Sonja and I spent a few days in Texas. With COVID and all, we needed a time out, and Andrew and his family invited us to spend a few days with them in Sherman. There of course were concerns with COVID around, will we have to quarantine upon return things like that.
So, off we went with an abundance of caution regarding personal health. Wearing masks, and lots of hand sanitizer. Flights were cheap, and the planes were empty.
We started off in Dallas spent a few nights at a hotel in downtown. We went to see the 6th floor Museum, that’s the book repository where Oswald shot Kennedy. We were early so we popped in a little Diner for breakfast. I knew right away we found the best breakfast place in town as it was full of cops 🙂
Andrew picked us up on day 2, and took us to a small winery where John and his family entertained us for a bit. We made pizzas in his new wood fired pizza oven, met his son’s and his wife. John showed us a relic from Bonnie and Clyde, the pistol Bonnie once owned. Cassaro Winery is starting to pick up some nice awards for their wine and John was happy to show us some of those awards and talk about his wine. Naturally, there was sampling of the goods too. His family hails from Syracuse NY, so we had a good time talking about that too. John is also a long time Dallas Police Officer.
Later on we drove to Andrews home in Sherman. Andrew and his family took us to a few nice places. We spent time and met Stormy Cansler of Hidden hanger wines, sampled some of her wines. later we took a tour of Ironroot Republic Distillery. Brought a bottle home too 🙂
Andrew did most of the cooking testing out his new found Sous Vide skills. I can say, it works very well. I showed Mulan how to make crepes, and she showed me how to make egg pancakes with spinach and shrimp. We sampled many of the great wines Texas has to offer. Andrew took us to the College campus where he teaches, enology and distillation of spirits.
Scott and Krista (KK) came over to dinner later, after we met them at their future winery earlier that day, and we had some lively dinner conversation. I knew I would like them right away, anyone named KK after all 🙂 Turns out she co wrote a book with her mom a few years ago, go check it out. “An Unlikely Ambassador and her Diplomatic Daughter; Stories & Recipes for the Life You Want” To boot, she told me I could borrow the phrase from the book “Endlessly Pleasant” I like that 🙂
Each of the people we met, the wineries, the distillery, and Andrew himself were welcoming and each has a story. A big lesson learned was that, it takes guts, know how, and much fortitude to go into the wine business. You think you can just put some vines in the ground sit back and enjoy, brother you got another thing coming! Takes serious perseverance. I thought dairy farming was tough, ha, think again.
All in all it was a whirlwind trip, and has inspired us to go back again soon.
