365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #16

Royals are better.

And I can't wait until Halloween is over. It's a silly holiday, though Mrs. Ney's costume for work, Red Flags, is awesome.

A celebratory week of solid restaurant chicken, a couple of greatest hits, and one of the best dinners we've had in a good long while.

Rabbit. Stupid rabbit. You're delicious. And grilled radicchio with rabbit? Gee whiz.

Best rabbit we've ever had.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $142 for food and $137 for wine = $279

Total food and wine cost for the month: $688 for food and $716 for wine = $1404

Sunday: Ham and Mortadella Sandwiches with 2014 Innovacíon Rosé Mendoza

Food Details: Ham, mortadella and red pepper sandwiches on ciabatta, baked. Olive oil chips. It's sandwich and chips!

Did We Like It? Fine and good. Fine. And. Good. Ending your waiting tables week with a big plate of sandwich and chips with rosé works every freakin' time.

How Was The Wine? Last bottle of the $8, one-liter rosé goodness. We drank probably 8-10 bottles of this pinked-up malbec-syrah blend this year. It was good to us. Fading now, as it's getting a little muddled in flavor, but still happy $8 pink.

And The Pairing? It's ham sandwich, chips and pink. What's not to like?

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

Saturday: Taco Salad with 2014 La Granja Blanco Rioja

Food Details: Put all the following ingredients in the biggest bowl you have and mix: Ground beef cooked with taco seasoning, chopped romaine, crushed tortilla chips, shredded white cheddar, kumatoes, onions, leftover jalapeño crema from Fish Taco Tuesday (limed up), cubed avocado and cilantro...

Did We Like It? ...Bring your bowl to the couch, lean back, put the bowl on your stomach, put your favorite TV entertainment on the tele, move your beverages to the edge of the coffee table so you don't have to move too much; eat, drink and enjoy Halloween the way you do.

How Was The Wine? It's taco salad. $5 Trader Joe's Spanish white will suffice. Nothing gets in the way.

And The Pairing? See above. Just enjoy the Big Bowl of Taco Salad with some wine that's good enough.

Cost: $12 for food, $5 for wine = $17

Friday: Boxing Day Sausage Rolls and Arugula

Food Details: Sausage Rolls (here, via NYT Cooking) with an arugula and pomegranate seed salad.

Did We Like It? Fine, easy-peasy, substantial and satisfying food.

How Was The Wine? No wine. We needed a break.

Cost: $8


Thursday: Rabbit Confit, Grilled Radicchio and Celery Root-Chestnut Purée with Pouillon Rose de Maceration Brut Champagne

Source: Rabbit from Michael Psilakis, via Leite's Culinaria

Food Details: D'Artagnan rabbit with rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, shallot, garlic, bay, mustard seed, fennel seed and lavender. Radicchio, grilled, cored, coarsely chopped; with rabbit oil, orange juice, whole-grain mustard dressing. Celery root and chestnuts sauteed in 2 tbsp butter; cooked in almond milk, pureed; finished with a drizzle of rabbit oil. Rabbit drizzled with more rabbit oil at the table. Radicchio and rabbit spritzed with orange.

Did We Like It? Je-Sus! Best rabbit we've ever had! Best radicchio we've ever had! Tasted like if we gave this to an Alsatian grandmother, she'd begrudgingly nod in approval. So savory and crunchy and bitter and creamy and slightly sweet, with perfect acid, perfect rabbit skin and meat, all of it...just perfect. We couldn't get better rabbit dish out in the world, period. Best meal in months!

How Was The Wine? 100% pinot noir, given the saignée treatment. Not floral, not deep, not a lot of stuff, but everything it gets right, IT GETS RIGHT. Pretty fruit, pretty mouthfeel, lilting acid, Champagne doing what Champagne does: make you happy that it exists in the world.

And The Pairing? Like Wednesday, we could have gone in a lot of directions, but in the end the sparkling nature of the wine brought a bounce and lift that kept the entire meal buoyant and a sheer joy, something a still wine might not have done here. Golly, we eat well. This was Exhibit A.

Cost: $40 for food, $44 for wine = $84

Wednesday: Lamb Kofta, Charred Shallots, Labneh and Ancient Grains Bread with 2013 Broc Cellars Grenache Mendocino

Source: Ottolenghi kofta and Melissa Clark charred shallots

Food Details: First time making kofta with lamb. It's usually been goat. Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, parsley, nuts, onion, garlic, all the kofta goodness. Big splotch of labneh on the plate, charred shallots on top of labneh, kofta on the side. Ancient grains bread instead of pita. Inland cress salad with mint. Spritz of lemon on things.

Did We Like It? We had to get back on this horse after the sweetness of the tomatoes in the last version of this meal, with goat leg, brought out some food hate. That was confirmed when we had a bite of this. A piece of Ancient Grain bread, a lil dollop of labneh, some charred shallots, maybe some inland cress, sometimes some kofta. Eat. Beautiful savory combinations that offers space and time to taste and savor everything, instead of sweetness muddying the waters. Can't recommend this more highly.

How Was The Wine? Broc being Broc, again. Our first Broc grenache, with low alcohol (12.5 - nice place for grenache), lovely floral frame, happy red fruits of raspberry and darker currant, sometimes a bit of licorice, sometimes a bit of chocolate. Light body, sunny acid, bright disposition. Liked it very much.

And The Pairing? No complaints in the least. Everything liked each other. We could have gone in a few directions here with the pairing but this one brought a completeness to the meal that never made us think of other options.

Cost: $20 for food, $30 for wine = $50 

Tuesday: Fish Tacos with Purple Corn Sangria

Source: From Duncan Gott of Gott's Roadside. Recipe taken directly from here. Purple corn sangria (Bobby Flay) here.

Food Details: Mahi mahi marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin and then grill the fish. Make some cabbage slaw. Bought guacamole this time, because the avocados weren't ready, and mixed it with tomatoes and cilantro. Jalapeño crema. Hot sauce. Charred tortillas.

Did We Like It? Any celebration week in this house must have fish tacos, because they're the best fish tacos on Earth. This batch was one of the better batches made. Complete balance in flavor. Loved-loved-loved it.

How Was The Beverage? And one of the better batches of purple corn sangria made in this house. Oodles of depth, made possible by a more significant reduction in the purple corn-pineapple rind juice.

And The Pairing? Classic. It tastes classic when made this perfectly.

