1928 Prosecco extra dry (Cavicchioli) - surprising in
that it tasted okay. Lemony, a tad off dry, small
bubbles; almost could have passed itself off for a
lower-level Champagne, only half the price.

Absolut Citron - speaking of lemony, this took the cake.
It was a reasonably smooth vodka but with a massive
citrus aroma; mixed into drinks, the flavor overwhelmed.
I'd have hoped for something more subtle.

Roku gin (Suntory) - despite an ingredients list that
includes several varieties of tea and fruit things and
others supposedly native Japanese aromatics, this was
on the whole a smooth, typically evergreeny gin,
suitable for drinking on the rocks or chilled straight.

Birichino Grenache Besson Vineyard 17 (Central Coast) -
pleasantly raspberry Grenachy, best served cooler than
regular red wine. Moderate length, weakish finish. Not
worth the massive premium. Somebody (Jane's daughter
Kathy perhaps) brought me a sample, saying, I'm sure
you'll like this. I would at half the price, and it
wasn't much better than that Vieille Ferme I mentioned
at a third the price.

We also had about a dozen other kinds of wine, the likes
of Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay, Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc,
and La Vieille Ferme red blend, most of which were not
worthy of remembering, much less writing about.

A pair of Seneca Farms ice creams
vanilla - bland and boring, overwhipped and underfatted
so disappointing on all counts. A pity.

grasshopper - a very mild mint ice cream swirled with
choolate wafer crumbs - pretty decent, because the
mint didn't overwhelm. I might have liked a few more
cookie crumbs and many more percent butterfat, but
nothing's perfect.

Ducktrap Farms off-cuts - these are trimmings from the
edges of smoked salmon fillets, an ounce on down, but
the same tastiness. Quite good if a little salty. These
are available from the smokehouse at $8/lb or so, a
terrific price for smoked salmon in any shape or form.

Cuba Cheese Shoppe extra extra sharp Pennsylvania wheel
cheese - a major disappointment, as it is a ceamy bland
cheese with little or no bite and a Goudaish taste and
texture.

Cuba Cheese Shoppe - heck, there were six more of these,
and all of them, from the Longhorn Swiss to the extra
aged New York Cheddar were bland, unsharp, and boring.
Considering the reputation of the place, I was hugely
disappointed and spent more of the week than I'd like to
admit making cheese crisps, which people consumed with
much greater avidity than they did the original cheeses.
The synthetic orange dips were better, the smoked
cheddar spread actually being a little better than
Wispride, but not enough so to redeem the brand.

Ruffles double crunch hot wings flavor - another of
those lurid red chips that promises more than it
delivers. They are indeed deeper ridged than normal
crinkle-cut potato chips and thus give more resistance
to the bite, so that's points in favor. The actual
flavor is vinegar hot sauce, not a hint of chicken
or butter, even margarine. Others in the assembly
found these unbearably hot; they saw me munching away
placidly and asked me how they were, and I said,
also placidly, mild. Sensing a heightened tension in
the room, I added ... to medium (a lie). I did find
them overly vinegary, though, odd as there is no
vinegar in the ingredients (there are butter and
chicken fat, though, which I can sort of detect as
an aftertaste).

Life cereal - I remember this fondly from childhood.
The modern version is morphologically similar but
is inferior in every way. Starting with the rather
neutral cereally smell, rather than the lovely malty
aroma from the '50s or '60s. The taste now is less
sweet and less grainy, sort of nondescript. The shape,
well, as I said, it's similar, but the criscross
pillows are skinnier now, about indistinguishable from
Chex, whereas they used to be plumpish and with sugar
crystals trapped in the lattice, a kind of tour de
force - of course, now the crystals are absent. What
a disappointment and a waste.

Ribena - this is a blackcurrant concentrate that you
used to be able to use as syrup, drink or recipe
ingredient, or diluted 4x to 6x with water or seltzer
to make a delightful drink. Now, you dilute it 4x,
and it's too sweet; you dilute it 6x, and the sweetness
collapses, yielding an insipid and unpleasant beverage.
Turns out that now, in the interests of neurosis, the
sugar has been massively cut and replaced not by HFCS,
which would be preferable, but by Ace-K, an artificial
sweetener of major poisonosity. Shame.
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