Lanterne Rosé

Stage 20: Numbers Flapping in the Wind; Like 170 Moles in Action

clarkpeterson — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:08:21 +0000

We thought this an awesome stage, because the clowning and ceremony made the boring part charming, and the battle to set up the sprint was as exciting as the finish…It helped that we rode our bikes for the first part–basically from the actual start to the entry to Paris. In solidarity with the ill-planned Team Radioshack black jersey stunt, we changed our kit repeatedly (was that what Voelkler switching shirts was about? very cute.). It seemed like Phil didn’t quite get the Livestrong talking points, as his repeated mention of “cancer sufferers” seems out of tune with contemporary cancer survivor rhetoric. Maybe his word choice was confused by his investment in how much tour riders suffer.

It’s hard to be too cynical about Livestrong, though, as we’ve just lost a relative to cancer and in fact one of us tried to participate in the goofy Nike Chalkbot thing. (We’ve also recently dropped some cash to MS foundations in support of some friends and relatives doing charity bike rides.) Now if only Astana, for example, would put its team firepower behind some international human rights charity…

This champagne is a seriously good descender! (Note the pink dish towel on the bottle, often worn by the Lanterne Rosé as the last wine to be finished in the tour).

It also helped that next we prepared a Japanese sushi breakfast, a Sunday morning tradition at our place, which we enjoyed with what was, for us, a quite excellent champagne: Lancelot-Royer. (White miso, by the way, is great with champagne if the soup isn’t too salty.) [It's quite unusual for us to have two Champagnes during the tour but we had no choice when "we" rode right through the region early on!] The bubbly was pleasantly dusty on the nose, lively but not flashy on the tongue, and had a tolerably full mouth feel. Notes of stone fruits and some spice or another.

Adriano Malori usurped Bert Grabsch’s spot to end the tour as the Lanterne Rouge. Thanks to Nancy Toby for reminding us that Malori held this honor on stages nine and ten.

That’s it for this year. The Tour seems to start near Brittany next year, so we’ll probably be drinking cider next July 2nd. Leave any food or beverage suggestions in the comments. In the meanwhile, assuming all this traffic doesn’t crash the site, you can follow our food, beverage and garden adventures at Spatula and Barcode.

Stage 19: Chapeaux à Bert Grabsch

clarkpeterson — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:14:58 +0000

It’s remarkable to us that Bert Grabsch could be the Lanterne Rouge at the start of the stage and then take third overall for the time trial. We’re so proud of him but disappointed that it will cost him his overall last place as he will now finish the race as the penultimate rider in the tour. Frankly, we were as captivated by the contest for last as we were by the over-hyped rivalry between Andy and Alberto. While there’s something extremely creepy about Andy losing to Alberto by 39 seconds, the exact same amount of time that Alberto gained in the dropped chain incident, we felt less strongly about this being a “mechanical” loss when we were reminded that Alberto lost even more time to a broken spoke on the cobblestones.

We shared two Bordeaux wines tonight, a white followed by a red, but did not do any riding. (Our energies were fully expended by removing our pier–for the second time this summer–due to high water, and cooking soft shell crabs. Yeah, tough life, right?)

The 2009 Chateau La Mouliniere Bordeaux Blanc Sec was creamy and refreshing (and was excellent with crab) while the 2007 Chateau Peyredoule was more demanding. We discovered that the latter should not be eaten with cherries but was brilliant with blue cheese. We paired it with Bleu D’Auvergne which comes from a region in South Central France (more).

Congratulations to Phil Liggett for taking home the yellow jersey in the performance predictions race! In honor of this achievement (more prestigious, really, than his MBE), we have ordered a copy of Dancing on the Pedals: the Found Poetry of Phil Ligget, The Voice of Cycling.

And, with no more Tour to watch, we are off to the movies.

Stage 18: The Chateau Stays in Place

clarkpeterson — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:54:52 +0000

We finished watching this incredibly dull stage before noon. Basically, it was long enough for our clean up from last night’s dinner party plus a short ride on our trainers. We’ll hold off until tomorrow to drink both our Bordeaux wines (one red and one white) together during tomorrow’s time trial.

