Saturday, December 26, 2015

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #24

No family holidays for us this season.

So Christmas, for us, this year, was food, wine, and the second season of 'Fargo.'

It's not The Wild Bunch, but how many people are killed in 'Fargo?' Gotta go with about 60-70 at least. Geesh!

Before watching that, I consumed Making A Murderer on Netflix, an 10-part documentary that's infinitely intriguing while you're in it, but loses much of its impact in the last third when the filmmakers decide against employing a wider social lens.

I was busy.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $161 for food and $183 for wine = $344

Total food and wine cost for the month: $471 for food and $452 for wine = $923

Sunday: Guinea Hen "chicken and rice" with 2015 Viñas Chilenas Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Guinea hen bits and juice from Christmas dinner, onions, walnuts and amaranth greens, over wild and brown rice.

Did We Like It? A very nice dinner compiled with things from the freezer. Tasted healthy without tasting "Oh...this is healthy food."

How Was The Wine? This is $4, fresh, fruity, round, bouncy and delicious. Cabernet-syrah blend done up rosé style.

And The Pairing? No complaints. The wine remained its juicy, bright self while never interfering with the delicate nature of the food. Nothing great, nothing not. $6 meal, wine included!

Cost: $2 for food, $4 for wine = $6 

Saturday: Pick-n-Choose with 2014 Charles Smith VINO Pinot Grigio Columbia Valley

Food Details: Mariano's rotisserie chicken, kumatoes, avocados, arugula-parsley salad, mayo, and mini-ciabatta buns, with pickled red onions for me.

Did We Like It? Siempre. It's pick-n-choose your bite, which really isn't pick-n-choose, technically. We top each ripped ciabatta with the same collection of flavors, each of which like each other so very well together, it becomes a heaping mound of happiness. They're friends, hence this oft-eaten meal.

How Was The Wine? Sparkle and polish, acid and citrus blossom notes. There MIGHT be some fade going on here, as there was a wee touch of a jumble in flavor delineation happening with this drinking. We'll see.

And The Pairing? Assembled bite: ciabatta carb, mayo, glazed chicken, kumato dark-tomato flavor, creamy avocado, herby-peppery salad. Pickled onion pop for me. Add the wine's citrus and acid cut and cleanse. You'll be happy. We were.

Cost: $15 for food,  $13 for wine = $28

Friday: Christmas Crab Rangoon Empanada Lunch and Guinea Hen Dinner

Lunch: Homemade faux-crab Rangoon empanadas with mâche salad and pomegranate seeds for Christmas lunch, served with NV Gaston Chiquet Brut Tradition Champagne. The crab empanadas are probably a one-off, but what a nice one-off they were. Fish sauce-based dipping sauce for the empanadas. So, happy Asian flavors in a Latin wrapper.

But the fish sauce killed the Gaston Chiquet, our first Champagne love that we haven't had in a couple of years. Good food lunch with bubbles that fell flat. Something with a bit of sugar like riesling was the play here.

Dinner: Delia Smith guinea hen with 30 cloves of garlic, with the addition of cumin, caraway and tarragon; Ottolenghi harissa pommes Dauphine (feta instead of goat cheese), and Ottolenghi roasted carrots with coriander seeds and garlic, with the addition of lemon thyme, served with 2013 Matthiasson Refosco Napa.

THIS is a Christmas dinner. Perfectly seasoned and spiced guinea hen meat with more pan garlic-juice poured over top. Succulent, is the word. Little pillows of fried potato balls studded with harissa. Best roasted carrots on the planet. "Post-Ottolenghi world," my butt, Saveur. A great Christmas dinner that ranked right up there with all the other great Christmas dinners we've had when not seeing family. I think there's a connection between those two. Wonderful linkage between each element on the plate with the crossover of seasoning.

Paired with watching 'Fargo' more than the Matthiasson Refosco. A one-hour decant still didn't crack open this low alcohol, but very tannic and ripe refosco. This one was a good example of a wine that tasted very well-made, but offered little in the way of openness, ingratiation or friendliness with the food. Too tight, too tannic, too oddly full to give much here. A surprise given my perception of the nature of refosco. Tasted more like a tight-fisted cabernet without the alcohol. At times, it felt like it was trying, but nothing to see in terms of pairing here.

Cost: $52 for food, $85 for wine = $137      

Thursday: Jacques Pepin Brandade and Mustardized Asparagus with 2009 Michel Brégeon Muscadet 

Food Details: (recipe) Fussy-but-easy = lots of fiddly but uncomplicated steps that you MUST follow: Pepin brandade, using Whole Foods salt cod, half celery root and half potatoes, almond milk instead of dairy, white balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice, pecorino instead of parmesan. Mustard-y marinade on asparagus (grilled), chopped marcona almonds, and grilled baguette.

Did We Like It? Best brandade yet. Mrs. Ney usually uses Goya pollack, but Whole Foods had true-blue salt cod this time. Great balance between the fish, creaminess, nuttiness and celery rooty-ness. Silky texture, great depth. Weirdly delicious asparagus. We like asparagus. This mound of spears, with the marcona and mustard, made them more than just a green side dish. A Christmas Eve dinner that should be a new tradition. Our own 'Feast of the One Fish.'

How Was The Wine? The 2002 Brégeon was a bit of a revelation, that time with chicken and skordalia. It was eight-year-old Muscadet that tasted like it was made yesterday. A bottle of 2005 was funky swamp water, something so rank that we've been a little gun shy about diving back in to the Brégeon. This 2009 was a touch muted and probably needed a decant/more time in the bottle. Pleasing lemon-lime zest, lovely minerals, moderately punchy acid. But in all, a bit quiet. We opened a bottle of 2013 Jackys Preys Cuvée de Fié Gris Touraine to compare and got a wild, bucking, natural wine that showed its naturalness, both the good and the not so. An explosion of grass, flowers, smoked lime and iron at times, other times it turned rather beer-like. Really enjoyed its gregariousness at first, but with the food, we turned back to the Muscadet, as it played in a much more friendly manner with the food. The fié gris wouldn't shut up!

And The Pairing? The Muscadet never got out of the realm of "pleasant" with the food, liking the brandade well enough, even if a bit withdrawn. The middle of the meal was like a huge action scene in a movie with the fié gris, bringing all the explosions and crashes, but leaving us a little exhausted with the effort. We went back to the Muscadet and found pleasing nuggets of good-enough-ness.

Cost: $20 for food, $45 for wine =  $65       

Wednesday: Solomonov Kofta, Pickled Persimmons and Zucchini Baba Ganoush with 2011 Pascal Janvier "Cuvée du Rosier" Coteaux du Loir Rouge

Food Details: Goat kofta and pickled persimmons from Saveur (in the piece, would somebody please tell me what the hell "post-Ottolenghi world" means?). Zucchini baba ganoush (from New Middle Eastern Food), subbing in zucchini for eggplant. Pita. Arugula salad on the side.

