#286 - Roast Chicken & Endive in Rosemary-Balsamic With '11 Ponzi Arneis

Continuing the theme.

A lot of Michael Symon and Jamie Oliver lately and this meal was no different.

A simple meal with Symon chicken we've chronicled here a few times already and a easily made endive (chicory) salad with rosemary and balsamic taken from Jamie Oliver's 30-Minute Meals. Oliver garlic bread that eschews butter to top off the goodness.

Wine thoughts: red and chicken is boring to us. Sparkling might have been nice but we like a wee touch of spice or a bread and cheese leader to counter/play with bubbles. White wine was the leading candidate to start but the meal needed acid in the wine to stand up to the balsamic and the roasty caramelizing, the major flavor drivers on the plate. Balsamic's Italian, lemon and bay in the chicken are common Italian ingredients. Garlic bread. What's more Italian? Arneis has acid and it's Italian. So we drank Italian...from Oregon.

Food: Symon chicken and Oliver chicory salad with garlic bread

I'll plagiarize myself: Go here to see the prep. "Lemon peel and bay leaves shoved under the skin (with that, garlic and onions put up its rump) has made for a better whole roasted chicken experience. Juicy thigh, delicious salty, lemony skin, bay leaf flavor flyin' everywhere."

It's better chicken. Onions cut in half and stuck in the pan with the chicken to roast. A caramelized wonder, my friend.

An Utterly Haphazard, Completely Unreliable, Probably Not Complete List of Our Favorite Food and Wine Of 2013

Our Best of 2013 list, chronicled by month.

Criteria for this list: Good food, good wine, buggy-bear pairing love, something unique, something we very specifically loved, just whatever struck our fancy and deserved a list-type spot.

In short, some big impressions of the year past.

So...good, very good and great are listed, with the meh, huh?, and terrible not listed. Because who has the time for the bad in life? Just move on.

#292 - Roasted Chicken, Salsa Verde, Amaranth Leaves & Radishes With NV Pierre Peters "Pour Albane" Brut Rosé

What are amaranth leaves?

We had no idea. Don't even know what species we ate last night but I tell you what. They're delicious! Like Swiss chard but, you know, good (I've never been a fan). Big, cheap bundle at Whole Foods necessitated a purchase.

A Champagne rosé seemed like a good catch-all for chicken, salsa verde, amaranth and radishes (and we wanted to drink it) but this was an example of a wine being too delicate to play the role of herder. And an example of maybe checking the price tag before letting the wine serve as a herder. That's not something one should do in this price range.

Oops!

Food:  Michael Symon chicken, Michael Symon salsa verde, amaranth leaves, radishes, Seeduction bread, butter and rose petal jam

Symon roasted chicken. It's better chicken. Go here to see the prep. Mrs. Ney turned the oven off from its high cooking temperature 15 minutes before the time allowed to see if that brought about a juicier chicken all around and success! Moisty moistness galore. Lemony, herby, delicious.

Symon salsa verde - it's salsa verde in a different form, loaded with dirty delicious anchovy-caper flavor that's cleaned up in such a new, lifty way by the parsley-mint-olive oil driver (I plagiarized myself from here. Good meal, that. Fond memories).

#277 - Michael Symon Chicken, Salsa Verde & Fava-Corn-Avocado Salad With '08 Viñátigo Verdello

We spent four days in Portland/Willamette Valley last week.

Here are some highlights:

• No sales tax! 
• The Portland airport smells like wet dog. 
• Firehouse Restaurant has good food that needs more depth but a great wine list. 
• The new Nissan Sentra has fantastic get-up-and-go but it's a little too slopey. 
• No sales tax! 
• Owen Roe winery is a warehouse with a road sign and gravel road leading to it that makes you think you might be bound, gagged and thrown in the basement. But by golly! Great private tasting! 
• Nick's Italian Café in McMinnville pumps out delicious, old-school vittles with a huge nod to the new and a great, cheap, Oregon-focused wine list picked to match the food. 
• Expected the Willamette Valley to be more...bucolic.
• The beautiful grounds at Ponzi match their beautiful wines. 
• At Voodoo Donut, simple is better.
• Stumptown Cold Brew gets us closer in finding the best bottled coffee 
• I thought I'd found the Holy Grail of Viet/Thai food while eating at Pok Pok but it didn't resonate as much as I thought it would (and then it did. I really did). 
• No sales tax! 
• No self-service gas stations, which was a touch odd. 
• Potato Champion's worth it for the curry ketchup and anchovy-tarragon mayo alone. 
• Olympic Provisions has a top-notch ham sandwich and bratwurst. 
• Flagship Powell's Books made me miss bookstores. 
• Andina's Peruvian grub hit a big place in both of us. 
• No sales tax! 
• Four days of sun and mid-70s...in Portland, continuing our vacation streak of great weather (knock-knock).  