Michael gets a bottle of wine from the team car.

Stage 17: Unless You Strike Him, He Won’t Bite

clarkpeterson — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:52:35 +0000

A few days ago, Phil made this comment about Contador: “He’s like a snake. Unless you strike him, he won’t bite.” He also said, “The big boys have got to release their feelings.” In both cases, he was talking about stages like this one, where we watched Andy and Alberto completely separately from the entire rest of the field. In some ways, this was the most exciting day of the tour. In other ways, it was completely predictable. Nothing changed.

We were very upset when Sammy Sanchez crashed and very proud of him for holding on to his third place position. Bert Grabsch continues to hold onto the Lanterne Rough slot. Good on you! Paul spent a bit of time today explaining just how hard it is to keep that slot.

From left to right, Laurie Beth Clark, Andy Schleck, Mario Ortiz Robles, Guillermina de Ferrari, Alberto Contador, Michael Peterson

More exciting than the stage was the food, wine, and company. Our friends Guillermina and Mario and their daughter Paloma are finally back from Mexico. We made homemade sausages, and served them with homemade baguettes, lentil salad, poached pears, and our favorite sheep cheese, which happens to come from the Pyrenees: Ossau-Iraty Onetik.

Pear poached in red wine and ginger with home-candied ginger and wine ginger granita.

We had three more Spanish wines tonight:

2006 Via Terra Garnacha Blanca

Arbanta Rioja (Ecologica)

and

2005 Atalayas de Golban from Ribera del Duero.

The latter was one of the most interesting wines all tour (and one of the most expensive as well).

Stage 16: Before the Rabbits Scurry for the Hole

Michael — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:26:14 +0000

Today’s wine was 2008 La Vendima Rioja. It’s another Spanish selection to celebrate our proximity to the border, even though the tour does not cross over.

Lots of attention today went to Lance’s breakaway, even though it did not result in a stage win. Congratulations to Burt Grabsch for holding the Lanterne Rouge slot for another day.

We watched most of this stage on the Rest Day while cooking french sausages. We’re preparing for post-rest day guests, with homemade charcuterie: Merguez, pate, and pork sausage. That’s right: we biked to a store to by pig intestines to stuff w/ the bits of pig we bought at Farmers’ Market…

Stage 15: Like Two Wheeled Gladiators

lbclark1 — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:13:51 +0000

We thought there were no wines from the Pyrenees, so we’ve been drinking Spanish wines for these stages. But partway through the day, Phil mentioned that the riders were passing through Fronsac, which is known for its wines. We checked our wine shop to see if we could make a last minute addition. It turns out they have not stocked any Fronsac in six years but they did have two St. Emillion (nearby)that were out of our price range. Oh well. We were not displeased with our 2008 El Chapparal de Vega Sindoa Old Vines Garnacha.

When we were in the wine shop, we got to see the display they’ve built out of our Tour research. All our wines were tagged in their slots on the shelf. Cool–retail POS impact! Next year, we hope to sell mentions of wines, or even wine regions, to finance LR. Also, if you give us a case of wine, we’ll mention that you did so (we’re looking at you, region of Burgundy, DOC).

This was the day of the big controversial move on Contador’s part (leaving Schleck behind when his chain slipped). We don’t side with those who think he should have waited but we do hope that if Contador wins he does so by a more significant margin instead of just the time he gained due to a mechanical error.

We’re really pleased to see how much attention the team standings are getting this year. Bert Grabsch of HTC Columbia is the new Lanterne Rouge.

Stage 14:Schluges and Smengies; foodies and francophiles

Michael — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:51:42 +0000

We had a great visit with our friends Scott and Sara and their daughter Sadie, who just got back from France. The pressure was on for a good meal and a decent wine. We cooked up a big feast that included a Julia Child rabbit stew, lentils, nicoise salad, and awesome baguettes following Rose Levy Beranbaum’s recipe (a rider error left these slightly under-risen, to be corrected after the rest day, but the flavor was incomparable). This was finished off by a truly awesome desert, a cherry clafloutis that Sara made that left the peloton speechless.

