Harissa-marinated Skirt Steak and Cornbread With 2011 Three Wine Company Mataro

Or mourvèdre, by another name.

Yotam Ottolenghi is the chef du jour in our house. If we find a recipe he wrote, Mrs. Ney will probably make it. He makes flavors we like, while putting a bit of a tweak on what we like.

This harissa-marinated skirt steak was a good example. Both of us loved the simplicity of the marinade, which allowed the harissa to just be harissa. It was beef and harissa playing with each other, without anything else getting in the way. Place it on top of the tomato-red pepper simmered stew that was bright, sweet, light, and deep, and we got something akin to Moroccan ropa vieja.

Recipe. Halsted Whole Foods skirt instead of sirloin. Fresh tomatoes instead of canned. Preserved lime instead of lemon. Coarsely ground caraway and cumin added. Cornbread as the side. Arugula-parsley-pomegranate seed salad to finish. Fusion-ish but not really. Just good, clean flavors that left an impression. We'll be having this again.

Quality pairing as well. Served with a bottle of 2011 Three Wine Company Mataro Spinelli Vineyard Contra Costa ($20 - Binny's). Tasted EXACTLY like a bargain California mourvèdre done well. Like if the winery tried to fancify these grapes and make something more structured and long-lasting, something would be lost in translation. Opened herby, transitioned to a blackberry/black cherry bitter-dry sassafras soda quality, and finished light and easy, but with enough guts to finish right. Overall bright and happy. It's not trying to be anything but what it is and that was welcome. Matched up quite nicely with the food, offering that extra dimension and depth with a bite and sip, sip and bite, while showcasing this wine as a bargain keeper with food.

This was a good example of buying a wine blind, never having anything from the producer before, and wanting to try more from them after having it. Served with stewy food flavors that was still bright and chiseled, like Moroccan ropa vieja, this was good surprisingly stuff.

Charleston soon. Charleston? Yep. Charleston. Sean Brock Charleston mini-vacation. Looking forward to it.

#196 - Harissa Hanger, Spicy Carrot Purée & Sherry Onions With '08 Mas Carlot

Good things are good.

Last night's dinner was good, great actually.

Bridesmaids is not so much good, well, sorta almost good, marginally almost funny, not the worst way to spend a 97 degree day.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is quite good and should probably be seen in 3-D, just make sure to go in with knowledge of Werner Herzog's penchant for meandering through the material in a way that can only be seen through his eyes.  Do that and you'll love it.  And the postscript absolutely has a place.

I cannot recommend Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, an 800 page manufactured drama of the most inconsequential inconsequentialness.  If you're interested in the behind-the-scenes fights over how the ESPYs made it to air, then this is for you.  For me, it's like listening to other people's stories about their children.  Keep it.  The Pale King, DFW's unfinished novel, was bought for summer reading but instead I chose to finish this pile of poo.  And it's 800 pages!  Did I mention that?

But back to the good.

Ever eaten high quality soil?  We have, last night, on the plate and in the glass and it was delicious.

Goat Inspired By Komi With 2006 Prager Riesling Smaragd Bodenstein And 2012 Bastianich Rosato di Refosco

Last year, we had two meals out in the world that brought us such utter face-slapping joy, when we received the bill and saw what they were charging us for the face-slap, we both screamed, "I need to pay more!"

One was in Cihuri, Spain, at El Trujal del Abuelo, where a five-course meal featuring the best fat-slathered beef I've ever had and two pitchers of their stunningly fresh rosado cost a stupid-cheap 75 Euros. For both of us.

The other was in D.C., at Komi, a place that, if we were into ranking stuff, which we do on occasion just for funnsies, sits mere baby steps behind Etxebarri as the best meal of our lives. If you should be in D.C., eating at Komi will remind you--and if it doesn't, you're doing it wrong--why eating out can be an experience that feels like a gift, a feeling that seems to be fading in the current restaurant environment that too often feels like a calculated cash grab. "This chef wants out in....6 1/2 years...and he's retiring to...Majorca."

In our one experience there last June - a number that will change to two within the next year or so - Komi is the furthest thing from that.

#107 - Harissa-Marinated Bison Flank Steak & Two Wines

Two days ago, I did a wildly detailed spreadsheet inventory of our wines.

The side-effect of it was seeing the number of wines that probably should have been drunk years ago. Fewer than I thought as we try to keep good tabs on such things but I can't recommend a non-vintage Trialeti Akhashini Georgian (the country) red wine bought probably three years ago and very well could have been eight-nine years old. Tasted like bugs.

I'm guessing the 2004 Toasted Head is on a similar path without the buggy bugginess.

But a surprise in the older/"drink me now! Geesh!" vein was drunk last night, a wine that thoroughly outperformed a wine that we just adore and was also approaching its demise.

Food: Harissa-marinated bison flank steak, sweet potatoes and frisée

In June, we went a little darker, big and Frenchy with bison flank steak, using a Chris Cosentino marinade containing junipers, balsamic and black pepper. Following this recipe last night (bison for tri-tip) , the bison came off insanely bright in a great way.

Using Whole Foods harissa paste - a product that has the freakin' goods - garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and sherry vinegar, the result was meat with flavor that jumped in our mouth, staying perfectly bright and sunny and allowing the bison flavor to completely come through. Turned into a surprisingly light meal and for $12 a pound, bison's always a perfectly delicious option.

Served with honey, cardamom and ginger sweet potatoes and a frisée salad with a toasted cumin seed/za'atar vinaigrette. A North African/Middle Eastern/Maghrebian/Levantian extravaganza in many ways. Except bison. Not many bison in the Middle East.

Wine: 2004 Yalumba Hand-Picked Shiraz-Viognier ($30 - Sam's) & 2006 Rosenblum Cellars Mourvèdre ($11 - Binny's)

We were under the assumption during the meal that the Yalumba we were popped last night was the same vintage as the wine we drank with what was probably the best food and wine pairing we've had in the last year. It wasn't. And thank all that is holy. It solves a riddle knowing that it wasn't the 2004 Yalumba HP Shiraz-Viognier with the Asian beef filet. It was the 2005. It would have been odd to see such a dramatic change in just a few months and would have forced me to buy a larger wine fridge right now. Money saved!

