Christmas

Let's kickstart this here blog back up.

The 365 Days of Food and Wine experiment, while interesting, sapped my ability to accurately describe the delicious food Mrs. Ney made. It got to the point where my word canon reached the very end of its description limit. I'd re-read things I'd written and think, "Hot damn that's boring!" And that wasn't doing any justice to the time and effort Mrs. Ney had put in to researching, thinking about, and making dinners.

The break was needed, but it's time to step back in, because while we hope anyone searching for food and wine pairing advice - a vexing and frightening proposition for many - comes across this site and comes to understand that it's not that frightening, mostly we want and need the reference. We also like to see how our year and tastes flowed and changed.

Christmas seems a good place to start.

Food: Bittman Lamb Osso Buco with Sean Brock Grits and Rapini

Mark Bittman osso buco recipe, from NYT Cooking. Lamb osso buco from D'Artagnan, seared, then cooked for 90 minutes on the stovetop with garlic, anchovies, sage, marjoram, rosemary, white wine, salt and pepper until tender. Meat removed, sauce reduced, served on the side. Cracked pink peppercorns sprinkled on top of lamb. Sean Brock grits, from Heritage: A Cookbook (page 74 - "How to cook grits like a Southerner"). Simple rapini done up with salt and pepper that somehow didn't taste so simple.

Luscious lamb. Frenchy touches with northern Italian guts. Osso buco is never going to be the best meat I've ever had in my life, but when it hits, like here, it's a meat-melty wonder. Rather perfect grits, as Mr. Brock seems to offer with most anything he offers (see burgers, patty melts, steaks, grits, griddle cakes...he's one of our house food guiders to the delicious). Silky, but corny and buttery, with a surprising jump and lightness. A great balance and vacillation between all the flavors. When some of the anchovy pan sauce bled into the rapini, it was maybe the best rapini we've had in a good long time.

This was a dinner worthy of Christmas, after a shockingly easy Christmas Eve visit to the family.

Wine: 2015 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris Fanucchi-Wood Vineyard RRV

We loved the poop out the 2014 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris, first had at Chez Panisse two Septembers ago. So board and giving. The 2015 is more sturdy and focused in its flavors. It gets more directly and quickly to the point it's trying to make. Bitter orange peel galore, like Chinotto or Aperol in presence and aggressiveness. Wispy touches of herbs and minerals, particularly on the back-end, even something tea-like thrown in there on occasion. This one needs to warm up significantly in order for it to stretch its legs and become more elastic and playful. The 2014 was all ethereal, sunshine-y goodness, but sputtered with some food. The 2015 is more punchy, and that over the course of the next year might make it more suitable to the flavors we love.

Pairing: Once it reached the right temp...nothing wrong with that.

I opened a 2005 Gourt des Mautens Rasteau (Jérome Bressy) and decanted couple of hours before dinner, but it didn't budge from its hairy-backed, tannic self, and would have been just terrible with how delicate the lamb was. But the Jolie-Laide served us quite well. Not perfect, not by any means. Once it warmed up though, there was enough weaving in-and-out with the grits and lamb together to say, "Slap Daddy! That's just fine!"

Lunch: Homemade duck pâté with Rogue Flora Nelle Blue Cheese, fig marmalade, baguette and salad, served with 2011 Matthiasson Vermouth. Mrs. Ney whipped up A LOT of duck pâté, this one more country in style with its small chunks of duck meat. Turned into one of those pâtés one eats and thinks THIS is how all pâté should be. Every flavor bouncing and jiving with each other. Rogue Flora Nelle has that ideal touch of blue streaks while still retaining a clean brightness to it. House fav.

All served with a Matthiasson Vermouth that's been sitting in this house way too long, and it was great here. Smoky tangerine peel, blood orange and bark. Still going quite strong. A bite of cheese and fig marmalade on baguette with a sip of vermouth was as pairing-perfect as it gets.

Damn good (and lazy) Christmas Day! We didn't get to the "Feast of the One Fish" (brandade). It's in the works for New Year's Eve. With bubbles. We need bubbles. So we'll have them. Because bubbles are essential in life.

After the jump is a list of all the pairings we've had since this blog stopped, some of it in shorthand. It's for our reference:

365 Days Of Food And Wine: A Year In Review

This breakdown will be changing over the next week or so as I whittle it down to more specific food and wine things.

But here's a (very close to very accurate) broad breakdown:

Total Cost for (nearly all of) Food and Wine for the Year:  $7307 for food, $8161 for wine = $15,468

Times We Ate Out: 24 (that includes vacations up the California coast in September and New York at the end of March) - Le Bernardin, Prune, Pok Pok, The Breslin, Momofuku, Keste, Rustic Canyon Wine Bar, Chez Panisse, Fish, Pig In A Pickle, Gioia Pizzeria, Bocadillos, Spacca Napoli, Bill's Drive-In/Jimmy's Pizza Cheese Fest, Nando's (thrice), Pizza Art Café (twice), Bistro Campagne (twice), Hema's Kitchen, Spiagga, Semiramis,

Protein

Note: I went with the main focus of the meal for the most part. If there were a couple of anchovies in a veg-centric meal for depth, I went veggie (which is only a handful of the veg meals). If there were a lot of anchovies (i.e. - pissaladière), I went fish. Charcuterie is probably more than half of the pork category.

Vegetarian meals: 61

Chicken: 78

Pork: 67

Fish: 47

Beef: 36

Lamb: 22

Goat: 13

Cornish/Guinea/Poussin: 7 

Rabbit: 4

Boar: 4

Duck: 2

Turkey: 2

Quail: 2

Bison: 1

Venison: 1

Wine

Note: If it had bubbles, it's under sparkling. I did not parse out natural wines. Might get to it. If a blend was predominately (more than 60%) one grape, it's under that grape. 

Rosé (still): 44
Sparkling (Champagne, Cava, Malvasia, Baga, Rosé, Chenin, Erbaluce...): 34
Others: Pineapple Wine: 3, Sangria (watermelon, purple corn, grilled fruit): 3, Lillet Rosé: 1

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #49

This is the last month of our 365 experiment. For that, I'm glad. I'm running out of words.

In one important way, this experiment was to see our real cost of food and wine and the home-joy it brought over the course of one year, and comparing that to eating out 3-4 times a week like most people do now, as you can see by this piece. We'll see the comparison with a big breakdown once this is over.

