Christmas loot

This turned out well!  My siblings have organized an annual Christmas gift exchange, going on for some years now.  PJ and I had the good fortune to be on the receiving end from Carol (and Jim) for Christmas 2011.

Well, so what if the stuff arrived at the end of January - it was worth the wait.  Photo (click to enlarge, per usual) shows most of the goods - Nome-roasted coffee and vanilla-oatmeal soap(!) from some MN operation, for starters.

And then the handmade stuff:  a Christmas ornament (featuring some sort of Nome beach-rock hanging from the bottom; a crocheted (I think) something-or-other type of wash cloth; and, finally, the pièce de résistance :  "I knew this place" - a hand-made book featuring a series of photos from EJ Gales's St. Joe hill-farm.  Most of the photos were taken in recent years by Carol or Jim; others photos date back to my childhood, or all the way back to EM Gales's childhood - yes, this is effective.  A vibrant farmhouse to a deteriorated relic (and now burnt down) over the course of, say, 100 years?  Many, many memories for me - "place" mattered.  This book required a lot of work - what a fine gift.

My only concern with the book relates to the cover - it is a fabric intended to evoke the farmer's favorite outfit, the "overall" - great idea perfectly suited to the theme - but if I handle the book too much (a genuine risk), will fingerprints start to show?

One more gift box still to come, we understand.

Definitely a great sibling-gift; I've received a number of fine ones; actually had started a post over at this soon-to-be-revived website on some old-school games etc. received at Christmas from CCG a year or two back.

Gift

Here's a photo of the label from one of my Father's Day (2010) gifts from PJ. A very unusual Scotch (at least by my experience), much enjoyed.

The Wikipedia article about the distillery provides a bit of background. It indicates that the whiskey tastes "peaty" - which I think might be a bit of an understatement. I typically am unable to describe the flavors that others can so boldly attribute to wines (and even beers these days), but this stuff absolutely had a smoky cast to it.

I found it interesting that the wikipedia article mentions that this whiskey is used quite often in Johnny Walker blends.

I liked the Caol Ila straight, not even a splash, with some parmigiana reggiano and a few plain crackers - a wonderful way to get ready for dinner.

Below is the map showing distillery location - I think this might be a fun tour someday.




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Cool gift

KHG is back from Greece, bearing Grecian gifts. And mine is quite neat - check out the photo. It's also bronze - just like the originals.

I especially like it because it reminded me of the Aeneid, described here. The cover design on the book features a guy wearing a similar helmet (though you'll have to take that on faith as the image of the cover is too small). The battle scenes in the Aeneid make me believe that a warrior would trade off the reduced visibility of this helmet design for greater protection from swords and other lethal objects.

Checking around, it seems that this indeed was the classic design. Click here for a short discussion of the Corinthian helmet; the author claims Herodotus wrote about this.