Maybe should have went skydiving. Maybe should have seen the coast. But nice little getaway overall. We both thought that if we worked for a corporation and were told we were getting transferred, with the myriad of just terrible possible options, if we were told we were going to Portland...for two years...we'd both say, "Oh...okay...we can do that." It's a nice place with nice people and tons to do.

On the food. We like home food and we like Chicago food just a bit more. In our small sample size, we missed the depth and maybe the surprise.

Speaking of home food, this is why we Like it:

#282 - Michael Symon Chicken & Delice de Bourgogne With '05 Jobard Meursault-Blagny 1er Cru

Unbeknownst to us, Monday was National Cheese Day.

I'd like to thank the Maker that we accidentally had cheese with dinner. Can you imagine the humiliation if we didn't?

It was even more nice that we had a cheese we love, Delice de Bourgogne, with chicken we love and white Burgundy, which rounds out a true (and easy) favorite over the last couple of years.

Our white Burgundy collection isn't anything deep or broad, but we usually have a few on hand, nothing radically profound, but a couple that are age-worthy.

That became a problem couple of weeks ago when we read this from Matt Kramer at Wine Spectator:

"Starting with the 1995 vintage, that "better tomorrow" often didn't arrive. White Burgundies that should have been gloriously fresh-tasting, vibrant and dimensional five or seven years after the vintage proved to be nothing of the sort. In fact, they were dead, victims of what has come to be called premature oxidation. Affected wines have a dark yellow hue (where they should be a vibrant lemon-yellow); the scent is oxidized, almost Sherry-like; and the flavor is flat, devoid of fruitiness, essentially shot. This for wines that should just be beginning to become mature."

Premox. We had no idea. Might explain this. White Burgundy for us has been a recent dalliance but that's a big blind spot. Places like Burgundy and Barolo are regions put on the back burner due to the price, making for big holes in our knowledge of those places and, apparently, a large thing like this evaded our wine news radar.

Don't think we would have dropped the bucks on this bottle had we known. But we did and got lucky.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #48

Taking a trip to Tuscany in a few months. Six days in the countryside, two days in Florence. Wine, good food, quiet, pool, and a villa that has only three other rooms, so that's our speed.

Should be quite good.

And I don't know how, but we nabbed two tickets for $650 each! Went up to $1150 two days later. Big score.

We've hit a bit of a cheap wine wall lately. So taking a wine break with weekday meals that aren't going to be food-wine Good has been the play.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $137 for food and $64 for wine = $201

Total food and wine cost for the month: $385 for food and $394 for wine = $779

Sunday: Anne Burrell Chicken Milanese with 2015 Bokisch Verdelho Vista Luna Vineyard Lodi and 2015 La Val Albariño Rías Baixas

Food Details: The usual Anne Burrell chicken Milanese. Harvesttime chicken breasts, breaded and fried. Michael Symon pickled red onions, nut-pecorino-parsley blend. Arugula and pomegranate seed salad. Top the chicken breast with all the other goodness and eat.

Did We Like It? We liked all the other goodness, but the chicken breasts didn't make the cut. A bit rubbery. Cheap chicken runs that risk. Damn fine meal though, when we only ate the really thin parts of the chicken.

