My process for Sunday Serial involves taking some notes in Ulysses during the week, scanning my “Grist” and “Drafts” collections in said app, and browsing pics I took during the week for content. I was nervous yesterday prepping for this week’s post, because I didn’t have much going on. Fortunately, Saturday and Sunday yielded some fruit, enumerated below for your reading enjoyment.

Need I saw its spritzes and apps before we have some shrimp later on?

Aaron’s coming home Wednesday for Thanksgiving, so we’re both looking forward to that. I imagine I’ll have plenty of grist for next week’s post, and curating today’s left me some future grist for this particular mill. Best to you and thanks for stopping by!

OmniOutliner 6

OmniOutliner version 6 is currently in beta. Like its more famous offspring, OmniFocus, version 6 brings a unified architecture to all of Apple’s platforms. OmniFocus sprang from the venerable outliner, inspired by Ethan Schoonover’s Kinkless GTD. Kinkless was a set of AppleScripts that enabled OmniOutliner mavens a way to automate a GTD-style productivity system. I’ve used OmniOutliner for all kinds of things, and still do. I love the new color-swapped black and orange icon.

Cedar Rose Winery

The ladies in the office were very kind in gifting me a certificate to Cedar Rose, a local winery across town that we haven’t been to yet. Rhonda and I were put off by the gray cold Saturday and Bellview’s lack of torches last week, so we opted to burn up the gift certificate and try something new. Fun fact: when I was at Vineland Public Schools, the winery’s founders participated in an advisory board for an agricultural tech program the district was exploring. They were local high school grads who had gone to school together for agricultural science, and then came back home to found one of the many local burgeoning wineries in the Outer Coastal Plains.

We had their rosé, which is dry and made with a locally common grape, Chambourcin. It’s intensely red compared to our other local favorites, maybe closer to Valenzano’s aspect than, say, Bellview or the Cape May rosés we’ve tried. It’s very good: sturdy, tart, and dry.

I ordered a glass of their orange wine as well; I almost never see orange wines on menus, and notably tried my first (and maybe only) orange wine at the excellent Vetri in Philadelphia. That particular glass was a revelation: a deliciously oxidized glass of wine, with terrific color. This orange wine was a bit too Kombucha for me, on the vinegary side.

Sidebar funny story: my first blush with kombucha came after I stopped at the Target in Marlton after a long afternoon, and I was parched. I saw a green tea kombucha in a bespoke glass bottle and figured it would be delicious. I got in the car, gave the bottle a vigorous shake, ripped off the cap, and took a swig. I nearly spit it right back out. I didn’t expect the light carbonation or the vinegary flavor at all.

Peripheral to this, people at work started drinking kombucha, by choice. I saw all manor of murky brown drinks with suspended mother detritus floating around in it. I even found someone selling gray market mothers in a nearby town. So weird.

Back to Cedar Rose: we also tried their barrel chardonnay, which was one of the two varietals they offered, the other being a lighter, more lemony take. I was surprised by the acidity in this wine as well; it struck me as less buttery than the description suggested. After repeated sips, though, I felt its groove and we both enjoyed it.

We tried a few menu items as well, including the melted brie, which came drizzled with honey and sprinkled with nuts. The dish would be better presented on a larger dish, but it was excellent. We also tried the calamari, which was crunchy and delicious, sprinkled with pickled pepper rings and tartar sauce. I think they should upgrade the sauce to something a little more contemporary, but I don’t have anything against tartar sauce. It just feels a little 70’s-crab shack-with-fishing-nets to me.

We also split the cheesesteak, which is a nice size for one (not too big), but also eminently sharable. It’s topped with fried onions and Cooper Sharp, the darling of the cheesesteak world these days, and comes with a side of their fries, which were the standout surprise of the night. The fries at Cedar Rose are of the exquisitely thin shoestring variety, crunchy yet supple, edible one at a time or by the handful. We will definitely be back soon for the fries. Sorry I didn’t get a pick of the sandwich.

A Kitchen Cleaver

I absolutely endorse the recommendation that you only need one good knife for cooking, kept sharp. I’d say a standard chef’s knife or a Santoku blade are both good choices, the latter especially if you have a mechanical sharpener (you do have a sharpener, right?).

Parsimony aside, I’d recommend a cheap cleaver just for shits and giggles. Compared to the Hencklels chef and Santoku knives I have, it’s a breeze to sharpen and tends to keep its edge longer. It’s a challenge for more detailed work when you need to get leverage on the tip of your blade, but for most things, I wield it just fine. I sliced up some raw breasts using it today for dinner tomorrow (see “Chicken Marinade” below) and it was smooth slicing for sure.

Cook’s Illustrated Chicken Marinade

I subbed our usual chicken marinade, the lime-soy one I posted about a while ago, for this Cook’s Illustrated version. It imparts much less overt flavor, but does kick otherwise delicate breast meat up to a more supple texture and gentle sweet, briny flavor. Fish sauce is just amazing. We’re having them again tomorrow for dinner, and I might marinate Tuesday’s pork chops in the same marinade, too.