Salads Days With Prager Grüner Veltliner And Andrea Calek Blonde

After our initial euphoria over a Mariano's opening up mere blocks from our house, reality has set in over just how much we'll be shopping there.

This week's "Explosion of Salads" serves as a good example.

Salad #1: Sea bass with garbanzo beans, mustard greens, barley, farro, mint and celery leaves, served with 2009 Prager Grüner Veltliner Smaragd Wachstum Bodenstein ($40 - Vin Chicago)

Fish over salad that tasted chefy, like someone experimented with these combinations 15 times until they got the balance right in every bite. Outside of the goat, this was probably the best meal this year.

Based on this recipe, swapping out fava beans for utterly cheap, fresh garbanzos from Harvesttime, leaving out the fennel flowers, including some pecorino in the barley/farro mixture, adding mint and roasted garlic to the vinaigrette, and putting celery leaves on top of the sea bass.

With a nod to a spring that won't f'in come to Chicago, this meal, with the greeny greenness and an underlying earthiness from the barley/farro business, was a party in our mouths and everyone was invited. It was WOW! food. As good as sea bass a la Veracruzana, a house favorite. Both meals use the fattiness from the sea bass perfectly by staying in the realm of light and clean without ever seeming too light and clean. A gravity and substantialness exists with every bite offering something different and deep. We became sated and satisfied by the flurry of flavors and sheer abundance of everything. Great Meal. Tasted like Zuni.

#296 - Sea Bass a la Veracruzana & Saffron Rice With '96 Heredia Gravonia

Back in 2010, right around this time of the year, we drank up one of our Quinta do Vallado wines in anticipation of a stay at their winery in Portugal.

And on that trip, we had wistful and unrealistic yearnings to hop over to Rioja from the Douro and visit another winery that holds a massive place in our wine hearts, López de Heredia.

"It's only six hours away. We're already here, have a car. Can we pass it up?"

Yeah, we found out we could pass it up. That's a long time in a car on a trip that already had six hours booked in said vehicle.

So we're going back to the Iberian Peninsula next month, this time to Rioja, to visit the place we yearned to visit two years ago. Time to drink up a few Heredias in the meantime.

Gotta prep.

After experiencing Veracruz-style sea bass with the 2001 LdH Gravonia in May and all its pairing glory (probably the best pairing we've had this year), seeing where the 1996 is with nearly the same food platform felt right and proper.

It didn't reach the May pairing heights but it was still quality Heredia food and wine stuff.

#263 - Sea Bass a la Veracruzana & Duck Fat-Saffron Potatoes With '01 Heredia Blanco

Classy.

That was the word of the night.  Along with crazy-fancy-classy.

We've been in a bit of a LdH slump of late, finding many of the more recent vintages sort of pedestrian.  Good enough with strong echoes of what we want/love from drinking Heredia but many have just missed.  I think we were spoiled by a batch of '78 Bosconias and a bunch of '96 Gravonias a few years ago.  Heredia never lost that enormous place in our heart, we just haven't gravitate towards the stuff we had on hand.

And then the 2001 comes along. And then we have this food with it.  And then we break out of our Heredia slump with a 500-foot bomb to right that warrants a bat flip and happy trot that can only say, "Slump...GONE!"

It was the kind of home run that makes the bat feel weightless, your stride feel effortless, your muscle memory find its rhythm again, like it never left.  It's the kind of home run that reminds you how pure, singular and transcendent it all can be.

This was the kind of food, wine and food and wine pairing that doesn't need to scream its virtues because it knows, with utter confidence and vision, that what it offers is so damn good.

Food:  Sea Bass a la Veracruzana with duck fat-saffron potatoes and mâche salad

#95 - Sea Bass On White Bean & Garlic Purée With '08 Orballo

We should eat more fish.

So we did.

And I told you that the Orballo Albariño is a great wine to have around and pop anytime.

We did and we did.