How Was The Wine? Toughie. The La Val...I know the Orballo label from La Val is their international label, but wasn't sure if this La Val label is merely the same thing in its original label for $4 less. It's not. It misses on the salinity and confident acid that's offered by the Orballo. A fine albariño, but it doesn't offer the confidence, sparkle and presence the Orballo does. We wavered back and forth on the Bokisch, initially liking its red grapefruit-like acid and flavor, then wondering if it should be giving more than it was, finally ending on liking its versatility enough with the food for only $14. More levels and changes than the La Val, which was simply a lemon-lime spritz with a few salty sea notes thrown in at the end.

And The Pairing? I'm glad I didn't buy the case of the La Val like I initially wanted to. It never ingratiated itself to the food. No pivot or adjustment. The Bokisch did, giving a nutty note at times with the food, turning more quiet and subtle in others. It always was making an effort. When we order another case from Bokisch, which will happen, this one may be a thrown-in at the end to round out the case.

Cost: $13 for food, $30 for wine = $43 

Saturday: Orecchiette, Sausage and Rapini with 2015 Rosa dell'Olmo Gavi Piedmont

Food Details: The standard orecchiette with sausage and rapini business. It's a house classic.

Did We Like It? Great sausage-flavor mingle here. The spices in the sausage bounced around, looking for something to pick up on and run with. It did, often. Good batch. 

How Was The Wine? Dry, crisp, lightly floral, peaches, medium-bodied, a lil nutty. The first 2015 of this Trader Joe's gavi for us. A little less broad as when this wine has showed best, but we'll be happy with it, as we'll be having it with this food another five times through the end of the year. It's a classic as well.

And The Pairing? As I said, a little less broad and a little less perky than previous drinkings, but it had enough to offer with the food to find the fundamental coziness that these two have with each other. 

Cost: $8 for food, $8 for wine = $16   

Friday: Chicken and Rice with 2015 Barbadillo Palomino Fino Cádiz

Food Details: Leftover chicken from Jeremiah Tower chicken on Sunday. Zucchini, celery, carrots, onions cooked up in the cast-iron; pan deglazed with fino sherry; parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; white rice.

Did We Like It? The sherry with the chicken was resplendent! Real barn burner. Basic bowl of food that turned into a Big Bowl of Happy. Not one complaint. 

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.

And The Pairing? Sherry grape with sherry in the food. That helped it along big time. No complaints here either. 

Cost: $3 for food, $6 for wine = $9

Thursday: Mango Curry, Raita and Naan with 2015 Lila Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough

Food Details: Mango curry, from 660 Curries, adding ginger, using ataulfo mangoes. Black mustard seed raita. Naan.

Did We Like It? Solid curry dinner! More than moderate depth, perfect heat hit, round and balanced all-around. We were happy with this.

How Was The Wine? It was delicious with haloumi and heirloom tomatoes, and excelled with piri-piri chicken as well five weeks ago. Since then, not so much. Different batch? The grapefruit-mint-acid balance has disappeared.

And The Pairing? Here, it was dull, with a faint tinge of dumpster juice.

Cost: $12 for food, $6 for wine = $18  

Wednesday: BBQ Chicken Sandwiches and Potato Salad

Food Details: Quick and easy dinner. Baked BBQ chicken breasts. Easy-peasy. Mayo. Arugula. On rolls. Potato salad on the side.

Did We Like It? Fine and good sandwiches. More than just "it fed a hole." Potato salad upset our stomaches. No idea why.

No wine.

Good place to take a break.

Cost: $10

Tuesday: Jeremiah Tower Chicken and Watercress Salad with 2013 Domaine des Herbauges Val de Loire Grolleau Gris

Food Details: (recipe) No washing, and no sauce made with pan juice. Pan juice is too dippin' delicious by itself with bread. Added Vidalia onions and sage this time. Watercress and arugula salad with walnut oil. More beautifully ripe heirloom tomatoes. Whole Foods ciabatta buns.

Did We Like It? This is our third time eating this chicken and every time, we say we'd eat this damn thing twice a week. It's Frenchy, yet firmly planted in the Chez Panisse world with its subtle, unique pop and taste-length. Each version has been slightly different and each one has been perfect.

How Was The Wine? Less oily and more fruity this time. Smoky-fruity. Lighter. A breeziness to it. Flinty, almost.

