HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

IMAGINE DRIVING DOWN A STREET PAINTED LIKE THIS ...

Great Crevase painted by Edgar Mueller.

















Hard work: Together with up to five assistants, Mueller painted all day long from sunrise to sunset. The picture appeared on the East Pier in Dun Laoghaire,Ireland, as part of the town's Festival of World Cultures


















He spent five days, working 12 hours a day, to create the 250 square metre image of the crevasse,

which, viewed from the correct angle, appears to be 3D. He then persuaded passers-by to complete

the illusion by pretending the gaping hole was real.'I wanted to play with positives and negatives to encourage people to think twice about everything they see,' he said. 'It was a very scary scene, but when people saw it they had great fun playing on it and pretending to fall into the earth. 'I like to think that later, when they returned home, they might reflect more on what a frightening scenario it was and say, "Wow, that was actually pretty scary"..'

Mueller, who has previously painted a giant waterfall in Canada, said he was inspired by the British 'Pavement Picasso' Julian Beever, whose dramatic but more gentle 3D street images have featured in the Daily Mail.

JUBILANT NEW ORLEANS [via Dana Holyfield]

Where floodwaters once stood, a tide of emotion rises in New Orleans

By Sally Jenkins

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, January 25, 2010


NEW ORLEANS

It was a contact drunk. You didn't have to swallow a drop for this NFC championship game to make you feel totally inebriated, like you'd been swilling the cheap well whiskey of Bourbon Street all night. When the action finally ceased, after nearly four hours, the wrenching swings and lead changes, dramatic spirals and swoons left you staggering amid the great geysers of horn music and confetti. The New Orleans Saints, dragging a whole metropolis on their backs, had advanced to the Super Bowl, but only in overtime after one man, Brett Favre, tried to take down the entire city.

The Superdome crowd of 71,276 was incoherent with madness; it was the loudest noise ever, a hurricane in your head. But when you thought it couldn't get any louder, it went up another notch, into a great shrill stratosphere as Garrett Hartley stepped up to a 40-yard field goal with 10 minutes 15 seconds left in overtime. Behind the uprights was a

large fleur-de-lis emblazoned on an upper deck of the Superdome, that storm-ravaged facility. Saints Coach Sean Payton told Hartley, "Why don't you just hit that fleur-de-lis dead center?" Hartley did exactly that, sailed the ball through the uprights toward that ornate emblem of a team and a city, to give them the 31-28 victory over the Minnesota Vikings and the greatest moment in franchise history.

Make no mistake: They won for love of their city. They won for all the neighborhoods where the benighted old mansions now peel and sag, like old ladies who have misapplied their makeup. For all the buskers and panhandlers and street dancers, working under shabby, old oaks and palms. They won for the poor, flooded districts where the horns lament on street corners, Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans, I miss it both night and day.

Had a town ever craved a victory more than New Orleans? All across the city, people who had lost everything needed so desperately to win something. Even the cops on street corners chanted, "WHO DAT?" The local paper, the Times-Picayune, threw away all dispassion and ran a banner headline Sunday morning: "Our Team. Our Town. Our Time." One Saints fan outside the Superdome even stamped a fleur-de-lis on the side of his great Dane. Party wagons with Klaxons barreled down the boulevards, imbibers hanging from the windows.

"Four years ago there were holes in this roof," Payton said. "The fans in this region and this city deserve this."

This time, the wreckage on the field and in the streets was sweet, beads and feathers and streamers, as opposed to the flotsam and detritus of the flood. The references were inescapable, and the Saints didn't shy from them. All season, they had announced they were playing for something much larger than themselves. "It's a calling," quarterback Drew Brees said. After all, their home stadium had been the last refuge in the city for 30,000 residents during Hurricane Katrina, and an earthly version of hell during the storm-flood afterwards, strewn with debris and with breaches in the roof. The damage was so heavy, and so emblematic of New Orleans's sense of trauma and abandonment, that city officials nearly decided to tear it down.

Instead it underwent a $200 million renovation, and when the Saints returned to it in 2006, they did so with a new head coach in Payton, and a quarterback the rest of the league had given up on in the sore-shouldered Brees. The renovated dome was a charmless edifice, all gray cinder block, but it was filled with the ghosts of Katrina, and

the men who played inside the building never once flinched from the responsibility of that. On the contrary, they took specific, enormous pride in it. "Ninety percent of people who come up to me on the street don't say, 'Great game,' " Brees said back in 2006, when he first got to town. "They say, 'Thank you for being part of the city.' "

Brees and Payton became the guys who came to New Orleans when no one else would. They arrived when the city was still destroyed and there was still junk in the streets. When Payton moved to the city, it was nearly empty, and the franchise was so lacking in facilities it had to hold training camp in Jackson, Miss. "There was a lot of traffic going the other direction, not much going in," Payton recalled. Businesses were so shuttered that at one point, he had to stand in line for two hours at a Walgreen's drug store to get an antibiotic for his daughter, and could only get half the prescription filled. "In other words, it was different," he said. "It was hard to explain if you weren't here."