Food: Greek-style sea bass and marinated tomatoes with a white bean and baby garlic purée, watercress and parsley with bread and butter

Whole Foods Chilean sea bass stuffed with garlic, lemon, thyme sprigs, salt and pepper and pan-seared to a golden brown. Great fish flavor, better than expected. Not cheap ($22) but it has an oiliness and fleshy quality that stands up to bigger flavors, better than tilapia or something of that ilk. We should eat more fish.

Marinated tomatoes done in olive oil, vinegar, chili, oregano, minced onion and salt and pepper. The tomatoes informed the wine pairing. With a white fish flavored a little more aggressively and tomatoes, we went back and forth, settling on something with a bigger acidity and more rough and tumble. We're glad we did but the fish and tomato combo turned out to be a bit more versatile than we originally thought. Could have gone in a bunch of directions and been fine (except maybe a sweet riesling).

A very recent Mark Bittman recipe from the New York Times.

Mrs. Ney bought some baby garlic scapes. Originally, she was going with a sort of potato salad but switched up to a white bean and baby garlic purée (another very recent New York Times recipe) to serve under the fish. Charred garlic scapes, cannellini beans, olive oil, lemon juice, coarse sea salt and pepper thrown in the food processor. Turned out to be the thing that made the meal. A bite of fish, purée and tomato was flat-out delicious. We should eat more fish.

A watercress and parsley salad that tasted like geraniums, weeds and menthol Red Man had a baby. In a good way. Maybe too much on the plate but good stuff.

It was a meal that will make us eat more fish. Even this exact recipe.

Wine: 2008 Orballo Albariño Rías Baixas ($18 - WDC)

Showed the same as three months ago.

Nice minerals with tons of lemon rind and big, big acidity. Not a simple wine. Some depth here with maybe a pear core (and a little canned pineapple juice) hiding underneath with something like a creamy almond. Not fine minerals here either. More like Mrs. Ney's description of the roots sitting on a big, sulfurous rock. It's exactly what we like about albariño. Big, bold and a little raw with a few surprises along the way.

Estate-bottled, which is relatively rare for Rías Baixas, worth the few extra dollars and our favorite albariño right now.

Pairing: 90 Surprisingly, it was the garlic and not the tomatoes that brought the pairing goodness

With a fish-purée-tomato bite, the wine showed beautifully, mostly by remaining to be itself and offering a lift and cleansing of the food in the mouth and down the throat.

But with a bigger bite of the garlic purée, the top coat of lemon rind was stripped away, revealing more on that pear and canned pineapple juice core with tons of minerals while maintaining its acidity. I like the overt lemon quality in this one, but with it gone, the Orballo became even more intriguing, offering some previously unseen finesse.

We could have had a rosé of sangiovese, which might have been interesting. We thought about a more oily wine like a Jurançon which, upon reflection, might have been iffy.

In the end, bringing a ton of acidity was essential. But that's about it. This meal seemed to be more versatile than we originally thought.

But when we eat more fish, which we should, it's going to be tough to not drink Orballo with it.

It's that good.

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          

#285 - Fish In Shrimp Sauce & Maduros With '01 LdH Gravonia Blanco

Or filhote com molho de camaroēs e bananas, if you want to practice your Brazilian Portuguese.

That meal, the third in today's roundup, came off so utterly surprising that we vowed to eat fish once a week from this point out. With a recipe like this and eating it with a wine like the 2001 López de Heredia white, that might be something that lasts longer than the mere proclamation.

Hot Chicago days brought about food from hot climes this weekend.

Monday saw skirt steak in green sriracha sauce (Food & Wine - Susan Feniger), sweet potato fries, mayo for dipping and arugula salad with 2008 Orin Swift Saldo ($26 WDC).

It's a meal that naturally follows the utterance, "I want something California blendy, maybe something Zinfandel-ish." Grab some cheap cut of beef, maybe marinate it, maybe not, get a good char on it, throw on some interesting sauce you found on the interwebs or in a magazine like green sriracha sauce, toss a bag of sweet potato fries in the oven, whip up a fancy mayo for dipping (like pan juice mayo), finish with an arugula salad and drink something New World, big and blendish. Orin Swift, Villa Creek, Owen Roe (the Ex Umbris started this business).

Very little kitchen pain, flavors galore, tastes like a fancy BBQ and everything comes in under $50. This meal is our "let's just order a pizza and drink something we have in the house." It's essentially the same price, same amount of time, only a bit more work and delicious as all get-out. Green sriracha is something delicious. Doesn't resemble sriracha in the traditional sense. It's more of a broad definition akin to an Asian chimichurri or pesto, led by basil, coconut and lemongrass and worth a look. The Saldo more stayed its delightful self than offering a whole lot in the way of real, true-blue enhancement but that's all what really wanted. No clashing and tons of juicy dark goodness. Pairing Score: 88

An Utterly Haphazard, Completely Unreliable, Probably Not Complete List of Our Favorite Food and Wine Of 2013

Our Best of 2013 list, chronicled by month.

Criteria for this list: Good food, good wine, buggy-bear pairing love, something unique, something we very specifically loved, just whatever struck our fancy and deserved a list-type spot.

In short, some big impressions of the year past.

So...good, very good and great are listed, with the meh, huh?, and terrible not listed. Because who has the time for the bad in life? Just move on.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #18

For the winter...we have all the meats.

Patrick Modiano's Occupation Trilogy, so far, captures all the moral ambiguity and farce that came with the manipulation of moral ambiguity under the Vichy regime during WWII. Bad, weak-willed people given their chance to do bad things. It's been a treat. An odd treat, but a treat nonetheless.

This week, we've had great boar, delicious Veracruz scallops, and we found our house pizza dough. So...success.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $88 for food and $114 for wine = $202

Sunday: Mozzarella, Tomatoes, Basil and Pugliese Bread with VinTJ's Arneis Russian River Valley

Food Details: Exactly the above. Trader Joe's marinated mozzarella (has all the oil and herbs in one container), campari tomatoes, copious amounts of basil and Pugliese bread. Slice, top with all of it, eat.

Did We Like It? Yeah. Easy as all get-out, filling, and satisfying.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's arneis from Russian River. We like the Italian varieties grown in California. We find that infinitely interesting. Here's a moody one. A bit watery in terms of distinctive arneis flavors, with apples and pears and anise and a leafy quality, but it was all there...except with the mozzarella.

And The Pairing? Fine stuff with a tomato-bread-herbs-oil bite, approaching that "just drink Italian wine with Italian food and be done with it, because it's good" quality. But with the mozzarella, it tasted like a dead ferret got into the tank.

Cost: $8 for food, $8 for wine = $16

Saturday: Fenugreek Blackeyed Pea Curry, Naan and Celery Raita with 2014 Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc Casablanca Valley

Source: From 660 Curries, page 321, "Fenugreek-Perfumed Black-Eyed Peas;" Celery raita here, via Bawarchi.com

Food Details: Black-eyed peas, onion, garlic, ginger (added), peppers, tomatoes, dried fenugreek leaves, turmeric. Make the day before. It's better. Celery raita and naan, to dip, dunk and cool.

Did We Like It? Tough call on whether the curry or the celery raita was better. When you have celery in the house, this raita is what you do with it. It's delicious. The curry (our new house curry) was blazingly hot the day before, but mellowed out so well. Perfect level of heat, happy cooling from the raita, tasty Trader Joe's naan, a product that I could make a case for being a top-five, all-time TJ's product (along with seafood sausages, dark chocolate gelato, Picpoul, Muscadet...). It's incredibly versatile, has great chew, acceptable depth, and not wildly expensive.

How Was The Wine? Chilean sauvignon blanc on the cheap. Tangerine and grapefruit and herbs with nice, punchy acidity. We've had a couple of vintages of this one. The 2014 might be the best. Everything was in balance, with every layer giving way to the next in graceful fashion, allowing it to play above its price tag.

