Persian Beef with Barberry Sauce and Buttered Almonds With 2012 Broc Cellars Cabernet Franc

This recipe, from Najmieh Batmanglij (her son is in Vampire Weekend...huh...learn something new everyday), via the American Pistachio Growers website, came about because we wanted to try barberries a month or two ago and the smallest quantity I could buy was in an ENORMOUS bag. Gotta use 'em up.

We love barberries now. Well, there's at least a deep like. They provide a tartness reminiscent of cranberries but are so much more bright, light, and focused. They don't overwhelm things, providing a tiny punch to food that needs it.

Like here. Persian beef (swapped out chicken for beef in the recipe - and we'll be trying this with lamb, probably quite soon). We don't know Iranian food, having only nibbled at the edges here and there, but this food, Persian beef stew essentially, tasted like Iranian Sunday comfort food.

Bet it's delicious with chicken, with the barberries and nuts playing with the bird in different, brighter realms, but beef shank worked here, turning it into a juxtaposition between the darker, deeper beef and marrow that played with the cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon and pepper, and the barberry sauce perk and perfect integration of sunny saffron, echoing a Mediterranean saffron beef play that we enjoy on occasion. Buttered almond-pistachio blend on top (more almonds, less pistachios - pistachios be EX-pensive right now). Rice underneath. Mint on top.

It's been a long month in our house. Great food has been less frequent because of it. It was nice to have Great Food again. This was Great.

Made better by a wine that let the food shine, while offering just enough in the way of pop to keep us coming back to find new and intriguing things about it. The 2012 Broc Cellars Cabernet Franc Central Coast ($19 - Vin Chicago) is biodynamic, I assume culled from different vineyards, 12% alcohol, sleek, pretty, and a great value for the dollars. Shiny red fruits, violets and cinnamon on the nose, a bit less in the intensity of that on the palate for the first 2/3, then finishing with something like a rum raisin smack. The finish made it. Texturally, it's more thin than expected, but that doesn't hurt its enjoyment. Given blind, it's Loire cab franc. Not fancy Loire cab franc with its oodles of layers and fascinating, almost obstinate personality that we love, just utterly drinkable cab franc giving what cab franc-y-focused food wants.

Very nice pairing here. Tasted like going to a friend's house for dinner. This friend is a bit of pot smoker. You like him. He's fun. You eat dinner, have some wine, good conversation. Then the evening gets to the 'I'm gonna blaze up, if that's alright' point. You don't care. He does. And the rest of the evening turns into one of those meandering conversations that twists and turns at a wonderfully pleasant, glacial pace that you get from about one out of thousand pot smokers. Usually, it gets rapidly weird and you plan your quick exit. With him, you relish the respite from everyday life.

Tasted like that.          

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #40

A certain Portuguese wine, in 2013 form, that is NEVER available in Chicago has popped up at a certain Chicago wine shop, Vin Chicago. We haven't seen this wine on any Chicago shelf for years, usually shipping them in and paying the premium. At $90, it doesn't get cheaper.

Put me out to pasture. I got a lil too excited about the prospect of a new vacuum cleaner this week. Get. Older.

September vacation plans are underway and this place looks infinitely intriguing.

And by September, I may have to be out of town as Chicago as a baseball town promises to be wildly stupid.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $120 for food and $142 for wine = $262

Total food and wine cost for the month: $987 for food and $1312 for wine = $2299

Sunday: Lou Malnati's Pizzas with 2012 Trader Joe's Barbera Lot #88 Mendocino County

Food Details: Sausage for her, pepperoni for me. Kale salad for both of us.

Did We Like It? Pizza snobs say they "never eat Chicago pizza." Eat. Me. 2-3 times a year, it's delicious.

How Was The Wine? Oddly fresh. It's 2012, it's cheap, it's Trader Joe's California barbera. Everything says this wasn't going to be freshy-fresh or lifty. It was, which is a good thing, because we have three more left, as these 2012s got lost in the wine shuffle over the last couple of years.

And The Pairing? Pizza and barbera. It's what's good. Juicy with acid, making for a good match with tomato sauce.