Cost: $17 for food, $18 for wine = $35

Monday: Nando's with 2014 Cara Viva Rosé Lisbon

Food Details: Full chicken platter for two with two sides of fries and four sides of peri-peri mayo.

Did We Like It? Got $60? Don't wanna cook? Want a tableful of chicken and fried potato sticks with tons of mayo to dip? We do. Often. And Nando's does that pretty darn well. This is nothing earth-shattering, just solid bird and good fries when you want that.

How Was The Wine? Had the Cara Viva branco last time. It's nice for $16. Rosé this time, same price, same label. It's their house label, and it tastes like Portugal. Fresh dirt, nice fruit. Again, nothing earth-shattering here, simply a drinkable rosé that doesn't get devoured by the spiciness of the peri-peri.

And The Pairing? See above. Eat, sip, eat again, sip again. The solid acid in the wine cuts nicely, the food is good, and you get about a third of the way through the meal and say, "This'll do. This'll totally do."

Cost: $30 for food, $32 for wine = $62

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #15

Mets were better.

Should be a good food winter. A D'Artagnan haul arrived yesterday, so our freezer is stocked with quail, guinea hen, rabbit legs and wild boar to go with goat leg and bison short ribs already in there.

Food is good.

Now, how do we get out of the family holidays?

Total food and wine cost for the week: $104 for food and $140 for wine = $244

Sunday: Dak Bulgogi with 2014 Lacheteau Vouvray

Source: Recipe here, via Kimchi Bulgogi dot com

Food Details: Spicy Korean goodness, a dish we have about 4-6 a year. Chicken thigh filets with cabbage, red pepper paste, red peppers, green peppers, carrots, onions, red pepper flakes, garlic, soy sauce, sesame oil, wine, scallions, etc. Over rice. It's hot, stewy, Koreany, and a delicious weeknight meal every time.

Did We Like It? Always. Decent batch here, though the wine fell short.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's $8 chenin blanc from Vouvray. 99% of the time we have this wine, it's with this dak bulgogi. Usually its touch of sweet is the perfect counter to the heat in the bulgogi, and there was some nice back-and-forth on occasion again here, though this vintage (or this bottle) separated out the alcohol in unwelcome ways. Everything that's good about this wine was present, just in more quiet and less vibrant ways. Less round, not as streamlined, and less of its great gaseous finish.

And The Pairing? See above. Meh.

Cost: $12 for food, $8 for wine = $20

Saturday: Chicken and Sprout Sandwiches and Olive Oil Chips with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

Food Details: Chicken, Monterey Jack, onion, avocado, kumatoes, alfalfa sprouts and mayo on ciabatta. Olive oil potato chips.

Did We Like It? We loved Big Mike's Sub Shop in Iowa City. It was our default 1am dinner after our weekend shifts waiting tables where we had to wait on people listening to superlatively terrible jazz. Here, a recreation of our favorite sub at Big Mike's, tastes like the joy in knowing that the shift is over and we don't have to do that for at least another day. And they taste like Love.

How Was The Wine? More Alloy Grenache Rosé in the can, our fave rosé this year. Dirt-covered, juicy grenache showed up in bunches this night. Bouncy, substantial, bright and delicious.

And The Pairing? Everybody has a favorite shirt. You like the fit, the length, the feel, the color. It has that something that your other shirts don't have - a Completeness. This tasted like wearing your favorite shirt.

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

Friday: Sausage Cacciatore and Pugliese Bread with 2012 Barreri & Rovati Barbera d’Asti Superiore

Source: Marcella Hazan Cacciatore, via Saveur, using sausage instead of chicken

Food Details: Mariano's spicy sausages, with San Marzano tomatoes, carrots, celery, onion, red pepper, rosemary, garlic, bay and parsley. It's hunter's stew.

Did We Like It? Yep. Could be a recurring thing. It's easy stew with flavors we want.

How Was The Wine? $10 Trader Joe's barbera. Juicy, with structure. Bit of violet and chocolate. A gutsy wine that finishes smooth and happy. Different from the TJ's Mendocino barbera, as it has that Italian edge that makes solid barbera just that. We like the Mendocino version for cleaner meals. With a stewy meal like this, this one likes it more.

And The Pairing? Tasted like a meal made for a cloudy, cold day with wind that cuts through your too-light jacket. This'll warm you up.

Cost: $15 for food, $10 for wine = $25

Thursday: Dolmas, Muhammara, Split-pea Dip and Toasted Pita with 2014 João Portugal Ramos "Lima" Loureiro Vinho Verde

Food Details: Leftover dolmas from Monday, with yogurt-dip dip. Leftover pita from Monday, toasted. Two dips. Muhammara, from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food (page 58), a dip adjusted for what we had: sunflower seeds (instead of walnuts), roasted red peppers (instead of tomato), bit of bread, olive oil, pomegranate syrup, red pepper flakes, cumin, sugar and alt. Yellow split-pea dip, from Michael Psilakis, using dill instead of basil. Eat dolmas with yogurt-dill dip, dip toasted pita in a duo of dips. It's dips and dolmas!

Did We Like It? Certainly good enough. Used up stuff and made an entire meal out of it. Full and happy.

How Was The Wine? Lightly fruity, lightly floral, lightly acidic. It's $8 loureiro.

And The Pairing? Food with wine. Nice little meal. And for $2 extra in ingredients!

Cost: $2 for food, $8 for wine = $10

Wednesday: Fish Cakes, Celery Root Pita Panzanella and Chermoula with 2014 Desparada Sauvignon Blanc Fragment Santa Barbara County

Food Details: Swai, shrimp and bay scallop fish cakes, a fish ball recipe (page 196) from Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, turned into fish cakes, first had here. Chermoula from the same cookbook (page 180). Garlic, cilantro, cumin, paprika, cayenne, olive oil, lemon. Blended. Blanched celery root, scallions, shredded carrots, arugula, pomegranate seeds and leftover pita (toasted), tossed with a bit of more chermoula = celery root pita panzanella. Chermoula on the fish cakes with a spritz of lemon.

Did We Like It? Huge surprise! Mrs. Ney thought the "chermoula on chermoula" aspect of this meal might make it a bit mono in flavor but...Not. Even. CLOSE! This was a big plate of fresh and poppy flavors bipping and bopping everywhere! Big fans. Big! Made better by this California sauvignon blanc surprise.