And The Pairing? Happy. The acid did its cut-and-slash with the food, then the wine showed its herbal-fruity side and juicy finish. My Saturday work night was filled with nutters. Coming home to this...? Wiped away.

Cost: $9 for food, $10 for wine = $19

Friday: Mexican Red Rice with 2014 VinTJ's Vermentino Russian River Valley

Source: Rick Bayless recipe here

Food Details: Bayless' Mexican red rice with jalapeño chicken sausages, leftover kale and leftover lentils. Sour cream and cilantro on top.

Did We Like It? It's a staple. An easy staple. A happy staple. This one with leftover rabbit oil-dripped kale and tea-smoked lentils from the week. Brought texture and depth to a meal that can sometimes get a little mushy in terms of texture.

How Was The Wine? Two new labels arrived at Trader Joe's: this vermentino and an arneis, both from Russian River Valley. The vermentino, with this meal, brought some lime notes with a wee touch of minerality and herbs. Simple vermentino, nothing special, but for $8, a decent little wine when you want/need a modicum of citrusy snap to perk up and weave into the food.

And The Pairing? I pretty much hated this wine by itself. Had that garbage dump waft to it. But with this food, a fine level of enjoyment merged; ironing its pants, straightening out the wine's ties and fluffing its coat. Misses on the second and third level of goodness, but it's $8. Not too shabby.

Cost: $7 for food, $8 for wine = $15

Thursday: Pick-n-Choose Chicken, Tomatoes and Herb Salad with NV NV Grifone Bianco Sicily

Food Details: Mariano's glazed rotisserie chicken, campari tomatoes, herb salad and ciabattini buns. Rip your bun, top it with all the rest, eat.

Did We Like It? Don't wanna cook? Buy all this stuff, cut that chicken in half, slice, salt and pepper your tomatoes, dress your salad, put it all on a plate and eat food that pushes the all the food buttons. Pro tip from people that do this regularly: Put the half-chicken under the broiler - it crisps up the skin and adds a delicious, crispy dimension.

How Was The Wine? Drank the rest of the Charles Smith Pinot Grigio, which didn't really add much here. The Grifone Bianco, a riesling-moscato blend, is the default wine for this meal. Meh on its own, with this food, it's long and complete. A touch less so here, but still nice. It likes kumatoes, but we didn't have any in the house.

And The Pairing? See above.

Cost: $11 for food, $16 for wine = $27

Wednesday: Potato-Rosemary Pizzas and Arugula with 2014 Tablas Creek Vermentino Paso Robles and 2014 Charles Smith VINO Pinot Grigio Columbia Valley

Source: Pizza dough, via Lucky Peach. Learn it, know it, love it.

Food Details: Boiled potatoes, Boar's Head fresh mozzarella, rosemary and olive oil on top of the above-linked crust. Arugula on top. Two rectangular pizzas cooked on 18" x 13" pans, oiled. Five minutes lowest rack, 7-9 minutes middle rack. Preheated 500-degree oven. 48-hour proof on the dough in the fridge. Two balls.

Did We Like It? HUGE surprise. Perfect dough, at least what can be done with our oven. Thin and crispy, with oodles of flavor. Perfect amount of salt and yeasty depth. We have found our house pizza dough! This was potato pizza, but with the arugula and rosemary, the flavor and weight was so bouncy and light. We ate both pizzas and didn't feel like we just ate "POTATO PIZZA!" in the least. Big success, and impossibly easy to make.

How Was The Wine? Vermentino from California? Yes, please. A bit pricey at $25 retail but real vermentino deliciousness with this one. Punchy, scrummy entry of citrus, tangerine, herbs and salt; a somewhat quiet mid-palate, but that leads right to a more complex, broad finish of minerals, Asian herbs and Asian citrus leaf. Oh, for this to be $18. Put this in the La Val Orballo albariño price world and we'd be buying six a year. $27 with tax gives us pause, but it's rather delicious.  But then there was Charles Smith being Charles Smith...