And The Pairing? This is the second time we've had this wine with this chicken. Very different expression this time and very delicious. Whole Foods has been doing some nice things with a few select wines lately. This is right at the top. Grolleau gris grape, which was new to us, and it's the ideal wine with this chicken. Tastes like Leisure. Might be one of the pairings of the year.

Cost: $26 for food, $14 for wine = $40          

Monday: Dinner With The Fam

Food Details: Ottolenghi sage-lemon almonds to start. Trader Joe's dolmas with a yogurt and Fustini's pomegranate balsamic dip. Lamb-beef kofta with roasted cauliflower, arugula and pomegranate seeds as the entrée with an heirloom tomato and Vidalia onion salad. Pita. Gluten-free nut-poppyseed chocolate cake for dessert, with the gluten-free-ness for Mrs. Fam.

Did We Like It? The kofta went a little over. So did the cauliflower, but this might have been one of the best versions yet of this fairly new house favorite. All the spice and cream and acid and juice and pop came together, forming into something quite elevated. Beautiful heirloom tomatoes. And the Fam loved it, which helped, because we weren't sure that was going to be the case.

Cost: $65

Roasted Chicken, Salsa Verde & Arugula With 2010 Didier Dagueneau Blanc Fumé de Pouilly +1

Spiral - Netflix - all 40 episodes - do it now. Season 5 may drop as early as spring 2014.

The Dagueneau Silex is magic in a bottle. If pushed, that's most likely my favorite wine.

Here, the Blanc Fumé de Pouilly, at half the price, gives you almost everything you want from the Silex. Instead of Silex's 120 different flavors, you get only 72. It's a shame so many people in our lives tell us that they'd never spend x number of dollars on a white wine. That's kooky talk. There's nothing like Dagueneau wines. Nothing in the least.

This 2010 was no exception.

Food: Roasted chicken, Symon salsa verde, arugula, bread and butter

Roast your chicken how you like roasting your chicken. We're a hybrid of Thomas Keller and Michael Symon roasters.

Symon salsa verde. Keep this mostly true to the recipe, because anchovy, caper, garlic, shallot, parsley, mint, some sort of hot pepper, olive oil, red pepper flakes, lemon zest, salt and pepper together is a witches' brew of flat-out stupid-greatness. Added smoked almonds and tarragon this time. Do that. Because it's good.

Three Winners Of Jury Duty Week

Sequestered Jury Duty Week!

Coming home to Jamie Oliver Greekiness and Matthiasson Tendu White washed all the exhaustion and mild frustration that comes with sequestration right away.

Greek chicken, from Jamie Oliver's new CBS Saturday morning show, 15 Minute Meals. It's loud and flashy and boom-boom-boom, cut-cut-cut, but it's Jamie Oliver making quality food that speaks to our stomach. As per usual.

Swapping out the regular couscous for whole-wheat Israeli and adding avocado and sweet corn to the salad were the major changes from the above-linked recipe. The result was punchy, herby chicken, a big mound of couscous salad consisting of ten different delicious flavors dancing in step with each other, a minty tzatziki to slather on anything we darn well pleased. This was good as 15-minute lunchy food gets.

The last time we had the 2013 Matthiasson Tendu White ($20 - Vin Chicago), about six weeks ago with chicken Milanese, it was deliciously simple with echoes of complexity that allowed it to go deeper with the food. Completely different this time. Where we maybe missed a briny, ocean quality that comes from good vermentino last time, at its core this time were seashells, minerals and herbs all over the place! Framed by its citrus but defined by a distinct, attention-getting ocean-mineral center. Loved, loved, loved it. Bought four more. It's a liter bottle, it's 12.8% alcohol, and it's pretty great stuff. With the food, it fit like a glove. When the 2014 round-up happens a few months from now, this will be on the list as one of the best of the year, at the top of the 'perfectly simple and perfectly perfect' category.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #7

Dear Committee Members, by Julie Schumacher, was house favorite over the last couple of weeks. Breezy, hilarious read, particularly for anybody who spent WAY too much time in a college town.

The rest of the year will be me reading books I never finished. This week, White Noise by Don Delillo. It's rather refreshing to read post-modern literature after reading the pile of suck that is post-post-post-modern literature.

And I've never looked less forward to football season than this year, college and pro. It all seems so freakin' exhausting. Go...Browns?