Did We Like It? First, goat kofta and pickled persimmons together in one bite is certainly something everyone should try, because it's stupid-delicious, and will be had be us again. And again. Golly, that's good stuff. Zucchini baba ganoush as a veg in dip-and-dunk form. Salad freshness. Meat-veg-carb-green. But in an utterly different and exquisite form.

How Was The Wine? I expected a floral frame, and got aromatics in the form of spice. Light-bodied with guts, crushed berries, a dancing flurry of lightly toasty spice. Delicately tart finish. 100% pineau d’aunis from the coolest part of the Loire. Low alcohol, bright acid, lovely wine. Buying again. This one fits into a unique wine place that also caters to the food we like.

And The Pairing? It threw a couple of moody fits with the food, but overall quite happy with the pairing here. Somewhat muted with the baba ganoush, but very much liked the goat and persimmon.

Cost: $15 for food, $16 for wine = $31

Tuesday: Bucatini, Anchovy, Caper and Chile with 2012 Regis Minet Pouilly-Fumé Vieilles Vignes

Food Details: When you're a little groggy after a work Christmas party, you want to go out to eat. We wanted to. Then we looked around the interwebs at menus, saw one list that had bucatini with anchovy and chile, and both of us thought, "THAT'S what we want!" Then we started doing the math. $18/bowl of that pasta dish at the restaurant. Bottle of wine. Probably an appetizer or two. Maybe some starter bubbles. Tax. Tip. That could easily be $150. All the ingredients for "What we want" are in the house. And we have wine. Better wine. So...

Bucatini, evoo, anchovies, capers, garlic, manzano pepper, pepper flakes; separately-charred tomatoes, parsley, mint, toasted bread crumbs dumped on top.

Did We Like It? Jeebus, yes! Tasted exactly like what great pasta can be. A perfect blend of carbs, flavor and satisfaction.

How Was The Wine? Flinty, grassy, smoky, citrusy; everything that Regis Minet is and three years old to boot. Crazy producer that makes what became our house Pouilly-Fumé years ago.

And The Pairing? The wine fell right in line with the weight and balance of the pasta, offering an even more stream-lined, broad feeling to the meal. Couldn't ask for more happiness.

Cost: $7 for food, $18 for wine = $25    

Monday: Work Christmas Party

Food Details: Potluck. Brought chicken liver pâté, toasties, ginger-scallion sauce and Korean hot sauce for the supplied Sun-Wah whole pig, and farro-olive salad.

Wine: Alloy Wine Works Grenache in the can, from Field Recordings.

Result: A good time had by all.

Cost: $50

Thursday, December 17, 2015

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #23

Watching a trio of Christian Petzold films, Yella, Jerichow and Phoenix to go along with the previously seen Barbara, confirmed my assumption after seeing the latter that if Mr. Petzold makes a film, and Nina Hoss is in it, I'll be renting it. Dark, honest, adult stuff.

Jon Bonné left the SF Chronicle earlier this year for Punch and it didn't take long for him to embrace the freedom offered by such a move. His 'Wine Stories That Will Shape 2016' is a good read, as has been everything else since he made the move.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $88 for food and $95 for wine = $183

Sunday: Calzones with 2013 Trader Joe's Sangiovese Sonoma County

Food Details: Frozen bread dough whipped up into loafy, calzone-y form, stuffed with Italian chicken sausages, ground pork, green pepper, onion, pickled serranos, cheddar and mozzarella. Jarred 'pizza sauce' on the side.

Did We Like It? We don't eat like this, particularly the jarred, sweet, processed-tasting 'pizza sauce.' But this hit a place reminiscent of an 80s-style corner pizza place growing up. No complaints. Big brown loaf of goodness.

How Was The Wine? Blind, I wouldn't have said it was sangiovese, but pleasant red-black fruits with a modicum of acidity that puts it in the large ballpark of what you'd want from Chianti. Borderline generic wine, but nothing to hate here. Nothing, really, at all.

And The Pairing? As Italian-American from the mid-80s at it gets. Both of us...kinda...liked it.

Cost: $12 for food, $10 for wine = $22

Saturday: Potato Tart with 2014 VinTJ's Arneis Russian River Valley

Source: Savory potato tart recipe, via NYT Cooking (Tanis)

Food Details: Thinly sliced potatoes mixed with leeks cooked down in rabbit stock, crème fraiche, garlic, thyme, sage, nutmeg, s & p. Placed in a pie crust, topped with more crust like a pie. Baked. Herb salad on the side dressed with fennel vinegar.

Did We Like It? Always. It's bistro food at its best. Delicious rabbit reduction addition.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's arneis, a first for TJ's offering arneis under their own label. Not particularly concentrated, evocative or complete, but nice gooseberry notes and something reminiscent of smoked orange peel. Very bright finish that makes up for a watery entry. Pleasing, if not resplendent, but nice texture for the most part. Would buy again.

And The Pairing? The food ripped into the wine and opened up its secret places quite nicely, taking the meal to a more food-wine completeness. The wine loved the fennel vinegar on the salad, offering a perky mango-kiwi-mineral note with a bite and sip. Happy with this pairing.

Cost: $10 for food, $8 for wine = $18 

Friday: Pick-n-Choose with 2015 Viñas Chileans Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Ham, salami, Scottish aged cheddar, pickled onions, arugula salad, Provencal mustard, and mini-ciabatta buns.

Did We Like It? Strangely, This tasted like the best pick-n-choose in a good long while. No idea why. Just had a ton of flavors bouncing everywhere, and offered space to enjoy all of them.

How Was The Wine? $4. Cab-syrah. Rosé. Chile. It's $4-ness is quickly making this wine our house rosé when we don't want to get spendy.

And The Pairing? Good. Nothing special, but good. Firmly in the realm of Good.

Cost: $15 for food, $4 for wine = $19

Thursday: Chicken Pot Pie with 2014 Quinta do Porrais Douro

Food Details: Your standard chicken pot pie, made with biscuits instead of crust.

Did We Like It? Used to be a fairly regular weekday meal for us. Now, we don't eat like this anymore. This meal has probably been put to bed for years, as both of us found it tremendously boring.

How Was The Wine? A terrible choice, made by me, here. Thinking pot pie was a blank enough slate to serve any wine with a minimum amount of acid in it, that thinking proved woefully wrong.

And The Pairing? Shockingly terrible. One of those times where you say, "By golly, this might be the worst pairing I've had in years!" Fine on its own, but watery, flaccid, with notes of the dumpster on a hot summer day with the food.

Cost: $3 for food, $14 for wine = $17

Wednesday: Orecchiette, Sausage and Rapini with 2013 San Salvatore "Pian di Stio" Fiano Paestum IGP

Food Details: Very good batch of sausage and rapini using free sausage from a co-worker. Spicy. House staple eaten once a month or so.

Did We Like It? Top-2 weekday meal for me. Simple Italian done well. It has everything.

