Tokyo Blond Is Not Porn

Tokyo Blond is not a porn blog, about hair or even, as one pithy friend remarked, a micro beer or late 1980s glam metal band ("Dude, I just saw Skid Row and Tokyo Blond opened and played a killer set").


The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my experiences in Tokyo - poignantly, visually, irreverently - for fun.


Anybody can tag along...that is if I like you. This blog will endeavor to be entertaining and honest and frequent enough to keep those following interested including me.


Thursday, February 9, 2012

Put Your Dukkah Up

By the third day in Barossa the wine was starting to show on my face and my stomach.  I had to go for a run to sweat it out and make myself feel like I was doing something about it so I could keep drinking.  It was a beautiful morning and I was forced to stop a couple of times to observe kangaroos, bickering parrots, a couple of baby cows and take a few pictures.


A field of rolled hay balls.
Nice.

This tree has some stories I bet

Pine cones in the dead of Summer

It was Cindy and John's last day with us in Barossa before they headed back to Sydney.   We made the most of it. 

After a perfunctory stop at the oldest winery in Barossa, Seppeltsfield, we got serious and tried to get into Greenock Creek.  Apparently this would be Cindy and John's third attempt to taste at this exalted winery.  The winery had been closed on each of their previous trips to the Barossa.  "Not this time!" I predicted, "you have the luck of the us," I explained.  We'd already seen lots of kangaroos and foxes, when Cindy and John had never seen any roos here before.  And besides three is always the charm.  It was, because to their delight, the cellar door was open, albeit somewhat reluctantly.

The screen door was unlocked and we ducked our heads, well John and Russell did, as we cautiously navigated the stairs down into an actual cellar.  Behind the counter was a slightly put-off looking attractive older woman who looked a little dismayed she had company.  That's not very proprietary I thought but we soon learned the reason for her irritation.  

As we ogled the first luscious pour of Alice's Shiraz, we heard an echo.  It came from the other side of the counter and it was around three.  A precocious three year old boy.  He insisted upon his grandmother's attention no matter how many people were present.  No wonder grandma was irritated.  A wine counter was no place for a little kid, no matter how cute he is.  Another group showed up who apparently knew the wine maker.  Soon the three by six foot cellar was overwhelmed by drinkers, and the boy's mother came and fetched him from a thankful grandmother.  The boy didn't want to go, but the good thing about three year olds is, they can be picked up and moved to the desired location.  Too bad husbands aren't as easy. 

Now this actually looks like a cellar door.

Pretty vines on the wall
Hmmm, suddenly I'm thirsty.

After Greenock Creek, we passed by a couple of RVs parked along the road, enjoying a picnic with wine.  The wine was from Two Hands Winery just down the road.  Two Hands Winery is a place we were warned off of due to a business deal gone awry with one of our friends.  We decided to check it out purely for educational purposes, see what drew him there in the first place.

Instantly we could see why our friend had considered going into business with them.  The wine, which we tried against our will, was delicious, the setting sublime.  It's too bad it didn't work out, we confessed guiltily, but it just reinforced our appreciation for our friend's taste.  We didn't buy any in his honor, raising our tasting glasses to him in reverence.  He does know his wine and thanks to him, we get to live vicariously through his excellent palate.

Good wine but we're not buying it.

Nice tasting environment.

We all headed back to our pavilions for a pre-dinner nap.  I decided today's nap would be on the porch swing.  Ah, such choices.  When I woke up an hour later the cows were just making their way down to the lower pasture the way they did every afternoon. All except one.  He looked as surprised to see me as I did seeing him.  "And you are?" he seemed to inquire.  He was on the wrong side of the fence and standing no more than a foot away from the porch.  There must be a breech in the fence.  I ran to get my camera, he ran to get back to the herd. Soon he was eyeing me warily from the right side of the fence, telling his buddies about how he narrowly escaped the two-legger.

Get on your own side.

Afternoon feed

That night we went to the Vintner's Bar and Grill for dinner. The dukkah with the housemade bread was to die for.  What is dukkah you ask?  I did.  I'd never heard of it.  I thought it was an Australian malady.  But apparently it's an Egyptian hors' doeuvre.  It's a mixture of herbs and crushed nuts served as an accompaniment to bread.  You dip your bread in olive oil, then you dip it in the dukkah.  I could have had just my dukkahed bread and wine and been happy.   The restaurant reminded me of Napa; charming, enlightened, delicious.  A place you plan to come back to.   We had a bottle of Torbreck to seal the deal.  They decanted the bottle in a large laboratory beaker.  I always excelled at chemistry.

After dinner we bid our friends farewell.  They were returning to Sydney the next day.  We still had a few days left in the Barossa and my birthday to celebrate.

Charming.

Just imagine sipping a fine shiraz next to this fireplace in the Fall.

Oh yeah, my kind of chemistry

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