Cost: $30 for food, $10 for wine = $40

Saturday: Wild Boar Dirty Rice with 2014 Amancay Torrontés La Rioja

Food Details: Susan Spicer's wild and dirty rice recipe, via Food and Wine, using leftover wild boar from Tuesday instead of ground pork. Andouille chicken sausages, wild rice, mirepoix, chicken stock, herbs, wild boar, chicken livers, chopped scallions on top.

Did We Like It? It's a big, honkin' bowl of rice chockablock with meaty, herby, Cajun flavors. This was a Great Batch.

How Was The Wine? More TJ's torrontés. Flowers, acid, fruit, cheap.

And The Pairing? Did what gewürztraminer does with Cajun food: serve as a foil for everything in the bowl in the best possible sense.

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

Friday: YO-marinated Chicken Breasts, Chermoula, Avocado, Kumato, Cucumber, Arugula and Bread with 2013 La Val Orballo Albariño Rías Baixas

Food Details: Cheap bone-in chicken breasts marinated in leftover Ottolenghi three-chile sauce from last week and equal amount of evoo. Chermoula sauce (cilantro, garlic, cumin, paprika, chile pepper, white wine vinegar...)  from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. Avocado, kumatoes, arugula, cucumber and mini-ciabatta buns. Rip, top with combination of ingredients of your choice, and eat. Repeat. It's pick and choose.

Did We Like It? Stupid chermoula. It's delicious. Bevy of flavors bouncing everywhere. Delicious. Always. It's Good Food.

How Was The Wine? Stupid Orballo. All the other albariños under $20 try, but nothing beats the fruity, pitty, parsley-leaf-like, minerally, aggressive, confident goodness that is Orballo. And it wasn't even at its freshy freshest. Still perfect to us. Every time.

And The Pairing? The spiciness in the chermoula beat up the wine a bit but we didn't care. This was Good Food and Good Wine. On a Friday (our Tuesday). Lucky.

Cost: $10 for food, $18 for wine = $28

Thursday: Black Bean Soup with 2015 Dark Horse Rosé California

Food Details: No recipe. Whipped-up black bean soup using a hambone, chipotle and cumin, topped with tortilla chips, cilantro, sour cream, and cheese for me.

Did We Like It? IT MADE A LOT OF SOUP! And I've eaten it three times in the last three days. Clean you out! Soup doesn't inspire grand visions of delicious dinner for me, but this was fine soup. Simple, clean, filling.

How Was The Wine? $7 rosé from Dark Horse, a bargain California brand that's seemingly everywhere in town right now. 40% grenache, 20% barbera, 20% pinot gris, and 20% tempranillo. Nothing wonderful, but a 2015 freshness was present, the pinot gris REALLY showed up here, and it served our black bean soup needs. In moments, I got a big Charleston Chew hit.

And The Pairing? Food and wine. Nothing more than that, but good enough.

Cost: $5 for food, $7 for wine = $12

Wednesday: Barberry Boar with 2007 Angela Pinot Noir Clawson Creek Vineyard Willamette Valley 

Food Details: (recipe) A chicken recipe that Mrs. Ney typically does with beef, this time was done with wild boar shank. Slow-roasted boar, barberries, rosemary marcona almonds, cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper, rice, mint. Roasted Brussels sprouts.

Did We Like It? It's just boar. Mainly, it was in the freezer because Mrs. Ney tacked it on to a D'Artagnan order to get to free shipping. Boar is fine and good, but rarely is it more than that. Here, it served as fine template-vehicle for everything else. Barberry perk and lift, spice-marrow juice, all the goods. We love this recipe for just that. Iranian dinner that we love every time we have it.

How Was The Wine? Here's an example of a well-crafted Oregon pinot noir that nearing the end of its run, yet still brings complexity and intrigue with every sip and each one was different. Sometimes dark cherries, other times wet leaves, iron at times, birch beer-sassafras others. Every sip wasn't delicious, but every sip was interesting and welcome. Very drinkable and quite fun to watch the progression.