How Was The Wine? Squat little 500-ml bottle of fiano from San Salvatore. We liked their very polished falanghina that took its time to reveal all the goodies within. Similar complexity and length here, with minerals and preserved lemon-basil stem-spice notes mingling together. Very clean, higher perception of alcohol but never got in the way, and would get better with time. Secondary nutty notes should open up, as this was a tad tight even after a two-hour decant. One problem: this is $23 for a 500ml. That works out to about $35-36 per 750ml. Is it worth it? Maaaaaaaybe. We wavered back and forth whether we'd buy it again, finally landing on "it has a small place." Would be a great southern Italian white wine to use as an introduction to someone who doesn't think southern Italy makes serious white wine.

And The Pairing? We were surprisingly devoid of sausage and rapini pairing fits in the house. In our book, it's gotta stay Italian. Force-fitting a sauvignon blanc into this meal tastes like just that. This was the only Italian white in the house and shame on us. Gave it a pop and loved the 'Italian food with Italian wine' interplay. Loved the pecorino. Liked the sausage and orecchiette together. A bit leery of the rapini, but nothing went pear-shaped. Nice.

Cost: $5 for food, $23 for wine = $28

Tuesday: Goat Leg Greek Cassoulet with 2013 Cascina degli Ulivi Semplicemente Vino Belletti Rosso

Source: Mediterranean braised goat leg with fennel and white beans, via the Boston Globe, with the addition of fennel pollen rubbed on the meat.

Food Details: It wasn't Greek cassoulet, merely giving the elemental impression of that. Five-hour roast of goat leg. Roasted leg meat mixed with white beans, garlic, fennel, oil-cured black olives, tomatoes, lemon zest, oregano, white wine, salt and pepper. Ate like a drier cassoulet and it was light, complex, and delicious. All the ingredients stayed in its medium-bodied lane with each perking up just enough to offer a different angle and depth with each subsequent bite. We sort of loved its subtlety and complexity. Kale salad on the side. The entire meal tasted like crossroads city food where 87 cultures pass through on a regular basis offering their own little touch to a hodgepodge dish.

How Was The Wine? We almost aborted drinking it, because this was good food and deserved more after our first drink impression. Barbera-dolcetto blend served slightly chilled. Notes said it has a slight petillance but it's barely perceptible here, showing up more in a verve and jump on the tongue that comes from carbonic maceration than anything resembling spritz. Tart, lively, full. Basically a wine that the winemaker said, "Here. Here's some juice I just threw together. Try it. You'll like it." We typically gravitate towards such a thing. This one at first tasted a little too hastily thrown together, wandering into church wine territory. But as it opened up, full dark red berry fruit mixing with forest floor showed itself, becoming more distinct and interesting. At about $22, Cleto Chiarli makes three different versions of Lambrusco that occupies a similar, cheaper place and offers more length and pockets to enjoy. Intrigued by their cortese though.

And The Pairing? Food was better than the wine but we weren't displeased with the pairing.

Cost: $25 for food, $22 for wine = $47  

Monday: Best Fried Chicken Ever with Lillet Rosé

Food Details: (I'll hand it off to Mrs. Ney, as we'll be eating this often ["Not that often," says she]):

Chicken: Whole Foods air-chilled fryer. Cut into 8 pieces: 2 breasts, each cut in half; two thighs; two drumsticks. Save the wings, backbone, and other stray parts for the stock you'll surely need someday.  Combine Mr. Brock's and Mr. Keller's recipes as you see fit, as both are Experts. This is what happened to our chicken, and it worked out pretty well:
24 hours refrigerated in brine:  4 cups strong-brewed hibiscus tea, 1/4 cup kosher salt, 1/4 cup sugar, juice and shell of half a lemon, 2 tbsp garlic, thyme bundle.
Rinse off brine.  Pat dry.
One hour on the counter in 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk, 1 tbsp hottest hot sauce (in this case ghost pepper vinegar), 1 tbsp ground black pepper.
Don't rinse. Dump into flour coating (2 cups flour, 1/3 cup masa harina, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 1/2 tbsp kosher salt, 1/2 tbsp onion powder, 1/2 tbsp garlic powder, 1/2 tbsp paprika).  Use your hands to aggressively toss the chicken and bury it in the flour, let it sit 30 minutes or so.
Use lard--however much you have--or chicken fat in addition to your frying oil.
Follow Mr. Keller's fussypants directions for cooking thighs/drumsticks and breasts separately. They will come out Per.fect.ly.
Frisee, celery, pickled onions, pomegranate seeds, roasted garlic/mustard vinaigrette.
Buttermilk biscuits.

BEST. FRIED. CHICKEN. I'VE. EVER. HAD. I tried to think of better that I've had in my life and came up empty.

How Was The Beverage? From 'Everything's Coming Up Rosé' in Saveur. Link up that hibiscus tea in the chicken with hibiscus tea in your beverage, people. Lillet is delicious, as is Aperol. Find them, drink them, love them. This was perfect.

And The Pairing? Had that finger weaving quality that good pairings have. This is how to start a weekend!

Cost: $18 for food, $14 for beverage = $32 
          

Thursday, December 10, 2015

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #22

Links:

Jacques Pépin on a lifetime of food memories here.

Marilynne Robinson on fear here.

How The GOP came to be...whatever they are now here.

This week's movie roundup:
Highly recommend: The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu, Calvary, The Salt of the Earth.
Cautiously recommend: Clouds of Sils Maria, Meru, What We Do In The Shadows.
Can't recommend: While We're Young.
And Kingsman: The Secret Service was rip-roaring good fun. Not good...but fun.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $112 for food and $65 for wine = $177

Sunday: Charred Shallots, Yogurt, Arugula and Ancient Grains Bread with 2014 Terrasse du Moulinas Blanc Elégance Languedoc-Roussillon

Source: Charred shallots, via Melissa Clark. Learn it, know it, love it. Mrs. Clark is the best.

Food Details: Shallots, charred, dressed with preserved lemon vinaigrette. Big slather of labneh on the plate, shallots on top. Arugula salad with pomegranate seeds on the side. Whole Foods Ancient Grains bread to serve as a base for all of that. Rip, top, eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? (swear) yeah! Seriously, people. Eat this. It's food catered to what you like and you don't even know it.

How Was The Wine? $10. One-liter. Grenache blanc, vermentino, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. More grenache blanc and vermentino this time with this food. Not as round and complete as the last time we had it. But plenty of punch to bring a Mediterranean freshness and breeze to food that's the same.

And The Pairing? See above.

Cost: $12 for food, $10 for wine = $22  

Saturday: Potato, Kale, Picadillo & Pumpkin Hash with 2010 Caves du Fournalet Côtes du Rhône

Food Details: "Use Stuff Up!" hash for an extra $4 in "out in the world" goods consisting of a bag a kale and a few potatoes. Leftover goat picadillo from a couple of weeks ago. Leftover pumpkin filling from empanadas a couple of weeks ago. Potatoes boiled. All of it thrown together and crusted up in the cast-iron skillet.

Did We Like It? Mighty fine and filling hash.

How Was The Wine? Started with a 2011 Trader Joe's Syrah from Paso Robles. Terrible with this food. Opened this bottle, a wine that's been sitting around like a neglected puppy in the apartment. We had no plans to drink this. Try it maybe, as a lark to see how bad it's become, but not serve it with any sort of real food. We had a period where we drank this wine as a pleasant, softer, weekday Rhône red, and this bottle was leftover from that time, buried in the wine stock. But this stood up to time quite well. Soft, with friendly blackberry fruit and a pleasing, earthy finish. STILL drinkable. I don't know how.

And The Pairing? Good enough, we say. Liked the pumpkin.

Cost: $4 for food, $5 for wine = $9

Friday: Muffuletta Sandwiches

Food Details: Mortadella, genoa salami, provolone and olive relish on muffuletta bread. No wine.

Thursday: Big Greek Salad with 2015 Viñas Chilenas Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Lamb, arugula, baked pita chips, cascabel pepper, orange bell pepper, fresno pepper, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, onion, Barcelona olives, mint, oregano, parsley and good sheep feta.

Did We Like It? Big mound of salad on a plate for Mrs. Ney. I eschewed such fancy things like a plate and went with the biggest mixing bowl we have. Satisfying Greeky Goodness.

How Was The Wine? This is $4, fresh, fruity, round, bouncy and delicious. Cabernet-syrah blend done up rosé style.

And The Pairing? One of those times when a rosé made from bigger grapes serves to stand up to the gaggle of different flavors on the plate (in the bowl) instead of being a big, obvious bore. Liked it.

Cost: $13 for food, $4 for wine = $17

Wednesday: Choucroute Garnie and Rye Bread with 2012 Chateau d’ Orschwihr Bollenberg Pinot Gris Alsace

Source: David Leite's choucroute garnie recipe, using pork ribs and kielbasa instead of smoked pork and other wursts.

Food Details: Crock Pot meal! And another easy-as-heck crock pot recipe, along with Rick Bayless's tomatillo chicken, that we'll be using often going forward, particularly on a colder day than it was yesterday. Beautiful 55-degree day on December 9 in Chicago. Kielbasa, pork ribs, bacon, sauerkraut, potatoes, onions, juniper berries, clove, garlic, bay, salt and pepper; all thrown in the crock pot for four hours. Whole Foods "Old World" rye bread.

Did We Like It? Wonderfully mellow Alsatian flavors, perfectly seasoned, all mingling like the ingredients were made for each other, because they were.

How Was the Wine? Chilled peach and tangerine fruit, with all the nerve that comes from solid pinot gris.

And The Pairing? Alsatian food and Alsatian wine together... .... ... "Who doesn't want that?!"

Cost: $22 for food, $15 for wine = $37

Tuesday: Fenugreek Sea Bass, Braised Endive Salad and Farro-Barley with 2013 Jackys Preys Cuvée de Fié Gris Touraine

Food Details: Whole Foods sea bass topped with hilbeh (a fenugreek-dominant goop made with garlic, cilantro, lemon juice, serrano and olive oil). Braised endive and onion with fresno pepper, tangerine, and more hilbeh. Fava beans on top of endive salad. Farro and barley mixed with ginger and shallot for starch. Mint over everything.

Did We Like It? We wanted fish and we got damn delicious fish. Sea bass ain't cheap, but it's the best fish in our world. This one glistened, with a perfectly light fenugreek pop permeating every bite. Great endive offering texture yet give. Surprisingly good frozen fava from Harvesttime. They didn't look the best right out of the package. Farro and barley with a ginger pop that kept giving lovely brightness staying within the food lane offered by everything else. I keep saying "We Loved This" over the last few weeks, but...We Loved This.

How Was The Wine? Fié Gris from Touraine, a grape pretty much dead in the Loire but being resurrected by Mr. Jackys Preys. There's a wine we serve at my job that fills the needs of every white wine request. Like chardonnay or sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio? Or any other basic wine jones people ask for that's not riesling? I have one wine at work that lines up with all of that and they like it every time. This Touraine and this grape reminds me of that. It offers a bevy of flavors and it shows different with each sip. Sometimes floral and vegetal, other times limey and salty. Sometimes quiet and nicely herbal, and even other times a big basket of about eight different citrus fruits. Offered Asian fruit leaves throughout every sip with a perfect pop of acidity that never became a bully. Best at a lower temp. This was $11. Eleven dollars during the Whole Foods 30% off sale. We'll be buying as much as we can.

And The Pairing? 50 different flavors in the food and the wine pivoted and adjusted with every freaking combo it had to tackle. Hell yes.

Cost: $42 for food, $11 for wine = $53      

Monday: Ottolenghi Beef, Roasted Carrots, Latkes, and Fennel-Celery Salad with 2013 Domaine Cousin-Luder Pur Breton Val de Loire

Source: Yotam Ottolenghi recipe here, via Wine Spectator, omitting truffle oil

Food Details: Trader Joe's tri-tip slathered with mustard and marinated in rosemary, thyme, pink/black peppercorns and salt, seared and finished in oven. Fennel, celery, parsley and pecorino salad on the side to eat with the beef. Tri-colored carrots dressed with coriander seed, thyme, honey, garlic and olive oil, roasted. Trader Joe's latkes for starch.

Did We Like It? Double surprise. Another Ottolenghi shocker with a delicious wine we didn't think would necessarily hold up to the flavors on the plate. VERY savory beef that offered space to enjoy every ingredient involved, particularly the rosemary, with a pink peppercorn loveliness down deep. And delicious and new with said bite of beef accompanied with the fennel-celery-pecorino salad. Happy carrots. Easiest starch in the world and always adds to every meal with have these latkes with, particularly when you're already cooking three different elements. We Loved this.

How Was The Wine? Cabernet franc, biodynamic-natural, light and well-paced. Its strawberry and apple fruit serve as a backup here with bright earth and mushroom notes serving as the opening act. Bright-ish, lilty acid present from front to back that never overwhelms anything, getting darker as it went down, and letting every flavor and combinations of flavors to take its time to show itself. Quite good.

And The Pairing? We thought after the first sip that this wasn't going to stand up to this food. The fruit only took one step back, adjusted, and took on a new role and order, remaining its happy self, just in a new form. The food was surprisingly light, but with a firm and expressive background. The wine was the same. Matched up in ways that were constantly new.

Cost: $19 for food, $20 for wine = $39          

Thursday, December 3, 2015

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #21

Geology is boring to most people. But if you have one bone in your body that's intrigued by it, this piece on the misuse of geologic terms by wine writers and winemakers is entirely worth it. NOVA's 'Making North America,' a three-part series still available through their app, is a good companion to it.

This piece on the the rise of consumer comedy - or the shoddy, cheap, and ubiquitous use of reference bait in comedy, I say - is spot on.

