Monday, October 31, 2011

#231 - Two Birthday Meals

Insert Jack Benny joke here.

Like...for the condition that must exist before the joke starts ad infinitum.

For a birthday such as that, two of the classics, or new classics, or...heck, just two meals that we've come to immensely enjoy seemed apt, right and proper.

Italian lunch and sort of Cuban dinner.

And sandwiched between both meals was an Iowa loss to Minnesota so Happy Birthday to me, indeed.

Lunch:  Marinated mozzarella and kumatoes with baguette

Thursday, October 27, 2011

#230 - TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

New puppy in the house.  She came with everything that comes in the new puppy package.

Mostly good, though.  Promising.  Quite promising.  We think we like her.

Three meals and three wines this week, given a TWIB post to highlight two new wines that we very much enjoyed, even if they weren't something that evoked splendor in the glass (see what I did there...).

Meal #1:  TJ's $4 roasted chicken, Brussels sprouts with pancetta, baguette and butter

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

#229 - Pancetta Lamb, Pea Purée & Potatoes With '06 Ken Wright

Let's get link-happy.

We've mostly eaten our lamb in a supporting cast sense this year, using it as a protein to complement an interesting recipe here (Turkish beany surprise) and/or to try an ignored grape/style there (cabernet franc/Amarone).

We've had it out in the world this year (-ish) at Taxim (sausage form) and Blackbird (saddle form/rack form) and didn't have it out at Bacchus, unfortunately.

Or, when lamb was made to be the star of a meal, something like a potato-kale cake, fregola and carrot purée or, well, Turkish beany surprise, came along and stole its thunder.

Back to the lamb basics last night:  Lamb made to complement the lamb, support the lamb and star the lamb with flavors leaning more toward clean American.

When that happens, it's pinot noir.  Tried and true, always delicious and tastes like Home, tradition, holiday, friendship and Love ("To every season, turn, turn, turn...").

Food:  Pancetta-wrapped lamb, pea purée, pomegranate seeds and roasted potatoes with mâche salad

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

#228 - Moroccan Phyllo Pie With '08 François Villard Condrieu

If you'd asked me two weeks ago where Condrieu is located, I'd have guessed southeastern France.

And that's about as specific as I could have been.

Squeezed between Côte-Rôtie and Saint-Joseph in the northern reaches of Northern Rhône, Condrieu and its surrounding AOCs represent a huge blind spot in my wine world.  Heck, red Burgundy, much of Northern Italy and the Northern Rhône...you may as well be talking about carburetors and manifolds or something because I'm clueless.  All of it shoots right over my head.

That will change in time.  It's usually some unassuming bottle bought on a whim that cracks the code of a region/AOC/style, sending us scurrying to find out more.

This François Villard viognier might be one of those bottles.

Delicious, fairly unique stuff that if given blind, I'd have thought it was a white Burgundy in many ways from some Burgundy AOC I know nothing about.

Hate to get wine-sappy here but that's one of the great things about wine.  There's always a new surprise.  Always something you've never had.  Always something you didn't know.

Food:  B'stilla - Moroccan phyllo pie with arugula and pomegranate seeds

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

#227 - Dry-Aged Filet And Potato Cakes With '05 Clos Apalta

Anniversary Dinner!  Number Seven.

Crap.  Now I have the Grizzly Adams theme song in my head.

With a sick dog, we didn't have the option to celebrate the occasion out on the town, but last night we got flavors that didn't taste like home flavors, so mission accomplished in many ways.

A carménère/cabernet blend is not home flavors (or 'out' flavors either).

A roasted vegetable chimichurri.  Not home flavors.

A zucchini/carrot veg medley.  Not home flavors.

The whole meal didn't taste like home and we liked it.

Don't need it again but we liked it.

Food:  21 day dry-aged beef filet, potato cakes and zucchini/carrot medley with chimichurri

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

#226 - Two Meals And Two Wines

Last night's wine was an example of a wine made so much better by the fact that both of us wanted nothing but California syrah.

Rare thing, that; wanting California syrah to such a degree.  Sometimes, satisfying a yen jettisons the opinion of a wine from the "yeah...good stuff" realm into the "that's the best thing I've ever had in the history of history!" silly superlative world even if it merely shows typical, open and proper.

The key came in the non-fancy fancy food with flavors on the plate we haven't had before, which was the goal of the meal.

And what flavors they were.  The collection of Iberian peninsula cookbooks continues to amaze.

Food:  Spicy Azorean garlic-roasted pork with fideos, black olive gremolata and pickled onions