The 2004 Yalumba by most estimates is approaching the end of its drinking window and that's what we got last night along with a wall of tailing oak. Very concentrated cherry and herb core right away that disappeared in a split second, then settled into a medium-bodied, rather ordinary wine that was drinkable but not particularly distinguished. Then the oak bomb came. Every other sip was like chewing on a piece of dry wood that's sat out in the hot sun for years. Tannins were tired and the wine overall just came across as weary and creaky. Drinkable but geriatric. We missed the golden years with this one.

So we popped a second bottle, a 2006 Rosenblum Mourvèdre (with a touch of Carignane) made in Contra Costa County, just northeast of the Bay Area. Rosenblum wines are everywhere, in grocery stores, liquor stores and corner markets. And I'm quickly coming to the realization that that's a good thing. This was the second or third Rosenblum wine we've had and they seem to be quality performers at a great price point.

A cloudy red in the glass with a floral violet note on the palate mixing with a solid core of red and black raspberry and maybe a bit of bee pollen. Fine structure and played well above its price tag in some great ways. Probably would have been better two years ago but seemed to be still going strong enough.

Pairing: 85 Boring with the Yalumba, Surprising and good with the Rosenblum

The Rosenblum mingled beautifully with the bright bison and just soared with the cumin seed. Mental note: Cumin and Mourvèdre.

While the Yalumba was clumsy and tired, the Rosenblum saved the night. It would have been sad to see such a wine fail with meat of this caliber but the Rosenblum came to the rescue and served us admirably.

#131 - Harissa-Marinated Skirt Steak & Yuca Fries With '07 Santa Ema Merlot

Alrighty.

Last night's wine didn't really taste like wine.

Very little tannin, very little depth, didn't change much and was a bit of a one-trick pony.

It was more like a wine-type beverage.

And we were TOTALLY okay with that.

Food: Harissa-marinated skirt steak, chimichurri, yuca fries with whiskey piri-piri mayo for dipping and an arugula-pomegranate seed salad

Planned for Tuesday, it happened Wednesday because of what happened in the note below (ordered pizza).

Medium to medium-rare skirt steak marinated for two days in harissa paste (hot chilies, garlic, salt, etc.). Good meat. Solid meat. The two-day marinade may have took some of the verve away from its skirt steakiness but it was tasty and welcome nonetheless.

Yuca fries (house favorite) makes any meal, this time with a whiskey-piri piri mayo that left a perfect hint of whiskey and heat that didn't overwhelm.

An arugula and pomegranate seed salad with a chimichurri drizzle to top it off.

Tasted South American good with a little more finesse; one of those meals that falls into the world of 'just good food.'

So meat marinade from the Maghreb and yuca and chimichurri from the Southern Hemisphere. Wine?

Quinta do Vale Meão Meandro was in the discussion. Zinfandel? Wine Spectator's inexplicable and continued love affair with Schild Shiraz was revealed again this week (the 2008 is #7 on the 2010 top 100 list) and we still have the '04 and '05 hanging around.

But...South American flavors and South American wine worked in the past (particularly here and here) and we had a cheapie with a bit of a buzz around it.

Wine: 2007 Santa Ema Maipo Valley Reserve ($11 - WDC)

If blueberry Whoppers existed, that's exactly what this wine tasted like.

All malted milk and milk chocolate with a swirl of blueberry juice, a touch of vanilla that became much more pronounced as the bottle opened up, a touch of cherry, a bit of pepper, some sage and more blueberry Whoppers.

Mostly, the milk chocolate note showed right away and quickly dissipated, transforming into what milk chocolate offers in the way of texture, turning into all malted milk with a ton of vanilla extract in the flavor profile with black pepper and a very secondary cherry note popping up now and then along with sage kicking up towards the end of the meal.

Sure, it was one note, very simple and bordering on weird. But we had absolutely no complaints.

Reminded me of the Flor de Crasto and its Mounds bar domination, the Bogle Merlot that's basically sage milk and the Montes Alpha that was all BBQ sauce - cheap wines that are great one-offs that shouldn't be thought about or critiqued too much. Just drink it and enjoy the wine-type beverage-ness.

Pairing: 88 Like a CSI: episode. Enjoyed it for exactly what it was

Nothing fancy. Nothing trying to be more than it was or could be. Nothing clashed.

Parker gave the wine a 90 and the estate put that on the bottle neck. To that, we say, "you go, girl." It's ten freakin' bucks and Parker throws that in your lap? Use it and abuse it.

For $10, I'd buy more for meals similar to this - food where we're sorta indifferent about the wine pairing (mostly anything would have been fine enough) and food where we just want a little meat and whole lotta yuca with mayo.

A quick note: Monday's Greek feast deserved a big write-up but frankly, it would have been long and frankly (who's Frank?) after the third bottle, the details began to get blurry w/r/t the intimate pairing details. Had a former co-worker over and the wine did flow.

Food: Yellow split pea dip with pita bread, spicy marinated cerignola and Castelvetrano olives and spiced pumpkin seeds to start. Chicken and skordalia with artichokes and fava beans for the entrée. Ouzo-lemon tiramisu for dessert.

Wine: 2006 Raventos I Blanc "L'Hereu Reserva" Brut Cava ($18 - Binny's), 2009 Skouras Moschofilero ($14 - WDC), 2009 Flor de Crasto Branco ($15 - Binny's), 2008 Valtea Albariño Rias Baixas ($17 - Binny's) and homemade Limoncello

All of us couldn't have loved the food more, particularly the yellow split pea dip, which we gorged ourselves on, leaving us full before the great chicken and skordalia, which drew the short stick on being able to fully enjoy it. Tiramisu = yes, please. I don't love tiramisu but this is some good tiramisu.

The wines played their role. Raventos Brut Cava is a favorite, this one a touch less vibrant than previous drinkings but still pretty. The Skouras showed more bitter lemon peel this time around and less depth. Good enough but forgettable. The Flor de Crasto Branco was ALL Portugal with a kaleidoscope of melon, green fruits and wet stones. Mrs. Ney freakin' Loved it. The Valtea Albariño was my favorite with a finer minerality and subtle citrus edge.

Fun food night with good company.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #14

An exceptional dinner on a spur-of-the-moment decision at Spiagga Café for the Michael Solomonov pop-up dinner on Tuesday.

Inevitably, after eating so much of Yotam Ottolenghi food lately, a comparison is going to be made, which is unfair, but happened. We enjoyed the snot out of the food, and will be making his hummus and pita, two items that need improvement in our food world.