That Monday Night Browns' game...I'm in my early 40's, too late to switch NFL teams. Plus, it's the NFL, an ugly, sordid organization barely worth my time. But that Monday Night game... In a way, everyone should have a favorite team like the Browns. It reminds you, every game, that fate exists and it can kick you right in the nuts, even with three seconds left.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $110 for food and $109 for wine = $219

Sunday: Spicy Korean Chicken "Stir Fry" with 2014 Lacheteau Vouvray

Food Details: Oven-charred korean-ish chicken sausage, brussels sprouts, red bell pepper, and onion tossed in a gochujang-based sauce over white rice.

Did We Like It? We did. Korean-funk in a good sense.

How Was The Wine? Adequate. This Trader Joe's Vouvray has that touch of chenin sweetness that counters Korean flavors nicely, typically served with (and really only served with) dak bulgogi, a weekday staple. But the 2014 hasn't been great to us. It's a more quiet and shy Vouvray than it has been in past vintages.

And The Pairing? Adequate is the word.

Cost: $10 for food, $7 for wine = $17

Saturday: Chicken Panzanella with 2013 Chateau Trinquevedel Tavel Rosé

Food Details: Chicken [marinated in leftover nicoise dressing and freezer salsa verde with almonds, spatchcocked and roasted on top of fennel in a 450-degree oven]; slow-roasted grape tomatoes and lemon slices, tangerine-marinated castelvetrano olives, arugula, scallions, parsley; dressed in a tarragon-tangerine vinaigrette over toasted, cubed Pugliese.

Did We Like It? At first, we thought this wasn't close to the best panzanella Mrs. Ney has made in this house, then, as we got into it, we were left saying, "This is Gooood!" Still not the best version, but with panzanella, that doesn't matter. It had all the panzanella goodness and flurry of flavors that takes a fairly easily-made plate of garbage salad to a place that hits all of the buttons.

How Was The Wine? This Tavel rosé is nothing special. Solid Tavel rosé on the cheap ($15), good guts, admirable structure, fine fruit and acid balance. It's pleasant. But...

And the Pairing? ...It was rather obstinate with the food. It wouldn't look the food in the eye when it talked to it. So we opened a can of 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast, our favorite rosé of the year (I don't count the Jolie-Laide as a rosé - that's something else) and it gave the Trinquevedel a lesson in how pairings work. A complete wine-food weave happened in such a pleasing, refreshing and complete way. I can't recommend this can of rosé more. It's what's good.

Cost: $20 for food, $22 for wine = $42

Friday: Tuna Salad, Arugula and Ciabbatini Buns with Two Picpouls

Food Details: Nice, basic tuna salad, dressed arugula salad, Persian cucumbers and mini-ciabatta buns. Rip, top, eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? For as basic as this meal was, this hit a pleasant food place.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's is running low on the 2014 Cuvée Azan Picpoul de Pinet, but a new one just popped one, the 2014 Ormarine Les Pins de Camille, also from Languedoc. This, at first, was sort of exciting. Another cheap picpoul in our lives would be a good thing. We like picpoul. But it's...not...good. Picpoul is about the snap and finish; that distinctive herb-and-stone-licking finish. The Ormarine's finish tastes like licking a rusty truck bed. Looks like a trip to various Trader Joe's is in the offing to clear out all the Azan.

And The Pairing? Pret-Ahhh good. No complaints with the Azan.

Cost: $10 for food, $8 for wine = $18  

Thursday: Lou Malnati's with 2014 La Granja 360 Tempranillo Cariñena

Food Details: Lou Malnati's frozen spinach pizzas. A meal you have when cooking is "RIGHT OUT!"

Did We Like It? Sure. It's the only Chicago pizza we enjoy.  

How Was The Wine? $4 Trader Joe's Spanish tempranillo.

And The Pairing? Nothing to report with the wine. I paired it with the Lions-Packers game. I'd like to thank the Lions for one-upping the Browns' Monday night performance in terms of last-second futility and pure buffoonery.

Cost: $26 for food, $4 for wine = $30

Wednesday: Hummus and Fattoush with 2013 Cave de Saumur Les Plantagenets Saumur

Food Details: Same prep as five weeks ago, Solomonov hummus and pita with fattoush and homemade za'atar. Very good hummus with luscious consistency. Solid pita, but still working on the puff. Clumsy fattoush, as it was too wet.

Did We Like It? Filling, solid, good enough.

How Was The Wine? Most of the delicious nuggets that come from Saumur for $15. Fresh, higher acid, a pleasing smoky lemon salt finish. Got better and more complete as it approached room temp.

How Was The Pairing? Saumur and hummus is a thing. Better Saumur is, anyway. This one was more cozy with the fattoush, but no complaints overall here.

Cost: $12 for food, $15 for wine = $27

Tuesday: Hanger Steak with Chimichurri and Homemade Empanadas with 2010 Villa Creek Mas de Maha Paso Robles

Food Details: Hanger steak marinaded in churrasco marinade, homemade empanadas filled with potato, pumpkin, onion and cheddar. Chimichurri sauce to top on everything.

Did We Like It? South American meat and potatoes! We loved it, frankly. Perfect-perfect-perfect dough recipe here. Probably because of the lard. Lard is good. Wonderful chimichurri with a perfect acid pop and gnarly chimichurri-ness. Hanger was a tad tough, but still tasty. Very good dinner.

How Was The Wine? We haven't had a Mas de Maha in ages, a tempranillo-forward blend backed up by grenache, mourvèdre and carignane. It's stupid-great with Cuban-ish food, but alas, it's allocated now. Only available to club members, if I recall correctly. Looser, more soft and bright in the past than this drinking, the 2010 shows darker fruit flavors and more structure, more figgy secondary flavors and broodiness overall. Enjoyed it.

And The Pairing? Not the superlative pairing loveliness that Mas de Maha and Cuban food has been in the past, but very good meat and potatoes with a bigger wine that never went to the sappy fruit bomb world. Nice.

Cost: $20 for food, $50 for wine = $70  

Monday: Ottolenghi Chicken Thighs, Clementines,White Rice and Pistachios with 2013 Binigrau Vins I Vinyes Nounat Mallorca

Food Details: Chicken thighs (recipe) marinated and roasted in ouzo, orange and lemon juices, mustard, fennel, clementines, thyme, fennel seed and salt (omitting sugar). Chicken on plate, fennel on the side as veg, white rice with pistachios for starch. It's smothered chicken, Ottolenghi-style!

Did We Like It? We thought it quite nice before Mrs. Ney brought out the clementine and cooking goop to the table. After adding the clementine peel and roast goop to any bite, this turned into Food We Like. Crazy people on the interwebs that adapted this recipe say to omit this bitter peel and goop business (one calling it inedible) when serving. That's nonsense. It turned this meal from "that's nice" to "that's delicious!" Perfect bitter component to an already mighty fine chicken thigh meal. Wonderful texture on the fennel. Great cook on them. Oddly delicious white rice, though the pistachios didn't add much. We liked this and will be having it again, particularly after tasting the bitter peel goop.

