THE FINE POINTS OF WINE

I have just come across a new blog about wine. I have always been interested in wine but never spent time to learn about the fine points of wines such as how to differentiate the many different types of wines and how to taste the difference. To me wine is alcohol and alcohol is bad for you. To my surprise, wine is actually a healthy drink if you consume it moderately. You can actually acquire the tastes of the different origins of where the grape is grown and from its taste you can actually find out the different climates differentiate the people that made these wines. So I learn about those fine points from reading articles from Vinomomo.com and the contributors from the articles presented.

From the gardener's perspective, these articles make me aware of the kind of fruits and vegetables we can grow and how to pare the fruits we grow to the different kind of wine we serve. So I will continue to pursue this new found perspective in presenting articles related to wines in different regions of the world. Vinomomo.com is worth reading and I encourage you to go visit that site and book mark it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

New Year Resolution

Live your life as happy as you can make it

My father wrote in his book(Canton Elegy, Watkins Publishing):

"I want my heart to have a voice, so I can love you louder"

" Hatred like a bush fire, ultimately consume those who propagate it, leaving nothing but scorched barren earth behind in their hearts. Love, the greatest of reckless behavior, inspire men to greatness of seemingly un-surmountale odds!"

HAPPY NEW YEAR everybody!

Huey Lee

Harvest Time From Our Pomegranate Tree and our jalepenos

Once a year like clock work, our pomegranate tree never fails us. Every year it produces some of the most delicious and nutritious fruits that satisfy our tasts.

This year's crop, we deliberately tried to delay the pickin for a few weeks to try pick them because the weather is not so warm in Los Altos. But what a difference that it made. the fruits are just ripe and delicious when we break them apart. The pomegranates are easier to break apart and are so sweet. The jalepenos are taste just right.

Reviews of the Canton Elegy

Canton Elegy · 71 like this

Yesterday at 8:25am ·

This is one of the most beautiful memoirs I have ever read (and I've read a lot of memoirs). Stephen Ah Nom Lee was born in China and taken to the US in 1913, at age 6, by his grandfather to get a good education. When he graduated university no one would give him a job because he was Chinese so he returned to China, but in time for civil war, WWII, and then the Communist takeover. Stephen Lee left a manuscript, really a long letter, to his children to let them know his story and that he loved them. He kept it hidden and it was found after his death - a note from beyond "to speak to, comfort and inspire my children, grandchildren and their children in a time when my name is just a memory carved in a tablet of stone on a grassy hillside." His story is a gripping drama of determination, survival, hope, and love revolving around a terrible time of Chinese history. I paused many times to soak in the eloquent wisdom or to wipe a tear. What a love story - of a father for his children, a husband for his brave wife. Better than 5 stars.

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/730005020
2

The Book That Touches My Heart

Ever read a book that forever touches your heart? I have read many books in my life time but one book which I kept on reading again and again made me felt so deeply loved that made me read it again and again. It is the book that tells about a father's love for his children. I seldom come across a book written by a male author because of all the books such as "Wild Swan" "Tiger Mom" and "Joy Luck Club" are written by women, I love them all and they are well written but coming from a man about his love of his children is different. I can definitely relate to the emotions he showed. It is about a man born in the 1900 when being a father means providing for the family. Expressing love is definitely only in his heart but not outwardly done.

The title of the book is "Canton Elegy" written by Stephen Jean Nom Lee and Howard Webster. You can click the link below to find out about this lovely book:



I highly recommend that you read it. I ordered this book from www.amazon.com but it is available from many books stores. The book is distributed by Watkins.

Enjoy!

Organic Free Range Chicken Farm in UK

I was invited to visit an organic chicken farm while I was in UK visiting family. Before i arrived, I had the notion that it must be smelly and dirty, so I prepared myself by wearing proper clothes. To my surprise, the facility was clean. It looked like any family farms in the US. The owners came out to greet us and welcome us and proceed to give us a brief history of the farm. The farm is situated in the outskirt of London on the county of Mentmore. The farm is about 300 acres. It has 30,000 chickens. The farm produces on the average between 28,000 to 30,000 eggs per day. They sell to a distributor who interns sells to the area super markets.

The operation is super clean and it is totally high tech. It is supported by solar energy. The whole operation employs 5 employees including the owners. The entire operation is managed by a main computer. The owner can control it by using an Iphone anywhere in the world. The computer can tell the owner, the conditions of the farm, the welfare of the chickens, the temperature of the chicken farm and any thing about the welfare of the chickens. It keeps a history of how many eggs the chickens have laid by the seconds, automatically separating the eggs by weight into large, medium and small. The farm also separate the chickens into different species and so classifies them into different types of eggs.