How Was The Wine? Sancerre is a derogatory word in some circles. To that, I call bunk. Quality Sancerre loves food when it offers a back-and-forth of grizzle and grace. This Santa Barbara sauvignon blanc did just that, while offering a California sunny sheen, with oak that offered a perfect roundness and THAT'S IT, which is how oak should oak. We sorta loved it. And at $20, a bargain for what you're getting. Didn't love it on its own, but loved it with this food.

And The Pairing? Nothing too spicy or aggressive in the food in a relative sense, and that let the wine do its dance. It flat-out LOVED the celery root. Loved-loved-loved it. I'll remember that eat-and-sip for awhile. Happy, bright, perky food with depth that liked the drink. What more could you want in life? And a second bottle of Espiral Rosé Portugal wasn't too shabby here as well.

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

Tuesday: Hanger Steak, Potato Latkes and Tuscan Kale Salad with 2009 Villa Creek Granadina Paso Robles

Food Details: Hanger steak marinated in garlic, parsley, rosemary, evoo, balsamic and soy; seared medium-rare. Trader Joe's potato latkes with sour cream, and Tuscan kale salad (recipe, subbing parmesan).

Did We Like It? It's our standard beef and potatoes meal, and it's delicious (and different) every time. Great beef. Good to have hanger again. Feels like it's been months. These TJ's latkes are the best easy-starch complement to beefy meals on the planet. Don't wanna cook three things at once? We don't, especially in our cracker-box kitchen. Throw these in the oven. Done. They're delicious with a bit (or more than a bit) of sour cream. Eat your kale. Many kale recipes aren't that great. This one is. It makes you want/crave kale. Good meal made better by this wine:

How Was The Wine? A cabernet-mourvèdre blend that came in a wine club shipment from Villa Creek a few years ago, put on the shelf, and promptly forgotten. It has cab in it. 50%. It's not our...first choice. But here's lovely cab that lets the mourvèdre play as well. A true-blue blend where the combination elevates itself to something more. Happy red fruits mixing with black fruits, with a bit of leather and prickly brush in a medium-bodied "look how light I am!" expression. Very loose and malleable. Pleasant by itself, better with food:

And The Pairing? All mourvèdre with the latkes, and Frenchy-Bandol mourvèdre done well. Cabby with the beef, and good cab at that. It was cabernet that let the meat talk as well instead of the cab shouting over everybody. A mix of the two with the kale. Here's a versatile wine seemingly made for food, something we haven't seen in some of the previous Villa Creek wines we've had.

Cost: $19 for food, $40 for wine = $69 

Monday: Solomonov Hummus, Pita, Dolmas and Fattoush with NV Andrea Calek Blonde Ardèche

Source: Hummus here, pita here, fattoush here, Ottolenghi dolmas here.

Food Details: After eating Mr. Solomonov's hummus and pita at the Spiaggia pop-up last Tuesday, replicating it became a mission. The incredible texture of the hummus and perfect lightness of the pita are two things this house would like with the current versions of hummus and pita in our world somewhat lacking. The result, using the Vitamix and adding baking soda to the soaked chickpeas, was the identical texture we had at that dinner. It's so luscious, rather easy to make, and a big upgrade. Done. Found our hummus going forward. Pita in our world has been the same. Semiramis pita is nice. But we don't love our grocery store options. This recipe makes pita that taste better. They have that homemade quality in a good sense. Fattoush of romaine, tomatoes, Persian cucumbers, scallions, toasted naan, parsley, lemon juice-olive dressing, homemade za'atar (fresh marjoram was key) mixed in. Nice dolmas (Mr. Ottolenghi) in that we liked the fact we could taste every ingredient, but don't know if we'd do it again. Dill-yogurt to dip.

Did We Like It? Yep. Tons to like. Tons! We found a great hummus recipe (though I still think there's the perfect hummus out there that I haven't had), very serviceable pita that I could work on, nailing down the process, making it quicker and getting the perfectly spare and fluffy insides. Oddly great fattoush; the za'atar was lovely. Dolmas that offered a meatiness that the meal needed. We loved this and it wasn't too annoying to make. Pokey time in the kitchen for about three hours for me.

How Was The Wine? Chenin Blanc (particularly Saumur) and hummus love each other. But a bottle of Broc Cellars Chenin Blanc was corked. Moved on to our last bottle of Calek Blonde, a chardonnay-viognier natural wine with a slight bubble to it (other two drinkings here). Overall impression of a spring breeze with apple-fennel upfront and slight brushy herbs underneath, with a pleasing acidity. Really nice bounce to its personality. This last bottle has been around for awhile. No deterioration in the least. Has the same pleasure as biting into a chilled, juicy apple.

And The Pairing? No complaints at all. The wine loved the fattoush, picking up on the marjoram and spices in the za'atar and running with it. Wasn't a transcendent pairing, but the fact that this wine was already chilled after the corkage of the Broc, and how well it slid into the food and played nice...happy people.  

Cost: $20 for food, $30 for wine = $50

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 #13

Seasons change. Baseball's regular season has ended.

It's a sad day in many ways. The day-to-day workings of my life alter slightly. No more coming home from work, turning on the Angels, scanning through boxscores, watching highlights, calculating possibilities, creating a vague picture of how this week, month, year will play out. It's a process that means nothing, constantly changes and ultimately useless. And I could have taken the 350 hours a year I put into watching baseball and learned about five languages by now.

We all need processes, methods, well-understood flows and familiarities to get through the day-to-day and year-to-year. Baseball is mine. 184 days until Opening Day.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $170 for food and $365 for wine = $535

Sunday: Salmon, cream cheese, bagels, kumatoes, pickled onions and herb salad with 2014 Matthiasson Tendu White California

Food Details: Trader Joe's smoked salmon, cream cheese (tarragon, cilantro, chive, serrano, garlic, cream cheese), sesame seed bagels, sliced kumatoes, herb salad dressed with white vinegar and olive oil, and pickled onions. It's more pick-n-choose, because it's delicious. bagel+cream cheese+salmon+kumato+salad+onion, then eat.

Did We Like It? Always. This batch took on the ridiculous amount of coriander/mustard seed I put in the pickled onions quite nicely. Flavors flying all over the place!

