Anne Burrell Chicken Milanese With Argus Cidery Tepache Pineapple Wine

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Drinking this pineapple wine with chicken Milanese is like going to the ballpark to see your favorite team with a bunch of friends and your team gets beat 10-2.

You don't care that your team got their booty kicked, because you went to the ballpark, with a bunch of friends, and had a good time.

In this scenario, the actual score of the game is the pairing. Not. Good. The wine overwhelmed much of what was on the plate, even the ONIONY! pickled onions, which was surprising.

But good food was on the table, and in the glass was chugalug happiness: The Argus Cidery Teach Pineapple Wine ($15-ish - Lakeview Liquors).

Anne Burrell chicken Milanese recipe here. Panko-parmesan crust on the pounded chicken cutlets. Quick-pickle onions. Dry gremolota, this time consisting of toasted pumpkin seeds, parsley, pecorino. Cherry tomatoes in pickling liquid. Arugula salad with pomegranate seeds. Mini ciabatta buns and butter on the side. Dump a bunch of pickled onions and germolata on top your chicken. Dive in. Just keep eating. It's a once-a-month meal in this house because it's boss.

When we went to Minero in Charleston two months ago, we had this pineapple wine and thought there's no way Chicago is going to have it. Probably a Southern thing that won't reach us. Nope. Lakeview Liquors on Addison has it. Buy it. It's delicious summertime goodness with oodles of verve, complexity, refreshment and swagger. Lightly charred pineapple, savory spices everywhere, touch of white pepper, bit of fizz. We love it.

Not good with this food, but we didn't care one bit. Tacos is its home. Picnics. BBQ. California-style burgers. Big plans for this one.

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

Quick Hits

Highlight of the late-week: savory doughnut fry bread!

If you're making dinner and want to incorporate doughnuts into it without sending yourself into a shame spiral, Blackfeet fry bread is a perfect alternative. Top it with goat barbacoa, pickled onions, spicy tomatillo salsa, sour cream, mint and cilantro, and you got yourself goat flatbread that tastes just like it sounds.

But we lost the goaty-ness of the goat. The cascabel-guajillo-ancho chile blend and slow roast made for a very rich slather that obscured the brightness goat needs in order to strut to goaty goatness. Very good one-off, though. We were excited about eating it, it was satisfying, but if given blind, it might have been pork. The Argus Cidery Tepache Pineapple Wine ($15 - Lakeview Liquors) helped things along though, finding its strut with this food. The goaty richness pumped up the clove-cinnamon spices and turned the pineapple flavor into PINEAPPLE! Good stuff. Saved things in a way. Kept things interesting.

Jamie Oliver Greek Chicken with herby vegetable couscous & tzatziki has a very specific flavor for me. It was the lunch I had right after getting back from sequestered jury duty. A weird day, that one. Flavors: allspice, fresh oregano, lemon zest and juice, mint, peppers, sweet corn (added), avocado (added), cucumber, yogurt, feta, black olives, watercress (added), green onions, couscous... so...Stuff. Thrown together. Then eaten. A "15-minute meal" that took me an hour. Fine enough version. Had all the vegetal-spice joy that we wanted after rich goat. Served with a bottle of 2012 Casa de Saima Reserva Bruto Bairrada ($20-ish - Perman), a bical-maria gomes-chardonnay blend. Pretty tangerine skin and bright cream with fine bubbles and medium length. We liked it. Fresh, moderately complex, nice. We'd buy another bottle if we were at Perman, but wouldn't make a special trip for it. Fit well with this food. Something strange going on with Greek food and Portuguese wine. Always seems to work.

Sausage and rapini, a house staple that we have about once a month, is BFFs with minerally, poppy, Italian white wines and occasionally something juicy, red and Italian. Opened a Matthiasson Tendu Red to start and got only "wine" from first sip (lil flat, sorta Life Saver-y). So we went with a new favorite, the 2013 Charles Smith Vino Pinot Grigio Columbia Valley ($13 - Binny's). It has all the goods. Length, cut, polish, juicy exotic fruit without screaming, "I'm pinot grigio! Aren't I cute?" and that sorta gaseous-delicious mid-palate that expands everything to a point of such happiness. It's just G-O-O-D, and it was again here with sausage and rapini. Turned good food into a long and leisurely meal.

Hey, I kept a three-meal roundup kinda short. I'm growing.    

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 #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

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: