#239 - TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

Family.

That's all I gotta say 'bout that.

So Merry Christmas-Happy Holidays to everyone out there looking for a wine pairing and stumbling across our humble little website.  Or if you've somehow been redirected from a dental implant (?) site as it says in my statistics page.  The mind is awhirl with ideas how THAT happened.

Wooly bubbles, an out-of-this-world bargain Eiswein, a disappointing Heredia and Hema's Kitchen made at home highlight this week's roundup.

Let's get started.

Meal #1 - Pork liver pâté, Chaource cheese and baguette with Anselmann blanc de noir Eiswein & Ayala Zero Dosage Champagne

#223 -TK Chicken, Chaource & Baguette With '00 Gaston Chiquet

A treasure trove of Spanish, Portuguese and Canary Island goodness arrived yesterday from our San Francisco trip and a visit to the Spanish Table in Berkeley.

Should be a tasty, Iberian-inspired winter.

Time to play catch-up.

A standard Thomas Keller chicken meal went through the stratosphere with the second-best Champagne we've ever had.

Food:  TK Chicken, Chaource cheese and baguette with mâche

More modifications to the TK chicken as Mrs. Ney finds a happy balance between deliciousness and breezy prep.  Good one here.  Might be a keeper.

#214 - Not Thomas Keller Chicken, Chaource & Baguette With '07 Fichet Meursault

We're torn.

On the one hand, Thomas Keller chicken is chicken on crack with stupid-good crispy skin, a pool of juice that could be sold on the street and turn a tidy profit and leg and thigh meat that turns so dark and succulent.

On the other hand, due to the high cooking temperature and longer time in the oven, keeping the breast meat moist (huh-huh - I enjoy lame running gags) has been a delicate balancing act, usually just missing the mark.

So along came the Cook's Illustrated version of simple roasted chicken in this month's issue, cutting the cooking time in half while turning the oven off halfway through to allow the bird to continue cooking but at a gradual and incrementally lower temperature.  Seemed right and proper to keep the breast meat juicy.

So we gave it a go.

#199 - Monday Grub To Wash The Workweek Away

Tough workweek for both of us with Mrs. Ney's a bit tougher than mine.

But there's something about a great Monday - which is our Friday - lunch that goes a long way in wiping out all the residual psychological trauma that comes with the end of a rough week of work.

It allows for a clean break, clap-clap, in a way most welcome and needed on certain weeks and this was certainly one.

We just wanted sparkling wine and to use up the Champagne cheese in the fridge that was three weeks past its expiration.  What we got was a level of deliciousness and joy that hasn't been seen in weeks for Monday lunch.

So simple, so unadulterated, yet oh so freaky good.

Food:  Lincet Chaource Champagne cheese, baguette, mâche salad and a peach

Whole Foods Chaource cheese from Champagne, three weeks past expiration, as I so recently said.  Semi-semi-soft, cow's milk cheese using a similar recipe to that of brie.  Probably much more creamy and soft when young, but the length of time in the fridge made for a firmer texture and concentration of flavors, most likely.