How Was The Wine? Parker said this Mallorcan white wine, a chardonnay-prensal blend, is the greatest wine he'd ever tasted from Mallorca, giving it a 95. We wouldn't go that high, but it is reminiscent of a chardonnay-viognier blend from the southern Rhône with a touch more minerality (reminded me a bit of Kermit Lynch's Vaucluse Blanc from a few years ago). Interesting, unusual, delicate, smooth. More perky at times. Apple backed by tiny but prevalent tropical fruit notes. Seamless acid. Flavors that introduce themselves out of the typical order in very pleasing ways. We debated whether we'd buy this again at $25. Cautious yes, mainly because it would fit into a relatively small food box for us. We like more acid in our food and this wine COULD be more finicky with that.

And The Pairing? That said, this was pleasant. Loved the fennel. Liked the chicken. Big thumbs-up with the rice. Happy.

Cost: $12 for food, $25 for wine = $27

Friday, November 27, 2015

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #20

This piece in the New Yorker on a former favorite daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church is worth every second.

The Apu Trilogy was just released on Criterion. But this Sunday, Turner Classic Movies will be showing all three starting at 7pm CT. Set that DVR, people.

'Spotlight' is a fine film. Well-paced, nuanced, detailed, and understated performances from people that typically don't choose to go that direction. But here's hoping we don't get all crazy and proclaim it the best film of the decade around awards season.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $104 for food and $100 for wine = $204

Total food and wine cost for the month: $382 for food and $465 for wine = $1404

Sunday: Meatballs, Tomato Sauce, Basil and Pugliese with 2012 Barreri & Rovati Barbera d’Asti Superiore

Food Details: Sunday Dinner. Meatballs cooked in "red sauce." Put on a plate, cheap mozzarella sprinkled on top, the entire thing broiled to get the cheese all melty, toasty and gooey. Copious amount of basil on top of that. Sliced Pugliese bread. So...a slice of bread, meatball-cheese-sauce on top of bread, basil on top of that. Eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? Yep. Tasted like chicken parm and Chicago deep dish had a baby, with fresh basil and good bread making it taste much better than what that mashup would suggest.  

How Was The Wine? Medium-bodied, trending bolder. Juicy and structured. Trader Joe's Italian barbera offering, differentiating itself from their Mendocino barbera with its Old World, higher quality, earthy background.

And The Pairing? Big Freakin' Winner. This wine and the basil were bestest friends. Tasted like going to an Old School American-Italian restaurant, one you're not too thrilled about visiting, and finding why the old couple at the table next to you keep telling everyone they've been eating there for 35 years.

Cost: $10 for food, $10 for wine = $20  

Saturday: Vegetable Tart and Herb Salad with 2014 Trader Joe's Reserve Pinot Gris Yountville Napa

Food Details: Tart made with red pepper, onion, carrots, celery and herbs. Herb salad on the side.

Did We Like It? It's French bistro food. Always satisfies on such a happy, basic, elemental level. You eat it and say, "I'm completely satisfied and need nothing more here."

How Was The Wine? Missed. We liked it well enough a few weeks ago with porchetta and asparagus flatbread. Didn't work here in the least.

And The Pairing? See above. Watery, flat, boring, and tired.

Cost: $4 for food, $8 for wine = $12

Friday: Goat Picadillo with 2014 La Granja 360 Tempranillo Cariñena

Food Details: Picadillo (from Sam Sifton in NYT Cooking) using one pound of goat meat and half-pound of ground pork. Olives, onions, garlic, leftover tomatoes and juice from pizzas, cinnamon,  cumin, nutmeg, bay, red wine vinegar. A Cuban stew over white rice mixed with leftover wild rice from Thanksgiving.

Did We Like It? It's easy stew with dirty, deep and delicious Cuban flavors.

How Was The Wine? $4 tempranillo that tastes like a bit more than $4.

And The Pairing? Basic wine and food business. No complaints from Mrs. Ney. I skipped wine. Need a break.

Cost: $12 for food, $4 for wine = $16

Thursday: Ottolenghi Quail, Farro-Wild Rice and Snap Peas with NV Moutard Brut Champagne

Food Details: Thanksgiving food! Quail from D'Artagnan in New Jersey, made in the typically weird deliciousness manner of Mr. Ottolenghi. Miso paste burnt in the oven, then blended with sugar, mirin and sherry vinegar. Salsa of pickled walnuts, pomegranate seeds, sherry vinegar and parsley. Quails sautéed, then glazed with the burnt miso butterscotch and placed under the broiler until it bubbled. Farro and wild rice base on the plate, quails on top, pickled walnut-pomegranate seed salsa on top of quails, snap peas with mint on the side.

Did We Like It? Damn fine Thanksgiving meal. Damn. Fine. No family this year for us, which meant no six-hour, round-trip car ride and everything that family holiday entails. Just loafing around, sitting on the couch and then eating this meal. The grizzly, aggressive, dark miso glaze was taken down a notch beautifully by the delicate meatiness in the quail, without the quail flavor being lost in the least. The pickled walnuts brought a funk that you'd think pickled walnuts would bring, while the pomegranate seeds kept them from going too pear-shaped here. Oddly delicious wild rice. Funny what an long absence of a food-type thing will do to your taste buds. Snap peas with mint are snap peas with mint. They = bright and happy. This was a meal worthy of its holiday-ness, all with new flavors galore. Very happy.

How Was The Wine? For $35, this was perfectly fine Champagne, even playing above the Champagne price tier. All pinot noir and funky as heck underneath its standard Champagne-ness on entry. Medium bubbles, medium acid, medium fruit expression, but all adding up to something more for $35. Nice stuff.

And The Pairing? Mrs. Ney worried about this one. What were the burnt miso and pickled walnuts going to do to the wine? This ended up ab-sol-ute-ly scrummy for the most part. A sturdy backbone in the wine allowed it to play well, only flattening out once or twice, but mostly staying buoyant and utterly interesting here. A big Thanksgiving Miracle!

Cost: $37 for food, $35 for wine = $72  

Wednesday: Homemade Sheet-Pan Pizzas with 2014 Broc Cellars Love Rosé California

Food Details: Same pizza prep as two weeks ago, using pizza dough recipe from Lucky Peach, this time substituting Caputo's blue bag pasta flour instead of farina 00 because we had that on hand. Would not do it again. 48-hour proof, but the gluten and its elasticity was a bit moody. Sausage, fresh oregano, tomato sauce (from Cook's Illustrated) and Boar's Head Mozzarella (which isn't the best, but served and we had it on hand) for one pie. White pizza of grape tomatoes, mozzarella and arugula for the other.

Did We Like It? Good. Nice to have two big sheet-pan pizzas with flavors in front of us for a leisurely two-hour meal. Didn't match the extreme goodness of the potato-rosemary pizzas from two weeks ago, though. That crust was boss.