Avec has always had the bones to do something like these Island Dinners they're doing this summer. Digging into the minutiae of Mediterranean food and wine, breaking out of that vague, broad definition and getting into the more place-specific nitty-gritty makes for utterly more interesting stuff.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $178 for food and $60 for wine = $238

Sunday: Fish Tacos with Argus Cidery Tepache Pineapple Wine

Food Details: (recipe - don't mess with it) Mahi mahi marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin, then fish cooked up in cast-iron. Cabbage slaw. Homemade guacamole. Jalapeño crema. Hot sauce. Charred tortillas.

Did We Like It? A great batch. A bigger bitter punch from the marinade truncated the typically broad flavor with these fish tacos, but that didn't detract from these universally sublime fish tacos. The crema made up for it, offering a more layered taste than it usually does. Loved these tacos.

How Was The Wine? We've messed around with different wines and sangrias over the years. This pineapple wine, with its frothy refreshment, grilled pineapple-like juiciness and spicy depth, is now our one and only beverage with fish tacos.

And The Pairing? Perfect.

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

Saturday: Smoked Chicken, Pickled Walnuts, Watercress and Heirloom Tomatoes with 2015 La Peña de España White Wine 

Food Details: Paulina Meat Market smoked chicken (oodles better than Whole Foods), blue cheese and heirloom tomatoes. A salad of watercress, pickled walnuts, radish sprouts, celery, parsley, etc., dressed. Mini-ciabatta buns and butter. Top bread with any combination of the above ingredients you like and eat. It's pick-n-choose.

Did We Like It? Utterly new and so golly-gosh-damn-darn delicious. Flavors galore! New is good. Flavors are good. New and tons of flavor is Great. I loved the combination of pickled walnut, celery and radish sprouts. Never had anything like it and now I want so much more of that. Golly, I loved this.

How Was The Wine? New Trader Joe's offering, a blend of 25% each of sauvignon blanc, muscat, verdejo and chardonnay, with a tiny wisp of Spanish air to it. It's mediocre at best. Nothing great. Changed often throughout the meal, though, giving what blends can give with food - versatility. Can't say we'd buy it again.

And The Pairing? See above, though the verdejo showed up a little too much for my taste. Verdejo can go to hell.

Cost: $24 for food, $6 for wine = $30  

Friday: Work Party

Work party at the Museum of Science & Industry.

Thursday: Minty Brown Rice and Wilted Greens with 2014 João Portugal Ramos "Lima" Loureiro Vinho Verde

Food Details: More Ottolenghi doing what Ottolenghi does so well - make simple food freakin' delicious. (Recipe - halfway down), using only mustard greens. Feta, mint, garlic, olive oil and mustard greens over brown rice. Threw in smoked sundried tomatoes because they were in the cupboard.

Did We Like It? Mrs. Ney wanted a huge bowl of mac-n-cheese, not 'this healthy stuff!' Then she ate it and we loved it and it was the usual Ottolenghi food joy.

How Was The Wine? Lightly fruity, lightly floral, lightly acidic. It's $8 loureiro.

And The Pairing? Great length to the wine. Real delineation of flavors and a slow revealing of said flavors. With this food, you have a few basic ingredients mingling together with copious amounts of mint. That gives this lightly floral and fruity wine a chance to get in there and play around. Nothing obstructive, nothing bullying. Just pairing love.

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

Wednesday: Picadillo with 2013 Rabbit Ridge Allure de Robles Paso Robles

Food Details: Sam Sifton picadillo, subbing fresh chorizo for dried, leftover pork shoulder for beef, currants instead of raisins, adding roasted poblanos, over white rice.

Did We Like It? It's beefy, tomatoey, spicy-sweet bouncy, olivey. It's Cuban stew over rice and it's quite good. This was probably the best version of this we've had.

How Was The Wine? Cheap, chilled, Trader Joe's Rhône red blend. A glass for each of us.

And The Pairing? Its blendy-ness and chill here made for a surprising friendliness. This wine is NOTHING special, but...very friendly here.

Cost: $6 for food, $5 for wine = $11

Tuesday: Moroccan Lamb Shoulder and Mint Dressing with 2011 Domaine de la Mordorée Tavel

Food Details: NYT recipe. Slow-roasted lamb shoulder (from World Fresh Market on Devon), with cumin, coriander, harissa, garlic, etc; roughly shredded. Mint dressing altered, using basil, cilantro, lemon balm, and mint. Corn on the cob slathered with harissa butter. Arugula salad with pomegranate seeds to finish.

Did We Like It? Delicious lamb, brought on sale.Wonderful integrity of lamb flavor. Coupled with the dressing that tasted really earthy and balmy in the best possible sense, this dinner came off perfectly simple and perfectly delicious.

How Was The Wine? This one's been sitting in the house for four years, waiting for it to mature. The biggest impression we got was, "This rosé has its big-boy pants on." We've been drinking a lot of rosé quaffers lately, cheap stuff that brings joy, compared to anything more serious. This is serious. We didn't even love it, but its earth and balance and pace reminded us that we should probably be buying more quality Rhône rosés again. We took a break. This reminded us that we should get back on that horse.

And The Pairing? Happiness. Very nice. Loved the lamb, dressing and wine together.

Cost: $13 for food, $25 for wine - $38         

Monday: Spacca Napoli

Food Details: Margherita, Diavola and a focaccia with anchovy, arugula, oregano and garlic.

Did We Like It? If not for a certain employment situation, we'd be here twice a month. On the patio.

How Was The Wine? A bottle of 16 Marzo Falanghina and an assortment of glasses: a fiano, biancalella, Lettere and Nepente. Satisfying back-and-forth, trying each with each pizza.

And The Pairing? Good enough. Patio + sunny day + great food + nice wine = a delicious, lazy, VERY satisfying dinner.

Cost: $110

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #42

Chicken, lamb and country ham.

Fennel, Castelvetrano olives, faux pomme frites, rye crepes, gruyere, onion, fava, radicchio, asparagus and watercress.

Fennel pollen, lemon, preserved lemon, garlic, herbes de Provence, basil, mint, tarragon, walnut oil, pink peppercorns, parsley, honey, soy, chiles and white/regular balsamic.

That was much of the first three days of food this week.