And The Pairing? We were quite happy with the vermentino and these pizzas. It loved the rosemary. But a couple of glasses of the Charles Smith VINO pinot grigio turned into all sparkly, twinkly stars with this food. It was perfect. We have found our pizza dough, and we've found the wine to go with it.

Cost: $7 for food, $27 for wine = $34

Tuesday: Wild Boar, Kale and Tea-smoked Lentils with 2008 Duorum Colheita Duoro

Source: Francis Mallman's pork tenderloin with burnt brown sugar, orange confit, and thyme, via News OK, using wild boar from D'Artagnan.

Food Details: Boar brined overnight in lapsang souchong brine, braised in orange confit oil for three hours, coated with coconut sugar and thrown under the broiler, raw lacinato kale tossed with black lentils cooked in more lapsang souchong, pomegranate seeds, all drizzled with thyme and braising oil.

Did We Like It? This was very good boar, eating like brisket in a way, and every flavor coming through. Loved-loved-loved the orange confit oil. It defined the meal along with the tea smoke. This was melt-in-your-mouth meat with a big pile of meaty, smoky kale, and it was deep and dirty-delicious.

How Was The Wine? Opened a 2008 Avanthia, a mencia from Valdeorras in Spain and it was strike-two for the week in terms of 'first wine choice' boringness. Tasted tired and quiet. Moved on to the 2008 Duorum, a red Douro blend of touriga nacional, touriga franca and tinta roriz. Dry, savory, medium-bodied, medium acid, medium verve. A nice Douro red blend for under $20. Happy dirt. The 2007 Reserva was great, this one less so, but good guts here while simultaneously having an overall ethereal presence.

And The Pairing? We were just glad we found a wine that was good enough after opening a $40 Avanthia that brought nothing to the table. This was a tough pairing - a lot going on with the food - and the Duorum brought enough slice and dice for us to be moderately satisfied.

Cost: $24 for food, $19 for wine = $43    

Monday: Veracruz-style Scallops, Rice and Kale with 2013 Noêlla Morantin Chez Charles Vin de France

Source: Fish Veracruz-style, via Saveur, using scallops

Food Details: A house fav with sea bass, this time with scallops. A blend of tomatoes, capers, olives, garlic, onion, manzano peppers, said pepper juice, rosemary, parsley, bay, all the goods; placed over annatto yellow rice. Seared scallops on top of that. Baby kale salad with pomegranate seeds on the side.

Did We Like It? Happy-slappy Veracruz goodness. And good to have scallops again. Felt like it'd been years. Check the link above to the sea bass versions. This was the spiciest version yet. Not blazingly hot, but it certainly permeated every bite. This meal has all the stuff we like while maintaining an overall lightness and spunky punch.

How Was The Wine? In the link above, you'll see a white López de Heredia in some form or vintage, because it's stupid-perfect with this food. A bottle of 2004 LdH Gravonia Blanco couldn't keep up with the heat in this meal, even coming up a bit boring by itself: salty, too much pineapple-like fruit and smoked oil, something that lesser vintages of Heredia sometimes possess. We probably opened this too soon, as 2004 was considered a very good vintage in Rioja. Moved on to an already-chilled bottle of natural sauvignon blanc from Touraine, and it was freakin' lovely. Pure, clean sauvignon blanc that's much lighter than most SB while maintaining an intensity and expression all the way through. Bit of lime, some ginger, some Thai basil, perfect acid, but mostly a prettiness, lightness and integrity of flavor that we loved. Unique sauvignon blanc to us, and we'll be buying more, most likely.

And The Pairing? With the Heredia being such a dud here, the Chez Charles brought everything we wanted from a wine that wasn't going to bullied by the heat in the food. Nice lime linkup with the orange zest (addition) and good acid that provided just the right cut. But this meal was mostly about how much we liked this wine. Big fans.