It was very Good food. It maybe didn't dig into our soul.

Close, though.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $272 for food and $74 for wine = $346

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

Source: Based on a recipe from Mexican, by Jane Milton (page 186), with the addition of green chorizo, from Melissa Clark in NYT Cooking.

Food Details: "Zucchini Goop" by another name. Cook your chorizo. Remove from pan, and then brown two sliced onions. Add garlic and four [previously salted and rinsed] sliced-into-sticks zucchini, sautée some more. Add half-pint of halved cherry 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, dill and parmesan. Buy everything at Harvestime so total cost for all this is $6. Plus a $5 loaf of Whole Foods Ancient Grains bread. What more do you ask of life?

Did We Like It? It's our new favorite Sunday supper. Bready, porky, touch spicy, vegetabley, happy as all-get out.

How Was The Wine? Our favorite rosé this year was a dud with harissa goat leg on Monday. So we dumped both cans in a wine bottle and left it in the fridge. Here, since the wine in the bottle was all the way up to the neck, it lost virtually nothing in vim and vigor. Guava and strawberry wrapped inside perky, sunny acid. A fun drinker. Big fans.

And The Pairing? Can't ask for more. Best pairing of the week. Toss some goop on the best bread ever, eat it. Take a sip. Know that my week is over and Mrs. Ney's is almost over.

Cost: $11 for food, $14 for wine = $25 

Saturday: Chicken Milanese with 2014 Estancia Pinot Grigio California

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

Food Details: Chicken breasts, breaded. Quick-pickle onions. Pecorino-nut-herb dry gremolata-ish goodness. Arugula. Mini-ciabatta, buttered.

Did We Like It? Yep. Always. Decent batch this night.

How Was The Wine? I tried it before dinner and sorta hated it. But with food, pretty lemongrass and lime, with a creamy peachy note and the upper-end of medium acid. Quite nice for $10.

And the Pairing? Good cut with the wine. Made us want to keep going back. The Milanese recipe goes with a lot of white wines that bring an acid-first personality, follows with graceful flavors that taper off rather quick-like, and then bring a gaseous, mineral finish and more acid refreshment. Bring some snap and you'll be happy. We were here.

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

Friday: Husk Cheeseburgers and Oven Fries

Food Details: Leftover Husk Cheeseburgers from here (Sean Brock's Heritage cookbook, page 131). American cheese, mustard-pickle sauce, brioche buns. Oven fries, from this NYT Cooking recipe, via Martha Rose Shulman, using leftover russet potatoes.

Did We Like It? Big shipment of meats coming from D'Artagnan soon so we have to clean out the freezer. Single-stack here with surprisingly delicious oven fries. Burgers = always great (better fresh, of course, but still quite good), and easy oven-baked fries that we'll be making again; crisp-ish, then creamy. Happy Meal for adults. And Happy Meal.

No Wine.

Cost: $8 for food.

Thursday: Potato Pie and Herb Salad with 2013 Sainte Céline Chablis

Source: Savory Potato Tart recipe, via NYT Cooking (Tanis)

Food Details: Thinly sliced potatoes mixed with leeks, crème fraiche, garlic, thyme, nutmeg, s & p. Placed in a pie crust, topped with more crust like a pie. Baked. Herb salad on the side.

Did We Like It? Easy French bistro food at its best. It's a house favorite, last had in July, when it was stupid-great with a Chablis we forgot we had. It's about the goop in this one. Deliciously savory, expanding in your mouth (giggity) so beautifully. This batch was a touch salty, but it didn't detract.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's cheap Chablis. Both of us didn't get much here. Right and proper entry and finish, just not much in the way of excitement, presence or energy.

And The Pairing? See above. Nothing went pear-shaped; there just wasn't much in the way of linkage or interest.

Cost: $8 for food, $13 for wine = $21

Wednesday: Venison and Bread Sauce with 2014 Domaine de Fenouillet Vin de Pays du Vaucluse

Source: Venison in bread sauce recipe, via Lucky Peach

Food Details: Venison (FREE from a co-worker) braised in red wine, orange juice, apple and marjoram. Bread sauce made with sour cream and almond milk instead of milk. Arugula salad with pomegranate seeds to finish.

Did We Like It? Nice one-off. We had free venison, Lucky Peach is a great source, and we've never had bread sauce, which sounds a touch odd but simply brought a mashed potato quality in a different form. Nice bready essence. We don't love venison (I grew up on rather boring deer meat), we have free venison, and now we've had our every-three-years venison.

How Was The Wine? For a wine we put in the fridge last week (with a preserve disk), this had all the stuff you'd want from a cheap Côtes du Rhône without the bad. Not too shabby. Nice brush, dry fruit, good length, pleasing finish. Happy. Typical of Vaucluse. If you can't decide between two CdR and Vaucluse is one of them, go with Vaucluse.

And The Pairing? Good enough for a meal Mrs. Ney wasn't even sure we'd eat. "Might be getting a chicken!" came from the kitchen. That's a sign that she's leery of ALL OF IT.

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

Tuesday: Michael Solomonov Dinner at Spiaggia Café

Michael Solomonov, Philly chef, of Zahav, Federal Donuts and Percy Street BBQ, held a pop-up dinner at Spiaggia Café. I heard about it on Twitter through Tony Mantuano, and I've always been interested in going to Zahav in Philadelphia. We made a quick decision to go. Glad we did. It was a great time.

Cost: A huge bargain for this kind of thing: $200 for both of us.

Monday: Harissa Goat Leg and charred onion-tomato over labneh with 2011 Three Wine Co. Mataro Contra Costa

Source: Goat leg (a Molly Stevens recipe). Charred onions over labneh (a Melissa Clark recipe).

Food Details: An altered version of lamb and charred onion with labneh from last Tuesday, a meal we flipped for and wanted to eat again NOW. Goat leg, slathered with homemade harissa, roasted with tomatoes and onions (which took too long). Labneh on the plate, ripped goat next to it, the charred tomatoes and onions from the roast on top of the labneh, pita on the side.

Did We Like It? It missed. Maybe we ate it too soon after first having it, but we didn't find the sweetness from the tomatoes, which permeated the entire meal, to be satisfying. It didn't allow for any gaps and pauses, any enjoyment of the char and the oniony goodness, any love of the interplay between the char and labneh coolness. Everything was just sweet.

