Now We're Cookin'!

Well, not really. Not yet. But Niko and I did get the next layer of mud on our oven. Over the three-inch-thick shell of clay and sand, we put on a six-inch-thick layer of "cob" -- clay and sand with dried cut grass mixed into it. This was about 300 lbs. of mud, all combined by hand in the wheelbarrow. My arms are sore.

Next up: a thin layer of "plaster" to make it look all pretty. Then we fire her up!

The Great One
In hockey, it was Gretzky. He stood head and shoulders above the rest. In wine writing, it is Jancis. Yesterday in her Financial Times column she wrote about Steven Spurrer, the man behind the CA vs. France tasting in Paris in 1976, and its sort-of rerun this past week. Here's a taste of the piece:

Perhaps every area of activity has its puzzlingly under-celebrated pioneer and
Steven Spurrier is certainly an unsung hero of wine. He has quite exceptional
wine knowledge, particularly but not exclusively of France, has fingers in
vinous pies in six countries, and has had all manner of brilliant wine ideas
that other people, never him, have managed to spin into gold.

Fortunately, he began life with a fortune, was wise enough to marry
another, and seems to be happy enough to have spent his 42 years in the wine
business gently frittering them away in various agreeable wine-related
pursuits.

Not that he is indolent. Far from it. At the Christie's Wine Course, which
he set up in 1982, it is more often than not Spurrier who carries the boxes and
opens the bottles. His prolific wine writing output includes three very solid
books, of which only Clarke &Spurrier'sFine Wine Guide is still in
print.

When a group of us British wine writers needs to fix up its programme of
visits to taste the Bordeaux primeurs each spring, it is Steven who does all the
hard work of writing to the châteaux and co-ordinating our split-second
timetable. But when Steven counselled me to invest in Vinopolis, the wine-based
tourist attraction that opened just south of the Thames in 1999, assuring me
that he was putting everything he could into it, I did the opposite and have not
regretted it.

But to call him the man with the tin touch would be deeply unfair because
he has enriched the wine world considerably and played a key part in the wine
education of such luminaries as Michel Bettane, France's top wine writer, Tim
Johnston and Mark Williamson of Willi's Wine Bar in Paris, Roy Richards of
Richards Walford, Britain's most fastidious wine importer, Charles Lea of Lea
& Sandeman fine wine shops around London, Paul Bowker (who was so cute he
was known as le petit'ange by Caves de la Madeleine customers and went on to run
Christie's wine department) and Jenny Dobson, whom Spurrier met when she was an
au pair for the Seysses family at Burgundy's Domaine Dujac and, touchpaper lit
by Spurrier, has gone on to make great wine at Ch Sénéjac in Bordeaux and Te Awa
in New Zealand.

If Spurrier has a fault, it is hardly the most serious: an excess of
enthusiasm about the most humdrum of wines.....

NYC
Went back east on business this week. Here's the view from my Jersey City hotel room.

Mud Oven
A few weeks ago, when the rain finally stopped, Niko and I embarked on a project: construction of an earthen bread oven in our backyard. Remarkably, progess is being made! We built a stand for it, including making a concrete slab table, then put down brick for the oven floor. Next came the sand form, which is now encased in the three- or four-inch thick "thermal layer" of clay and sand. Once that hardens, we'll cut out a door space, remove the sand, and then put on a thick (seven inches) layer of cob, a mixture of clay, sand and straw. Here's how things look now:

Sun, Run
It really warmed up today, but I had to do a run and had to do it in the middle of the afternoon. Went 7.5 miles at a 7:50/mile pace. I felt OK, but sweat gallons. Well, probably about a third of a gallon.

More Workouts
Thursday: 10-mile run at 8:22 pace, with 7:20 9th mile for kicks.
Friday: 20-mile spin of a bike ride; 1,650 swim (1x500; breast and back; 4x100 in 1:35 on 2:00 intervals, then warm-down)

The Week, So Far
Monday: 2,000 yards in the pool (1,000 in 18:30, some back and breast, then some 100s in 1:45 on 2:05); 5-mile run at 8:15 pace
Tuesday: 17-mile bike ride, but with Wild Horse climb (600 feet in a mile, 1,240 in 2.4 miles); 7-mile recovery run at 9:45 pace (I have never run that slow before; it was great, really relaxing)
Wednesday: 1,650 in the pool (500x2 at 9, back/breast recovery laps, then a smooth, easy, perfect-form 500)

Half Crazy
In addition to Vineman 70.3, I'm now signed up for the CaliMan Half, down south of San Jose. Must do big rides in the weeks ahead!