This time in Cedar Ridge Trailer Park:
On June 4, 2008, Caroline County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) executed a search warrant at the home of Timothy Johnson in Cedar Ridge Trailer Park located in the Woodford section of the county. Caroline County Sheriff’s Office Investigators obtained the warrant after conducting an undercover […]

Subtitle: “Constitutional rights? What are those? …Seriously?”
I could also count up the number of days from about at least nine months ago but I’m too lazy.
From my new favorite source of news, The Examiner:
Nearly two decades before Mayor Adrian Fenty’s attempt to quarantine dangerous neighborhoods, D.C.’s appellate court said no way to a police cordon […]

If you don’t want to be chasing your beer around the yard, it may be best to drink it while it’s young. According to Amazing Facts About The Animal World, a mature beer can run as fast as a horse.

The city council finally had the first vote on a budget tonight.  The agreed upon tax rate is going to be $0.56 per $100 of assessed value ($90 per year for a $300k home).  The budget process still requires one more vote in 2 weeks.  At this rate, city workers aren’t going to get raises, […]

Oh, lets see if I can sum up the city council meeting. I’m sure some of the hot topics (slavery museum) will be written up in the paper. On the slavery museum asking for tax waivers (as allowed by law):Former Governor Wilder was in the audience, and sp…

Source: Roger Clemens, host of athletes pop Viagra to help onfield performance
The jokes write themselves for this one
(tags: baseball)

The Free Lance–Star:
Two of the Caroline County men charged with killing a 16-year-old boy last year at a birthday party are now accused of a second slaying.
The Caroline County Sheriff’s Office charged Lashawn Montque Monroe, 23, with capital murder last night, and Deon Alexander Terrell, 19, with first degree murder, said Caroline County Commonwealth’s Attorney […]

There are some days when you want your beer to be cold, and consumed inside an air conditioned house. I grabbed this screen shot of my desktop weather widget this afternoon. While this reports 106°, AccuWeather.com lists a heat index of 110°. (I’m no…

Yesterday I had the honor of being one of the judges for the 2008 Virginia State Fair wine competition. The fair isn’t until late September but the competition is held well in advance and then the gold medal winners are featured at the fair. There were 196 entries this year, of which I tasted about half. That’s a lot of wine to taste in one day (we spit the wine out, in case you’re wondering). I learned some interesting things from tasting all these wines. The most important thing was that Virginia wine has come a long way, and some of the best is good enough to stand up to good California or French wines. I also learned that there are still a lot of wineries making mediocre to awful wines, and that the industry still has a long way to go. We gave scores to each wine we tasted, and the senior judge advised us at the beginning that a score below a certain level meant that we thought the wine should never have been bottled. I gave scores below that threshold to probably about 1/6 of the wines, which is a lot but I had to be honest because they also advised us not to give preference to the wines because they are from Virginia. Here are a few specific observations I made:

– Why do so many Virginia winemakers insist on making a Seyval Blanc? Only a tiny handful are very good, and the best one that I tasted in the competition was only passable.

– The Merlots were surprisingly good

– The Cabernet Sauvignons were surprisingly mediocre

– In the next few years, look for more Virginia wineries producing Traminette, a Gewurtraminer hybrid that has a nice apricot-like flavor and tastes very good when slightly sweet. I tasted several and they were quite good.

– Virginia whites are, on the whole, superior to Virginia reds. I was around when somebody once asked a respected Virginia winemaker why that was, and his reply was that with whites you can make one or two mistakes and your wine will still come out okay. With reds if you make even one mistake your wine can be ruined.

I’ll let you all know which wines were the gold medal winners once that information has been made public

For those of you who may not know, the salami we have chosen to use on our wine bar charcuterie plate and sell in our retail case is one of the best available on the market. Fra Mani means “made by hand” and it is made by renowned chef Paul Bertoli.

We have had a couple of people take home these delicious products and then express concern because they unwrapped their purchase and it was covered in white mold…..not realizing that this mold is actually a part of the curing/aging process, being beneficial to the salumi.

“Bertolli produces his salami by first carefully grinding the pork. He then adds simple spices and seasonings, such as sea salt, black pepper, garlic, and red wine. Next, Bertolli packs the meat mixture as tightly as possible into all-natural hog casings—fastidiously washed portions of pig intestine that often have to be imported from Italy. Finally, Bertolli ties off each salami with natural twine and begins the months-long process of mold ripening (fermenting) and drying.”

Bertolli cures his salami naturally without adding nitrites.

Salami are cured in warm, humid conditions in order to encourage growth of the bacteria involved in the fermentation process. Sugar is added as a food source for the bacteria during the curing process. Lactic acid is produced by the bacteria as a waste product, lowering the pH and coagulating and drying the meat. The acid produced by the bacteria makes the meat an inhospitable environment for other, dangerous bacteria and imparts the tangy flavor that separates salami from machine-dried pork. The flavor of a salami relies just as much on how this bacteria is cultivated as it does on quality and variety of other ingredients. Originally, the bacteria were introduced into the meat mixture with wine, which contains other types of beneficial bacteria..

The curing process is determined by the climate of the curing environment and the size and style of casing. After fermentation, the sausage has to be dried. This changes the casings from being water-permeable to being reasonably airtight. A white covering of either mold or flour helps prevent the photo-oxidation of the meat and rancidity in the fat.

When you are ready to eat…brush off the mold, let it sit at room temp for about 30 minutes, slice and enjoy. Buonissimo!