Brees was looking for a new team after the San Diego Chargers had no use for him. He committed to a city still partly underwater. "There were still boats in living rooms and trucks flipped upside down on top of houses," he said earlier this week. "Some houses just off the foundation and totally gone. You just say, 'Man, what happened here? It looks like a nuclear bomb went off.' For me, I looked at that as an opportunity. An opportunity to be part of the rebuilding process. How many people get that opportunity in their life to be a part of something like that?"

One of these days, football will just be football again in New Orleans, but on this night, it was much more. Everything seemed to have outsize meaning, from the stakes to the noise. Then, as if the game needed anything more, the 40-year-old Favre delivered a living-legend performance. Time and again, Favre choked off the crowd and the momentum as he directed scoring drives downfield. He struck at the Saints repeatedly,

like a rattlesnake, as he threw for 310 yards with an assortment of lasers and fades while enduring a succession of shuddering blows.

Gimpy and grizzled, he just kept slinging it downfield. In the final minute of regulation he threatened to bring the entire building down as he drove the Vikings once more, this time to the Saints 38. Finally, with 19 seconds left in regulation, Favre made a fatal mistake. Facing third down and 15 yards to go, he rolled right, then whirled and threw back to his left toward Sidney Rice -- but right into the hands of cornerback Tracy Porter. That effectively sent the game into overtime.

After all that, it came down to a coin toss. That was the break the Saints needed to close the deal. Favre would never return to the field; overtime belonged to the Saints, who won the toss, then got a blazing 40-yard kick return from Pierre Thomas. From there, the Saints inched their way into field goal position. Hartley took aim at that fleur-de-lis and sent the ball up, and the sound came down from the upper reaches of the Superdome like a landslide.

"It's surreal," Brees said. "Coming here four years ago, post-Katrina. .. . It's unbelievable, it's unbelievable. You can draw so many parallels between our team and our city. In reality we've had to lean on each other in order to survive. The city is on its way to recovery. We've used the strength and resilience of our fans to go out and play with confidence on Sundays. It's been one step at a time, and we've had to play through plenty of adversity. Just like this town has."

WHY CAN’T WE WORK TOGETHER LIKE THIS? [via Nina Reznick]

Life: Bottlenose dolphins mud-ring feeding

Five (5) lessons about the way we treat people

1 - First Important Lesson - Cleaning Lady.

During my second month of college, our professor

Gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student

And had breezed through the questions until I read

The last one:

"What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?"

Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the

Cleaning woman several times. She was tall,

Dark-haired and in her 50's, but how would I know her name?


I handed in my paper, leaving the last question

Blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if

The last question would count toward our quiz grade.


"Absolutely, " said the professor. "In your careers,

You will meet many people. All are significant. They

Deserve your attention and care, even if all you do

Is smile and say "hello.."

I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her

Name was Dorothy.


2. - Second Important Lesson - Pickup in the Rain

One night, at 11:30 p.m., an older African American

Woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway

Trying to endure a lashing rain storm. Her car had

Broken down and she desperately needed a ride.

Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car.

A young white man stopped to help her, generally

Unheard of in those conflict-filled 19 60's.. The man

Took her to safety, helped her get assistance and

Put her into a taxicab.


She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his

Address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a

Knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a

Giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A

Special note was attached.

It read:

"Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway

The other night. The rain drenched not only my

Clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along.

Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying

Husband's' bedside just before he passed away... God

Bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving

Others."


Sincerely,

Mrs. Nat King Cole.



3 - Third Important Lesson - Always remember those

Who serve..


In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less,

A 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and

Sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in

Front of him.

"How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked.

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.


The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and

Studied the coins in it.

"Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired.

By now more people were waiting for a table and the

Waitress was growing impatient.

"Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied.

The little boy again counted his coins.

"I'll have the plain ice cream," he said.


The waitress brought the ice cream, put t he bill on

The table and walked away The boy finished the ice

Cream, paid the cashier and left.. When the waitress

Came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the

Table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish,

Were two nickels and five pennies..

You see, he couldn't have the sundae, because he had

To have enough left to leave her a tip.


4 - Fourth Important Lesson. - The obstacle in Our Path.

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a

Roadway.. Then he hid himself and watched to see if

Anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the

King's' wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by

And simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the

King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did

Anything about getting the stone out of the way.


Then a peasant came along carrying a load of

Vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the

peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the

stone to the side of the road. After much pushing

and straining, he finally succeeded. After the

peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed

a purse lying in the road where the boulder had

been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note

from the King indicating that the gold was for the

person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The

peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve

our condition.


