Wine Tasting Evening

It was a long day of baking.  I arrived at six, and worked through until about 3.  Went home for a quick shower and nap, and returned after 5:00.  There were plenty of volunteers to help with the peeling of fruit, cutting of cheeses, and other tasks.  Tina and Peter were off duty, but they insisted on attending anyway.  Ricky came down from downtown a little early and helped supervise some of this.  She is an American whom I recently met.

Tina collected the money for me, and got people to sign in and leave a phone number.

I had hoped for 30 people, in which case I would have brought benches from home and extended the party to the outside.  In the end around 20 people came. It was crowded enough, though in a good way.  The acoustics suck, with such tall ceilings.  I really must find a way to install cheap baffling.

Funny how we only got this picture of the cheese platters before the event.  You can't see much for the shiny plastic wrap. Not of the subsequent photos included any food; only wine and people.

Rachel was working at Web, but her mom and dad came and set up the wines, the glasses, and stayed in the kitchen to serve.  I think her dad (silly, I don't know his name.  Chinese don't use names much) could have livened things up with wine information, but he doesn't speak English.

Xiao Lan is our dishwasher.  On Friday and Saturday she works the night shift, from 12 to 8.  So she arrived at work at noon wearing that pretty dress.  It is her name on my bakery business license.  I now have a second business license, in my own name, but that's another story.  We could not have opened the bakery without her amiable cooperation.

I baked many different kinds of breads, in small batches, hoping to sell some and get people started on new bread addictions.  

I had five kinds of cheeses.  A small round of Camembert and one of brie.  Then a few platters of cubed Ementaler, Edam and a mild cheddar.  I selected a good variety of breads.  I think lean breads go best with wine and cheese, so I had only one enriched bread in the lot.  That was the New York Deli Rye, which has onions in it.  The other breads were pain a l'ancienne, and the rest were sourdoughs.  I had a simple rye sourdough; a sunflower rye sourdough ring; a hardy dense whole wheat sourdough round.

It's just as well I can't find the picture of the sunflower ring.  It's the second time I've made it, and I still haven't got it right.  At least, the appearance is lacking, but not the flavor.

A pregnant couple wanted to come.  They are a lovely young white South African couple who would liven any party.  I reduced her admission price and prepared a special fruit drink for her.  I cut up apples and pears, peeled oranges, and a few slices of an unripe nectarine.  Tina was slicing, and after a few got into the mix she asked me about it.  The remainder of the nectarine went back into the fridge.  To that mixture of sliced fruits we added cinnamon sticks and a few whole cloves.  I covered the fruit with water and let it soak for a most of the day.  When I finally tasted it, it was sour.  I added a dollop of honey, and that did the trick.  It went into the fridge until 7 p.m., when it was then poured into two pitchers.  There were actually two abstaining from alcohol, but as the night wore on more and more people shared in it.  There was still a lot left over.  On Sunday I started work at 3 a.m. in order to prepare some special orders, and drank a whole pitcher of it by myself while working.  It made my body feel great!

South Africa on the left, Australia on the right.

I was pleased that Su and her husband Ge did come.  It took a while for them to integrate into the group, but once they did they fit right in.  They excused themselves a little after nine, and Ricky hitched a ride home with them.  The buses stop running north at 8:45.  Fortunately, it wasn't much out of the way for the couple.  

On Thursday I experimented with baking crackers and bread sticks.  We set them out on display.  The breadsticks sold out, but not the crackers.  I sealed them in a tin overnight, and was able to serve them Friday.  They were a hit.  

In the end, there was a lot of cheese left over, and sliced breads.  The stragglers finally got the signal to move on at 10:45, and I packed them off each single or couple with a sack of leftover cut bread.  No one bought a loaf, and only one couple bought a bottle of wine.

Financially it was disappointing, but it was a social success.  People enjoyed themselves, even suggesting that we do this once a month.  They were not much impressed with the wines, to hear tell. I need not have spent so much money on fine wines.  I could just as easily picked up a selection at Tesco, the evening would have been equally successful.  And I would not now be stuck with a large inventory of expensive wines.  I was forced to buy five cases, and received two more as a gift.   Among 20 people only 10 bottles were consumed.   I thought about doing it again in a month, but it feels more like a party.  So how could I charge people?  Then I realized that if we met at a restaurant we would also have to spend a lot of money.  I could hit on an admission fee that was both reasonable and economically sound for me.

 As I say, there was plenty of cheese left over. 

I'm having to add cheese dishes to use up that cheese.  These two are cheese scones and quiche.  The Chinese do not like the quiche.  They are used to sweet custard tarts which are ubiquitous here in Changzhou.  So they see this and expect it to be sweet.  Another reason is that it is cold.  They don't like to eat cold food.  So I only managed to sell two slices to the rare foreigner who walked in Sunday.  The rest became my meals for two days.

The scones will be no problem to sell, I think, but they only use cheddar.  I must find some use for the Edam.  I did put a notice on our Changzhou ex pat page saying that I'd share cheese with others.  By buying bulk I get a better price and selection than others can get, so I can resell it.  That worked, one person came in and bought 900 gms of Edam, another said she wanted Parmesan.  I haven't bought the latter, though would dearly like to.  Now I am motivated.

Would I do it again?

It will take time to see if as a marketing tool it is effective.  Perhaps I should have done more to encourage them to buy loaves while they were there.  They were in a party mood, not a shopping mood, however.  As for sheer fun, it was well worth all the preparation.  I had a good time.  I am not averse to trying it again in a month.  October 1 is a national holiday, people will be off from work.  Some will try to travel, but other of us more experienced China hands know better than to try to buck the traveling crowds and increased travel prices.  Perhaps it will be a good time to get just a small group together.  So very hard to predict.  Lori will be down from Beijing, staying on my couch.  (I would so love for her to stay in my spare bedroom, but that is now dominated by a 70 pound useless bread slicing machine that the vendor will not take back; but that's another story.) It might be easy to get a bunch to come down and visit with her.  We were a tight group when she worked here in Changzhou.

I don't know if it is difficult or easy to leave comments.  If anyone knows anything about acoustics, I'd appreciate suggestions on how to improve the acoustics in my place, without spending thousands.