Posts by Christopher Dempsey
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
OK, I have a 'Wine Wheel' to give away to the first PAS poster to tell me...
A: the taste and flavor of Pinot Gris
B: one of it's key growing location, (in New Zealand)
C: it's country of origin
D: it's style- Dry, sweet, white or redAnd for multi choice fanatics. What wine type is best suited to to accompanying baked rainbow trout:
A light bodied sweet white
B medium bodied dry white
C full bodied dry red
D full bodied dry white.Pinot Gris has a stonefruit taste to it, dryish stonefruit - like that flavour you get when you are near the pip of a stonefruit. Key growing region in Aotearoa is Marlborough, with plantings coming through in Central Otago, and Martinborough.
It comes from Italy (known as Pinot Grigio), where it's a dry style wine, and can be either fruity, or austere. Alsace (in France) grows it as well, producing good weighty wines with balance of fruit and acid.
And B would be a good choice with the trout.
-
Got red, green, yellow tomatoes growing here, and a previously untried variety that's claimed to be almost white. Pushing the envelope on pretension, nyer nyer.
Last summer I grew orange ones. Kinda well, the same orange as you find in the Netherland's national colours - muddy orange. They were low acid and very yummy.
-
And there are some interesting new provisions which allow territorial authorities to make, in consultation with their community, legally enforceable local alcohol plans. Local licensing decisions will then have to be made in accordance with the local plan.
That would be mightly welcome to the communities I've seen who have despaired over the establishment of cheap alcohol outlets in their local area (in central Auckland), and in particular one outlet next door to a school.
This thread has been most interesting. Alcohol, computer geek stuff, and some other stuff all mixed in together. Kinda like an interesting cocktail, though I wouldn't want to try it again.
For what it's worth, I distinctly remember drinking my father's beer when I was about 3 or 4. I would badger him for a sip or three, which I would get. It was hoppy and fizzy, not terribly sweet (it was that DB stuff that used to get delivered in tankers around the place - remember that? we don't see that anymore). After that I didn't enjoy alcohol until late teens. Now I enjoy it, but my alcohol tolerance (never high to begin with) has gone down over the years I've found, so my max is three glasses at any one time.
Humans have been seeking to intoxicate themselves for centuries. Didn't Jesus turn water into wine? There's a reason why humans would want to do so (loosen inhibitions) and wine/beer is usually a pretty pleasant way to do so. Of course there is degrees of intoxication; teenagers/young aldults really push that boundary, but for the most of us who are tolerant to alcohol (10-15% of the population is not tolerant in the sense that they can't moderate their drinking) there's a happy limit based on body size and gender.
And on that note, I'm off to get a G&T. :)
-
I work part-time in a wine shop and have done so for the last four years. My observations;
1 - I do think it's a question of culture. The oft-vaunted French model where everyone is a model of sensible drinking is just that - a model - given the high drink driving rate that they have, and probably, just like Kiwi teenagers, Parisian and Bordeaux teenagers do get together and get riotously drunk. That's what teenagers do.
However, in tasting/drinking French and Italian wines, I've observed that they tend to be dryer than NZ wines. This puzzled me until I watched Jamie Oliver's cooking program a few years back where he did a road trip through Italy. Noticed how at every meal there was wine? And notice that wine wasn't drunk on it's own - i.e. where-ever there was wine there was food.
I realised that the French and Italian's build their wine to go with food, and have been doing so for centuries. I think there is much to be said for creating a culture where alcohol is served with food, and I mean *with* food, rather than food being a kind of adjunct to the wine. Our wines here are generally quaffing wines - to be drunk perfectly well on their own.
I believe that our culture has to change, that we have to see wine and beer as part of an experience - good food *and* good wine/beer. This will take time.
And let's not forget, we model our behaviour from our elders. If we were serious about the young getting trollyed, then we, as adults need to modify our behaviour so that we model different kinds of behaviour patterns around alcohol.
2 - I have observed that the young, until about 25, have undeveloped taste buds. They can't discriminate clearly between different kinds of tastes, or the dimensions, or quality of them. Which is why they prefer sweet alcohol RTDs - one dimensional taste sensations. Wine/beer (the crafted sort) is perceived as too sour.
A good way to 'educate' taste buds is for the parents/guardians to consistently taste wine/beer alongside youngsters, and discuss what they are tasting. Which is what the French and Italians do with their children.
Talking about taste sensations will mean that youngsters will be paying more attention to what they are drinking/eating, and hence I suspect less likely to get blind drunk when they start experimenting with alcohol outside of parental control.
3 - I work in an upmarket wine shop. I have observed that the publicly visible problems (drunk teenagers, violence) stemming from alcohol abuse tend to be associated with alcohol outlets that are simply selling alcohol to make a profit, i.e. low market outlets. It's not the size of the outlet that is a problem, it's the ethos of the outlet.