And The Pairing? Worked. A slight sourness in the cherry fruit matched up with the barberries quite nicely, and enough in the way of guts in the wine helped to stand up to everything on the plate. We were very happy with this one.

Cost: $15 for food, $50 for wine - $65          

Tuesday: Fritto Misto with NV Cantina Sociale del Canavese Erbaluce di Caluso Spumante

Food Details: David Tanis NYT fritto misto. Bay scallops, calamari, shrimp, dover sole, fried up. Gabrielle Hamilton NYT tartar sauce, arugula salad to finish.

Did We Like It? Just look at it! When you don't want to leave the house, go down to Nico Osteria and get their fritto misto, here's an option that I frankly thought was better. Frying each fish-seafood separately seemed key. Great textural contrast, fresh batter. Arugula salad to finish so we could trick ourselves into thinking something nutritious was involved in this meal. Perfect.

How Was the Wine? We'd never heard of the erbaluce grape. After this, we want more. Sparkling erbaluce from north of Turin. Creamy pits of pit fruits to open, then it turned into a bevy of bright sherry notes with lemon peel popping up later. Long finish, delicious, and VERY interesting all-around. Most likely has been sitting in the bottle a wee bit too long for this grape, but we sorta loved the snot out of it.

And The Pairing? By no means a perfect fried-food-and-bubbles pairing, but everything separately and together was oh-so wanted and loved. Great meal.

Cost: $16 for food, $34 for wine = $50    

Monday: Nando's

Food Details: "I want a big plate of hot chicken and an enormous glut of fries with a bottomless amount of spicy mayo to dip them in." If that is a dinner thought, then go to Nando's. Whole chicken in hot peri-peri. Two sides of fries. Four sides of peri-peri mayo.

Did We Like It? For $60 with a bottle of wine, tip, no cooking or dishes, it's a great deal.

How Was The Wine? 2014 Cara Viva Branco Lisboa. Zippy, fruity, crisp, cheap Portuguese white wine. Nothing spectacular, but fine refreshment, and acid that stood up to the peri-peri in admirable ways.

And The Pairing? It works. Again, Nando's overall is not earth-shatteringly great. It's simply a whole hot and spicy chicken, tons of fries with mayo and a bottle of wine for $60 out the door. It wins in the cost-benefit analysis of end-of-week tiredness vs. roasting up a chicken and frying up fries at home. Just go to Nando's.  

Cost: $34 for food, $16 for wine = $50

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 #28

Going cheap and cleaning out the freezer this week, as a D'Artagnan shipment is on the way.

Some numbers:

26 days until pitchers and catchers report.

73 days until Opening Day

These are the most important numbers in the world right now.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $166 for food and $128 for wine = $294

Total food and wine cost for the month: $547 for food and $514 for wine = $1061

Sunday: Calzone-y Things with 2013 Palmina Sparkling Barbera Santa Barbara

Food Details: Kale, ricotta, sausage and other things, baked in freezer dough shaped into a log-like, calzone-y style shape. Marinara on the side to dip, top and dunk.

Did We Like It? Tasted like Italian Sunday Supper. Comforting, tasty, and entirely welcome.

How Was The Wine? Same. Comforting mixture of blue/black fruits, touch of licorice, some background spice. Not a lot of any of that. This was more along the lines of a friendly, slightly bubbly, red wine drink and we very much liked every second of it.

And The Pairing? Happy. Nothing wrong here. Italian-American homemade food, unpretentious wine that simply wants to be liked...we don't need much more than that on a Sunday.

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

Saturday: Pan Bagnat with 2014 La Granja Blanco Rioja

Food Details: (recipe) Ciabatta loaf filled with kumatoes, red peppers, marinated artichokes, capers, Greek olives, onions, basil and As do Mar jarred tuna. Drizzled with red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Entire loaf smushed flat. Whole Foods olive oil chips.

Did We Like It? Oh, my, oui! This one much more filled with southern Frenchy pan bagnat goodness than the last incarnation. Mrs. Ney had a French sandwich, Spanish wine and German film combo for dinner and loved it! I paired mine with yet another unfunny viewing on an SNL episode.