How Was The Wine? We didn't love the 2014 version of the Tendu White last time we had it, feeling like the chardonnay toned down the spritely bounce that the 2013 offered. Mr. Matthiasson said the vermentino - which is the vast majority of the three-grape makeup here, along with French colombard - didn't have the requisite acidity to go 100% vermentino in 2014. But this drinking showed better. While still not getting as much distinction as the 2013 had, nice acid-vague fruit back-and-forth to be happy enough. Two bottles left.

And The Pairing? With the flurry of flavors in the pick-n-choose, the wine offered a nice acid-slight mineral refreshment and cleanse. We liked this pairing, even if it didn't reach higher than mere like.

Cost: $17 for food, $30 for wine = $47  

Saturday: Croque Monsieur-Champagne Lunch & Steak Frites-Syrah Dinner

Food Details: Croques Monsieur (recipe) lunch, with chicken and abondance cheese, using almond milk for the béchamel. Olive oil chips. Steak frites from Bistro Campagne for dinner. It was a Day of Celebration that turned bistro-style French.

Did We Like It? Golly this was a Good food day for Anniversary-type celebrations. Easy croques monsieur that weren't traditional but have all the goods that make good croquet monsieur good. Steak frites from Bistro Campagne. At $27 each, with the quality of the hanger here and the huge handful of fries that accompany it, and $15 corkage, it makes for one of the best quality-to-price ratios in our neighborhood. When we break down the cost of making steak frites at home, food is going to be in the mid-$30s with the hanger, potatoes, all the marinating ingredients, arugula, and probably something extra to make it different than other preps (like Sean Brock steak sauce). We'd drink a wine that isn't everyday cheap, probably between $25-40. So we'd already be in the $55-70 range for the both of us. Our bill at Bistro Campagne was $100 before tip (tip on the wine you bring, people). No dishes, no frying or frying-oil hassle and mess for the fries, and we get out of the house and go to an utterly pleasant restaurant space that has neighborhood charm. Big winner. And given how good their steak frites are, it's a bargain. A big one. PLUS! We have a glut of wines in our cellar that were bought with good intentions and former interest years ago that simply don't excite us like when we first bought them (I'm looking at you, 40 bottles of Right Bank Bordeaux). With $15 corkage, this is a perfectly productive way to shed these wines with food that goes with it. Might become a once-a-month thing.

How Was The Wine? The 2004 Gaston Chiquet Special Club Brut Millesime for lunch was nothing like Mr. Chiquet's other bottlings. Very loose, with tons of space. It wasn't vanilla. It was like the juice in the tank was NEAR vanilla. Or peach skin and cream. It was like the juice in the tank was NEAR peach skin and cream. Nice mousse and happy lift, with a minty undertone. Tasted like a unexpected yet welcome chilly breeze. We Loved it. We have no idea why we stopped drinking Champagne about a year ago. That'll be changing.

The 2007 Jonata "La Sangre de Jonata" Santa Ynez Valley Syrah, brought to Bistro Campagne and decanted there, needed a few more years and more air. Lovely violet, licorice, plum, tobacco, everything expected from this big-boy syrah (with 2% viognier), but with nice pauses and real elegance. Initially did feel very northern Rhône, but turned more Californian as the night went on, which wasn't unwelcome, but few surprises here underneath its alcohol and richness. We liked it. It was nice. And now we don't have it in the cellar, which is mostly fine with us. It was heady, and would still be a few years on, something we've mostly moved away from.

And The Pairing? The Gaston Chiquet was flat-out lovely with croques monsieur and chips. Just the best. And it kept changing; towards the end it felt like it was losing steam just a touch. The Jonata, though shortened a bit by a garlic bite, had real a presence and complete expression. Though again, maybe not an expression we love anymore. Like it, but paying $70-80 more for 10-15% more joy than, say, a Marietta Cellars or Owen Roe Ex Umbris...doesn't feel wise and certainly isn't in the budget. Also, some of these big boys can be surprisingly finicky with food. Since we don't drink red wine by itself...

Cost: $72 for food, $224 for wine = $296

Friday: Fenugreek-perfumed Black-Eyed Pea Curry, Naan and Raita with 2013 Recuerdo Torrontés La Rioja, Argentina

Source: From 660 Curries, page 321, "Fenugreek-Perfumed Black-Eyed Peas"

Food Details: Black-eyed peas, onion, garlic, ginger (added), peppers, tomatoes, dried fenugreek leaves, turmeric. Make the day before. It's better. Raita and naan, to dip, dunk and cool.

Did We Like It? It's now our favorite curry. This one helps on this day, because it's vegetarian and we have a large slab of meat on deck for tonight's meal. Lovely altering curry depth and lift, moving back-and-forth, up-and-down so nicely. Then the same back-and-forth, up-and-down with the altering curry-then-raita-on-naan bites. It's the best.

How Was The Wine? Fine enough torrontés. A higher floor for this torrontés in the cheap torrontés world, but nothing special. A little bit of Earthstone Sauvignon Blanc as well, just for funnsies.

And The Pairing? The floral notes in the torrontés brought a peek into the world of what good torrontés can be in the vindaloo/curry realm, but it never brought more than a peek. Even given that, this food was so good, with said peek, we were both quite tickled.

Cost: $9 for food, $12 for both wines = $21      

Thursday: Rotisserie Chicken with basil, tomatoes, arugula, pickled onions and ciabatta with NV Grifone Bianco Sicily

Food Details: After a chicken fail, have more chicken. Because who doesn't like chicken? Mariano's rotisserie chicken, ripped up into pieces, sliced tomatoes, pickled onions, arugula and mini-ciabatta buns. Build your own open-faced mini-sandwiches. It's pick-n-choose your own combination for each bite.

Did We Like It? Always. Easy and delicious. The basil and the stupid glaze Mariano's puts on their chicken was key. Both sets off this $5 riesling-moscato blend from Sicily in ways that's just strange. It's store-bought chicken and $5 wine...and it's perfect (also great with white BBQ sauce).

How Was The Wine? Fruity, bright, bouncy, and floral. For $5, this wine has a disproportionate amount of balanced refreshment.

And The Pairing? We wouldn't drink this wine by itself. It'd taste like $5. But with this meal, particularly this exact meal of Mariano's glazed chicken, tomatoes and basil (it needs all of those together), it turns into a great example of lightly floral, minerally refreshment with great snap. For me, it even offered more chicken skin notes in a different form. Oddly more savory than it's ever tasted, especially given that this is a riesling and moscato blend. We L-O-V-E this.

