I got an interesting email from my sister the other day in reference to the fishy tasting wine blog I wrote last week. Apparently I’m not crazy or the only one, however the study is a bit skewed. The study shows pairing red wines that have a high iron content with fish results in an unpleasant fishy aftertaste. It’s very rare I drink wine with dinner, unless I’m out somewhere fancy and it’s very rare when I’m out to dinner that I would order fish, unless it’s a lobster, which usually doesn’t happen unless I’m in Provincetown at The Lobster Pot and my drink of choice then is usually a Jack and Coke or a frozen margarita or something Provincetowny or vacationy. The point is, I don’t need to be eating fish for some red wines to leave a fishy aftertaste in my mouth, so perhaps I’m more sensitive to the high iron content in some red wines. That must explain why some others are quite appealing to me–lower iron. And anyway, isn’t it supposed to be red wine with beef, white with fish? So, then it’s the renegades’ own fault for not obeying that simple rule.
I want to quickly return to Friday’s blog, specifically about the Scoville scale. I learned what it is and thought I’d share it with you. Wilbur Scoville, who in 1912 was working as a chemist for the Parke Davis pharmaceutical company, developed a way to measure the heat of a chile pepper. In his test, he blended pure ground chiles with a sugar-water solution and a panel of tasters sipped the concoctions in increasingly diluted concentrations and a number was assigned to reflect that dilution. This method had been under scrutiny for some time considering the time it took and each individual’s own tolerance levels, but what a nightmare it had to be when they tested peppers towards the higher end of the scale. Nowadays there are more scientific means to study pepper heat and the results are fairly compatible with the Scoville scale. My rule of thumb, if your tongue falls out of your mouth, that’s too hot.
Did you hear about this? A 29 year old Virginia man, Eric Williamson is facing a charge of indecent exposure after someone passed by his house and spotted him standing naked in his kitchen, making coffee. There are two versions of the story and they both lead me to side with the man. The first version says that at about 5:30 am, Williamson, who was alone in his house, went to the kitchen, fresh out of bed, naked and got a cup of coffee, when a woman claims she and her 7 year old son could see him as they walked past his house. Okay, first of all, the naked man was in his own home, minding his own business, having a cup of coffee. Secondly, at 5:30 in the morning, it’s dark out, he wouldn’t be aware that someone was peering into his home. And the report says the woman and her son cut across the man’s lawn as a shortcut. So, here we have voyeurism and trespassing.
The second account, the woman’s, states that it was 8:40am and she was walking her son to school (and cutting across his lawn) and she saw him standing naked in a doorway then he moved to a larger window as she passed with the intent to expose himself to her. The report doesn’t say whether this was an exterior or interior carport door leading into the house.
Another piece of information that was later revealed is that the house is across the street from a school bus stop. Do 7 year old kids line up at a bus stop at 5:30 in the morning? If not, and it’s later, when it’s brighter outside, I would think it would be harder to see inside a house across the street. Even if he had been seen in all his glory, maybe rather than throw him jail for a year and slap him with a $2,000 fine, maybe have the police ask him to be more careful and put on a robe, or at the very least, some Fruit of the Looms. So, unless this guy is running outside while kids are waiting for their bus, I don’t believe he should be charged.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this story, as I am all for the sanctity of the home. Jeez, the next thing you know, it’ll be against the law to blog in the altogether.
LET’S GO PHILLIES!
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