How Was The Wine? Tastes like vacation on the cheap. White Spanish wine, a verdejo and viura blend, with crispness, dryness and creaminess; lightly floral, lightly citrusy...$5 wine done well. Guzzle-able.

And The Pairing? Enough acid here to stand up to the briny notes, then break open the wine's Spanish air deliciousness. It's $5, so nothing in the way of fancy, but it has a real place in this house.

Cost: $16 for food, $5 for wine = $21

Friday: Freezer Shepherd's Pie with 2015 Viñas Chileans Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Barberry beef, harissa goat and jerk goat combined in typical shepherd's pie prep; celery root and skordalia with feta topping.

Did We Like It? Big D'Artagnan order coming, so it's clean-out-the-freezer shepherd's pie. This could have been weird. It wasn't. Wasn't in the least. Very good, proper shepherd's pie flavors that had a happy balance. The feta really brightened things up. Big winner.

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

And The Pairing? Just fine. No complaints.

Cost: $2 for food, $4 for wine = $6  

Thursday: Chicken Salad, Arugula and Crostini with 2014 VinTJ's Vermentino Sonoma County

Food Details: Old School chicken salad with dill and tarragon, toasted up homemade baguette, arugula salad. Bread + chicken salad + arugula on top = happiness.

Did We Like It? Nothing fancy here, just a simple chicken salad dinner that brought all of the ingredients to a party that led to a weirdly satisfying dinner.

How Was The Wine? Some lime notes with a wee touch of minerality and herbs. Simple vermentino, nothing special in the least, 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? The wine helped make it weirdly satisfying, mostly because of the wine fails lately. There was enough here in the way of cleanse/refresh to offer some solid pairing goodness, even if this wine isn't...the best.

Cost: $6 for food, $8 for wine = $14

Wednesday: Baby Shower and Cacio e Pepe

Note: Mrs. Ney attended a baby shower. I made cacio e pepe. No wine, though Mrs. Ney says the baby shower could have used it.

Tuesday: Greek Chicken, Skordalia and Pickled Vegetables with 2014 Burgans Albariño Rías Baixas and 2014 Kozlovic Malvazija Croatia

Food Details: Greeked-up chicken thighs (lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, oregano, dry white wine, garlic, onion and black pepper), potato skordalia and Solomonov pickled vegetables over arugula, with pita to rip, top, dip and eat.

Did We Like It? A very fine version of a house staple. The pickled veggies tasted like 'a thing.' And a thing we'll be having again. Great subtle tang to them. And the food vastly outdid the wine.

How Was The Wine? Both of us found nothing good to say about either of them. Cheaper albariño and Croatian malvasia here. Both tasted like a Cliff Notes version of their respective grapes. Nothing to see here. Move along.

And The Pairing? Well...it wasn't hate-able.

Cost: $13 for food, $34 for wine = $47

Monday: Bistro Campagne with 2004 Ducru Beaucaillou Saint-Julien

Food Details: Brandade croquettes to start, two orders of hanger steak frites as entrée.

Did We Like It? This is becoming our default restaurant for anytime we "want to go out." Pleasant croquettes that we'd order again. But this place is about the hanger steak and fries with sides of aioli for fry-dippin'. It's a big plate of utterly satisfying food.

How Was The Wine? And one of the reasons we like Bistro Campagne so much, along with a great steak frites, is a low corkage fee of $15. We can bring a more spendy wine, drink wines sitting around in the house that Mrs. Ney doesn't really want to cater-cook to-for, and enjoy with food like this steak frites that works with them. As it was with this one. I got this 2004 Ducru for a patently ridiculous $45 from Binny's years ago (it's about $120 right now around the interwebs). Decanted at the restaurant and it moved along quite nicely after 30 minutes in. Very medium-bodied, tons of fancy cigar on the nose, pleasant red-black currant fruit blend on the tongue, touch of cedar, somewhat short-ish finish, but very pleasant overall. Could have used a couple more years, maybe, as it was a bit shy/reticent at times.

And The Pairing? A very solid use for this wine. The meal had that languid, pokey feel and the wine helped in that endeavor, as we discussed the rental apartment we just went to see and listened to the gentleman next to us explain to the waitress that he likes big portions and is allergic to everything.