I was very interested into how humanely they treated the chickens. Before we were let in to where the chickens are, the owners cautioned us to knock on the door several times so as to let them know we are coming so as not to disturb the chicken. The whole farm is separated in two farm houses. The first one has 12,000 chickens and the second has 18,000 chickens. Inside is all temperature controlled very spacious. On the side of each farm house are rolls of automatically controlled windows so the chickens can go out to the fenced open fields. The owners told us that each chicken produces on the average of one egg per day. The feed is organic. There is zero waste in the farm. Sometime the eggs are damaged and the damaged eggs are separated into how severe the damage is. If it is just a nick on the shell, they will save them and give them to families or friends. The ones that are broken, they will turn them into powder and mixed them with the feeds.

One interesting aspect that I observed is how they

bring the young chickens into the farms. They received the chickens when they are eight weeks old. The trainer will train them their routine as to how and where they should lay their eggs. Each chicken is being trained as to how to go out to exercise, where to feed themselves, and the interesting part is how to lay their eggs. In the farm there is a special place to lay eggs. The chickens have to go to a special ramp into the chicken houses on top of the conveyer belt. The chicken lay their eggs inside the special house and the eggs drop into the conveyer belt softly and then the eggs are transported to the processing area where they will be cleaned, weigh, inspected and counted and packaged and stored in an air conditioned room.

Some time some chicken may be deceased and the computer sensor will send an alert to the grounds keeper to pick it up immediately.

I walked away thanking the owners for their hospitality and graciousness. It was a learning experience of a life time.

THE LOVELY BEES ARE INVADING MY ATTIC

The Lovely Bees are invading my Attics

For the last week, there are a family of bees hovering my backyard and nothing we can do to try to drive them away. We don't want to kill them because we love bees for our garden. It got to a point that we could not walk out the backyard at all. We call the nearest bee keeper and ask him how we can steer the bees away. He told us that he can come and take a look so he came with his bee suit and climb up to the side of the house and look inside the attic vent. What he found was astounding! He said that he saw a beehive inside. He came down and told us that He can use his special custom make vacuum to suck the bees out and remove the hive. Since he is a Bee Keeper, he said that if we don't want to keep the bees, he can take them and put them is his bee farm. But he also found the hives with fresh honey. The next day, he came equipped with his custom make vacuum and climbed up the attic vent and suck the bees out along with seven (7) pieces of beautiful hives full of honey. I tasted the honey and it was sweet like nothing we have tasted before. So we got rid of the bees without killing them and harvested "organic" honey and the bee keeper got a family of bees for free!



It is amazing that in only 7 days since we discovered the bees, that had built up such a big hive and produced so much honey!

Drinking Water Filter and Hot Water Dispenser

When my hot water dispenser and the filtered water dispenser broke last week, I was trying to find a replacement desperately. I did my usual research regarding which brand I should use. The one I have been using was from Culligan and it worked fine but it did not have a hot water dispenser. I was determined to replace one with hot water dispenser as well. I came up with a brand that most luxury homes used that has both hot and cool water dispenser. The brand is called Franke. I went to their webpage and tried to locate a distributor near my house but none has those items in stock. The good features that this brand offers Self Sterilizing ceramic outer shelve with embedded silver particle embedded within the ceramic itself and therefore it can not escape. This means that it stays in the filter and will not escaped into your drinking water. it is bacterial static and self sterilizing. The best thing about this filter is that it is reusable as many as 20 times. all it take is to remove it with a green scotch wash pad and clean it from time to time and it will be as good as new. That certainly beats paying about $100 every time to have a service man to come and replace the filter. Franke also has a hot water dispenser and is made of very durable material. The whole system comes with a butler (hot and cold water dispenser) that fits on the sink hole. I continue to search the web and found many places that sells this system. But the one I finally decided to buy from is Amazon.com. They have the lowest prices and the fastest delivery.



Installation is pretty easy, follow the instructions given find a suitable place under the sink preferably close to where you have the butler installed and of course, the electrical outlet and the water supply outlet. One thing to be very careful is to make sure you do not turn on the power until you are sure that the connection is correct.
Especially the hot water dispenser. The warranty specifically says that if the tank is empty and the power is turned on, the warranty is off. This makes sense because you do not want to heat up the tank when it is dry.