How Was The Wine? We abandoned the Field Recordings Grenache Rosé in a can quickly, as "we were gettin' nothin'!" Moved on to the Three Wine Co. Mourvèdre and found some delicious violet, plum and charred meat notes, all in a medium-bodied package. This wine is lovely. Loved it last year, liked it here.

And The Pairing? The meal was frustrating. Tasty, but frustrating. The goat took too long, the sweetness was overwhelming, we had to abandon our favorite rosé of the year. In the end, we have some nice food and a happy wine that brought something to the food, but little in the way of total satisfaction due to all of the above.

Cost: $30 for food, $27 for wine = $57

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #24

No family holidays for us this season.

So Christmas, for us, this year, was food, wine, and the second season of 'Fargo.'

It's not The Wild Bunch, but how many people are killed in 'Fargo?' Gotta go with about 60-70 at least. Geesh!

Before watching that, I consumed Making A Murderer on Netflix, an 10-part documentary that's infinitely intriguing while you're in it, but loses much of its impact in the last third when the filmmakers decide against employing a wider social lens.

I was busy.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $161 for food and $183 for wine = $344

Total food and wine cost for the month: $471 for food and $452 for wine = $923

Sunday: Guinea Hen "chicken and rice" with 2015 Viñas Chilenas Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Guinea hen bits and juice from Christmas dinner, onions, walnuts and amaranth greens, over wild and brown rice.

Did We Like It? A very nice dinner compiled with things from the freezer. Tasted healthy without tasting "Oh...this is healthy food."

How Was The Wine? This is $4, fresh, fruity, round, bouncy and delicious. Cabernet-syrah blend done up rosé style.

And The Pairing? No complaints. The wine remained its juicy, bright self while never interfering with the delicate nature of the food. Nothing great, nothing not. $6 meal, wine included!

Cost: $2 for food, $4 for wine = $6 

Saturday: Pick-n-Choose with 2014 Charles Smith VINO Pinot Grigio Columbia Valley

Food Details: Mariano's rotisserie chicken, kumatoes, avocados, arugula-parsley salad, mayo, and mini-ciabatta buns, with pickled red onions for me.

Did We Like It? Siempre. It's pick-n-choose your bite, which really isn't pick-n-choose, technically. We top each ripped ciabatta with the same collection of flavors, each of which like each other so very well together, it becomes a heaping mound of happiness. They're friends, hence this oft-eaten meal.

How Was The Wine? Sparkle and polish, acid and citrus blossom notes. There MIGHT be some fade going on here, as there was a wee touch of a jumble in flavor delineation happening with this drinking. We'll see.

And The Pairing? Assembled bite: ciabatta carb, mayo, glazed chicken, kumato dark-tomato flavor, creamy avocado, herby-peppery salad. Pickled onion pop for me. Add the wine's citrus and acid cut and cleanse. You'll be happy. We were.

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

Friday: Christmas Crab Rangoon Empanada Lunch and Guinea Hen Dinner

Lunch: Homemade faux-crab Rangoon empanadas with mâche salad and pomegranate seeds for Christmas lunch, served with NV Gaston Chiquet Brut Tradition Champagne. The crab empanadas are probably a one-off, but what a nice one-off they were. Fish sauce-based dipping sauce for the empanadas. So, happy Asian flavors in a Latin wrapper.

But the fish sauce killed the Gaston Chiquet, our first Champagne love that we haven't had in a couple of years. Good food lunch with bubbles that fell flat. Something with a bit of sugar like riesling was the play here.

Dinner: Delia Smith guinea hen with 30 cloves of garlic, with the addition of cumin, caraway and tarragon; Ottolenghi harissa pommes Dauphine (feta instead of goat cheese), and Ottolenghi roasted carrots with coriander seeds and garlic, with the addition of lemon thyme, served with 2013 Matthiasson Refosco Napa.

THIS is a Christmas dinner. Perfectly seasoned and spiced guinea hen meat with more pan garlic-juice poured over top. Succulent, is the word. Little pillows of fried potato balls studded with harissa. Best roasted carrots on the planet. "Post-Ottolenghi world," my butt, Saveur. A great Christmas dinner that ranked right up there with all the other great Christmas dinners we've had when not seeing family. I think there's a connection between those two. Wonderful linkage between each element on the plate with the crossover of seasoning.

Paired with watching 'Fargo' more than the Matthiasson Refosco. A one-hour decant still didn't crack open this low alcohol, but very tannic and ripe refosco. This one was a good example of a wine that tasted very well-made, but offered little in the way of openness, ingratiation or friendliness with the food. Too tight, too tannic, too oddly full to give much here. A surprise given my perception of the nature of refosco. Tasted more like a tight-fisted cabernet without the alcohol. At times, it felt like it was trying, but nothing to see in terms of pairing here.

Cost: $52 for food, $85 for wine = $137      

Thursday: Jacques Pepin Brandade and Mustardized Asparagus with 2009 Michel Brégeon Muscadet 

Food Details: (recipe) Fussy-but-easy = lots of fiddly but uncomplicated steps that you MUST follow: Pepin brandade, using Whole Foods salt cod, half celery root and half potatoes, almond milk instead of dairy, white balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice, pecorino instead of parmesan. Mustard-y marinade on asparagus (grilled), chopped marcona almonds, and grilled baguette.

Did We Like It? Best brandade yet. Mrs. Ney usually uses Goya pollack, but Whole Foods had true-blue salt cod this time. Great balance between the fish, creaminess, nuttiness and celery rooty-ness. Silky texture, great depth. Weirdly delicious asparagus. We like asparagus. This mound of spears, with the marcona and mustard, made them more than just a green side dish. A Christmas Eve dinner that should be a new tradition. Our own 'Feast of the One Fish.'

How Was The Wine? The 2002 Brégeon was a bit of a revelation, that time with chicken and skordalia. It was eight-year-old Muscadet that tasted like it was made yesterday. A bottle of 2005 was funky swamp water, something so rank that we've been a little gun shy about diving back in to the Brégeon. This 2009 was a touch muted and probably needed a decant/more time in the bottle. Pleasing lemon-lime zest, lovely minerals, moderately punchy acid. But in all, a bit quiet. We opened a bottle of 2013 Jackys Preys Cuvée de Fié Gris Touraine to compare and got a wild, bucking, natural wine that showed its naturalness, both the good and the not so. An explosion of grass, flowers, smoked lime and iron at times, other times it turned rather beer-like. Really enjoyed its gregariousness at first, but with the food, we turned back to the Muscadet, as it played in a much more friendly manner with the food. The fié gris wouldn't shut up!