Total food and wine cost for the week: $90 for food and $98 for wine = $188

Sunday: Free Chicken, White BBQ sauce, kumatoes, herb salad, basil and rolls with NV Grifone Bianco Sicily

Food Details: Free chicken! (no price tag on it at work), roasted. White BBQ sauce, basil, herb salad from Trader Joe's, and rolls. Rip and top. Eat. But the big key here was the magic that happened with the white BBQ sauce and tons of basil together. Make sauce, buy basil, compile ripped piece of roll + chicken + sauce + TONS of basil. It equals dinner MAGIC!

Did We Like It? YEP-YEP-YEP! Everything around the sauce-basil was background. This sauce and lots of basil made for an explosive new flavor that would probably be on a tasting menu from a Sean Brock-Michael Symon "special food night." Dances James Brown-like in your mouth! And the wine helped.

How Was The Wine? It's cheap moscato-riesling from Sicily. Trader Joe's. $5. Loves food, particularly big flavors from chicken pick-n-choose. Usually a nice fruity refresher with this meal, here with sauce-basil, it turned into a cross between moss-covered oceanside rock and water from a flower vase, with tiny hits of smoked fruit peel. And we weirdly loved it.

And The Pairing? See above. This wasn't right in a traditional pairing sense, but was oh-so right in a life sense. Piggybacked on the utter uniqueness of the sauce-basil flavor and created a second unique deliciousness in such a welcome way. Great meal right before vacation.

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

Saturday: Indian Carrot Salad with Goat Curry, Naan and Raita with 2014 Earthstone Sauvignon Blanc Sonoma County

Source: Jamie Oliver recipe here.

Food Details: Took goat curry from the freezer, cooked it down to evaporate most of the liquid. A salad of carrot, onion, cilantro, mint and sesame seeds. Dressing of lemon, ginger, olive oil, cumin and mustard seeds, s/p. Mixed with salad. Plate of arugula, carrot salad on top, goat on top of that. Raita and naan on the side.

Did We Like It? Big thumbs up! Way up! And two more items came out of the freezer. It's rarely been so empty. I should clean it. Or maybe not. The goat curry turned into spicy Asian goat BBQ and it was delicious. But this meal, always, is a big spread of Indian-influenced food that satisfies every jones you'd ever have. Spicy, fresh, meaty, vegetable-y, dip, dunk, eat, cleanse. I love it so much. I like it more than I like most people.

How Was The Wine? We stayed cheap. The Earthstone Sauvignon Blanc has taken over for the Trader Joe's Growers Reserve, mainly because it offers cool, breezy acid and fruit restraint that went missing from the latter lately. It's nothing special, and wasn't here, but it hits some guzzle-worthy place when drunk during a busy and annoying work week, as it was here.

And The Pairing? See above. Missed on a goat curry bite, but the acid liked the carrots, cilantro and arugula. Fine "refreshing beverage" with this meal.

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


Friday: Ham and Cheese on Pretzel Buns with 2014 La Granja 360 Tempranillo Cariñena

Food Details: That's it. You read it above. Cheap ham and cheap cheese on pretzel buns. We're saving for vacation, so poof! ham-cheese-pretzel.

Did We Like It? We're saving for vacation, so poof! ham-cheese-pretzel. Did I mention that?

How Was The Wine? Chilled tempranillo was put in a glass so I could keep up this 365 business.

And The Pairing? Wine. Food.

Cost: $9 for food, $4 for wine = $13


Thursday: Mexican Rice with 2014 La Granja 360 Verdejo-Viura Castilla y León

Food Details: Freezer-garbage Mexican rice dinner consisting of Mexican rice, kielbasa from Wednesday, freezer salsa, freezer peas and non-pooped-on cilantro. Sour cream on top.

Did We Like It? Went above 'filling a hole.' We MUST empty the freezer. Nothing goes in and at least one thing comes out with each meal. So, strange food this week, according to Mrs. Ney. Here, we had carbs, protein, herbs and sour cream goop. A big bowl of Mexican-ish stuff in it. That'll do.