Good week.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $103 for food and $153 for wine = $256

Sunday: Picadillo with 2014 La Paca Garnacha Calatayud

Food Details: Sam Sifton picadillo, subbing red "ancient chile" pepper and smoked paprika instead of chorizo, currants instead of raisins, plus fresh oregano, over rice.

Did We Like It? It's beefy, tomatoey, spicy-sweet bouncy, olivey. It's Cuban stew over rice and it's quite good.

How Was The Wine? $7 Trader Joe's Spanish grenache. Bright cherries and plums. Ripe. A bit of smoked meat and tobacco. Low tannins. Medium-to-light. Easy-breezy Spanish drinker. Friendly for $7.

And The Pairing? Cuban stews focus on balance and bump. They're one-pan stews with everything thrown in there, giving a little of everything but rarely too much of any one thing. That allows an easy red to weave into the food and pick up what it wants to without being overwhelmed or surprised by something it doesn't want to be. This grenache works. It's not spectacular or memorable, it's just what Spanish grapes do with Cuban food: Like it.

Cost: $6 for food, $7 for wine = $13  

Saturday: Indian Carrot Salad with 2014 Amancay Torrontés La Rioja 

Food Details: House staple. (Recipe) Crisped-up ground lamb with garam masala. Carrots and shallots dressed with lemon, ginger, cumin, peppers and olive oil. Sesame seeds. Kale as a base green. Naan and black mustard seed raita on the side.

Did We Like It? Oh, my, yes. Been awhile since we had this. A weekday and weekend meal, because it's that good. And was here.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's $7 torrontés, which has just enough flowers, just enough acid, and just enough cheapness at $7 to have a place in this house with the type of food we eat.

And The Pairing? Floral notes help counter the spice and heat, and that's what it did on this night. Nothing amazing, but a basic elemental interplay usually leads to a happy meal.

Cost: $13 for food, $7 for wine = $20

Friday: Orecchiette with Sausage and Rapini with 2014 Rosa dell'Olmo Gavi Piedmont

Food Details: Orecchiette with (ground pork turned into) sausage, rapini, onion, red pepper flakes, parsley, bread crumbs and evoo.

Did We Like It? A nice batch. A once-a-month thing. A big bowl of meaty, bitter, spicy, herbal, carby goodness.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's Gavi done well. Dry, crisp, lightly floral, peaches, medium-bodied. This drinking showed its age. A lil jumbled in flavor and order.

And The Pairing? No complaints. Missed on having its typical perky cut and pause that says "this wine is $8?" with this food, but no real complaints.

 Cost: $7 for food, $8 for wine = $15

Thursday: Big Greek Salad with 2013 Jackys Preys Cuvée de Fié Gris Touraine

Food Details: Big. Greek. Salad. Consisting of leftover chicken, cucumber, yellow tomato, red pepper, scallions, jalapeno, feta, olives, dill, oregano on arugula with evoo and white balsamic.

Did We Like It? Enormous and delicious! Delicious and enormous! Eat your veggies. Here's a great way. Just dump a bunch of "veggie stuff" in a bowl with other things you like, mix and eat.

How Was The Wine? This 2013 is still super-duper juice. Natural, floral, Asian-fruity. Almost frothy-beery but never gets there. We've loved this wine over the last few months and this drinking was no different.

And The Pairing? That frothy-beery business helped with the saltiness of the feta. A fine-and-good pairing that reminded us why this wine is so funky-wonderful.

Cost: $9 for food, $19 for wine = $28

Wednesday: Country Ham and Asparagus Rye Crêpes with 2014 Day Wines Malvasia 'Mamacita' Applegate Valley

Food Details: David Tanis ham and asparagus crêpes, using country ham from Paulina Meat Market and rye flour in addition to buckwheat flour. 12-month Gruyère cheese with the country ham and grilled asparagus as filling. Watercress salad drizzled with walnut oil. Big honking plate of crêpes with salad. California brunch bistro food.

Did We Like It? I was skeptical. Mrs. Ney wanted country ham and this was the first search result and recipe of the day on NYT Cooking the day she looked. Magic! One note on the recipe: use more batter for each pour into the pan. Too tiny/delicate otherwise. One might think that, after a few bites, this would grow monotonous. Nope. Not even close. Delicious right to the last bite. Fresh, clean, filling and lovely. We went from thinking this might be a once-every-two-years thing to "I'd eat this again every spring. At least."

How Was The Wine? One of the good things about NYT Cooking (and there are many) is when Mr. Asimov chimes in with wine pairing recommendations. Go to the bottom of the recipe link and you'll see him say, "If you prefer wine...The United States is also producing more good, dry sparkling wines. Look for those labeled pétillant naturel, an ancient method that is a sparkling equivalent of cider." WE HAVE THAT! Sparkling, pet-nat malvasia from Oregon! And it's probably the wine of the year for us so far. Big mouthfeel of orchard fruit skin to start, transitioning to a sunny, white flowered, yeasty core, and finishing with a refreshing, lemony acid and perk.

And The Pairing? Tasted so gosh-darn intentional in terms of pairing, like they were made specifically for each other. Interweave your fingers. That's what it tasted like. Lovely stuff together.

Cost: $20 for food, $28 for wine = $48  

Tuesday: Ottolenghi Lamb Rosettes and Radicchio-Fava Salad with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

Food Details: Mr. Ottolenghi lamb recipe, subbing Paulina Meat Market lamb "rosettes" (skewered lamb flank) and swapping out coriander for basil. Lamb marinated in a blitz of parsley, mint, basil, garlic, chile, honey, olive oil, soy, lemon juice, balsamic and water; seared medium-rare. Grilled radicchio, farro and fava bean salad (very roughly based on this recipe) with preserved lemon, feta, basil, mint, pink peppercorns, etc. Lamb and salad.

Did We Like It? Beautiful-Beautiful-Beautiful lamb with a salad that said, "I'm full of Great Stuff. Eat me. You'll like me." Bitter, herbs galore, real big punch. Loved it.

How Was The Wine? We've probably drunk 25-30 of these cans of pink from Field Recordings over the nine months. The second the 2015s show up, we'll be buying 25-30 more. This drinking helped us feel better about the few left in the house. Started to fade into a nondescript rosé the last couple of drinkings, this time a perky bitterness emerged to complement its watermelon brightness.

And The Pairing? The saltiness of the feta, bitterness of the radicchio, and hodgepodge of herbs kept us away from a red. Needed a catch-all we didn't care too much about and the Alloy rosé performed admirably once again. A guzzler that brings the happy for $7 a can.

Cost: $30 for food, $14 for wine = $44  

Monday: Roasted Chicken, Fennel and Olives with 2012 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe La Crau Blanc

Food Details: Jeremiah Tower roast chicken (Whole Foods - air-chilled), rubbed with fennel pollen, white pepper and salt, roasted with fennel, onions, Castelvetrano olives, garlic, lemon, tarragon, and herbes de provence (deglazed with white wine). A mixture of Tower chicken and Thomas Keller chicken with fennel and olives. Sam Sifton faux pommes frites. Watercress salad drizzled with walnut oil.

Did We Like It? My golly, yes. Juicy chicken, gorgeous watercress from Edgewater, all the fennel-olive goodness that comes from Mr. Keller's recipe... A delicious dinner.

How Was The Wine? Two 375-mls of Télégraphe blanc that sort of slipped through the cracks due to not having this meal for a good long time. It's a nearly perfect pairing and we reserve this wine specifically for this meal. Sherry and honey notes are starting to show up and they're magically delicious. Smoked orange peel, pineapple... Lower acid now, with its body taking over and giving all we needed. Like La Crau and López de Heredia had a baby. Smoky minerals. We loved it. A huge surprise. We always drink this blanc pretty quick. Now we know it's still wonderful with a bit of age.

And The Pairing? Still one of the best pairings in the world in our book, this time in a different form. Wonderful stuff.

Cost: $18 for food, $70 for wine = $88

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #41

Ever watched a movie you should have seen decades ago? I watched Gandhi for the first time last night. Yep. First time. Never seen Chariots of Fire either. Probably should take care of that.

The first season of 'The Americans' only made me think that the rest of the series is them almost getting caught every other episode, with them almost breaking up in the other episodes. Keep it. I have hundreds of hours of terrible Angels baseball to watch.

And I can't wait to see in what unique way the Browns screw this one up.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $126 for food and $91 for wine = $217

Sunday: Salmon and Bagels with 2015 Charles & Charles Rosé Columbia Valley

Food Details: Trader Joe's cured salmon, avocado, clover sprouts, cream cheese (with dill, cilantro, serrano, onion and lemon zest), bagels, and tomatoes for me.

Did We Like It? Leaves us clean, full and feeling healthy every time, even with bagels and cream cheese. We have it probably 8-10 times a year.

How Was The Wine? More Charles Smith rosé (this one a collaboration with Charles Bieler). 63% syrah, 12% mourvedre, 10% grenache, 7% cab, 7% cinsault, 3% counoise from Columbia Valley, with Mr. Smith's VINO being 100% sangiovese. Both are a house favorite. When the new vintages come out, at least six of each are immediately bought. This year's has a watermelon-earth back and forth with bright acid. Not as evocative or deep as a couple vintages ago, but has a playful, perky side that's welcome. And it was a stupid-ridiculous $8 at Target (!) when we bought it.

And The Pairing? Not great. Felt like two co-workers who go through the necessary pleasantries because they have to be in the same space while on the clock, but no friendship will be forming anytime soon.

Cost: $22 for food, $8 for wine = $30

Saturday: Big Fried Chicken Salad with Leftover Wine

Food Details: 'Southern style" Aldi frozen fried chicken cutlets, cheddar, green pepper, onion, peas, kumatoes, pretzel-bread croutons, romaine and homemade honey mustard dressing. All ingredients in a big bowl, mix, eat. Don't even use a table. Sit on the couch, put the bowl on your stomach and go to town.

Did We Like It? Nostalgia food! Tasted like 1998 Bennigan's, and that was a pretty darn good thing. Tasted like my 20s. Does Bennigan's still exist?  

How Was the Wine? Mrs. Ney had better luck with leftover Joel Gott sauvignon blanc than I did with leftover Schwarzböck Grüner Veltliner, which was terrible. Tasted like Pledge.

And The Pairing? See above.

Cost: $11 for food, $0 for wine = $11

Friday: Fava-Ramp-Carrot Top Strozzapreti with 2014 Schwarzböck Gruner Veltliner Austria

Food Details: Favas, ramps, carrot-top pesto, ricotta salata, marjoram, parsley on strozapretti

Did We Like It? First uber-spring meal of the year. Green and green with a side of green, and it was rampy and carrot top-y in the bestest sense. Happy. Very happy.

How Was The Wine? Fine. Lemony with green hints and fine acid. Cheap grüner in liter form that has served us fairly well over the years.

And The Pairing? Less "fairly well" this time. Not much intermingling or interplay.

Cost: $20 for food, $13 for wine = $33

Thursday: Zucchini Goop with 2015 Charles Smith VINO Rosé Columbia Valley

Food Details: Based on a recipe from Mexican, by Jane Milton (page 186), with the addition of green chorizo, from Melissa Clark in NYT Cooking. Cook your chorizo. Remove from pan, and then brown onions and scallions. Add garlic and four [previously salted and rinsed] sliced-into-sticks zucchini, sautée some more. Add a can of tomatoes and sliced pickled serranos; sauté briefly. Dump in chorizo, warm through. Turn off burner, add half a block of cubed cream cheese to melt in residual heat. Fresh oregano, tons of dill and parmesan. Ancient Grains bread to top with zucchini goop.

Did We Like It? Bready, porky, touch spicy, vegetabley, happy as all-get out. This version brought a very good dill-heat balance.

How Was The Wine? Sangiovese rosé from Mr. Charles Smith. Bright cherry fruit, pretty earth, medium-bodied, super-duper rosé happiness. We'll probably go through a case by the end of the year. Because it's delicious and because it's $10.

And The Pairing? The wine LOVED the dill. Very good version of zucchini goop with a very fresh rosé that liked the food. Do need much else.

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

Wednesday: Hummus, Laffa and Fattoush with 2015 Broc Cellars Sparkling Chenin Blanc Central Coast

Food Details: Hummus here, laffa here, fattoush here. Third making of this meal. Hummus somehow less bright and clear than in the past. Greens too wet, but fine enough flavors bouncing around to enjoy it. Homemade za'atar again helped immensely. Laffa instead of pita this time, which is the same recipe as pita but rolled thinner and bigger. Better than pita.

Did We Like It? Good enough was my overall thought. But this wine... Curse the heavens that it's sold out!