5 - Fifth Important Lesson - Giving When it Counts...

Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a

hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who

was suffering from a rare & serious disease. Her only

chance of recovery appeared to be a blood

transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had

miraculously survived the same disease and had

developed the antibodies needed to combat the

illness. The doctor explained the situation to her

little brother, and asked the little boy if he would

be willing to give his blood to his sister.


I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a

deep breath and saying, "Yes I'll do it if it will save

her." As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed

next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing

the color returning to her cheek. Then his face

grew pale and his smile faded.


He looked up at the doctor and asked with a

trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away".


Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the

doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his

sister all of his blood in order to save her.

CHOCOLATE REPORT FROM NAPAMAN [via Jim White]

Another inductee to the American Chocolate Hall of Fame!

Truth be told: I moved to Napa Valley to be a Napa-centric writer, to comment on America’s best food and wines and to make wine here, too.

But as Chocolate is another passion, I make time to hunt down America’s best chocolate-makers to celebrate their talents.

I have highlighted on this site, for example, the talents – and chocolates – of Shawn Askinosie, from Springfield, MO, who was my first-ever, draft-pick inductee to my virtual American Chocolate Hall of Fame. Boy, can this guy make chocolate!

Last week, while attending the annual San Francisco Fancy Food Show, which attracts hundreds of gourmet food, beverage, snack, and chocolate manufacturers, I found my inductee for 2010.

The chocolate, which took me by surprise, is a brand of which I’ve never heard – Amano. It is produced in Orem, Utah, by Art Pollard, a highly motivated, passionate, chocolate geek who founded the chocolate works in 1996.

I came away from my trade show exposure to Art’s line of premium, single-origin, artisanal chocolates with my heart pounding, convinced that Amano ranks among the best chocolates made in America.

There is a striking similarity in packaging, design and even in the Amano name to one of Italy’s very best chocolates – Amadei. But from my brief tasting at the trade show, and a subsequent follow-up tasting, I’d have to say that Art Pollard has surpassed what may have been his Italian inspiration.

Amano is made from single-origin cacao beans, which come from many different sources and which are kept segregated from other regional beans. Sort of like what we often do in wine-country—keep the grapes from a single vineyard separate from those grown in other vineyards.

Tasting through the Amano’s different “tablets,” my palate was in paradise. (I refuse to call Amano’s gourmet chocolate “bars,” because this suggests that they are in the league of a Hershey Bar, in terms of price and quality. By contrast, Amano chocolate “bars” are more like the chocolate “tablets,” which is what sophisticated gourmets call them in Europe.)

Amano business partners Clark Goble & company founder, Art Pollard

Industry scuttlebutt

Among artisanal chocolate makers, there has been a minor controversy about Pollard's occasional use of the term "bean-to-bar," to describe his process. The term, created by Scharffen Berger, implies that the chocolate-maker conducts seven essential chocolate-making steps in-house.

“We buy single-origin cacao beans and bring them to Orem, where we sort, roast, winnow, grind, refine and conch the chocolate,” explains Pollard.

“Until now, we have moved the liquid mass to a friend’s facility where we pour it into molds and package it. We are purchasing the molding line so the term 'bean-to-bar' can legitimately be applied to our operation," says Pollard.

Then, he adds: "I've never been a big fan of catch-phrases, though, especially marketing ones. We don't use catch-phrases to describe Amano, even when they can legitimately be applied. I want our chocolate to stand on its own -- for its flavor, rather than some industry catch-phrase."

Speaking of the industry

On the Amano web site, Art Pollard comments about chocolatier Michel Cluizel, whose tablets are available in many premium gourmet retail stores.

“I have always enjoyed Michel Cluizel [chocolate],” Pollard says. “They have always produced a very exceptional chocolate…”

“Cluizel for me represents a company that has been able to grow and yet remain true to its roots.”

While this may be true, I have just tasted a sampler of every single, single-origin chocolate made by Amano and can report to napaman readers that Amano is equal, or superior, to, any chocolate, which Michel Cluizel makes.

Amano founder Art Pollard stands beside his “melangeur,” built in Germany about 80 years ago.

Pollard continues: “We have used organic beans for some of our chocolate, but our primary focus is on flavor, so to some degree, we consider [organic] a side issue. It is not that sustainable farming practices are not important— they are. It must be understood [however] that the term ‘organic‘ has been, to some degree, hijacked by the US Government, and it now means what the government wants it to mean.”

“For example, if a farm has a sustainability program in place and fulfills all the requirements of being “organic” but has not paid to have a government-approved inspector give the US Government’s stamp of approval, it is not considered “organic,” even though, for all practical purposes, it is.”

