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We’ve all heard of micro-breweries by now, but how about micro-wineries? The concept was new to me until this summer, when I went on a family vacation that involved spending a few nights in Conifer, Colorado.

My aunt, who lives nearby, had made reservations for us at a charming four-room B&B called the Clifton House Inn. She mentioned that the place doubled as a “micro-winery” called Aspen Peak Cellars, but I wasn’t too sure what that meant.

A bottle of their Conifer Red—a simple, pleasant blend of half Sangiovese and half Cabernet Sauvignon that tasted like sweet berries—welcomed us when we reached our room late the first night. In the morning, the view from our front balcony revealed only mountains and a meadow flickering with the movements of finches, hummingbirds, jays and a single grazing horse. No sign of vineyards or winemaking facilities.

Bottling in progress at the Aspen Peak Cellars micro-winery, housed in the Clifton House Inn in Conifer, CO

Turns out, that’s because they don’t have any. Marcel and Julie Flukiger, the couple who own the place, don’t want to run a huge winery. They’ve got enough on their hands running an inn and bistro. As Marcel explains, winemaking started as a hobby and had grown into an obsession by the time they bought the inn last year.

“I got Julie a winemaking kit for Christmas about five years ago, and we just couldn’t seem to stop playing with it. There was never a carboy empty in our house after that,”  he says, wearing a T-shirt that reads “Cork Dork.”

They buy grape concentrate from vineyards in California—selected after some sampling at trade shows—and ferment it for about two weeks in plastic vats stored in an annex of the inn’s kitchen. Then the wines are aged for three to six months in American oak barrels, which are half the size of traditional ones, because of space constraints.

When wines are ready to bottle, as they were on the morning we departed, one of the dining room tables gets temporarily re-purposed as an assembly line. I watched as the Flukigers, their friends and even a few random volunteers (two of the men said they’d just come for brunch at the bistro the day before and thought coming back to help with bottling sounded fun!) operated the hoses, filling, corking and labeling equipment by hand.

Every time a case of 12 was complete, Marcel carried it away…at least, about 15 feet away. The walls of the inn’s small kitchen were lined with cardboard boxes of wine.

“This is pretty much it for storage,” he said with a sheepish shrug. “It’s not a big place.”

Aspen Peak Cellars made about 1,000 cases in its first season, which ended in June. The Flukigers hope to incorporate some Colorad0-grown grapes in future seasons—there weren’t any surpluses available to buy this year, due to drought—and have started experimenting with adding skins to create more tannic reds, Marcel said.

“We didn’t go to college for winemaking,” he’s quick to point out. “We’re both chefs. So for us, it’s the food pairing that’s important. We want to make fun table wines, and make a menu to match those wines.”

So far, he said, at least 95 percent of people who have tasted the wines reacted favorably.

“Then, of course, you have the ‘wine snobs,’” he said. “We’ll make something for them in the future.”

As I was reminded on a trip to a packed Target the other day, the back-to-school season is upon us. Seeing carts filled with things like electric hot pots, microwave popcorn and instant soup got me thinking about dorm life…which brings me to our latest Inviting Writing theme: College food.

As always, the rules are simple: Tell us a story! We’re looking for true, original, personal essays inspired in some way by our theme. Please keep it under 1,000 words, and send it to FoodandThink@gmail.com with “Inviting Writing: College Food” in the subject line. Remember to include your full name and a biographical detail or two (your city and/or profession; a link to your own blog if you’d like that included).

I’ll start. For other examples, see previous entries on the themes of manners, picnics, fear, and road trips.

Fluff and Nonsense
By Amanda Bensen

Courtesy of Flickr user .MegLynn

I accidentally became a vegetarian a few weeks before my freshman year of college began, and I decided to stick with it. But while young adulthood may be idiomatically called one’s “salad days,” I didn’t eat much in the way of leafy greenery that year. “Carbs and sugar days” would be more accurate. In my dorm-room hot pot, I cooked up vast quantities of macaroni and cheese, minute rice and ramen noodles. I ate any kind of snack that could be bought in bulk and stowed in a plastic storage bin for weeks at a time: Goldfish crackers, chips, pretzels, Twizzlers, Skittles, M&Ms, Swedish Fish, matzo bread, animal crackers. I experimented with dipping all of those things—and even, occasionally, sheets of raw ramen noodles—in Marshmallow Fluff. (Yes. I know. I should have warned you not to read this while eating.)