How Was The Wine? Pet-nat chenin blanc from Broc. 11.5% alcohol from Central Coast (that in itself seems like a miracle). We got three in our club shipment this year. Crazy-fresh peach, peach fizz and pit in a glass. Crystal-clear fruit that tastes like San Francisco morning sunshine - cool, bright, head-clearing. Five stars, Mr. Brockaway. You're ridiculous.

And The Pairing? Wine ruled the night and slid into the food well enough. Nice dinner.

Cost: $20 for food, $27 for wine = $47    

Tuesday: Argentinean Skirt Steak and Empanadas with 2009 Quinta do Vallado Tinto Douro

Food Details: Most beautiful medium-rare on some of the beautiful beef we've had in a long time. Paulina Meat Market skirt steak in churrasco marinade. Chimichurri to top and dip. Empanadas filled with kale, potato, onion, Petit Basque cheese, currant and garlic. A bit of arugula under the beef.

Did We Like It? Best meal of the week and probably the best since Fish sauce-sauce game hens! Gorgeous beef, delicious empanadas, what else does anybody need?

How Was The Wine? Dry, savory blackberry fruit, perfect earth, lovely hint of spice, great balance. Vallado's tinto is the best $20 and under red wine in my book. This thing is over six years old. Find me another $20-and-under, six-year-old wine that drinks like this and I'll give you...something...how about a hug? Tastes like the air of a mid-August Iowa summer (which is the air of the Douro all the time) in the bestest sense.

And The Pairing? The chimichurri beat it up the smallest wee bit, but overall this was so stupid-good.

Cost: $27 for food, $17 for wine = $44    

Monday: Fish Tacos with Argus Cidery Tepache Pineapple Wine

Food Details: (recipe - don't mess with it) Mahi mahi marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin, then fish cooked up in cast-iron. Cabbage slaw. Homemade guacamole. Jalapeño crema. Hot sauce. Charred tortillas.

Did We Like It? Why has it been so long, fish tacos! This batch had a complete balance of flavor. Perfect hit of everything needed to find fish-taco joy. And a perfect kickoff to a great food weekend.

How Was The Wine? Pineapple wine made in Texas. We're fans, ever since having it at Minero in Charleston. Spicy grilled pineapple in a bottle. Frothy, almost beer-like but never all the way there. It demands you to pay attention to it in the best way.

And The Pairing? Strangely better than we expected, and we expected to love this. Purple Corn Sangria is great with fish tacos, but purple corn sangria can be a bit of work, particularly when you don't want to do said work and pineapple wine exists. Argus killed purple corn sangria and we're just fine with that.

Cost: $16 for food, $16 for wine = $32

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #25

Top...Whatever Number...Pairings of 2015 (no order except the top few, so a bit of an order):

1. Ottolenghi Fish, Cocount-Peanut Salad and Rice with 2013 Darting Muskateller Kabinett Trocken

2. Tuna Niçoise with 2014 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris Fanucchi-Wood Road Vineyard Russian River Valley

3.  Roasted Chicken and Fennel Panzanella with 2014 Broc Cellars Picpoul Blanc Luna Matta Vineyard Paso Robles

4.  Fava Bean and Ricotta Salata Strozzapreti with 2014 Quinta de Porrais Branco Douro

5. Sausage, Zucchini, Tomato and Cream Cheese Surprise with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

6. Lamb Chops, Charred Shallots, Yogurt, Tomato Vinaigrette and Pita with 2014 Charles & Charles Rosé Columbia Valley

7.  Yakitori-marinated hanger steak, yuca fries and Tuscan kale salad with 2006 Quinta do Vale Meão Douro

8. Lamb Salami, Feta spread, Arugula and Ciabattini Buns with 2014 João Portugal Ramos "Lima" Loureiro Vinho Verde

9. Big. Greek. Salad. With Lillet Sparkling Rosé

10. Bee-Pollened Pork Shoulder and Griddle Cakes with 2009 Jean Bourdy Côtes du Jura

11. Galician Tuna Empanadas With 2012 Forlorn Hope "Que Saudade" Sierra Foothills

12. Argentinian Skirt Steak and Shishito Pepper, Inland Cress and Frisée Salad with 2012 Luca Malbec Uco Valley

Was this our best food and wine year, Mrs. Ney? Probably, I say. I missed a few. There's still a couple of vague notions of "Wow, that's good!" meals rumbling around in my brain that I can't specifically remember. Odd there's no goat meal. Just wasn't an amazing goat-wine year.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $185 for food and $229 for wine = $414

Sunday: Smoked Chicken and Sprout Sandwiches with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

Food Details: Whole Foods packaged smoked chicken slices, mashed avocado, kumatoes, pickled onions, Monterey jack cheese, mayo, and alfalfa-fenugreek sprouts, on Mariano's Italian-style batard bread. Olive oil potato chips.

Did We Like It? A nice batch, wet overall due to the pickled onions but the crusty bread helped a bit. Fine and good Sunday night sandwich-and-chips meal.

How Was The Wine? $8 grenache rosé in the can. We've been over this. House fav.

And The Pairing? But not here. A bit astringent and a tad boring here, probably due to the copious amount of mustard seeds and peppercorns floating around in the sandwiches from end-of-batch pickled onions.

Cost: $30 for food, $16 for wine = $46

Saturday: Argentinian Hanger Steak and Shishito Pepper-Living Cress-Arugula-Blue Cheese Salad with NV La Posta Tinto Red Blend Mendoza

Food Details: (David Beran recipe) A recreation of this meal from September, using hanger instead of skirt. Overnight hanger marinade of basil, thyme, shallot, peppercorn and olive oil. Salad of living cress, arugula, celery and leaves, mint, charred shishito peppers and Rogue Creamery Blue Cheese. Dressing of charred lemon and olive oil. Trader Joe's potato pancakes for starch.

Did We Like It? I don't know what it is about this meal. There's a lively ping-ponging of flavors, mostly lightly bitter and always popping. Just when you want it taken down a notch, here comes the blue cheese to offer creaminess and depth. Brilliant meat marinade. One of the best we've had. I cooked this one. Notes: use the cast-iron. Easy on the dressing.