Cost: $13 for food, $5 for wine = $18
     
Wednesday: Let's Not Talk About It with 2012 Birichino Malvasia Bianca Monterey

Food Details: Failed chicken in mustard sauce. Weird texture on the chicken so we dumped it and had salami and dill havarti cheese with homemade Pugliese bread, which turned out quite nice. Mustard green salad with tomatoes and pickled onions. Filled a hole.

Did We Like It? See above.

How Was The Wine? Last bottle of Birichino Malvasia. Pretty elderflower and lime leaf. Happy stuff, but the failure of this meal clouded its loveliness.

And The Pairing? I can't believe I'm still writing words about this meal!

Cost: $5 for food, $28 for wine = $33

Tuesday: Lamb Chops, Charred Shallots, Yogurt, Tomato Vinaigrette and Pita with 2014 Broc Cellars Valdiguié Solano County and 2014 Charles & Charles Rosé Columbia Valley

Source: Melissa Clark shallot recipe, via NYT Cooking

Food Details: Trader Joe's lamb chops marinated in garlic, rosemary, evoo, soy and balsamic, seared medium-rare. Shallots, roasted in oven, placed over Middle Eastern yogurt, topped with parsley, mint and pomegranate seeds. Pita charred on the flat-top. Tomato vinaigrette to round out the meal.

Did We Like It? Mother F%7k! There was a lot of moaning, and strange sounds, and cursing. Here's a meal with flavors we have ALL the time, just in different proportions. It's Middle Eastern food, which is our favorite food, but this wasn't Middle Eastern food we've ever had before. The glut of yogurt coupled with the char of the shallots, the addition of herbs, all of that put on top of pita...again, all flavors we know well...but this was utterly different and stupidly delicious. It all came in the small adjustments to well-known goodness. This will be placed in the rotation and eaten once a month henceforth. Omit the meat (which also was so simple, yet so lovely here), substitute arugula and we'd be Just Fine for an easy weeknight meal that would completely satisfy every corner of our being (and serve it with any minerally, snappy white you like). The tomato vinaigrette was its usual goodness here, but superfluous. Not needed in the least.

How Was The Wine? The Broc Valdiguié was its typical loveliness. A well-made, light-bodied wine giving nice lilting notes of cherry, herbs and dried rose petals. A mismatch with this food though. We could have stayed with it and it would have been fine, but the Charles & Charles Rosé came off freshy French and jumped out of the glass with this food. Best this wine has shown for this vintage.

And The Pairing? The tomato vinaigrette and pita liked the valdiguié but shied away from the best part of this meal, the shallot-yogurt-pita bite. The Charles & Charles rosé didn't in the least. It loved every bite, turning gutsy and punchy in the best sense. This meal was so ridiculously great, words aren't gonna do it. Just make it, but skip the tomato vinaigrette until another day, when it can be the star of the show.

Cost: $29 for food, $39 for wine = $68

Monday: Asian Short Ribs with Star Anise and Tangerine, Kabocha Squash and Amaranth-Basil with 2010 Abacela Syrah Umpqua Valley 

Source: David Tanis recipe, via NYT Cooking

Food Details: Bison short ribs from Whole Foods (not always there, so buy them when they're there). Short ribs marinated with five-spice, tangerine zest and juice, ginger, garlic, etc., two-hour slow roast.  Roasted kabocha squash, wilted amaranth and basil, salad of tangerine-radish-scallions. Pan juice drizzled over bison and squash.

Did We Like It? There was a boatload to like here, though short ribs have a lower ceiling than many of our food loves. Juicy short ribs that went well with a multitude of different food bites. The amaranth-basil-meat combo was a big winner, but the kabocha squash and meat bite came in a close second. Nice with radish, solid with tangerine, this was a good meal. Mrs. Ney just wouldn't make it again.

How Was The Wine? With tangerine and five-spice, a tough match, but we found a wine that performed better than what most anything else would. The Abacela Syrah Estate is co-fermented with
1% viognier and includes 4% tempranillo, and each of them showed up to the party. Black fruits and plum, black and white pepper, cinnamon and smoke. Medium-bodied, trending more savory. But this was defined by its citrus-like acid that kept everything bouncy and buoyant, which helped immensely with the food.

And The Pairing? The wine changed with each bite, showing about ten different expressions with each chew-and-sip, all of them rather nice. Good wine guts here. Liked it muchly.

Cost: $25 for food, $27 for wine = $52  

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #12

Three links:

For decades, the concept of a 'hot hand' in sports was considered a fallacy. Not so now. And the reason is so simple. It's a overall modest adjustment on a long-held theory but a big one nonetheless.

Tonight, on 'Frontline,' the brother of a victim of the Lockerbie bombing spent 25 years trying to find the culprits. He just might have found the big fish. This great New Yorker piece last week has all the background.

When Taylonn Murphy's daughter was shot and killed over a turf war between rival gangs in New York's projects, he got angry, then went to work.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $82 for food and $79 for wine = $161

Total food and wine cost for the month: $557 for food and $627 for wine = $1184

Sunday: Pick-n-Choose with 2014 La Granja 360 Verdejo-Viura Castilla y León

Food Details: Salami, dill havarti cheese, kumatoes, arugula dressed with white vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper, mini-ciabatta buns. Rip bread, top with the ingredients of your choosing. It's pick-n-choose.

Did We Like It? A nice version, a happy version. Arugula wasn't the best, but didn't distract. When there's pick-n-choose in front of you, and an easy, friendly, Spanish white, I recommend watching some food TV, like Bourdain's 'Parts Unknown' with Eric Ripert in Marseilles. It makes for a Good Time.

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? Good. Enough. By no means anything great, just weekday food and wine together that made for a breezy, two-hour meal.

Cost: $11 for food, $5 for wine = $16

Saturday: Chili and Cornbread with 2011 Trader Joe's Syrah Paso Robles

Food Details: Black bean soup from the freezer - Mrs. Ney had no clue of its origin - turned into chili. Quick cornbread from this recipe. Bowl of chili, cornbread on the side. Butter.

Did We Like It? Just chili and cornbread. What originally was chili-soup right out of the freezer became chili-chili with a little adjustment. And it used stuff up.

How Was The Wine? We don't drink wines this big, typically, so in that sense, a nice change of pace. Big, indistinguishable fruit, wet cigar notes, pepper, something like candied violet. With black olives on the plate, this wine has always shown very well. Here, barely interesting enough for $10.