In the cafeteria, I gravitated toward cereal and dessert, sometimes combining the two (frozen yogurt mixed with Corn Pops! giant rice crispy treats!), and felt justified in this because, hey, it wasn’t meat, after all. As long as I wasn’t eating that, my diet must be “healthy,” I figured. I mean, who ever heard of a fat vegetarian? (Ah, the wisdom of a 17-year-old brain.)

Then, one day, a friend casually mentioned a fact that rocked my world.

“Did you know gelatin isn’t vegetarian?” she said, gesturing at my bag of Skittles. “It’s made from animal bones. So real vegetarians don’t eat it.”

That stung. Given the sketchy circumstances of my conversion, I was eager to prove to the world that I was a “real” vegetarian. I’d read the brochures about animal rights, and I’d heard the statistic about how dozens of hungry people could potentially be fed with crops grown on an acre of land that, used for cattle grazing, would yield only a handful of hamburgers. A copy of “Diet for a Small Planet” was prominently displayed on my bookshelf (though I hadn’t actually read more than a few pages at that point). I was serious about this, gosh darn it!

So I gave up gelatin. Since this suddenly ruled out things like rice crispy treats, Fluff, and many types of candy, I was forced to adapt my diet. I finally read that book, and a few others, and learned about the importance of balancing one’s carbohydrate, protein and fat intakes. I started eating more salad, and less sugar, from the cafeteria. I discovered chickpeas and hummus. The “freshman 15″ disappeared rapidly.

College, I realized, is all about learning to balance—time, workload, opinions, allegiances and so on. Food is only the beginning, but it’s a good first step when still recovering from the wobble of leaving the nest.

By the start of my sophomore year, my roommate Jenna and I formed a pact, scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper and officiously signed by each of us and a bemused “witness” (the girl who lived across the hall). I still have a copy. It’s about boys, because we’d just had a shared epiphany that they could be a terrible distraction from more important matters such as studying, exercising, and staring dreamily at world atlases.

We promised, in writing, never to let ourselves become inordinately obsessed with a boy. And if I did?

“My roommate, Jenna, has permission to force-feed me gelatin.”

Cucumbers are delicious. Courtesy of Flickr user niznoz

Lately I have acquired a troop of cucumbers from various friends and acquaintances trying to unload their late-summer garden bounties. I like to toss a few cucumber slices in salads or on sandwiches, but I would have to eat them morning, noon and night to use them all up that way. What else can be done with these ubiquitous gourds?

1. Mix with yogurt. Cucumbers are believed to have originated in India before spreading to Europe thousands of years ago, so let’s start there. Indian cooks do a great job of balancing complex flavors, and one of the best examples is the use of a condiment called cucumber raita to “cool” a spicy dish: mix grated cucumber with spices and plain yogurt (some recipes call for thick, strained, Greek-style yogurt, although I’ve noticed that the raita served in Indian restaurants is often saucier). Speaking of Greek yogurt, one of my favorite uses of cucumbers is the Greek dip or sauce called tzatziki (the spelling varies). It’s similar to raita, but with different seasonings—usually minced fresh garlic, lemon juice and olive oil, and sometimes dill or mint. In neighboring Turkey, a thinner version called cacik is served as a soup.

2. Stuff them. Halved and with the seeds scooped out, cucumbers look like little canoes. The possibilities for loading them with cargo (i.e. stuffing) are endless: Koreans stuff and marinate them in a spicy chili paste, such as in this Oi-sobagi Kimchi recipe at Chow. Crabmeat, as in this Bon Appétit recipe, is a classic filling. Feta blended with walnuts, as vegetarian-cooking impresario Mollie Katzen suggests, might be making an appearance in my lunch box next week.