How Was The Wine? House white. Spanish verdejo-viura from Trader Joe's. It's $5 and suffices for meals like this. Its flavor tastes like a random Tuesday when we decided it was time for afternoon wine.

And The Pairing? No complaints. Food and wine in the basic sense, but I wasn't left wanting.

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


Wednesday: Tapas Spread with NV Albero Sparkling White Wine

Food Details: Trader Joe's Spanish meats sampler pack of saucisson, serrano and chorizo, Sardininan Brigante cheese, marcona almonds, arugula, garlic/parsley/olive oil baguette and kielbasa-stuffed dates in piquillo-tomato (?) sauce, which we barely touched and will probably be puréed and used for a meatball dinner.

Did We Like It? Yep. Tasted like our Spanish/Portuguese vacations, when we go to a supermarket and compile a cheap dinner with what we can find at El Corte Inglés or Pingo Doce. This $5 sampler pack isn't too shabby. The serrano isn't particularly distinctive, but the other two maintain a minimum quality in terms of flavor/freshness to be worthwhile. And it's the perfect amount for two. Solid Sardinian cheese, which is true for most Sardinian cheeses I've tasted. They like cheese in the way I like cheese - sheepy, creamy, grassy, nutty. Almonds, arugula, garlic, parsley, all the goods needed for a tapas spread and a leisurely two-hour dinner. What's not to like?

How Was The Wine? $6 cheap Trader Joe's Spanish sparkler made from viura, malvasia and airén, we believe. Fruity, fuzzy, frothy, focused, six dollars. Likes food. What's not to like? Not. Fancy. Just bargain bubbles with nice acid and fruit, and tastes like cheap house wine in Spain, which has a quality we enjoy.

And The Pairing? Tasted like thrown-together vacation food, where the pairing doesn't really matter, and there's enough elemental Spanish-ness all over the place to bring a smile to your face.

Cost: $15 for food, $12 for wine = $27


Tuesday: Melissa Clark Green Goddess Chicken, Zucchini-Tomato-Onion Salad and Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits with 2014 Matthiasson Tendu White California

Source: Two Melissa recipes: Green Goddess Chicken and Flaky Buttermilk Biscuits

Food Details: "Use stuff up!" dinner. GGC recipe altered a bit, using chicken thighs and cooked under a brick in the cast-iron. Green Goddess sauce, using as many herbs in the crisper as possible (no chives, so dill), while using a whole serrano to bring more pep. Used freezer GG to marinate the chicken. Made a fresh one for dipping and dunking. Buttermilk biscuits, a bit charred, but served admirably as a carb component. Grilled zucchini mixed with leftover pickled onions, and tomatoes that needed to be used up. Make it, drag and dump GG sauce through everything, and you'll be a happy camper.

Did We Like It? Yes, yes and yes. We went through a big Green Goddess phase from mid-2013 through mid-2014, but haven't had it recently. It has everything you need in terms of greeny punch and broad, healthy zip. Wakes you up and goes quite deep. Your stomach wants herbs, veggies, acid and balance. Your head wants it to taste good. This has all of that.

How Was The Wine? We fell in love with the 2013 Tendu, a 100% vermentino in a one-liter bottle that gave lovely herbal, ocean, briny notes with plenty of snap and character. Simple, lovely, right and proper. We blew through 6-8 bottles last year. The 2013 started to lose its snap and energy by the winter of this year, so we waited for the 2014s to show up in Chicago. Then it didn't, until Pastoral had it on their restaurant wine list and they were kind enough to sell me three through their shop. The 2014 is mostly vermentino with French colombard and chardonnay thrown in due to the fact that the vermentino this year didn't have the acidity needed to make Tendu, Tendu. At first, we loved it, thinking it might be better than the 2013, but the chardonnay showed up a little too much for us, losing the personality, grizzle and verve that we loved so much in the 2013. It's still Tendu. We like it, and will buy every release. It's wine that likes food that we like. This year just won't be "We need a case! Now!"

And The Pairing? This is where the Tendu wasn't the Tendu we love. The GG gobbled up the vermentino and shoved it into the background, allowing the chardonnay to come forth from the shadows. We like chardonnay but don't crave it, except with very specific food. And this was nice chardonnay, lean and mean. But this food wants vermentino to give everything that vermentino is, a wine that tastes like a stiff ocean breeze blowing over a sandy, grassy bank. Stupid California drought and heat.