And The Pairing? The Muscadet never got out of the realm of "pleasant" with the food, liking the brandade well enough, even if a bit withdrawn. The middle of the meal was like a huge action scene in a movie with the fié gris, bringing all the explosions and crashes, but leaving us a little exhausted with the effort. We went back to the Muscadet and found pleasing nuggets of good-enough-ness.

Cost: $20 for food, $45 for wine =  $65       

Wednesday: Solomonov Kofta, Pickled Persimmons and Zucchini Baba Ganoush with 2011 Pascal Janvier "Cuvée du Rosier" Coteaux du Loir Rouge

Food Details: Goat kofta and pickled persimmons from Saveur (in the piece, would somebody please tell me what the hell "post-Ottolenghi world" means?). Zucchini baba ganoush (from New Middle Eastern Food), subbing in zucchini for eggplant. Pita. Arugula salad on the side.

Did We Like It? First, goat kofta and pickled persimmons together in one bite is certainly something everyone should try, because it's stupid-delicious, and will be had be us again. And again. Golly, that's good stuff. Zucchini baba ganoush as a veg in dip-and-dunk form. Salad freshness. Meat-veg-carb-green. But in an utterly different and exquisite form.

How Was The Wine? I expected a floral frame, and got aromatics in the form of spice. Light-bodied with guts, crushed berries, a dancing flurry of lightly toasty spice. Delicately tart finish. 100% pineau d’aunis from the coolest part of the Loire. Low alcohol, bright acid, lovely wine. Buying again. This one fits into a unique wine place that also caters to the food we like.

And The Pairing? It threw a couple of moody fits with the food, but overall quite happy with the pairing here. Somewhat muted with the baba ganoush, but very much liked the goat and persimmon.

Cost: $15 for food, $16 for wine = $31

Tuesday: Bucatini, Anchovy, Caper and Chile with 2012 Regis Minet Pouilly-Fumé Vieilles Vignes

Food Details: When you're a little groggy after a work Christmas party, you want to go out to eat. We wanted to. Then we looked around the interwebs at menus, saw one list that had bucatini with anchovy and chile, and both of us thought, "THAT'S what we want!" Then we started doing the math. $18/bowl of that pasta dish at the restaurant. Bottle of wine. Probably an appetizer or two. Maybe some starter bubbles. Tax. Tip. That could easily be $150. All the ingredients for "What we want" are in the house. And we have wine. Better wine. So...

Bucatini, evoo, anchovies, capers, garlic, manzano pepper, pepper flakes; separately-charred tomatoes, parsley, mint, toasted bread crumbs dumped on top.

Did We Like It? Jeebus, yes! Tasted exactly like what great pasta can be. A perfect blend of carbs, flavor and satisfaction.

How Was The Wine? Flinty, grassy, smoky, citrusy; everything that Regis Minet is and three years old to boot. Crazy producer that makes what became our house Pouilly-Fumé years ago.

And The Pairing? The wine fell right in line with the weight and balance of the pasta, offering an even more stream-lined, broad feeling to the meal. Couldn't ask for more happiness.

Cost: $7 for food, $18 for wine = $25    

Monday: Work Christmas Party

Food Details: Potluck. Brought chicken liver pâté, toasties, ginger-scallion sauce and Korean hot sauce for the supplied Sun-Wah whole pig, and farro-olive salad.

Wine: Alloy Wine Works Grenache in the can, from Field Recordings.

Result: A good time had by all.

Cost: $50

Two Meals With Four Wines

The month of February has zero redeeming qualities.

None.

Two meals and four wines. Or. Two solid meals with four fair-to-middling wines that offered just enough to keep things in the realm of acceptable, with sprinkles of interesting.

#1 - Rabbit confit with sauerkraut buckwheat crêpe lasagna and shishito peppers, served with 2011 Kuentz-Bas Alsace Blanc ($15 - Whole Foods) and 2013 VinTJ's Gewürztraminer Mendocino County ($8 - Trader Joe's)

Delicious recipe for rabbit confit from David Leite (of The New Portuguese Table). Halved, spiced and herbed up, covered in oil and confit-ed in the oven for three hours, grilled (save that oil! It's awesome as a sauté oil for garlic in pasta). Rabbit from D'Artagnan. Two rabbit legs each. These were capital-G great rabbit legs, so pretty out of the package and perfect after cooking. Rabbit meat with the three-act play. Frenchy skin hit, clean rabbit-y meat, woodsy, herbal finish. Big winner. Sauerkraut (Paulina) crêpes, from this Saveur recipe, turned into sauerkraut crêpe lasagna, as the buckwheat and almond milk subs in the crêpes made them fall apart. Tossed a little (read: a lot) of sour cream on top and whole grain mustard on the side here and we were happy with the result. Sautéed shishito peppers (Trader Joe's is selling them now), done up Mr. Leite-style again. The hope was that these would add a cut and snap to this meal. Missed. But overall, this dinner gave us much of what we wanted, which was great rabbit with 'other stuff' to back it up.

#232 - Spanish Niçoise-y Salad, Greek Feta & Carrot Purée With '09 Síria

Fancy stuff, in the food and in the wine.

The fancy came from the purity and abundance of flavors and the ability to taste every one of them in any given bite.

The tastes:  carrots, anchovies, parsley, honey, mint, harissa, thyme-infused olive oil, pickled onions, sesame seeded Syrian bread, feta, kumatoes, Greek black olives, caraway seeds, pink peppercorns, garlic, lemon juice, dill.

So Greeky, kinda Spanishy, bit of North African, all comprising a tapas-y type feel, a little dip here, a bite there and loving every bit of it.

Served with a wine made from a grape new to us as a 100% bottling and possessing a balance, vitality and Portuguese weirdness that slid right into the food in delicious and new ways.

Food:  Spanish-y Niçoise salad, greek feta in honey and pink peppercorns, carrot purée, thyme-infused olive oil and Syrian bread 

#288 - Spiced Lamb Riblets With '10 Villa Creek Garnacha & Tapas With Albariño & Malvasia

Indian, Spanish and 4th of July-inspired food this week.

Served along with torrontés, Slovenian zelen, albariño, malvasia, New World grenache and pinot noir.

