Goat Kofta, Roasted Cauliflower, Kale, Hazelnuts, Pita And Tahini With 2010 Owen Roe Pinot Noir The Kilmore

$5 goat. $7 for everything else. That's $12 for dinner.

We spent roughly that for an Arby's lunch a couple of days ago when there were no other options and we needed something fast. You tell me which one sounds better. Our answer is, unequivocally, in the above picture. Good Lord! Arby's cheese is not natural!

Don't think you like cauliflower? Eat this cauliflower and get back to me. From Yotam Ottolenghi (natch) in the New York Times. I didn't need cauliflower in my life. Now I want cauliflower in my life after eating this. Sweet, roasty, spicy, nutty, with a pomegranate seed pop and celery crunch. Every ingredient has a purpose. Perfect balance, utterly new, and plenty of roughage to clean out Arby's cheese.

Goat kofta (here's a reason to buy $5/lb. ground goat and toss it in your freezer), made with similar flavors in the cauliflower salad, using allspice, cinnamon, etc.. Tahini and pita to round out the meal.

Eating this meal was like rereading a chapter in a book you're reading, because the chapter was that freakin' good. The world slows down, things make a bit more sense, there's a touch of clarity in your head that wasn't there before. And it's why I can't abide people that say eating should be treated as mere sustenance. When one willfully avoids good food, it's like they're willfully avoiding...beauty. That feels like idiocy to me. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of Arby's next to real food, but this dinner felt like beauty to us.

The 2010 Owen Roe Pinot Noir The Kilmore Yamhill-Carlton ($42 - Winery) benefitted from the similarity of spices in both the kofta and cauliflower salad, letting the wine take a cue from that and say, "Here's all the pretty earth I can give to this." A complete Oregon pinot nose, a touch of plum and a hint of something like a mulled Christmas wine, but this one was all about the earth on the tongue. Delicious wine. The food could have maybe used a floral note from the wine but we were happy campers with this food-wine combo. Felt very intentional, which is all anybody wants from a pairing.