How Was The Wine? Laura Catena manages five of her family's wineries in Argentina and owns two of her own (Luca and La Posta), all while working as an ER physician in San Francisco. So...yeah...geesh... We had her Luca Malbec with this meal last time, a classy, polished malbec that liked the food enough. Her 2013 La Posta Tinto, a malbec-bonarda-syrah table wine blend, was better as a pairing with this food prep. Smoky herbs and happy fruit, it tastes wildly similar to the unpretentious non-vintage red blends that we love so much, like the Marietta Cellars line. Blackberry bush notes with a touch of cherry that starts to trend sweet, but takes a quick turn to dry at just the right time. A real personality here. We loved it. And will buy more.

And The Pairing? As I said, we really liked the Luca, but it demanded our attention too much and went a bit pear-shaped with the salad. The La Posta Tinto wants one thing. It wants beef-centric food with other food toys to show off how versatile it is. One of the better table-style wines we've had of late. Big thumbs up.

Cost: $32 for food, $14 for wine = $46

Friday: Green Goddess Chicken Panzanella with 2014 Berger Grüner Veltliner Kremstal

Food Details: First, a few notes on lunch. Caviar and crème fraiche on potato chips with pear-celery-hazelnut salad quickly turned into pear-celery-hazelnut salad with potato chips because the caviar was too fishy. Nice salad, but the real winner was finding our new house Champagne - Bollinger Special Cuvée Brut. When trying to find a $50-ish Champagne that simultaneously will bring elegance without breaking the bank, we've gone from Gaston Chiquet to Ayala to Paul Bara to Pierre Peters to just trying just about every $50-ish Champagne out there. Liked them all to a certain degree, went through phases where we drank multiples of each, but Bollinger tasted like "This is what we want right now." Such elegance and grace with this drinking. Egly-Ouriet is 'for the special' so 2016 will probably be a good amount of Bollinger.

The panzanella...was an enormous amount of food! Whole Foods chicken marinated in Ms Clark's green goddess dressing, roasted. Heaping plate of fava, roasted ancient red pepper (seriously, "ancient" is its variety name), charred red onion, arugula, scallions, crushed marcona almonds, Pugliese bread croutoned-up, and more green goddess dressing tossed with all of it.

Did We Like It? Not the best version of panzanella but a damn good one. The fava beans took center stage here, taking everything into a realm of a fava garden-warmness (if that makes sense). Juicy chicken, different flavor combination with each bite, all that you'd want from Food.

How Was The Wine/Pairing? A bit off. Grüner is typically a workhorse with food, but this bottle, while technically fine, seemed a bit tired when drunk by itself and offered the same with the panzanella. Opened a bottle of cheap Trader Joe's La Granja Blanco Rioja and found a surprisingly nice matchy-match with the food, tasting like they were oddly made for each other. Much better than the Berger and not even close.

Cost: $58 for lunch and dinner, $70 for wine = $128  

Thursday: Persian Beef, Barberry Sauce and Buttered Almonds with 2004 La Rioja Alta Viña Ardanza Reserva

Food Details: (Recipe, with beef shank instead of chicken) Last had in April, this is essentially Iranian stew that doesn't resemble any stew we'd ever had before first eating it. Beef shank, tons of marrow, barberries, almonds, cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, rice, snap peas, mint.

Did We Like It? It's perfect stew, because every ingredient constantly bounces off each other in every bite, going deep but staying bright and lively. A wonderful back-and-forth between the dark, deep beef-marrow that played with the spices, then the barberry sauce tart-sour lifty perk. Buttered almonds that calmed all of that down with a huggy-bear nutty finish. It's brilliant stuff.

How Was The Wine? Stupid Spain. You're lovely. And you feel and taste like Home. Fruit remained in the background with this drinking, offering only a roundness and occasional cherry punch. This one was all about the sweet spice, vanilla, cedar, tobacco and Spanish air that makes good, old-style Rioja so great. We took one drink and we were back in Villabuena de Álava.

And The Pairing? This stew is right in our wheelhouse for the wine we like, but the barberries can be tricky. A graceful red with sneaky guts is needed. This one was just that. We loved it.

Cost: $15 for food,  $33 for wine = $48    

Wednesday: Chiarello Chicken Tacos and Jicama Slaw with Argus Cidery Tepache Pineapple Wine

Food Details: Michael Chiarello chicken taco recipe. Basic. Chicken thigh meat slowly simmered in onions, garlic, serranos, both paprikas, cumin, and oregano. Jicama slaw made with herbs, mayo and sour cream. Lime to spritz. Hot sauce to douse. As basic and minimalist as great tacos get.

Did We Like It? After having these, this quickly jumped right to the top of our "I want tacos that are easy and cheap, but delicious" list. We have mostly everything to make these tacos on hand at all times. The juice alone I'd drink. Loved it.

How Was The Wine? Pineapple wine made in Texas. We're fans, ever since having it at Minero in Charleston. Spicy grilled pineapple in a bottle. Frothy, almost beer-like but never all the way there. It demands you to pay attention to it in the best way.

And The Pairing? Here's a meal that settles things. No much futzing about with various fancy sangrias with tacos for us. Chill and drink this. It's everything you want-need from a taco-pairing beverage.

Cost: $16 for food, $16 for wine = $32

Tuesday: Ottolenghi Tuna and Blood Orange-Black Olive Salad with NV Philippe Glavier Rose Idylle Celeste Champagne

Food Details: (tuna recipe) Half-pound of Whole Foods tuna oiled, seasoned, seared, chilled, coated in mustard and ground pistachios and blood orange zest, chilled, sliced. Charred fennel and shallots, blood orange supremes, nicoise olives, raw mustard greens. pink peppercorns, fennel fronds and pistachio oil on top.

Did We Like It? We have a bit of a thing for blood oranges and black olives with rare tuna. Typically, Mrs. Ney studs it heavily with various shades of peppercorns, cardamom and ginger. This meal was a switch-up, looking to Mr. Ottolenghi for a different tuna prep. We liked it muchly, digging the mustard and pistachio goodness that got deep into the tuna. But it wasn't the superlative love we find from white-pink-black peppercorns, coriander, cumin, cardamom, ginger and fleur de sel. Nice change of pace, though. This meal had everything anybody would ever want from "Flavor."

How Was The Wine? Roasted carrots and curried-up watermelon rind. You read that right. That was the biggest, most clear impression we got from it. For $50, meh.

And The Pairing? Didn't love it, didn't hate it. Like stadium popcorn, "It's neutral!"

Cost: $22 for food, $50 for wine = $72  

Monday: Anne Burrell Chicken Milanese with 2014 Matthiasson Tendu White California 

Food Details: Recipe here. Make it, eat it, and you'll make it 200 more times throughout the course of your life. It's that good.