Pollard goes on: “It is our experience that most cocoa that has been certified ‘organic’ simply does not have the quality we demand, and while sustainability is important to us, labels are not.”

Right on, Art! And the proof is in the tasting. I tried eight different single-origin tablets, which I requested from Clark Goble (that’s Goble, not Gable!), Art’s business partner. Here are my tasting notes:

Ocumare 70% Dark, made from handpicked, criollo cacao beans, harvested in a remote valley in Venezuela. Definitely my favorite Amano chocolate.

Ocumare is more complex than a Dan Brown novel, which may not be such a high hurdle to jump, when you think about it, but each bite lingers infinitely longer in your mind than anything Brown has written.

Occumare has a smoky scent on the nose and a complex flavor release, suggestive of oak barrels, Asian spices and forest floor.

This is to chocolate in richness of depth and color what Guinness is to beer. In a league of its own. 96 points.

Montanya 70% Dark comes from a high plateau in the mountains of Venezuela. The altitude and lower nighttime temperatures create a chocolate with unique flavors. I love the aroma, which is released when you peel back the gold foil; the flavor and texture of this tablet are no less memorable.

On the initial melt on the tongue, there are hints of vanilla and exotic woods like mahogany and ebony; the flavors are accompanied by a voluptuous mouthfeel. This is Chocolate Nirvana. 94 points.

Jembrana 70% Dark, whose cacao beans come from the Indonesian island of Bali, is different from other Amano chocolates. This chocolate starts without the smoke, earth, or grit, of the other Amano offerings. Instead, this tablet has a lovely, lyrical chocolate-y-ness that ends with light acidity. It’s almost a refreshing chocolate. Think of it as a chocolate-pick-me-up when your palate is fatigued from eating too much chocolate!

92 points.

Guayas 70% Dark is another of my favorite Amano chocolates, made from nacional cacao beans from the fertile Guayas River floodplain in Ecuador. Lots of smoke, green banana and a hint of berry at the finish. This is what I would eat in a darkened cinema, if I were watching any of the four Indiana Jones flicks because this chocolate has the same kind of foreign intrigue, hints of daredevil effort and – better yet! – daredevil achievement! 91 points.

Dos Rios 70% Dark is made from cacao beans harvested in the Dominican Republic. On the initial melt, there is a hit of grit texturally, followed by the slow release of smoky, almost BBQ-like, flavors, which mature in the middle palate.

One of the most individual, almost bohemian, flavor profiles of all the chocolates in the Amano line. 92 points.

Madagascar 70% Dark, made from cacao beans from – duh – Madagascar. This chocolate has a very noticeable reddish tint; upon melting, the flavors released include those of volcanic, red, iron-y soils, there’s a hint of slightly under-ripe red berries and a few waves of youthful wine tannin. The chocolate ends with a plum-like finish.

89 points.

Jembrana Milk 30% Milk Chocolate is produced from cacao beans, which grow in the shadows of ancient volcanoes on the island of Bali. These are the same beans used to produce the 70% dark chocolate Jembrana tablet, but here, milk and sugar are added to bring the tablet down to the LCCD– the Least Common Chocolate Denominator, AKA milk chocolate. 91 points.

Ocumare 30% Milk Chocolate is made from the same beans used to produce dark Ocumare chocolate, but they’re lightened with milk and sugar. I personally find this milk chocolate offering too sweet for my taste, but in a world of mediocre milk chocolates, this one stands out as pretty good. 90 points.

The proof that Amano has “finally made it to Prime Time” is the fact that two different Amano “tablets” have just been introduced in Starbucks – Madagascar Dark and Ocumare Milk. You’ll find these in nearly half the Starbucks locations in the country, some 5,000 outlets.

You can read about Amano’s artisan chocolates, the corporate philosophy, and regale yourself with information about the whole line of single-origin cacao beans on the Amano website; you can even buy Amano chocolate at www.amanochocolate.com.

So now that we have Askinosie and Amano in my American Chocolate Hall of Fame… anyone else you’d like to nominate, or bring to napaman’s attention?

BREAKFAST A LA PAPA-SAN

OCEANA WITH JOYCE & GERALD BLAINE AND LISA

An Old Farmer's Advice

* Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong. *

*Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.*

*Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.*

* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.*

* Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.*

* Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.*

* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.*

* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.*

* It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.*

* You cannot unsay a cruel word.*

* Every path has a few puddles.*

* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.*

* The best sermons are lived, not preached.

* Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.*

* Don 't judge folks by their relatives.*

* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.*

* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.*

* Don 't interfere with somethin' that ain't bothering you none.*

* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain dance.*

* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.*

* Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.*

* The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.*

* Always drink upstream from the herd.*

* Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.*

* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.*

* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.*

* Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply.*



*Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.*
--

Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

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