A rather lavish three-day spread. That's how we celebrated Independence Day.

That and staying out of the oppressiveness of outside, a brutality of heat so brutal that we skipped Winnemac Park fireworks this year. And from the relative lack of long and sustained firework bangs coming from two blocks away, so did mostly everyone else.

But we ate like people do on the 4th. American-inspired food with American wine. Can't say we're not flag-wavers.

Food: Barbecue-like lamb riblets, tomato salad and corn on the cob

Seven-hour Goat Leg, Carrot Purée, Watercress, Pistachios and Naan With 2013 Donkey & Goat Carignane

Eat more goat.

Because goat is good. And cheap. Go to Farm City on Devon, people. Farm City on Devon. When we moved to Chicago 11 years ago, our first meat purchase at Paulina Meat Market felt like we'd made a quantum leap in the quality of our meat, and food in general. The discovery of Farm City in the last year or so feels like another step forward in quality and pleasure. This is fantastic stuff. If you find food to be merely sustenance, that's too bad. Winnowing something you do at least twice a day, something with the potential to offer so much joy down to simply 'energy' feels sad to me.

This meal had a passing resemblance to one of our favorite meals over the last few years, the place where great goat became known to us, at Komi in D.C..

It's well-done goat, a seven-hour roast of goat, slathered with harissa paste, cooked with tomatoes, onions, garlic, bay, verjus, etc. (recipe here - Molly Stevens, modified to a slow roast in a closed dutch oven). The heat from the harissa mellowed out in the roasting, turning this goat into delicious and balanced goat. It's not medium-rare goat, which was so damn close to Komi's goat, but this is perfect build-your-own goat bites with these accompaniments:

1. Watercress, pistachio and orange-blossom salad (Ligaya Mishan)

2. Spicy Carrot Purée (Claudia Roden)

3. Homemade naan with nigella and fennel seeds (Aarti Sequeira)

All three recipes followed to the letter. All of them easy, with enormous pay-off by themselves and relative to the work involved.

Naan topped with goat-tomato-onion-juice, followed by carrot purée and a heap of watercress and herbs. Pick and choose, mix and match. This meal was about 20 mini-flatbread bites of some of the best food we've had this year.

Served with 2013 Donkey & Goat Old Vine Carignane Testa Vineyard Mendocino ($30 - Binny's). Nice plum, nice funk after the clean, polished front entrance. Pure fruit, medium length, maybe a touch young, as it didn't stretch itself out much. Missed the floral and mineral notes from the wine notes. Pleasant, but not what we were looking for here. With carignan, we want that country feel, a rustic burliness that shows up just when you think it's a fine enough, light-ish quaffer. Good carignan is like a movie that takes a perfectly dark turn. Didn't find that here, at least with this food. But Donkey & Goat is basically across the street from Broc Cellars in Berkeley. That trip is gonna happen sometime.

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 #39

In about 3 1/2 months, we'll be done with this 365 experiment.

At the end, we'll do a breakdown of protein, veggies, grapes, cost, etc.

It will be laborious to compile, but I think quite interesting to see how the entire year ate-and-drank out.

And I'll have the time to do it, because my favorite baseball team, the Angels, are one Garrett Richards injury from being easily one of the worst teams in baseball.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $113 for food and $104 for wine = $217

Sunday: Spanish Hotel Picnic with 2015 Barbadillo Palomino Fino Cádiz

Food Details: Petit Basque cheese, La Quercia borsellino salami, quince paste, marcona almonds, salad, baguette.

Did We Like It? When you're in Spain and just finished a long car trip to your next city (maybe your fly-out city like Madrid), you check into your hotel, really haven't eaten outside of your last hotel's breakfast and a travel granola bar, and need to get some sort of food, any food. If you've planned well and chose a hotel near things, like a Hipercor (or Carrefour), and wander into the strange and glorious K-Mart/Mariano's hybrid that is Hipercor and buy a quick mid-afternoon snack to tide you over until your 10pm dinner reservation. So you buy a spread. Meat in salami form, some cheese, bread, some nuts, maybe some quince paste. All of it is rather cheap and you'll have a true spread of food to lay out on your hotel bed to eat, watch some weird game show on Spanish television that you can't, for the life of you, figure out the rationale or rules of, and enjoy a brief rest from traveling before taking a stroll around town. In other (and shorter) words, this meal tastes like vacation, particularly a part of our Spanish vacations that we've done many times. And you need a wine. It should be cheap and it should be something you can't taste at home. Like un-sherried palomino.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's palomino in not-sherry form. We love how the label says it's "fruity." Nope. This is categorically not fruity. This is dry, clean, savory as hell, light, refreshing, dry, and dry. It's a blank slate. Add food that likes it and things happen. It gets into the food and tastes like standing in a dried-up wheat field in a hot, late-summer day. And it tastes like something an old Spanish man has been drinking at the exact same time everyday for 60 years. In a world of superlatives, this is not something to call some superlative. It's a nice, quiet, evocative drink. A teeny-tiny small moment in the glass. It simply makes you smile.

And The Pairing? Tastes. Like. Vacation.

Cost: $22 for food, $6 for wine = $28  

Saturday: Rick Bayless Tomatillo Chicken with 2015 90+ Cellars Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough

Food Details: From Mr. Bayless (recipe). Layered in the crock-pot: onions, potatoes, chicken, cilantro, tomatillos, pickled jalapeños and juice; salting each layer through the tomatillos. Four hours on high. Over rice.

Did We Like It? Always. This version was much less spicy than usual, but didn't detract from the joy that is Crock-Pot tomatillo chicken.

How Was The Wine? In our effort to replace the cheap, weekday, Trader Joe's sauvignon blanc, which hasn't been delicious or interesting for a couple of years now, we gave this one a go. Nothing revolutionary at all, but nice. Crisp, clean, bright tropical fruit with a modicum of depth that satisfied, just enough, our weekday sauvignon blanc jones. At $9, it's an option, but we're still searching.

And The Pairing? The wine had a bouncy tropical fruit bubble gum brightness by itself. That was gobbled up by the food, turning into a more subdued, pleasant quaffer that paired moderately well. Nothing great, but after a couple of wine clunkers this week, it was nice to have something that gave an effort.

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

Friday: Sandwich with More Leftover Wine

Food Details: Italian subby-type sandwiches filled with capicola, genoa salami, mortadella, provolone, onions, romaine, kumatoes, vinaigrette and mayo on Harvesttime Italian bread.