Cost: $11 for food, $29 for wine = $40  


Monday: Sean Brock Steak, Potatoes and Steak Sauce with 2003 Chateau Fombrauge St.-Emilion

Source: Heritage, by Sean Brock: herb-marinated hanger steak with onion gratin and steak sauce (pg. 135; sauce page 240). Here's the recipe from someone on the internets.

Food Details: Hanger steak marinated tarragon, parsley, chervil, chives, s/p and olive oil. Let sit. Seared medium-rare. Onion gratin. You don't have to slice onion paper-thin. It's going in the blender. You do have to slice the potatoes paper-thin, because, like potato tart, the texture it gives is essential. For the gratin, the recipe says 8-inch round baking dish. No way three pounds of potatoes fits in there. Adjust. Steak sauce made from about 15 different ingredients, simmered, blended (used dried apricots instead of golden raisins).

Did We Like It? Here's steak and potatoes, with a steak sauce that tastes like a hybrid of Heinz 57 and A-1, but it's so much more than mere steak and potatoes with steak sauce. In fact, the entire meal was a hybrid of steak and potatoes many of us grew up with, while elevating everything enough that anybody could get into the nostalgia trip without thinking it's a gimmick. Make it. It's Sean Brock. He makes things that come from a good and honest place. Everything will taste like a better version of every steak and potatoes with steak sauce meal you've ever had.

How Was The Wine? Gotta. Drink. All. This. Bordeaux. So this meal seemed like a good opportunity. Huge, pretty nose. Real presence. Very alive wine, with round blackberry/cherry that gives way quickly to an earthy mid-palate and a subtle vanilla oak/blue Sweet Tart finish. Sounds like a generic Right Banker, but it's very nice, medium-bodied, properly aged, value-driven stuff.

And The Pairing? Delicious with the gratin, giving everything it could give, and creating that thing that nice Bordeaux and food creates. Less so with the hanger and steak sauce, as the vinegar in the sauce interrupted the linear progression of the wine, chopping it up a bit. But happy stuff overall here.

Cost: $34 for food, $33 for wine = $67

#302 - Anniversary Roasted Chicken With '03 Dom Pérignon

Every once in awhile, my curiosity piques over the ridiculously extravagant.

Over the stupid stuff, the silly things in life made strictly to say, "I am lavish. I am ornate. I harken back to the spirit of rococo, the baroque. By possessing me, you are saying something about what you are, how you live and most importantly, what you're not. And you're going to pay a hefty sum for me...to keep out the riff-raff."

Wine is not immune. Not even close. In fact, the wine world may be one of the last of the supposed luxury worlds that, in some circles, is still meticulously protecting their exclusivity with ever-increasing gateway prices that would feed a Guatemalan village for a month.

For juice. I don't become curious over the status-chasing stupidity of it all. I just sometimes wonder, "What does it taste like?"

With all that said, that's not really Dom Pérignon. Their release prices have held rather steady and, in a relative high-end wine sense, reasonable over the years. You can get a cuvée for about a C-note and a half upon release. It starts to go up from there as demand begins to outpace supply and $150 is nothing to sneeze at for sure.

But we'd never had a Dom Pérignon and an anniversary dinner to celebrate number eight was coming up. We could go out into the world and continue our streak of being let down by anniversary/birthday-type dinners (long, uninterrupted stretch there - and my Thanksgiving crappy movie streak is prodigious) or we could stay in, eat a favorite meal and drink fancy-pants wine for half the price. Even think about following said fancy-pants wine every anniversary and watch it evolve.

The end result was delicious, enormous, chickeny chicken, fancy French Basque cheese (hey, we were just on the other side of that border) and a Champagne that tasted of fancy vanilla bean, butter and not much else.

This Dom Pérignon (I refuse to call it Dom) is just a baby but that was the idea. Start it out early and see where it goes over the years. After having it, we were left with a palpable sense of "keep it." Nice to have, now know what it is in a sense, beautiful texture worth every bit of its price tag but we'd take an Egly-Ouriet at half the price any day of the week.