Did We Like It? Top-third of all the Anne Burrell Milaneses we've had. Not the best, but a very strong version. This meal just has that extra something that makes you say, "THAT's perfectly balanced food!"

How Was The Wine? We haven't loved the 2014 version of the Tendu White, feeling that the chardonnay toned down the spritely bounce that the 2013 offered. Mr. Matthiasson said the vermentino - which is the vast majority of the three-grape makeup here, along with French colombard - didn't have the requisite acidity to go 100% vermentino in 2014. But this drinking was adequate. While still not getting as much distinction as the 2013 had, nice acid-vague fruit back-and-forth to be happy enough.

And The Pairing? Fine. Frankly better than I expected.

Cost: $12 for food, $30 for wine = $42

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #16

Royals are better.

And I can't wait until Halloween is over. It's a silly holiday, though Mrs. Ney's costume for work, Red Flags, is awesome.

A celebratory week of solid restaurant chicken, a couple of greatest hits, and one of the best dinners we've had in a good long while.

Rabbit. Stupid rabbit. You're delicious. And grilled radicchio with rabbit? Gee whiz.

Best rabbit we've ever had.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $142 for food and $137 for wine = $279

Total food and wine cost for the month: $688 for food and $716 for wine = $1404

Sunday: Ham and Mortadella Sandwiches with 2014 Innovacíon Rosé Mendoza

Food Details: Ham, mortadella and red pepper sandwiches on ciabatta, baked. Olive oil chips. It's sandwich and chips!

Did We Like It? Fine and good. Fine. And. Good. Ending your waiting tables week with a big plate of sandwich and chips with rosé works every freakin' time.

How Was The Wine? Last bottle of the $8, one-liter rosé goodness. We drank probably 8-10 bottles of this pinked-up malbec-syrah blend this year. It was good to us. Fading now, as it's getting a little muddled in flavor, but still happy $8 pink.

And The Pairing? It's ham sandwich, chips and pink. What's not to like?

Cost: $15 for food, $8 for wine = $23    

Saturday: Taco Salad with 2014 La Granja Blanco Rioja

Food Details: Put all the following ingredients in the biggest bowl you have and mix: Ground beef cooked with taco seasoning, chopped romaine, crushed tortilla chips, shredded white cheddar, kumatoes, onions, leftover jalapeño crema from Fish Taco Tuesday (limed up), cubed avocado and cilantro...

Did We Like It? ...Bring your bowl to the couch, lean back, put the bowl on your stomach, put your favorite TV entertainment on the tele, move your beverages to the edge of the coffee table so you don't have to move too much; eat, drink and enjoy Halloween the way you do.

How Was The Wine? It's taco salad. $5 Trader Joe's Spanish white will suffice. Nothing gets in the way.

And The Pairing? See above. Just enjoy the Big Bowl of Taco Salad with some wine that's good enough.

Cost: $12 for food, $5 for wine = $17

Friday: Boxing Day Sausage Rolls and Arugula

Food Details: Sausage Rolls (here, via NYT Cooking) with an arugula and pomegranate seed salad.

Did We Like It? Fine, easy-peasy, substantial and satisfying food.

How Was The Wine? No wine. We needed a break.

Cost: $8


Thursday: Rabbit Confit, Grilled Radicchio and Celery Root-Chestnut Purée with Pouillon Rose de Maceration Brut Champagne

Source: Rabbit from Michael Psilakis, via Leite's Culinaria

Food Details: D'Artagnan rabbit with rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, shallot, garlic, bay, mustard seed, fennel seed and lavender. Radicchio, grilled, cored, coarsely chopped; with rabbit oil, orange juice, whole-grain mustard dressing. Celery root and chestnuts sauteed in 2 tbsp butter; cooked in almond milk, pureed; finished with a drizzle of rabbit oil. Rabbit drizzled with more rabbit oil at the table. Radicchio and rabbit spritzed with orange.

Did We Like It? Je-Sus! Best rabbit we've ever had! Best radicchio we've ever had! Tasted like if we gave this to an Alsatian grandmother, she'd begrudgingly nod in approval. So savory and crunchy and bitter and creamy and slightly sweet, with perfect acid, perfect rabbit skin and meat, all of it...just perfect. We couldn't get better rabbit dish out in the world, period. Best meal in months!

How Was The Wine? 100% pinot noir, given the saignée treatment. Not floral, not deep, not a lot of stuff, but everything it gets right, IT GETS RIGHT. Pretty fruit, pretty mouthfeel, lilting acid, Champagne doing what Champagne does: make you happy that it exists in the world.

And The Pairing? Like Wednesday, we could have gone in a lot of directions, but in the end the sparkling nature of the wine brought a bounce and lift that kept the entire meal buoyant and a sheer joy, something a still wine might not have done here. Golly, we eat well. This was Exhibit A.

Cost: $40 for food, $44 for wine = $84

Wednesday: Lamb Kofta, Charred Shallots, Labneh and Ancient Grains Bread with 2013 Broc Cellars Grenache Mendocino

Source: Ottolenghi kofta and Melissa Clark charred shallots

Food Details: First time making kofta with lamb. It's usually been goat. Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, parsley, nuts, onion, garlic, all the kofta goodness. Big splotch of labneh on the plate, charred shallots on top of labneh, kofta on the side. Ancient grains bread instead of pita. Inland cress salad with mint. Spritz of lemon on things.

Did We Like It? We had to get back on this horse after the sweetness of the tomatoes in the last version of this meal, with goat leg, brought out some food hate. That was confirmed when we had a bite of this. A piece of Ancient Grain bread, a lil dollop of labneh, some charred shallots, maybe some inland cress, sometimes some kofta. Eat. Beautiful savory combinations that offers space and time to taste and savor everything, instead of sweetness muddying the waters. Can't recommend this more highly.

How Was The Wine? Broc being Broc, again. Our first Broc grenache, with low alcohol (12.5 - nice place for grenache), lovely floral frame, happy red fruits of raspberry and darker currant, sometimes a bit of licorice, sometimes a bit of chocolate. Light body, sunny acid, bright disposition. Liked it very much.

And The Pairing? No complaints in the least. Everything liked each other. We could have gone in a few directions here with the pairing but this one brought a completeness to the meal that never made us think of other options.