Did We Like It? We like sandwich so much that it's now referred to in the singular in this house. This version of sandwich had all the meaty-cheesy-goopy goods in one Italian-American sub shop-like package. Damn fine sandwich. And made A LOT!

How Was The Wine? More using up of fridge wine. Finished off the Lagar de Cervera, and the drinking further confirmed that this albariño ain't fo' us.

And The Pairing? Tasted like sadness.

Cost: $25 for food

Thursday: Puttanesca with 2014 Charles Smith VINO Pinot Grigio Columbia Valley

Food Details: Linguine puttanesca consisting of gaeta black olives, capers, briny green peppercorns, anchovies, garlic, red pepper flakes and extra virgin olive oil.

Did We Like It? A fine pasta bowl. We liked it. Yes.

How Was The Wine? Using up wine in the fridge. We love Charles Smith's pinot grigio for its zip, fruit and cheapness. But it must be fresh. This 2014 showed as other 2014s have of late - getting a little tired and lacking chisel, cut and verve.

And The Pairing? Nothing to see here. Move along.

Cost: $8 for food, $11 for wine = $19

Wednesday: Ottolenghi Three-Chile Fish and Pickled Potatoes with "Wine"

Food Details: (recipe) Mrs. Ney tried a recipe that's been sitting on the computer desktop for too long. Three-chile fish from Ottolenghi, using smoked milkfish, with a harissa-tomato sauce and tahini. Solomonov pickled potatoes to dip and dunk in harissa-tomato and tahini as well. Parsley. Arugula salad to finish.

Did We Like It? A fine one-off. Fine enough, but wouldn't have it again. Clean and light, with a sneaky depth. And I could eat tahini seven days a week.

How Was The Wine? Huge fail across the board. Finally found some level of acceptable with a bottle of Trader Joe's torrontés after opening a 2014 Lagar de Cervera Albariño Rías Baixas and found an unacceptable lack of salinity and acid for our albariño taste. Came off like a wine that would only work with the simplest of seafood prep, like octopus with the tiniest amount of lemon spritzed on top, or the simplest of oysters, which isn't how we eat. We need some guts. This one is too delicate and soft. Shame, because I've been looking forward to this one, as it's made by the La Rioja Alta people.

And The Pairing? Dud.

Cost: $15 for food, $26 for wine = $41        

Tuesday: Bittman Fish Sauce Game Hens and Scallion Pancakes with 2010 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Schlossberg Riesling Spätlese Mosel

Food Details: From Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World, Vietnamese cornish game hens, page 334. Lucky Peach spicy fish-sauce sauce. Crispy scallion pancakes from Serious Eats. Charred rapini.

Did We Like It? After Pok Pok, this was the meal we were most excited about, and it's probably our favorite meal right now. A piece of scallion fry bread with some ripped game hen on top and a healthy dose of fish-sauce sauce might be a perfect bite of food. You have to like salt to really dig in and LOVE it, but we do. It's a shame there are about three people in our life that would get why this is the Best Food, because it's pretty damn perfect food.

How Was The Wine? Tasted like the ripest apricot we've ever had. Lower acid, but beautifully balanced sugar with its acid. The nose alone reminded me why we need to drink more German riesling. Smells like the feeling I get when I realize I'm reading a Great book, at that exact moment about 40 pages in, when I feel how everything is coming together.

And The Pairing? About as lovely as we could expect. A higher acid riesling might have brought more electricity, but the balance here was perfect. Happy-happy-joy-joy all around.

Cost: $22 for food, $27 for wine = $49  

Monday: 'Kansas City BBQ' Sirloin and Fries with 2010 Owen Roe Ex Umbris Columbia Valley

Food Details: Meat and potatoes. Trader Joe's 'Kansas City BBQ' Sirloin steak, frozen fries with charred scallions-rosemary-garlic-balsamic mayo for dipping.

Did We Like It? We did. Sirloin ain't our thang, but Mrs. Ney bought it to have in the house for an easy dinner after our New York trip. Both of us probably wanted a burger and fries more, but this version of meat and potatoes brought enough of that to satisfy.

How Was The Wine? A mix of syrah from different Washington Vineyards around Columbia Valley, The Ex Umbris was usurped by the Marietta Cellars line of juicy, bouncy, red blends over the last 2-3 years in our world, mainly because pure syrah on the more bargain end of the cost spectrum can be oddly finicky with food. Pleasant here, with black fruits, tobacco and a moderately big black olive nose. Nice acid, more than expected. A good showing for a wine we haven't had in quite awhile.

And The Pairing? Pleasant again. Missed on a complete roundness, depth and full-blown presence, but succeeded in bringing what we want from a basic steak and fries meal with a red wine that completes said basic goodness.

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

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #36

I didn't love Carol, unlike the rest of the planet. Felt underdeveloped with respect to exactly why Carol and Therese are attracted to each other, outside of the physical, which is fine to build upon, but a bone or two thrown my way on the emotional angle would have helped.

Beautifully filmed, fantastic use of score, visually sumptuous, great performances. Blanchett and Mara are two of the best working today. It simply felt initially unformed, and the rest of the castle was built on that.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $96 for food and $130 for wine = $226

Total food and wine cost for the month: $431 for food and $519 for wine = $950

Sunday: Green Chorizo-Zucchini Goop with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

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 two sliced onions. Add garlic and four [previously salted and rinsed] sliced-into-sticks zucchini, sautée some more. Add half-pint of halved cherry 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, dill and parmesan. Pugliese bread to top with zucchini goop.

Did We Like It? Bready, porky, touch spicy, vegetabley, happy as all-get out. This version brought the heat.

How Was The Wine? Fading. Still perky-sunny, but the distinctive, round, bouncy guava-strawberry fruit is fading into rather flat generic fruit.

And The Pairing? The acid still present in the wine saved it from being a pairing dud.

Cost: $9 for food, $14 for wine = $23

Saturday: Ottolenghi Chicken Salad with 2014 João Portugal Ramos "Lima" Loureiro Vinho Verde

Food Details: Mr. Ottolenghi's take on chicken caesar salad, which tastes vaguely like caesar salad, but with the signature Ottolenghi "crap! this man can cook!" spin. Yogurt, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper in a bowl. Half for marinade on the chicken, other half for dressing. Easy-peasy. Chicken seared, then ovened. Salad of romaine (sub for radicchio - too tired to run to WF), arugula and tons of basil. Charred onions (added to the recipe). Chicken. Green Peppercorns. Pecorino (instead of parmesan). Dressing. Mix. Ciabattini slathered with butter-garlic-parsley. Eat.