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

Cost: $3 for food, $10 for wine = $13

Friday: Dirty Rice with Andouille and 2013 VinTJ's Gewürztraminer Mendocino

Source: Susan Spicer's wild and dirty rice recipe, via Food and Wine.

Food Details: Andouille chicken sausages, wild rice, mirepoix, chicken stock, herbs, ground pork, chicken livers, chopped scallions on top, hot sauce added. It's a big, honkin' bowl of rice chockablock with meaty, herby, Cajun flavors. This batch had a big bundle of thyme cooked with it, turning it into the best batch of dirty rice we've had, I believe. Delicious thyme background pervading every freakin' bite. Golly, this is good.

How Was The Wine? It's cheap Trader Joe's gewürztraminer. Nothing special, but does have the ripe, sugary edge to counter to heat in the dirty rice, while maintaining enough energy to never turn sappy.

And The Pairing? This is a good example of cheap wine chosen well and matched well with food. Alone, this wine is fine enough, representative of the grape, but that's it. With this food, it takes that mere representation of the grape and utilizes it nicely to counter what's on the plate (or in the bowl). You have a weekday meal that tastes better, you find yourself wanting to take longer to eat it, and everything feels more complete. It becomes a pause in the day. Who doesn't want that everyday? We were quite happy.

Cost: $9 for food, $7 for wine = $16    

Thursday: Meatloaf and Potato Salad with 2013 La Caumette L'Authentique Languedoc-Roussillon

Food Details: Meatloaf (recipe here), made with ground beef, oats, onion, ketchup, egg, Worcestershire, garlic, s/p. Tried a new potato salad recipe to use up the mountain of russets in the house.

Did We Like It? It's meatloaf and potato salad, a 2-3 times a year thing, because it tastes like food from our childhood. Plus, it's getting cold, which we enjoy, so meatloaf and potato salad, with its loaf of meat and carb overload fits.

How Was The Wine? It's non-vintage, $5, Trader Joe's, GSM-like red from Languedoc-Roussillon. Smooth, medium-bodied, darker cherry-raspberry fruit. Tough to find the grape blend here but I wouldn't be surprised if the 'M" was merlot. It's French table wine that won't offend in the least.

And The Pairing? Mrs. Ney loved it with the ketchup. I haven't been a huge fan of this wine over the years, but didn't hate it here. Didn't love it...but didn't hate it.

Cost: $8 for food, $5 for wine = $13    

Wednesday: Flaming ouzo shrimp, braised cucumber-radish salad and Ancient Grains bread with 2014 Schwarzböck Grüner Veltliner Austria

Source: Tony Mantuano shrimp recipe here. Julia Child cucumber recipe here.

Food Details: Simplified Mantuano shrimp (without the potato), serrano pepper, parsley, salt, pepper, lemon thyme, flamed up in the cast-iron. Spritz of lemon. Braised cucumbers and radishes. Basil, butter, white wine vinegar, onion, sugar, salt and pepper, braised in the oven. Ancient Grains bread from Whole Foods with butter.

Did We Like It? Best cooked shrimp we've had in this house. Perfect, with a perfect blend of herbs with ouzo hit. You ask me if I'd like to have some braised cucumbers and I'd say, "Eeeeh, sure, why not?" Nope. This was one of the oddest disconnects between look and taste. Looked like merely "braised, liquidy veggies" and tasted utterly...not that. The cucumbers retained much of their texture, sunniness, and juiciness, just in a toned-down way. Essence of cucumber without being cucumber-y. Quite delicious. Reminded me of Waxman's braised endive salad, something we loved a couple of years ago and have to have soon. Ancient Grains bread. If there's a better bread out there that brings more to the table, adding so much to so many different food preps, I haven't had it. Butter. We loved this.

How Was The Wine? Schwarzböck grüner, one-liter, $15. It's basic grüner with lemon-mineral notes, dry, high acid, nice length and balance. We'll be buying it until they stop making it.

And The Pairing? A technical problem with all three elements - shrimp, cucumber, wine - possessing the same level of high acid, but that didn't detract from us feeling like this was a fine dinner. Mrs. Ney said if she took away the spritz of lemon on the shrimp, we'd have had better balance and back-and-forth between acid levels. But happy enough.

Cost: $15 for food, $15 for wine = $30
       
Tuesday: Rick Bayless chicken, charred onions, Creek frybread and tomatillo sauce with 2014 Field Recordings Pinot Gris in the Can

Source: Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday, page 178-81 (or here). Tomatillo salsa, page 154 (essentially this, leaving out avocado and adding whole-grain mustard).

Food Details: Chicken marinated in ancho chile, oregano, cloves, cinnamon, garlic and apple cider vinegar, roasted on the griddle in the oven. Charred knob onions. Tons of cilantro on top. Tomatillo salsa made with charred tomatillos, garlic, roasted poblanos, cilantro, onion and whole-grain mustard.  Creek Native-American frybread (slightly different than Blackfeet fry bread, with buttermilk as dairy instead of low-fat milk) to top, dip and dunk.

Did We Like It? Yes, sir. All the flavors we like in sufficiently different taste and form. The cinnamon on the chicken showed up just enough to turn this chicken darker and deeper. Plus, beautiful roast on the chicken. "Moist." This frybread will be happening again. All your frybread needs are here. Subtle differences between all of them but it matters in terms of taste. The Creek version has a brightness, substance, and slight chewiness we like. The mustard in the tomatillo salsa played in the same world as the cinnamon in the chicken: taking everything into a darker realm, which we liked muchly. Essentially, this was pick-n-choose. Rip a piece of frybread, top it with whatever combo you like, eat, take a sip of wine, enjoy. On that wine...

How Was The Wine? Second straight night of Field Recordings canned wine. Mostly pinot gris here, with some chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc and malvasia tossed in for expansion, depth and guzzle-ability. Tons of sunny fruit in vaguely Asian form with some sort of Asian floral fruit leaf thrown in. Bright disposition, delicious acid, VERY nice. Stayed dry and loved this food.

And The Pairing? With the relatively darker food flavors, the sunny brightness in the wine served as a counterpoint while never clashing. Loved the salsa with frybread, and enjoyed everything else just fine. We wish this can was $7-8 like the grenache rosé here in Chicago, but it's $11. We'll still buy it, because it's lovely, just not 20 cans like the rosé.