#306 - A Potpourri Of Pairings

Geesh! It's been two weeks.

We here at FWW haven't been in the type-y mood as this election has sapped the strength of even the strongest of oxen. It's been head-in-the-sand time in our house, sitting very still, letting the time pass and hoping it does without incident, desperately wanting the polls reflect an accurate reality.

The Ney house endorsement is to the right. Always has been, always will be.

But it's time to clean house. Keeping busy on something other than following election coverage will help to keep me sane during this longest of days.

Today's effort is merely for cataloguing purposes, as nothing in the last two weeks blew us away. But some nice moments of pairing pleasantness occurred so let's put those to electronic paper.

#299 - Two New House Favorites With Two Wines

Back to home flavors after Rioja with two meals that epitomize new home flavors.

New in the sense of taking old favorites and tweaking them, moving old faves forward, keeping them fresh and new.

The first meal, Symon roasted chicken with down-and-dirty salsa verde and a tomato-corn-arugula salad, has become new with the weekly visits to the Lincoln Square Farmers' Market. Where roasted chicken used to reach such great heights with a simple roasting of the bird and tossing down some Fancy French cheese with good bread to slather with said cheese and sop up bird juice (that phrase sounds weird), the newness of the new comes in the impeccably fresh salad ingredients in various forms that become more than just side salad.

To wit. Here, the tomatoes were stupid-ripe and bursting with proper tomato flavor. Take advantage now. Not much time left in that realm. And it's corn season, folks. Use it and abuse it until you're sick of it. Predicted to be the worst crop in 17 years (news that piques an Iowan's interest, like me, because that was the de facto, 'the sky is falling,' grocery store-coffee shop-Casey's conversation everyday growing up), here was delicious corn complementing the tomato in great ways.

So...Michael Symon roasted chicken (chronicled many times on this here blog), this time an enormous Whole Foods five-pounder with a shimmering golden skin and juicy (even the breast) meat. One of the better ones of late. Tomato and corn salad with an arugula bed which was more about the tomato and corn than the arugula. Salsa verde, It's salsa verde in a different form, loaded with dirty delicious anchovy-caper flavor that's cleaned up in such a new, lifty way by the parsley-mint-olive oil driver (plagarized myself there). It's the thing on the side that sits there, saying, "Use me how you like. I don't care. Salad? Sure! Taste that! Chicken? Yep! Told ya. All of it together? That's what I'm about." Whole Foods Seeduction bread with butter to round things out.

#226 - Two Meals And Two Wines

Last night's wine was an example of a wine made so much better by the fact that both of us wanted nothing but California syrah.

Rare thing, that; wanting California syrah to such a degree.  Sometimes, satisfying a yen jettisons the opinion of a wine from the "yeah...good stuff" realm into the "that's the best thing I've ever had in the history of history!" silly superlative world even if it merely shows typical, open and proper.

The key came in the non-fancy fancy food with flavors on the plate we haven't had before, which was the goal of the meal.

And what flavors they were.  The collection of Iberian peninsula cookbooks continues to amaze.

Food:  Spicy Azorean garlic-roasted pork with fideos, black olive gremolata and pickled onions

French-Spanish-American With French-Spanish-American, Plus Other Stuff

Jolly good food week.

We had wine and food that matched up with their countries, something somewhat rare for a string of three meals in our house.

Usually, there's some crossover or playing around, just to keep it frisky.

#1 Chicken thighs, fennel and olives with crispy potato roast, served with 2010 Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe La Crau Blanc ($58 - Saratoga)

French and French. Thomas Keller recipe. Last had here with the exact same wine and vintage.

It's $8 food with spendy wine. Two changes to the recipe. Tarragon added and thighs marinated in leftover Michael Symon salsa verde (from meal below).  It is what the name of the recipe says it is, except when it comes together, it tastes like food that's been eaten and refined over the course of 200 years. That's what Thomas Keller recipes taste like. He makes food that taste...so...perfectly...in proportion. Everything serves a purpose at just the right level. That's what we found here again. Cheap food. Fairly easy food (that's saying something for Keller recipes). Utterly delicious food. This wine with this meal can't get better. Just can't. It's slap-to-the-face good.