How Was The Wine? A grenanche gris-zinfandel-barbera blend, done up rosé style from Broc. $17. Had that gloss and buff to the fruit we love from Broc Cellars, with underlying earthy flavors, all coming at you in a low-alcohol format. A drier veneer, but a trampy sweetness deeper down that wanted to be liked, and was in spades. Big fans.

And The Pairing? Pizzas and a friendly wine with zinfandel and barbera in it. What's not to like?

Cost: $10 for food, $17 for wine = $27    

Tuesday: Fried Haloumi, Beet Salad and Green Beans with 2013 Garzon Albariño Uruguay

Food Details: Fried haloumi: sliced, fried in mini-cast iron at a lower temp than usual, resulting in fabulous haloumi, probably the best we've had. Herbs put on late in the frying helped as well. Palmina winery yellow beet salad (recipe) using marcona almonds instead of walnuts this time, just for funnsies. Tangerine-marinated cerignola olives (from The New Spanish Table cookbook). Blanched green beans with onions and red bell peppers, made into a salad and tossed with the olive marinade. Baguette to dip, top and dunk in the cheese oil.

Did We Like It? A big pile of vegetable and cheese happiness. Great haloumi. Wouldn't do the marcona again, as it resulted in a sweetness with nothing to counter that, but beets are always welcome. Good to have green beans. Felt like it had been a long time. Delicious meal overall.

How Was The Wine? Our second Uruguayan albariño, after the Bouza. Won't be our last either. These two rank right up there with Rías Baixas albariños in terms of quality, and offer a distinctive well-water and sunshine edge. Six months stainless steel on its lees for this one and you can taste it. A bright-light creaminess throughout, with notes of peach and tangerine. Bumpy-bouncy acid. We really enjoyed it. For $16, a great deal in the GOOD albariño world.

And The Pairing? The wine loved the green beans. A lot! And the beets and green beans together. This was a good example of a veggie meal with a moderately zippy and distinct wine offering something new to a meal we love and have had a dozen times.

Cost: $18 for food, $16 for wine = $34

Monday: Trader Joe's French Pizzas with Trader Joe's Brut Rosé Sonoma County 

Food Details: Take these French pizzas from TJ's and gussy them up with asparagus, walnuts and pecorino. Done.

Did We Like It? Ham, gruyere, caramelized onions, asparagus, walnut, pecorino. Flavors. On the cheap. Virtually no work. A lunch trip to Garcia's, where I inexplicably ordered fish tacos...from Garcia's, resulted in easily a top-five worst meal ever for me. I was comical how overcooked and under-seasoned they were. Rough work week for Mrs. Ney, so easy-peasy pizzas were just the ticket.

How Was The Wine? New Trader Joe's product, a brut rosé from Sonoma County made from pinot noir and pinot meunier, done up in the Champagne method. Quite delicious for $10. Fruit plays in the background here, with its dryness and a touch of funk dominating in a nice way. Guzzle-worthy stuff for $10.

And The Pairing? Fine enough. This wine will be popping up a lot over the next month or so.

Cost: $13 for food, $10 for wine = $23  

Thursday, November 19, 2015

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #19

Links:

Wonderful Karl Ove Knausgaard piece (speech) in the New Yorker this week, with a bonus video of the superlatively great Jhumpa Lahiri at the bottom.

This piece on Rhonda Rousey couldn't be more spot-on.

The Davis Theatre in Lincoln Square is a dump and has been for decades. That's about to change.

And Jon Bonné checks back in on Abe Schoener of Scholium Project for the Chronicle.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $110 for food and $125 for wine = $235

Sunday: Salmon, Bagels and Cream Cheese with 2014 Berger Grüner Veltliner Kremstal

Food Details: Trader Joe's salmon, bagels, herbed-up cream cheese, kumatoes, arugula. Rip, top, eat.

Did We Like It? More easy food that brings an enormous satisfaction that belies its easiness.

How Was The Wine? All of Berger's freshness here on full display. Stony, peppy, lively, proper hits and hints of greens-citrusy fruit. A bit of an ammonia note kicked up for me, but that didn't deter me from finishing it off.

And The Pairing? The ammonia note, that was more like a farmhouse well next to the pig sty note, actually helped here. Weaved into the salmon, taking it to a down and dirty place that resembled being on said farm...in a good way.

Cost: $19 for food, $15 for wine = $34 

Saturday: Pick-n-Choose Meat and Cheese with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

Food Details: Ham, salami and red leicester cheese with peppers on ciabattini with sundried-tomato mayonnaise and herb salad

Did We Like It? Always and forever. It's pick and choose your bite, in whatever order you want, with whatever toppings that trips your fancy.

How Was The Wine? More Alloy Grenache Rosé in the can, our fave rosé this year. Dirt-covered, juicy grenache showed up in bunches. Perky, substantial, bright and happy can o' rosé.

And The Pairing? Had everything anybody would ever want. It's like standing at the food spread on a table at some sort of function you don't want to be at, and enjoying everything in front of you, while avoiding all the people you don't want to talk to. It's a double-whammy of happiness, with guzzle-able rosé to accompany all of that.

Cost: $14 for food, $14 for wine = $28

Friday: Pizzas and Arugula with 2015 Viñas Chileans Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Digiorno tomato/cheese and pepperoni pizzas, topped with arugula.

Did We Like It? Rough work week for Mrs. Ney. Easy food is smart food. Buy two, get one free offer made this an easy choice.

How Was The Wine? Best thing about the meal. This is $4, fresh, fruity, round, bouncy and delicious. Cabernet-syrah blend done up rosé style. Nice find here.

And The Pairing? Good wine, mediocre pizzas. That's what it was.

Cost: $12 for food, $4 for wine = $16

Thursday: Rotisserie Chicken, Charred Onions, Yogurt and Ancient Grains Bread with 2014 Terrasse du Moulinas Blanc Elegance Languedoc-Roussillon

Food Details: Whole Foods prepared rotisserie chicken, charred onions done up Melissa Clark-style, over labneh-yogurt with parsley and pomegranate seeds, and Whole Foods Ancient Grains bread. Rip, top, eat.

Did We Like It? We're going to eat this charred onions and yogurt business until we're sick of it, which I'm betting won't be anytime soon. It goes beautifully with the meat of your choice. Chicken here, lamb and goat in the past. Prepare your food, slice your bread, put it in front of you on the coffee table, turn on your mindless entertainment for the evening, sit back, relax, and enjoy the goodness for an hour or two.

How Was The Wine? Great find, also at Whole Foods. A one-liter bottle of a Langeudoc white blend (grenache blanc, vermentino, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc). It's a four-act play, with the grenache blanc and chardonnay offering softness, freshness and roundness in different forms, while the vermentino (which shows up big here) and the sauvignon blanc offers perkiness, cut and bite, also in different forms. Keeps vacillating back and forth between the four and the result is impressive for the price. It's $10, one liter, and one of the better wine bargains found this year. Should be a very versatile white blend that's cheap and plentiful. What else does one need?

