdy shepherd was in town when his grown-up pet escaped, panicking townsfolk. He offered to return the bear to its tether. This led to a legendary man/bear fight on main street that sent Dick, a brave and bloodied Irishman, to the hospital and an unharmed bear was returned to saloon servitude."
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| Street corners are lit at night by cowboy boots and hats for Christmas That guillotine-looking equipment on the left is some kind of ginormous juice press (see below) |
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| harvesting hops by hand |
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| in Old Timers Plaza-- Native American statue with juice press behind |
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| Public "WestRoom" mural depicts Halloween shenanigans (someone tipped over the outhouse) |
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| Judd's leased VW parked under a building where all the folks in the windows are painted |
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