Cost: $22 for food, $26 for wine = $48  

Scallops in Brillat-Savarin Sauce with NV Egly-Ouriet Les Vignes de Vrigny

It's a satisfying thing when you make a recipe you've been thinking about making for years and it turns out to be quite good, even when the concept made your body shiver.

Cheese sauce on fish? Really?

The recipe comes from Lincet. They make this cheese so they wouldn't toss out a recipe like this willy-nilly, you'd think.

Scallops substituted for sea bass because if this wasn't good, as least it wouldn't have been "We spent HOW MUCH ON THIS?" And rice milk substituted for cream, because we're dippin' our toe in lightly here. Cheese sauce and seafood isn't our bag, baby.

Big mound of pea shoots, snap peas and chervil. Scallops lightly seared. Cheese sauce with saffron drizzled over the top of everything (because Melissa Clark says cheeses like Brillat-Savarin and peas are besties). Pan con tomate to bring some carbs to the party.

The result was a delicate touch of Brillat-Savarin coming through in everything; the kind of flavor where you get the slight funky essence of this cheese in all its glory without feeling like you just bathed in it. Big winner. We were quite happy with this. Spring-like, refreshing, ample, and quite tasty.

Mrs. Ney isn't making it again. But for a recipe that won't be made again, this was happy stuff.

Served with our favorite Champagne, NV Egly-Ouriet Les Vignes de Vrigny ($48 - Binny's). 100% pinot meunier and 100% delicious, always. It took a few punches to the gut with this food, hollowing out a touch on the mid-palate, but bounced back on the finish with a rather complex farmhouse breeze taste to it. Nothing great in the pairing realm, but nice to have Champagne, though. Seemed like it had been too long.

Finished with tofu pudding (WTF?). Bittman thought the same thing until he made it, saying he wouldn't offer this recipe if it wasn't good. And it was. It's like spicy, deep, thick and rich pudding without the dairy "gack!"

One final note: Homemade ginger beer, from Saveur. "Pret-ay, pret-ay, pret-ay" damn good. And easy. Big fan.

#306 - A Potpourri Of Pairings

Geesh! It's been two weeks.

We here at FWW haven't been in the type-y mood as this election has sapped the strength of even the strongest of oxen. It's been head-in-the-sand time in our house, sitting very still, letting the time pass and hoping it does without incident, desperately wanting the polls reflect an accurate reality.

The Ney house endorsement is to the right. Always has been, always will be.

But it's time to clean house. Keeping busy on something other than following election coverage will help to keep me sane during this longest of days.

Today's effort is merely for cataloguing purposes, as nothing in the last two weeks blew us away. But some nice moments of pairing pleasantness occurred so let's put those to electronic paper.

We're Been In A Slump

We've been in a bit of a food and wine slump of late and I blame a certain Chicago restaurant that shall remain nameless.

Again.

Something about that meal left us deflated and annoyed.

Anne Burrell's chicken Milanese, though, thrust itself into our lives and won't be leaving anytime soon. Because it has the structure of food that we love most: meat + raw greens + pickled veg, all eaten in one bite. It's a party in your mouth! Pair it with a quality pinot gris, like the 2011 Owen Roe Pinot Gris Crawford Beck Vineyard ($20-ish - Winery), a pretty white that has the verve to bring a second and third level of pretty, and it's a slump buster, my friend! A 2012 Ponzi Pinot Gris ($15 - Winery) was less pretty/gutsy when this was revisited a couple of weeks later, but this meal, done this way, is why we like this food and wine crap.

A twist on said meat + raw greens = Goodness business, a kielbasa and lentil salad with warm mustard-fennel dressing over escarole with a 2011 Schwarzbock Grüner Veltliner ($10 - Vin Chicago - new name for Wine Discount Center) made for similar pauses of joy (recipe).

That's been the food and wine winner over the last month, but there have been other pairings with varying levels of success. With the open of red wine season, we've oddly been left wanting with many of the red wines we've had recently. That's gotta change.