Cost: $21 for food, $22 for wine = $43  

Monday: Indian Carrot Salad, Goat, Naan and Raita with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

Source: Jamie Oliver recipe.

Food Details: We don't really mess with this recipe. It's a house joy eaten every 4-6 weeks. Fresh and delicious Indian flavors, made quickly and easily. Subbed ground goat for ground lamb this time, because we had goat and not lamb in the freezer. Arugula base, carrots, onions, ginger, garam masala (on the goat), cumin, cilantro, mint, lemon, sesame seeds. Crisped-up ground goat on top. Naan and raita on the side.

Did We Like It? Spicy, fresh, meaty, vegetable-y, dip, dunk, eat, cleanse. This was a great version. We probably like lamb more in this recipe, but the goat brought its subtle meaty funk while letting the veggies and spices shine more than lamb does here. If we were asked our top-10 house meals that we return to over and over again, this one is right up there, because it offers a feast of freshness with depth, takes forever to eat, and checks all the boxes in terms of satisfaction, on every level.

How Was The Wine? After we left a tasting at Field Recordings in Paso Robles a few weeks ago, we had to go back and get their grenache rosé in the can. It was so sparkly, fresh, broad and perfectly simple. A guzzler if there ever was one. $7 for a 500-ml can. We LOVE it with grilled lamb, arugula, tomatoes and bread back at our little Airbnb cottage in the country. And we were quite shocked to see it at a wine shop in town (not telling - we want more and they don't have a lot). It's been a rather terrible year for rosé in this house. Nothing's been particularly interesting and/or deep. This one has such a sunny disposition with pretty, bright strawberry and guava fruit and hints of brush, like the air as you sickle the weeds out back in the dead of summer (does anybody sickle anymore? I haven't seen a sickle in years).

And The Pairing? Big explosion of guava with the naan and raita. Delicious! Darker and a bit shorter with the goat. Nice balance with a veggie bite. Picked up the ginger and ran with it. We have 12 cans of this left. They'll be gone by mid-November. Gotta get more.

Cost: $15 for food, $14 for wine = $29
   

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #11

If some vine disease hit cabernet and malbec (and touriga nacional for me), our wine lives wouldn't be upset one bit. Like people, it's a personality thing. The personality expressed by those grapes don't offer the grace and quiet we want. It's not that they don't possess very own particular grace and quiet, just not the type we want.

With a somewhat limited wine budget, the flurry of fascinating grapes/blends/expressions out there today, and the fact that we don't eat beef five times a week, those grapes don't need to have a place in our wine life. We aren't left wanting in the least without them. 

But, at times, in order to challenge our preconceived notions so we don't become aging, grumpy, uncompromising curmudgeons, we have to drink cab and malbec on occasion so we don't become the people we hate. So we did. 

But you can go to hell, touriga nacional! You go to hell! You're great in a blend, but yourself, you go to hell!

Total food and wine cost for the week: $102 for food and $81 for wine = $183

Sunday: Meatballs in Date Sauce and Kale-Smoked Almond Salad with 2014 La Paca Garnacha Calatayud

Food Details: We're still sick, but getting better. Freezer date-kielbasa-tomato sauce. What do you do with that? It's sweet. It's sweet sauce. We don't want that! But this worked. Pork meatballs in date sauce, kale salad with smoked almonds and pecorino. A ton of parsley dumped over both the meatballs and salad. Mini-ciabatta buns. Rip a bun in half, top with meatball and kale salad. Eat.

Did We Like It? Kind of a lot! Tasted like a fall Italian mountain meal in a basic sense. Not sweet. Mrs. Ney toned down the sweetness to a point that the taste of date without a ton of date sweetness came through, and the kale provided a cut and lift quite nicely. No diminishing of results as we ate either. This was a big surprise.  

How Was The Wine? $7 Trader Joe's Spanish grenache. Bright cherries and plums. Ripe. A bit of smoked meat and tobacco. Low tannins. Medium-to-light. Easy-breezy Spanish drinker. Friendly for $7.

And The Pairing? The low-level sweetness from the dates and ripeness of the fruit in the wine matched up and cancelled each other for the most part, allowing all the other flavors in the food and the wine to shine. We found a bevy of fluctuating flavors in each bite and sip. With both of us ill, this seemed like a perfect time to get rid of the date sauce we didn't particularly want. But this turned into a meal that was more than just "food to fill a hole." It tasted intentional, like people somewhere in the Italian mountains eat this in the fall and someone passed along the recipe to a cookbook as a meal indicative of the region. We liked this.    

Cost: $7 for food, $7 for wine = $14


Saturday: Pan Bagnat with Leftover Wine

Ours was less bursting with ingredients than this

Source: Recipe here, via Mr. Bittman in NYT Cooking

Food Details: Now I'm sick. Mrs. Ney recovering well, I take her place. More easy food. Pan bagnat, essentially tuna Niçoise in picnicky sandwich form. Ciabatta loaf filled with kumatoes, red peppers, marinated artichokes, capers, Greek olives, onions, basil and As do Mar jarred tuna. Drizzled with red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Entire loaf smushed flat.

Did We Like It? Yes. One note: don't skimp on ingredients. Load that baby up! I put on a simple layer of all of the ingredients. This needed an overflowing layer of each. Tasted like French street food from a park food cart that isn't going to be generous with everything. But we'll be making this again. We usually have most of these ingredients on hand.

How Was The Wine? Leftover fridge wine from the last two days.

And The Pairing? The malbec rosé served merely as basic "wine" matcher, but the picpoul was quite nice, tasting like regional food and wine dancing like they typically dance. Sad we only had one glass left.

Cost: $10 for food, $0 for wine = $10

Friday: Arroz con Pollo with 2014 Innovacíon Rosé Mendoza

Source: Recipe here, Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday

Food Details: Mrs. Ney still can't taste anything, so easy food that has texture, something she can taste. Mexican rice, black beans, chicken, onions, chile, garlic, cilantro, chicken broth...click on the recipe. It's a good one. Sour cream on top for me. No dairy for Mrs. Ney. Hot sauce. 

Did We Like It? Fine. Rice and chicken went a little over. Big bowl of Mexican goop. Served us well enough.

How Was The Wine? Wine. A Whole Foods liter bottle of malbec-syrah rosé that we've loved this summer for its cheapness and liter-ness. This bottle had a church wine quality. Not...the...best.