3. Cook them. It never would have occurred to me to cook cucumbers, but other cultures are more adventurous with their cukes. From Kerala, India, this recipe for Cucumber with Black-Eyed Peas in Saveur magazine cooks them in coconut milk and chilies. Gourmet magazine julienned and sautéed them to make cucumber noodles. And, as the movie Julie & Julia helped remind people, Julia Child championed cucumbers baked with butter (which the Julie Powell character describes as “a revelation”), based on a French recipe.

4. Drink them. Cucumbers contain a high percentage of water already, so they are naturally refreshing. Slices added to water will make you feel like you’re having a spa day. A few years ago cucumber cocktails popped up everywhere—in margaritas, as a basil-cucumber martini and in cucumber sake shots served in little hollowed-out cucumber bowls. But it’s really nothing new: the English drink the Pimm’s Cup, as traditional at Wimbledon as the mint julep is for the Kentucky Derby, has been served with cucumber (either as a garnish or floating like fruit in sangria) for nearly two centuries.

5. Pickle them. If you’ve eaten as many as you can and still haven’t exhausted your supply of cucumbers before they go bad, it’s pickling time. If you want to go beyond the usual dill or bread-and-butter varieties, try these Japanese wasabi-flavored pickles, cucumber-apple pickles or, if you want something really different, cinnamon-flavored candied pickles.

Still from Eat Pray Love. Courtesy of movie's Facebook page.

“I’m having a relationship with my pizza.” As Julia Roberts looks over her Neapolitan pizza at her Eat Pray Love co-star, Tuva Novotny, I too feel a pang for the thin, cheesy, luscious display that nearly outshines the Oscar winner. As it turns out, this particular scene was filmed at the famous L’Antica Pizzeria Da Michele in the heart of Naples, which has been baking some of the city’s best pies since 1870, and where Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling book Eat Pray Love, actually ate during her four-month stint in Italy.

The new movie is an unabashed chick flick—my boyfriend was one of four men in an audience of about 100 people. But however girly the plot, the bounty of delicious Italian, Indian and Balinese foods can be enjoyed by all. Here’s a quick list of the film’s food highlights to get your mouth watering.

Pizza Napolitana: Forget New York. Forget Chicago. As mentioned, this pizza has become the object of my desire—days after seeing the movie, I still can’t get it out of my mind. As one might expect, the Pizzeria Da Michele does not divulge their recipe online, but here’s a pizza dough recipe you can use to try to approximate the real deal.

Egg, Asparagus, Potato and Ham Salad: One day in Rome, Roberts’ character, Liz, decides to stay home and do nothing—except eat, that is. She drizzles olive oil over a portion of asparagus, hard boiled eggs, and prosciutto, and pours herself a glass of Italian red wine for a job well done.

Figs and Ham: As she winds through the streets of Rome, Liz passes a woman delicately cutting into a platter of fresh figs and Parma ham. This was a pleasant departure from the also delicious but more ubiquitous dish, “prosciutto e melone,” or ham and melon.

Spaghetti all’Amatriciana: Nowhere is the power of simple recipes and fresh ingredients more apparent than when Liz gorges herself on a heaping plate of this spaghetti and tomato sauce dish. Spaghetti all’Amatriciana—which, at its most basic, includes onions, tomatoes, pancetta, olive oil, and chili peppers—is native to the town of Amatrice, located to the east of Rome near the border dividing the regions of Abruzzo and Umbria. Although older, more traditional recipes included lard and bacon fat, olive oil has proved a healthier substitute and is now widely used in Italian trattorias throughout the country.

Fried Artichokes: I tend to subscribe to the notion that frying vegetables defeats the purpose of eating them in the first place. But when a plate of crispy, golden, leafy artichokes was served up in the film, I had to reconsider. I’ve always eaten artichokes steamed, with a touch of mayo and lemon. But next time I might have to plunge those artichokes straight into the frying oil.