Some notes on meals so we don't forget:

Oh...Hello Again

Last December, we bolted for the highlands of the Chicago Tribune's blogging community, doing the same stuff we did here but over there.

Not realizing it was more of a Facebook-intensive group - and not being a Facebooker - we're back at the friendly confines of Home. We like Home. Because Home is Good.

But some of it is bittersweet. ChicagoNow is doing some great things. And we ate and drank extraordinarily well (index page) during our time on that site so we'll keep that up for the time being for reference purposes and figure out what to do with it.

Some highlights during our brief sojourn:

Oh, the rabbit loin with Darting Pinot Meunier! ... A Holy Grail of sorts, Two Hands Beautiful Stranger, was found, getting some of the last few bottles out there in the world and we drank it with great bison ... Quality meal at Elizabeth ... New Year's Eve Egly-Ouriet and Dagueneau Silex was an orgy of food and wine flavors. Silex is the best wine on the planet in my book (though Gail Simmons disagrees. She prefers Picton Bay) ... Sea bass and Waxman recipe endive salad with Hippolyte Reverdy Sancerre. C'mon! ... Pork butt bo ssäm. Fancy-ass Asian buffet ... Wild boar Christmas dinner and pheasant terrine lunch made us feel all mountainy ... Two more Bordeaux fails. Toss it on the pile (not even going to link) ... Our favorite meal on the planet, tuna Niçoise, saw more love, getting all dirty-delicious with a Les Pallìeres rosé ... Thomas Keller chicken thighs with fennel, lemon and olives and bacon fat crispy potato roast and Vieux Télégraphe Blanc opened up another ridiculously great food and wine pairing door in our world ... Veggie explosion with 2009 Quinta do Cardo Síria. Hot damn! ...  Chicken in lemongrass barbecue sauce with Selbach-Oster. So open! So much space! ... Frappato's the Stuff in my world right now. It was the stuff times 50 with fava bean and ricotta salata strozzapreti ... Duck leg confit, tea-smoked lentils and beets with a very pretty Efeste Jolie Bouche syrah shocked the pants off us ... Tuna, blood oranges and heirloom tomatoes with Owen Roe Pinot Noir Durant? Always happy food but unique pairing here, though ... Beets, carrots and avocado salad with duck breast and a bargain New Zealand pinot simply exploded with loveliness in the mouth ... Lamb-stuffed artichoke cups and garbanzo beans over pistachio-saffron rice with a Moroccan syrah was new and new with a side of happy-slappy new ... A trip to D.C. made for a great food escape with Jaleo, Minibar and 2 Amy's. But Komi. Oh, Komi. There's little better in this world ...and more. So much more.

We ate so well during these last nine-ish months, getting more seasonal, eating smaller portions of meat and a crapload more veggies (proper adjective for that). Things got more complex in ways and never suffered from it, always elevating things instead of dragging meals down. It feels like we drank a touch more thoughtfully as well, taking more care to match up secondary flavors in the food with wine that made such a thing sing.

This is what we Like. It's our hobby, our joy. I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again), Food and wine deeply integrated into one's life as part of one's day, one's rhythm, feels like a frickin' Gift.

Big plans in the works for this new (old) site. Maybe we'll even get all podcasty (or not). I've taken a couple of months off and we missed the reference.

"We're back!"

Suquet alla Ca L'Isidre with 2004 López de Heredia Gravonia Blanco

This is our first 2004 López de Heredia Gravonia Blanco.

The 1996 was our first love, and a wine that probably did more to get us into Spanish wines in general than any other bottle. The 1999 mostly lived up to the 1996 when it came to acid and echoing the original goodness, but fell short a bit. The 2000 emphasized freshness more than the typical Gravonia nutty depth. And the 2001 was all class. Everything you would ever want from Heredia. No write-up for the 1998, but it came pretty close to the 1996 in terms of completeness, if I recall correctly, and a shame there were so few of them on the market.

