I decided to repay the abundant and long-standing
hospitality of the ANC FT community, so with Connie's
connivance we had a little Do at the house.

Present: jackal, beckoa, AKronin, Jazon, Foster, ourselves

Bill and Connie are not drinkers except of cheap beer of
various kinds, but I'd laid in a supply of Maker's, in which
I am reasonably pleased. jackal and/or AKronin brought a
bottle of Kirkland 7-year-old 103 proof, of which we
ventured an identification as a higher-proof Knob Creek
after speculating, from the harshness, that it was seconds
of Basil Hayden. It was fiery but okay, with a distinct
bitter aftertaste.

I'd bought a quantity of Snapdragon Pinot Noir for cooking.
In retrospect it might have made sense to spring for a $15
wine rather than a $10 one, which though pleasantly berryish
and appropriately meaty-scented, was quite thin; I note
that it is now available, stateside at least, for $7 a
bottle, which would put it more in line, though some
restaurants, which may have been caught up in the same hype
that I was, still charge prices well into the midrange.

Someone brought the quite nice Treana Cab-Syrah, prestige
brand of Liberty School (formerly the nonprestige brand of
Caymus) - it was appropriately fruity, with good pepperiness
and body, so I drank it in preference to my own wine.

Oh, yes, the main food item was a beef bourguignonne a la
violist after BOBW after Julia Child. I think it was pretty
decent and fairly authentic, and not much remained at the
end - I'm glad the Anchorage community is small. You start
off with 5 lb of flap meat (the proper chuck eye didn't
look so good at the store) and blanched bacon lardons, add
way too much Snapdragon Pinot Noir (which is a way too light
wine, so extra was needed to make up for the deficiency),
then bunches of sliced onions as opposed to pearl onions
(which were 5x more expensive), mushrooms, carrots and
celery enow, a touch of tomato and herbs, beurre manie.
Cook until done.

A good time was had by me. The others, they can fend for
themselves.

===

Anchorage Bucs @ Anchorage Bush Pilots in the first game of
three for the Mayor's Cup. I left town before it was
determined who won the cup.

The mayor wasn't there; he was represented by the director
of parks and recreation, who threw a decent first pitch.
Ferguson Jenkins, of all people, threw a junkball second
first pitch. What this hall-of-famer, one of my all-time
baseball heroes, was doing throwing out the second first
pitch for a game with a total attendance of under 200, I
shudder to think.

The Pilots jumped out to a 7-run lead, which proved to be
enough as they held on for a 7-5 victory; this was fine,
as even the very feisty and vocal Bucs fans (one umpire
was obviously blind and kept making bad calls, most of them
unfavorable to the Bucs; the fans made colorful and amusing
comments, very loud, which I enjoyed but am fairly sure the
umps didn't appreciate) began to hope that there wouldn't
be a comeback when the skies started to open up in the 9th.
By the time we were out of the parking lot, the deluge had
started. We got back to the house somewhat moistened.

The power went out while I was in the shower. Bill and
Connie joked that they were just trying to give me the
complete Alaska experience.