Thums Up!: While the Eat portion of Eat Pray Love takes place mostly in Rome, a few other interesting foods (and beverages, in this case) pop up throughout the rest of the film. During her stay at an ashram in India, Liz’s friend Richard takes her to a small cafe to enjoy a sweet, Indian cola called Thums Up! that serves as the Coca-Cola substitute in India. A hand making a thumbs up sign appears on the bottle.

Exotic Balinese Fruits: As Roberts’ character cruises the Balinese open-air markets with her new Brazilian squeeze, played by Javier Bardem, they scope out a couple of the native fruits of Bali, including the spiked Durian, a fruit prohibited in many hotels because of its offensive odor. “That one tastes like stinky feet,” Bardem says. Contrary to what his character would have us believe, though, I’ve heard that if you can get past the smell, the taste of the fruit’s creamy filling is pretty darn good.

Already been to see the film? What was your favorite Eat Pray Love food moment?

Courtesy of Flickr user stevebkennedy

Last week I wrote about funny English-language food idioms and their origins. Word-and food-geek that I am (and I imagine/hope I’m not alone), I find this stuff fascinating. At least as interesting is how other languages work food into their quirky turns of phrase.

For starters, there’s the one in the title of the book I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World, which author Jag Bhalla explains—though I find it hard to believe—is how Russians tell you they’re not pulling your leg.

Bhalla’s book includes a whole chapter of amusing food expressions translated from Chinese, Yiddish and other languages. A few favorites, from the book unless otherwise noted:

Instead of having a hair of the dog that bit them—as Americans call having a drink to ward off a hangover—Spaniards drown the mouse.

Germans use the same body part—the nose—that English uses to mean intrusively inquisitive (i.e. nosy), but much more colorfully:  sticking your nose in every sour curd cheese. And the German insult for “a bunch of losers” is as delightful for its meaning—a troop of cucumbers—as the way it sounds: Gurkentruppe.

If you annoy a Frenchman he might advise you to go cook yourself an egg, or go fly a kite. The same sentiment in Spanish is expressed by telling someone to go fry asparagus.

Not surprisingly, many of the expressions relate to the foods that are most important in a particular culture, like bread in French and onions in Yiddish. Hindi has a lot of mango-based idioms: wind-fallen mangos are something easy or cheap; a mango at the price of a stone is a good deal; a ripe mango is a very old person; and to have mangos and sell the seeds is to have it all.

An insincere person in Yiddish cries onion tears instead of crocodile tears. Other Yiddish onion idioms include the insults “onions should grow from your navel,” and “he should grow like an onion with his head in the ground,” meaning “take a hike.”

Instead of milk and honey, in Chinese a land of plenty is a land of fish and rice. If someone is exaggerating about such a place, he is said to be adding oil and vinegar.

The site Italy in SF has a list of Italian food idioms, including both the Italian and English translations. Some of them are similar to English sayings, namely that something easy is like taking candy from a child—“E’ facile come rubare le caramelle a un bambino”—and that something tender is soft as butter—“Tenero come il burro.” Others are decidedly different: instead of giving an eye for an eye, Italians give back bread for focaccia. And someone who is always in the way is like parsley (Sei sempre in mezzo come il prezzemolo).

The Paris-based food blog Chocolate & Zucchini has a series on French “edible idioms.” One of my favorites is “Ménager la chèvre et le chou,” which translates to “accommodating the sheep and the cabbage” and means “trying to please both sides in a situation where the two sides are in fact reconcilable.” I love the mental image of a Frenchman trying to negotiate with a cabbage.

When my last blog on food idioms was posted on Facebook (where you can become a fan of Smithsonian magazine), one commenter contributed the Spanish idiom, “el pan bajo el brazo.” I know just enough Spanish to translate it as “bread under the arm,” but I had to look up the meaning. As far as I can tell, it is a shortened version of “nacio con el pan bajo el brazo,” which means born with bread under the arm, a rough equivalent of the English expression “born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth.”

Do any other foreign-language speakers out there want to share the food expressions in your language?