Early meals with Heredia Gravonia involved some variation on chicken, many times with saffron risotto. That migrated to Spanish-ed up fish, and it's been a good migration, one that makes the meal feel kinda special.

Like this one.

Suquet alla Ca L'Isidre, local fish stew that has its origins in Catalonian fisherman's Sunday dinner, made with whatever fish they had left. Taken from Barcelona's Ca L'Isidre restaurant. Recipe here, chronicled in Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes In The World (great book). No changes made to the actual cooking. Swapped out red snapper for Icelandic cod and langoustines for lobster tail.

Boiled down, this is deconstructed Spanish stew, with two types of seafood - and all the complementing and contrasting that comes with that - potatoes, onions, tomatoes, garlic, fish stock, parsley and chile. Depth from flamed-up brandy. Garlic-d up mayo for dipping. And a spectacular hazelnut sauce for drizzling over everything. Super-duper Spanish in every bite and done right. It's not the easiest meal to make, but this was the first time Mrs. Ney made it. She expects subsequent ones (which there will be) will be easier.

Hot damn, this was good. Want Spanish food? THIS is classic Catalonian Spanish food.

#264 - Spice-Rubbed Skirt, Beet Greens & Sweet Potato Fries With '06 Long Shadows Sequel

Pretty great food weekend (Monday through Wednesday for us):

• Veggie strawberry caprese with a pork chop-y Ponzi Rosato
• Vadouvan roast chicken with a disappointing Marc Hebrart Champagne
• Sea Bass a la Veracruzana with a stellar LdH Gravonia

And now spice-rubbed skirt steak, beet greens and sweet potato fries with this little gem.  Odd that vadouvan roast chicken and Champagne would be the lowlight of the weekend.  That was Good Eats, just not comparatively.

The Long Shadows story is a gosh darn interesting one.  Nine world-class winemakers, all part-owners in the enterprise, take their skills developed over decades in making fine wine around the world and come together to make wines from their favorite grapes that express the distinction and potential Washington exhibits.

This one, a syrah with a 2% kiss of cabernet (? - 2007 is that), is made by John Duval of Penfolds Grange fame.  His 28 years as chief winemaker at Penfolds Grange shepherded the winery to the top of the Australian wine world.  He now creates his own wine under his own name along with this co-op project.

After drinking this, we're intrigued, even at the price.

Food:  Spice-rubbed skirt steak, sautéed beet greens and tomatoes, whole Vidalia onions and sweet potato fries

#289 - Linguine Al Limone & Avocado-Kumato-Corn Salad With '10 La Spinetta Vermentino

Odd combo.

Delicious combo.

Essentially an antipasto and a primo (look at me!) made into a meal.

A Saturday night dinner on an unexpected night off that hurt financially but felt needed psychologically.

A 20-degree midday temperature drop yesterday without any rain developing made it impossible to not find ourselves in a good mood. And eating this food with that weather?

Happy. Happy, happy, happy stuff.

Food:  Pasta al limone & avocado-kumato-corn salad

The simple, basic, delicious pasta both of us were craving. A David Rocco recipe to boot (changed a bit) and yet another example of how the Italians get things so right.

Linguine with tons of lemon juice and zest, garlic, olive oil, the rest of the balsamic/juniper pecorino from a few days ago (sprinkled on top), parmesan (in the sauce), lemon thyme (added to the recipe) and parsley. Uncomplicated and straightforward pasta with perfect balance; the boatload of lemon in two forms cut through both cheeses at just the right level, leaving behind the best of both in our mouths with the parsley and lemon thyme then mixing in beautifully. Dumb in how good this tasted and it takes about 10 minutes to make start to finish.

TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

Four meals, four wines.

Beef, smoked mackerel, chicken and tuna. Rioja, Sancerre, torrontés and pinot gris. Spanish, veggie explosion, Mexican, Thai.

Squeezed into these four meals were 32 vegetables and 28 herbs, spices, wines and juices.

Or...flavor.

Monday