Did We Like It? Toss it on the food rotation pile! The great thing about Mr. Ottolenghi's recipes is that his ingredients are ingredients we always have in the house. Calling this chicken caesar salad sells it short, but the outline is there. The green peppercorns in this application tastes like a perfect funky stand-in for anchovies. The copious amount of basil brought an ideal herbal pop. Yogurt-lemon creates a bright framework without overwhelming. It's a big plate of perfect. 

How Was The Wine? We've probably had two cases or more of this wine over the years. It's started to become merely "wine" lately, but here it excelled. Juicy, lightly floral, even a bit tropical. Lovely.

And The Pairing? It LOVES this food, something the Lima hasn't of late. Bright, refreshing, delicious, cleansing... We'd do this again tomorrow. It was that good.

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

Friday: Merguez Kebabs and Kale Tabbouleh with 2014 Marqués de Cáceres Rosé Rioja

Food Details: Another Yotam Ottolenghi recipe that makes us say, "Jebus Cripes, that guy likes food the way we like food!" Merguez lamb sausages made with ground lamb, harissa, cumin, coriander, fennel, paprika, etc. Along with a stupid-delicious Melissa Clark (modified) kale tabbouleh recipe, subbing beets for tomatoes. Tahini (plus lemon juice, garlic and water) with pita.

Did We Like It? Yep. It will be put right into the food catalog and eaten, most likely, 6-8 more times this year. This is weeknight food and weekday food. Fancy food and everyday food. Frankly, if this becomes your everyday food, you're eating extraordinarily well. And isn't that the goal with food? Eat well. It makes you happier.

How Was The Wine? Probably a decade ago, we used to drink this rosé on occasion. Checking back in reminded us why we haven't in a decade. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, just nothing necessarily gripping or compelling about it.

And The Pairing? Best with the merguez on its own, with no tahini or pita. Nondescript with everything else.

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

Thursday: Red Lentil Dal and Rice with 2014 Amancay Torrontés La Rioja

Food Details: Nigella Lawson recipe from NYT. Red lentils, sweet potato, onions, ginger, garlic, chile, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cilantro, etc. Over rice.

Did We Like It? A fine dal with enough depth and guts to say, "Yes. This will work just fine, thank you very much."

How Was The Wine? A better drinking than our first one of this cheap Trader Joe's Argentinean torrontés offering. Peachy-floral, bouncy, nice.

And The Pairing? No complaints.

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

Wednesday: Potato Focaccia with Petit Basque Cheese and Quince Paste with 2013 Raventos i Blanc L'Hereu Brut Reserva Conca del Riu Anoia

Food Details: Yotam Ottolenghi potato focaccia (at the bottom) with petit Basque cheese, quince paste, serrano ham and arugula salad.

Did We Like It? Weirdly wonderful focaccia that we'll be making again. Like the lightest potato pizza that never gets too potato-heavy. Easy to make, just a lot of rest-time involved. Topped with quince paste and petit Basque cheese, it went from a thrown-together dinner into something much better than that. The serrano ham was barely needed. A focaccia-quince-cheese bite repeated over and over again was enough for us. And paired with Come Dine With Me New Zealand was perfect.

How Was The Wine? We used to drink this (former) Cava a lot, but we stopped buying it after a couple of bottles didn't exactly thrill and we got into Champagne more heavily. This drinking will bring us back. 45 % macabeu-40 % xarel.lo-15 % parellada. Biodynamic. You can read about Raventos switching appellations here. Refreshing was the word of the night with this drinking, with the smallest touch of apple-lime and very happy minerality. The L'Hereu hasn't tasted like this for us before. It's lighter, shinier, more polished and direct in the best sense.

And The Pairing? Tasted like a Spanish picnic.

Cost: $20 for food, $20 for wine = $40      

Tuesday: Anne Burrell Chicken Milanese with 2013 Jackys Preys Cuvée de Fié Gris Touraine

Food Details: Home Food eaten dozens of times. Anne Burrell recipe: read it, make it, know it, love it. Breaded chicken breasts, pan-fried. Hazelnut-parsley-pecorino blend. Pickled onions. Arugula salad. A piece of fried breast, bit of nut blend, some pickled onions - eat.

Did We Like It? Al. Ways. And this was a very good version. We love it every time we have it. Felt like it had been too long since the last time.

How Was The Wine? Fié gris grape. Natural wine. Loire. Our third bottle and it's been natural-different every time. That's a good thing everyone, if you're inclined to get into such things. This time, a burnt-out candlewick note, mostly, with a wee touch of Asian fruit and white flowers. And a frothy impression that seemed like it was going to get into beer territory but never did. Wild is the word, and we loved it.

And The Pairing? Nothing wrong with that. Best when the wine was cooler.

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

Monday: Hanger Steak, Blue Cheese and Potato Pancakes with 2012 Arnot-Roberts Syrah North Coast and 2010 Abacela Tinta Amarela Umpqua

Food Details: Hanger steak marinated in Chinese black bean and brandy marinade, seared medium-rare. Trader Joe's potato pancakes for starch. Rogue Creamery Caveman Blue Cheese. Haricots verts seared in cast iron with soy and balsamic spritz.

Did We Like It? Delicious marinade, delicious beef. Rogue blue cheese in any form is so gosh-darn good. With a bite of beef with blue cheese and a lil bit of potato pancake...that's all we need in life. Very happy meal.

How Was The Wine? Two wines that were put in the fridge with Preserva disks over the last week or so. Gotta drink up 'em up and this meal seemed a good time to save on bit of wine dollars since they were already a sunk cost. The tinta amarela came off like before - a touch flat and lacking in depth. The Arnot-Roberts, though, turned into a cool climate syrah with personality, with cooling fruit frame backed by a touch of VERY black olive and a bit of thyme. Had a nice pep to its step.

And The Pairing? There wasn't any point during the meal where we thought about opening something fresh/fancier because the food warranted it. That's how well these fridge wines performed with the meal. The syrah was the overall winner on the night, but the tinta amarela loved the green beans. Good start to the weekend.

Cost: $30 for food, $55 for wine = $85