Cost: $115 for food, $45 for wine = $160    

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #44

Here's a nice little reminder from D'Artagnan that air-chilled chicken is the only chicken. Whole Foods carries them as well. Worth the extra greenbacks.

In the novelty food products world, for which I'm a huge sucker, the new Pepsi 1893 line is an...effort, but not worth the greenbacks. And Milky Way brownies are an abomination.

Down week in the wine world but not in the food world.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $105 for food and $119 for wine = $224

Total food and wine cost for the month: $442 for food and $439 for wine = $881

Sunday: Naan Pizzas with 2013 Regis Minet Pouilly-Fumé Vieilles Vignes

Food Details: Naan bread topped with leftover asparagus pesto mixed with cream cheese, ham, onions, leftover smoked mozzarella, peppadew peppers, and a big handful of dressed arugula.

Did We Like It? They're a weeknight house dinner platform for leftover stuff. And it's always, in the least, a satisfying dinner. Tack on "very" to satisfied with this batch.

How Was The Wine? Went fancier for weeknight wine here, and gee-whiz, the acidity and flinty minerals were just lovely. More straight-forward than other vintages of Minet, with predominantly lemon citrus notes, followed by minerals, all wrapped inside a coat of bright acid. But golly that package had all the fanciness of a great piece of furniture. Like when you see something in a living room and say, "Damn, THAT's a great chair!"

And The Pairing? Fairly ho-hum, but fine food and fine wine made for a great end of my week, especially after spending five minutes explaining to a customer who could eat tomatoes but not tomato sauce that our sauce is ONLY blended tomatoes. She wasn't having it.

Cost: $12 for food, $21 for wine = $33    

Saturday: Kielbasa-Potato-Kale Hash with 2014 Charles Smith Velvet Devil Columbia Valley

Food Details: (recipe from The New Spanish Table). Loosely based on that recipe, turning it from cake to hash. This time, using kielbasa as meat. Historically, this recipe is used as a bit of a blank slate to mix together left in the house, with potato and kale as a base. Pecorino cheese to finish.

Did We Like It? The kielbasa took it out of the Spanish realm and into a more generic "hash" world, and it served quite well as a weeknight, "warm you up" plate of food, particularly when it was 38 degrees in mid-freakin'-May here in Chicago.

How Was The Wine? Mostly merlot, with a little cab, malbec and cab franc mixed in. A dancing little number on its own, with pretty, bright, round, dark red fruits with a bit of tobacco underneath and balanced, prevalent, happy acid. But...

And The Pairing? BRU-TAL. Really, quite terrible with this food. But good to find a bargain merlot that offers...something. And this offers much more than just "something," as Mr. Smith typically does.

Cost: $5 for food, $10 for wine = $15

Friday: Tuna Pick-n-Choose with 2015 Baskoli Txakolina 

Food Details: Leftover olive oil-poached tuna from Wednesday, with peppadew peppers, onions, avocado, dressed arugula and mini-ciabatta. Rip, top with everything, and eat.

Did We Like It? Sorta great! If there's a bite of food that represents the bridge between food we ate 5-7 years ago and now, this would be it. Spanish-influenced simplicity with a tapas-pintxos nod, where a bite has all the acid, fishy, bitter, onion-pepper pop, cream and starch you need.

How Was The Wine? It's $9 Trader Joe's txakolina. And nothing here is really in proper txakolina order here. The sea spritz and mineral is off. The fruit perk is nearly nonexistent. Its slight sparkle shows up at weird times, hiding what could be good underneath, but...

And The Pairing? It's $9, half of the cost of a good Txakolina. And with this food, it offered more than enough Basqueness for us to be very satisfied.

Cost: $8 for food, $9 for wine = $17    

Thursday: Green Chorizo Tortas with NV Evolution Sparkling White

Food Details: Melissa Clark green chorizo, made into tortas. Chorizo mixed with black beans, with chihuahua cheese as the meat-cheese base. Habanero vinegar. Marinated onions, sliced avocados and arugula on top. All that inside torta bread. Mexican Bugles for side. Made four big sandwiches.