And The Pairing? Exactly what anyone would want here. Not transcendent, just a cheerful pairing offering slice-and-dice acid when needed and softness, body and depth when wanted.  Delicious.

Cost: $16 for food, $10 for wine = $26

Wednesday: Sean Brock Patty Melts and Punched Potatoes with NV Marietta Christo #2 Sonoma-Mendocino Counties Rhone Blend

Source: Sean Brock burger patties (from Heritage, page 121), Sam Sifton faux pomme frites, Serious Eats sun-dried tomato-garlic mayo

Food Details: Burgers griddled, on seeded light rye bread (I can't hear "rye bread" without thinking of this now), with pepper jack cheese and shaved raw onion. Punched potatoes, drizzled with rabbit oil, baked in the oven. Quick dipping sauce of sun-dried tomato and garlic for both the potatoes and patty melt.

Did We Like It? Yes, sir. And the patty melt got oodles better as it came up to room temperature. Classic patty melt flavors (a "fancy food" when I was 19) with all the patty melt nostalgic goodness (maybe should have gone with American cheese). Damn fine, crunchy, creamy, rabbit-oiled potatoes. Delicious as heck dipping sauce. Everything we wanted from patty melts and potatoes-in-some-form was here.

How Was The Wine? Syrah, grenache, petite sirah and viognier. This is our first Lot #2 after having Lot #1 a half-dozen or so times. Lot #1 was pure joy in the bottle; loose, expressive, a wine that takes its time to give you everything it has. Lot #2 felt quiet here, giving some of the smoke-blackberry-lavender business that we love from this wine, and taking its time to give it all in one sip. This might need a bit of time, as it opened up more as the meal progressed, but it missed a completeness the Lot #1 had (and last had with a very similar meal).

And The Pairing? A ton of basic happiness here, but it somewhat lacked that second and third level that we've found in the Lot #1; that viognier-like "voooooop!" at the end; that point where you can't stop taking a bite and reaching for the glass because it's so gosh-darn good. After an hour open, we did find whispers of the Christo magic, so... We'll see.

Cost: $10 for food, $16 for wine = $26

Tuesday: Vietnamese Cornish Game Hens, Scallion Pancakes and Spicy Fish Sauce with 2013 Darting Muskateller Kabinett Trocken 

Source: From Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World, Vietnamese Cornish Game Hens, page 334. Lucky Peach Spicy Fish Sauce. Scallion pancakes from Serious Eats.

Food Details: Aldi Cornish Game Hens ($3.59 each!), marinated in garlic, shallot, fish sauce, ginger and honey; roasted in a 500-degree oven on a preheated griddle for 22 minutes, drizzled with sesame oil after roasting. Spicy fish sauce of Red Boat fish sauce, garlic, chiles, white wine vinegar and lime zest (added) for dipping, dunking and drizzling on everything. Scallion pancakes, charred up in the cast-iron. Salad of cucumber, radish, scallions, arugula, basil, mint, cilantro and pomegranate seeds.

Did We Like It? Mrs. Ney, after seeing the lacquered-burnished-blackened birds, said, "Well, at least the salad will be good." But the full-blown glossy char on these lil birds was absolutely essential. It created a quick crust that seemingly protected the bird from drying out, leaving perfectly juicy bird meat throughout (the breast meat was freakin' perfect). Perfect inside meat with fish sauce-sesame oil crusty skin, dripped in a Lucky Peach fish sauce-sauce that's bright, perky and crackling delicious. Best scallion pancakes yet (or Chinese fry bread - we like the fry breads). A salad where the basil's bitterness took over, unfortunately. But this meal was an enormous shock, though it shouldn't have been, really. That Bittman book has hundreds of recipes and we have all our lives to cook through it. It's $5 right now on Amazon! The beef cheeks in chickpea purée was one of the better meals we've ever had.

How Was The Wine? Speaking of best meals ever, we last had this muskateller with probably the best meal of the year. Certainly the best pairing. Less so here, as it lost its definition of classiness and pure sunshine. This time it delved more into its fruit and talc, becoming more of a blue collar, workhorse wine attempting to counter the flurry of Asian flavors on the plate and mostly succeeding.

How Was The Pairing? We were rather content with the muskateller. Loved the talc that remained steadfast in its presence. But a cheap Trader Joe's Mosel riesling was cracked to compare and it did things with its fruit and seamless transition to that second, gaseous, riesling-and-minerals level that the muskateller didn't. It wasn't fancy riesling in the least, though it found a place with this food quite nicely. But if a wine has talc, it comes from a place we like. That's the truth.

Cost: $17 for food, $18 for wine = $35  

Monday: Uzbeki Lamb Plov with 2008 Avanthia Mencia Valdeorras

First, a Monday lunch of Greek sandwiches and olive oil chips with 2014 João Portugal Ramos Lima Loureiro Vinho Verde kicked off a very productive weekend of house cleaning and winter-is-coming organizing. Feta-pepper spread (from week #17) with cucumbers, tomatoes, arugula, onions and black olives from Barcelona, from a sister of a work friend, marinated in herbs from said garden. Leftover Pugliese bread, toasted. Trader Joe's olive oil chips. Our favorite, cheap, $8 loureiro. THAT was a Happy Lunch. A new favorite dinner, which is basically Uzbeki paella in a way, rounded out a great food day.

Source: Recipe here, via Cucee Sprouts

Food Details: Last eaten in July, and we loved it then. This version was better, simply because the lamb bones were cooked in the braise. A savory, boney, gelatinous, succulent juice-sweat resulted, and it was be-aut-i-ful. Farm City lamb shoulder, chickpeas, carrots, barberries (doubled the barberries, omitted the raisins in the recipe), garlic, cumin, tumeric, basmati rice. A one-pot meal that's considered the national dish of Uzbekistan. Tomato-onion-mint salad on the side.

Did We Like It? (Swear word) yeah! That marrow sweat-juice business...it was a sumthin-sumthin. This is homey, country-style lamb stew taken to another, complete place. It's the bestest.

How Was The Wine? We opened this wine a week ago, didn't find it interesting in the least, put a Preserva disk in it, and left it on the counter. With its $40 price tag, dumping it, or even drinking it with a more simple, weekday meal seemed sad. So we gave it a go here and were rewarded. This settled into a medium-bodied beauty with smoky cherries/raspberries and spicy tobacco, bright minerals and perfect jolt of acid with this food. Maybe we opened this too soon. Maybe it needed a healthy decant. While we found the smallest bit of a watery thread from it being opened for a week, this was a complete pairing surprise.

And The Pairing? There's some elemental crossover between plov and paella, mostly in presentation and strut. Like the first time we had this food, with the Abacela Tempranillo, there was some nice pan-Spanish pairing perkiness, with the mencia loving the lamb and lamb sweat, leading to a "good enough!" experience. And it loved the tomatoes. Just loved them. So...good stuff, we say.

Cost (for lunch and dinner): $22 for food, $48 for wine = $70