We enjoyed one of the last whites of the tour, a 2009 Coteaux du Languedoc Beaulieu Picpoul de Pinet. Because we had company (very companionable), we opened a second bottle, a 2006 Mas de Bayle, another Languedoc. It’s a very odd red, that our wine store actually recommends drinking cold.

Poached Wisconsin Pears with French Roqueforte

It was hard to actually pay attention to the stage, since Scott and Sara are such great conversationalists, but we did find out the next day that the stage was won by Christophe Riblon and that Schleck and Contador spent so much time playing with each other that they lost time to Menchov and Sanchez. Anthony Roux of FdJ is the new Lanterne Rouge.

Stage 13: Prepping….

Michael — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 02:59:14 +0000

Not sure why, but we like Vinokurov. And the sprints are actually more interesting when they’re disorganzized…We’ve been a bit distracted today–lots going on. It’s Saturday, when midwesterners of Scandinavian descent pretend they’re imaginary utopian French people, and buy their produce direct from farmers. The market was great, and we had a great yoga class that was about disconnecting one’s quads (actually a very cycling-centered concept…). Some of us were then productive professionally, while others did dishes and tried to save the tomatoes from early blight!

We like seeing the change-up in the lesser jerseys, and we love Lance but also love hearing about him only 6 times a broadcast. We are also grateful to Phil and Paul for mentioning the LR.

But today’s wine is, frankly, boring. We’ve resolved to up our average price per stage, because this wine is so familiar to us that we actually already had a bottle in the pantry in addition to the one we hoarded for this day.

But tomorrow should be interesting. It’s the first Pyrenees stage, we’re welcoming our first guests (hard to believe) for the year, and we have poulish prepping for baguettes and rather too much rabbit marinating in home-made red wine vinegar. Probably we should consult an expert…

Stage 12: 5 hours, 26 minutes, 10 seconds.

clarkpeterson — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 02:56:40 +0000

5 hours is roughly the cooking time on the barbecue for our pork spare ribs, rubbed with a mixture of salt, pepper, fresh herbs from the garden, brown sugar, paprika, and chili. 26 minutes is the stage gap today, which we biked on our trainers. 10 seconds, of course, is the amount of time Contador made up on Andy today. A boring stage, as usual, right up to the moment that it wasn’t. 10 seconds? Sure, it’s a steep hill, but does it amount to “a serious sting in the tail?”Cycling thoughts: 1) RE: yesterday’s sprint controversy: the point about not taking your hands of the handlebars is a very important context for the headbutting thing. Still, cutting off Tyler that way is worth of suspension, even if Julian Dean was crowding first. OTOH, Tyler withdrawing today kind of moots things in a weird way. 2) RE: today’s finish: did Andy miss Alberto’s move, or was he already toast? LB looked at Andy on the podium and said “today he realized he can’t win.” Good job Levi staying in there.

Michael had to drop back to pick up tonight’s wine, a lovely brightly colored red.

Michael collects tonight's wine from the Biancci-Lardon team car.

The Jean-Luc Colombo Cotes du Rhone Les Abeilles 2007 was just plain good–aired out nicely it had berry notes without being jammy, and seemed very well balanced.

Stage 11: A Terrific Hurley-Burley Into the Finish.

clarkpeterson — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 03:59:32 +0000

We love to hate fisticuffs in the sprints, so it was a fun stage at the end. But so boring until then that we had to blog on the bike…

Renshaw disqualified? Surely an overreaction. Hardly a Zidane moment, really, and now who does Tyler’s posse have to get revenge on?

We liked our wine tonight, a Perrin Reserve CDR 2008 with a little thinness in the middle but otherwise a lovely taste and mouth feel. Label: ”ideal accompaniment to spicy cuisine,” so we paired it with pork and chicken sate wrapped in homegrown lettuce leaves. Quite nice.