Did We Like It? We could sell these out the apartment window and make a silly amount of money. Had that perfect meat-cheese melty-ness, freshened up by the avocado and arugula, and an overall composition of delicious.

How Was The Wine? Nine grapes done up Champagne-style. Muscat, gewürztraminer, pinot gris, white riesling, chardonnay, pinot blanc, sylvaner, muller-thurgau and semillon. You read that list, particularly since it leads with muscat and gewürztraminer, and you'd think this would be sweet-ish. At least highly fruity. It's not. It's quite dry, with some very pleasing bitterness and herb stem notes. More pinot blanc and muller-thurgau than anything else. Quite nice, and we'll be buying it again.

And The Pairing? Didn't really go with the sandwiches, but we weren't displeased. Good food and surprising wine that don't ultimately go together but don't horribly clash can be Just Fine.

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

Wednesday: Scaccia with 2012 Paringa Sparkling Shiraz Barossa

Food Details: Saveur recipe, and will be had six times a year henceforth. It's lasagna bread, but has none of soupy boringness that, for me, comes with lasagna. Semolina dough, San Marzano tomatoes, sharp provolone and smoked mozzarella to approximate caciocavallo, basil and garlic. Arugula salad to finish.

Did We Like It? It's our new Sunday night dinner! Fairly simple, just takes (mostly inactive) time. It's tastes like my first experience with good Italian food as a child in the 80's. Better, of course, but quite evocative. Everything is in proportion and everything is offered at the right level. Not bready, not too cheesy, not too tomatoey. Just DE-licious.

How Was The Wine? Shiraz likes basil and we had to drink this sparkling shiraz. Licorice, black fruits and froth. Fine enough, nothing super-duper by any means.

And The Pairing? Same with the food. Fell into the category of "nice to have wine here." That's really all it offered.

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

Tuesday: Tuna Niçoise with 2014 Terrasse du Moulinas Blanc Elégance Languedoc-Roussillon

Food Details: Olive-oil poached tuna Niçoise on butter lettuce with gaeta olives, capers, onion, grape tomatoes, haricots verts, fingerling potatoes, and hard-boiled eggs for me.

Did We Like It? A less delicious version of home tuna Niçoise. The on-sale butter lettuce sat there, limp and tasteless, offering nothing. Made it feel like there was a hole in the meal.

How Was The Wine? Started with an older 2010 Domaine de la Pepìere Quatre Muscadet and it offered little in the way of anything resembling enjoyment. Moved on to this year's house white, a grenache blanc, vermentino, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc blend from the Languedoc that has the acid and sparkle we do enjoy. Thought it was fading when last drunk, but here it matched up rather beautifully in the way regional food and regional wine tend to do.

And the Pairing? This tasted purposeful together. Not spectacular, just Provence Purposeful. With that, we found tons of enjoyment.

Cost: $23 for food, $31 for wine = $54

Monday: Hanger Steak and Watercress-Shishito Pepper Salad with 2012 Broc Cellars Cabernet Franc Central Coast

Food Details: (recipe) Whole Foods hanger steak (medium-rare) with a salad of watercress, shishito peppers, celery and leaves, and Rogue Flora Nelle cheese. Potato pancakes for starch.

Did We Like It? Our third time having this deliciously meaty-bitter-creamy dinner and it's still is all kinds of lovely. A bite with everything - hanger, watercress, shishito and cheese - is stupid how great it is. Get good cheese. Rogue is essentially our only source for blue cheese-like cheeses now. The fresh edge it offers is perfect.

How Was The Wine? Last had with Persian beef and barberry sauce, it's full of shiny red fruits, violets and cinnamon on the nose, a bit less in the intensity of that on the palate for the first 2/3, then finishing with something like a rum raisin smack. Still chugging along quite nicely. One left.

And The Pairing? Not as good as the La Posta Malbec with this meal, but there was a grace here that was welcome. And it showed some guts with the bevy of bitterness on the plate.

Cost: $28 for food, $19 for wine = $47