(Wealthy customers simply go home and beat their partners behind the high fences and walls in Remuera/Khandallah/Fendalton etc. Not public at all)
4 - Alcohol is profitable. Which is why one sees so many outlets around the place. However, in our neo-conservative times, and in the time when the Liquor Licensing Act was enacted, profit is king, and the state cannot meddle in the making of profit.
Which is why enforcement currently is a joke. Outlets breaking the law are usually closed for a day or two, and normally outside of peak trading periods. Who is the Licensing Authority to deny someone's livelihood?
Unless we change the message that with profit comes responsibility towards society, then enforcement of the rules will be light.
Tougher rules will mean grappling with issues such as what to do with innocent employees of outlets that are closed (put them on the dole?), and how to prevent an operator from simply setting up another company and opening up again?
Alcohol is a complex subject (and substance! all that taste and smell from some grapes and yeast?!!) - but the answers are I believe cultural.
-
I think that's what she was trying to say, really.
Possibly was, but as so often happen with O'Sullivan a substantive (if debatable) column turned on the proverbial dime into Weirdsville. I don't know if Fran was paying attention during the election campaign but both Key and Clark were rather candid about their utter lack of religious beliefs and nobody cared. I like that.
A close relative is Jewish, and being curious, I asked if John Key was considered Jewish. The answer is that he's considered a 'technical' Jew, in that his mother is Jewish, but he's not Jewish as he doesn't follow the Jewish culture i.e. he eats bacon, he doesn't celebrate High Holidays, and he certainly hasn't turned up to the synagoge.
It's kinda like being a 'technical' catholic. Without the dreadful baggae that most Catholic's carry.
In that light, John Key is, much as I dislike the man, really, just John Key. Not 'Jewish' in any respect. And in that light it's completely absurd to make an equivalence between his 'technical' Jewishness and any stance he may or may not have regarding the current crisis in the Middle East.
-
As for Gilchrist & Rees, I think it's worth remembering he is 40yrs and she is 22yrs.
And your point is?
There's a big power dynamic in greater age. I know they're both over the legal age of consent, but even so, a 22 year old usually has far less social and economic power than a 40 year old.
And yes, he was a 40 yr old earing what, $600/wk gross from NZ Police for services rendered (one hopes that he contributed to Kiwisaver, and got the 4% contribution from Police as well), while Ms Rees is a computer geek who probably could earn that amount in two days doing, well, what ever it is computer geeks do. I don't think economic's had anything to do with this relationship.
-
A little creative justice might be in order -- strand the pair of them on an island after a shotgun civil unification (and contraceptive implants to avoid any pissing in the gene pool) with nought but a camera crew for their comfort. They both sound like the kind of idiots who pretty much put me off politics as anything other than a spectator sport.
And I'm picturing you as the fabulous drama queen wearing oh, something stylee (Dior! Donna Karen! Ralph Lauren! Yves St Laurent!) providing a blow by blow commentary, live from said island.
-
The current incoming government is suggesting far reaching changes in educational accountability and more testing in schools at a time when other nations are actually seeking to reduce testing in schools.
I had a squint at the proposed law changes in the Education sector, including the laughable law change that Maori parents be fined $3000 for their children going truant (Mactional - giving the brown folk toy plastic ponies with one hand and bashing them with a sledgehammer on the other).
My brother has dyslexia. How on earth would enshrining in law the requirement that all children learn to read, write and do maths assist my brother, who all through his school years, struggled with those subjects? What I am saying is that the proposed 'testing' regime is a one size fits all, when clearly, it doesn't. Children have different abilities (and for proof of that, look at the adult population). Educational policy and laws need to recognise this.
The proposed Mactional law would mean that people like my brother will be shuffled off to some quiet dark corner and told to shut up - all because they don't fit the 'size'. How offensive.
-
Anyway, I told her she was wrong and there were no security concerns about taking photographs in a public place and she should call the Police in if she thought otherwise
And no security concerns either about taking photos the lobby of a large office building in downtown Auckland either.
Researching the use of bonus rights in the construction of the Vero Centre on Shortland Street I was busily taking photos of the lobby area, when the security attendent approached and said that I couldn't take photos.
I said that I could. The Resource Consent for the building specifically had easements in favour of the council for certain parts of the lobby area (as they were bonus rights granted by council), therefore an easement in favour of council means that it's public.
I carried on taking photos of the rather impressive lobby. (The areas around the seating inside, and the area outside are all easements in favour of Council as are these stairs and the path leading to the external plaza at the back of the building).
The security attendent didn't take it any further.
-
Well I did the obligatory 'see my flat woohoo!' tour, and fired off an email to friends o'seas with links showing where I lived.
On the subject of time travel, I am quite pleased that street view managed to capture these industrial heritage buildings before they were knocked down by Westfield - a crying shame in my book - they would have been great in the 277 mall extension.