And The Pairing? Barely registered.

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

Thursday: Pick-n-Choose with 2014 Trader Joe's Cuvée Azan Picpoul et Pinet Languedoc

Food Details: Harvesttime Roasted Chicken, Tomatoes, Pepper salad, Ciabatta and Mayo.

Did We Like It? Mrs. Ney is still sick. And there's gonna be a lot of "Let's just buy a chicken and bread and use up tomatoes and greens" meals on Thursday through the end of the year. Mrs. Ney's job and the upcoming holidays associated with that job demand it. Buy a chicken, char up some bread, use up tomatoes and greens in the house, open up some mayo, go to town. It's open-faced mini-sandwiches that has everything you need. We ditched the herb butter made for the bread rather quickly and moved on to something we love more than most people: mayonnaise.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's picpoul, another house love. Has the nose of pit fruit, the dryness of rosemary, the tart, puckering crispness of Muscadet, and the minerality of basic albariño. There's a minimum quality here that's always welcome for $8.

And The Pairing? This bottle showed more of its alcohol than it usually does. Wasn't unpleasant, but didn't show as well as it has.

Cost: $14 for food, $8 for wine = $22


Wednesday: Southern Biscuits and Gravy with NV Trader Joe's Reserve Brut Sparkling North Coast

Source: Alton Brown. Biscuits here. Gravy here.

Food Details: I'm a sucker for novelty food products created by multinational conglomerates. To the letter, they're terrible, though Lay's jamon chips have a vacation taste. When Lay's came out with their gyro/reuben/biscuits and gravy-flavored chips, my sucker impulse kicked in. Finally found the gyro and reuben, but not the biscuits and gravy. So with Mrs. Ney sick and no dinner joneses after the past few days of ridiculously great food, we had biscuits and gravy.

Mariano's breakfast sausage. Rice milk with a little flour subbed for milk in gravy.

Did We Like It? It was just fine. Satisfied the jones of biscuits and gravy, a food I think I've had only three times in my life. I've never been a breakfast person and this has ALWAYS the third choice in my world growing up so it simply never made it onto my plate.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's, $10, fresh bubbles done well.

And The Pairing? This TJ's sparkler isn't fancy, but it has an fresh breeze quality, herbs and fuzzy fruit, and accommodating structure that goes well with food, particularly buttermilk or biscuits or buttermilk biscuits. It's our default, cheap, house bubbles.    

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


Tuesday: Ottolenghi Fish, Cocount-Peanut Salad and Rice with 2013 Darting Muskateller Kabinett Trocken

Source: Yotam Ottolenghi recipe from The Guardian

Food Details: Whole Foods whitefish (substitute - we don't love mackerel), salt-pepper-seared. Salad of fresh coconut, peanuts, manzano pepper, scallion, mint, cilantro. Dressing of mirin, rice vinegar, coconut sugar, ginger. Rice. Charred lime spritzed on top of everything. Go to the recipe and buy all the specific ingredients. Don't get creative. Don't get lazy and say, "Oh, it doesn't need mirin." Just make it to the letter. Your fish substitute isn't a big deal. Fish is background here. This is Mr. Ottolenghi. You DON'T screw with it. He knows.

Did We Like It? This meal is a statement piece. This is Armani worn well. This is the first spring breeze. This is perfect food.

This is the best meal AND pairing we've had in a LONG TIME.

How Was The Wine? The color of the wine with this meal ALONE! Smelled like gewürztraminer, tasted like gewürztraminer and Muscadet had a baby. We've had Darting's muskateller before and liked it, even sort of loved it. Here, after having this - along with picpoul and Gavi - it's all I want. Grapefruit, peach, floral, herbal, medium-light, dry. Sparkled. A second bottle of 2014 Selbach Incline - cheap, well-made, representative German riesling - only told the story of how perfect the muskateller was with this food.

And The Pairing? As pretty, classy, and jumping out of the glass as I've had in, again, a LONG time. This was very nice on its own, but with this food, utterly complete. This wasn't just a pairing. This was perfect food with a wine perfectly tailored to this food. We can't think of a pairing we've had where that was more true.

Cost: $15 for food, $18 for wine = $33

   

Monday: Argentinian Skirt Steak and Shishito Pepper, Inland Cress and Frisée Salad with 2012 Luca Malbec Uco Valley

Source: A David Beran recipe in this month's Food & Wine, a publication we have a love-hate relationship with, but a recipe like this pops up once an issue, and the $12/year seems worth it. 

Food Details: Whole Foods skirt steak (very pretty beef), marinated overnight in rosemary, thyme, garlic, shallots, peppercorns and grapeseed oil, seared medium-rare. Salad of blistered shishito peppers, inland cress, frisée, mint, celery and leaves, and Rogue Creamery Flora Nelle Blue Cheese crumbled on top. Dressing of charred lemon and evoo. Using the apple peeler, potatoes run through, creating thin, long, narrow potato crisps, fried. Garlic-parsley mayo for dipping. 

Did We Like It? There was a lot of swearing. Perfect meat with a marinade that was so gosh darn delicious. A salad that ran right up against the wall of the high-end of bitter, even breaking through at times, that we nonetheless loved, mostly because it was flavors we like and enjoy while being entirely new. Potato crisps and mayo dip that offered a carb to the meal while coming off light. If we saw this meal listed on a restaurant menu, we'd blow right by it, dismissing it outright. Skirt steak-shishito pepper-watercress salad? It'd probably be $32 and not conger up anything resembling "I gotta have that!" But this was freakin' stupid-great.

How Was The Wine? Malbec. We're not friends. But with food you like, like here, you can offer an enjoyable conversation, especially when you're made by Luca, a great house. Classy fruit. Very classy. So polished and spit-shined; never overripe, heavy or burdensome. Always buoyant and on the right side of the savory-sweet line. Two-hour decant and it helped. becoming a wine of medium length but proper presents parsed out at a pretty pace. Black cherry/berry and plum, smoky meat, cola and a wee hint of roses. A very nice wine. Does it change our mind about malbec? 3%. We're 3% more open. 

And The Pairing? That's where the 3% comes from. It felt like this food and this wine were made for each other/belonged together, making for a stellar two-hour meal. The wine loved-loved-loved the crisps and a bite of beef and blue cheese. Less so with the salad but never obstinate. A very good meal.  

Cost: $38 for food, $30 for wine = $68