Cost: $20 for food, $30 for wine = $50 

Tuesday: Fish Tacos with Purple Corn Sangria

Source: From Duncan Gott of Gott's Roadside. Recipe taken directly from here. Purple corn sangria (Bobby Flay) here.

Food Details: Mahi mahi marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin and then grill the fish. Make some cabbage slaw. Bought guacamole this time, because the avocados weren't ready, and mixed it with tomatoes and cilantro. Jalapeño crema. Hot sauce. Charred tortillas.

Did We Like It? Any celebration week in this house must have fish tacos, because they're the best fish tacos on Earth. This batch was one of the better batches made. Complete balance in flavor. Loved-loved-loved it.

How Was The Beverage? And one of the better batches of purple corn sangria made in this house. Oodles of depth, made possible by a more significant reduction in the purple corn-pineapple rind juice.

And The Pairing? Classic. It tastes classic when made this perfectly.

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

Monday: Nando's with 2014 Cara Viva Rosé Lisbon

Food Details: Full chicken platter for two with two sides of fries and four sides of peri-peri mayo.

Did We Like It? Got $60? Don't wanna cook? Want a tableful of chicken and fried potato sticks with tons of mayo to dip? We do. Often. And Nando's does that pretty darn well. This is nothing earth-shattering, just solid bird and good fries when you want that.

How Was The Wine? Had the Cara Viva branco last time. It's nice for $16. Rosé this time, same price, same label. It's their house label, and it tastes like Portugal. Fresh dirt, nice fruit. Again, nothing earth-shattering here, simply a drinkable rosé that doesn't get devoured by the spiciness of the peri-peri.

And The Pairing? See above. Eat, sip, eat again, sip again. The solid acid in the wine cuts nicely, the food is good, and you get about a third of the way through the meal and say, "This'll do. This'll totally do."

Cost: $30 for food, $32 for wine = $62

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.

#309: TWIB: A Potpourri of Pairings

We're in slowdown mode here at FWW but let's whip out some food & wine pairings had over the course of this busy holiday week in the tradition of "Boom! Roasted!"

Things we learned during this Thanksgiving blur: Leave Amarone Classico on the shelf. Spend $4 more for the good albariño. Kermit Lynch could release a Night Train-based beverage and we'd buy it. The 2007 Vale Meão STILL isn't ready. Rubber, plastic and petrol tastes terrible in wine form (or any form, really). Cheap Crasto doesn't taste cheap. And food is good.

I also learned that Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue will utterly destroy the hearts and minds of anyone with a heart and mind. This is ten hours of real and honest filmmaking with some spectacular acting that makes you mad when you realize it has to end, as you want to stay in that world so completely. Can't recommend it more highly.

Let's do some cataloguing:

#255 - Jerk Chicken, Biscuits & Pineapple With Two Wines

Here's jerk a Rastafarian would respect.

Heat that permeates every level, delicious citrus complementing the heat with spice and herbs that keeps everything in line.

Not surface heat here.  This went deep along with everything else seeping deeply into the chicken while the heat never crossed the line into eye-watering, mouth-blazing territory.  Marched right up to that line but never crossed it, allowing every other flavors to take its turn at bat.

Instead of cooking the chicken under a brick, this one was roasted upright in the oven in the cast-iron.  The results were something spectacular, bringing a more dirty-delicious caramelization to bits of the chicken skin.

This was one glorious looking chicken when it came out of the oven and the taste delivered on that promise.

Food:  Jerk chicken, cheddar-scallion biscuits and pineapple with radishes

#90 - Jerk Chicken, Hushpuppies & Pineapple With NV Sparkling Vouvray

Quick one today.

We could have gone in a lot of directions with this meal. Zinfandel would have been nice and made it all California-y. Maybe a shiraz would have brought the fruit and let it wander into more big and hearty.

But thinking about other choices and what they would have done only made us think of what it might not have been compared to what it already was. Which was pretty darn solid, tasty, refreshing, oddly light and satisfying.

Plus, jerk and French sparkling feels fancy.

Food: Jerk Chicken with hushpuppies and grilled pineapple

A staple in the Ney house, having last had it in December but with a different jerk recipe. Also, this time cooked under a brick from a recipe by Mark Bittman in the New York Times.

The jerk marinade from Saveur using soy sauce, onion, scallion, chiles, cloves, five-spice, allspice berries, nutmeg, S&P, thyme and veg oil. This will be replacing the jerk in our house from now going forward. Great stuff.

Cooking under a brick made for better chicken as well. The skin fell off a bit but the chicken was insanely moist and all the jerk seeped deep into the bird.

Hushpuppies made at home were a new one for us. Outside of the Long John Silver's fare that creates an instant flashback to mid-80s fancy family meals for me, I haven't had many others. Intense cornbread taste with a crispy outside made for a tasty side that wasn't dense in the least. Served with a spicy tomato chutney found in the freezer. Oddly easy to make according to Mrs. Ney so...yes...more in the future.

Grilled pineapple (another staple) and a bed of pea shoots to round out the meal and topped off with a deliciously boozy walnut-chocolate pie made with Maker's Mark.

Just goshdarn delicious and a great Monday night meal.

Wine: NV Domaine Vigneau-Chevreau Demi-Sec Sparkling Vouvray ($18 - Binny's)

I couldn't find a ton on this wine without the disgorgement date listed on the bottle (similar but wrong label above). All I can say is that we've had this one a few times before and this time, it was most definitely a different batch.

Not as many distinctive chenin blanc notes, missing some of the honey and beeswax notes. This one was more yeasty with more delicate fruit showing mostly green apple notes. Came off more like a solid bargain Champagne than a sparkling Vouvray. Nice balance, though with the bread notes constantly changing, mixing well with the small, vibrant bubbles and a more true medium dry than the very dry last bottle we had.

We keep buying it because it keeps being good.

Pairing: 89 In the end, nothing in the house would have been better in the price range

The spice in the jerk killed the fruit a bit in the wine but we were entirely okay with that. The joy came in its refreshing aspects, helped by the medium dryness and fine bubbles, than any individual bite with wine standing out.

We thought about other pairings during the meal but it always came back to what other wines wouldn't have offered that the sparkling Vouvray did.

Nothing in the meal would have came off heavy with another wine but it might not have so oddly light with, say, a zinfandel or shiraz or even a sauvignon blanc or rosé.

Plus, the belches were awesome.