I had promised a different piece this week, but had a friend and his wife stop in for the weekend and that threw me off my game.  They were up from Paso Robles, California, where they raise wine grapes – Syrah, Petite Syrah — on a magnificent chunk of the central coast, and also to pick up some elk meat I’d been holding for them in our freezer since our hunt last fall. And, as things go, the weekend vanished in an insalubrious 72-hour fete that left me feeling like I’d spent the weekend with Robert Plant and the boys in a chapter from Hammer of the Gods.