Oooooh eeeee! You know, watching grass grow is not as boring as it sounds. Look at that grass (I gave it an Ernie just to show yous). I thought of it as an experiment, like growing a beard. And the cats liked it–bounding around like they were prowling the African veldt. (also a great short story by Ray Bradbury)

Now is the time to be outside in Seattle, as much as humanly possible. I shoot for sun up to sun down. I’ve got my grill, wireless, and my Bohemia beer umbrella to protect my pasty ass. What more do you need?

I sat on my clean porch, looking at my freshly shorn yard and opened a bottle of Librandi Duca Sanfelice ($16), from the Ciro region of Italy (just past the ball of the foot, the instep actually). The grape is gaglioppo which I consider to be like Piedmont’s Nebbiolo, only with a suntan. Dried black cherry and little whiffs of smells you might find on an antipasti tray: olive, rosemary, cured meats, and a bit of peppery spice. This is a lipsmacking red. You want to keep smelling it, it’s free and easy and interesting and natural and makes you feel good, like a beautiful Italian woman sitting next to you in a piazza–laughing at all of your jokes.

It makes me hungry. So I polish off half of the bottle shucking a pound of fresh English peas. I boil some gnocchi I froze last week, fry up the last piece of corn beef, pan fry the gnocchi (mandatory in my house), toss in some of the freshest arugula I’ll see all year, and add the peas at the very last minute. You don’t bust your hump shucking the suckers only to cook them. I eat well, and think: the farmers’ market is still two weeks away. So what else can I do with these peas? And when the hell are my favas coming?

**Librandi Duca Sanfelice imported by www.winebow.com.