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This really tickles my funny bone. Deidre Woollard (luxist.com) writes:
We may all be cutting back, but at the the White House dinner Friday night for foreign leaders to discuss the global financial crisis, the meal was anything but spare.
The menu for around 24 global leaders gathered in the White House State Dining Room included, according to the AP, fruitwood-smoked quail? with quince gastrique; quinoa risotto?; thyme?-roasted rack of lamb?; tomato?, fennel? and eggplant? fondue?; a salad? course of endive?, baked Brie and walnuts?; and a pear torte. What's raising some eyebrows though is one of the wine selections, the Shafer Cabernet Hillside Select 2003, which runs for around $300 a bottle, if you can find it. This wine was served with the main course will more modest wines such as the Landmark Chardonnay Damaris Reserve? 2006 (around $40 a bottle, served with the appetizer) and the Chandon Étoile Rosé? sparkling wine? (about $30 a bottle, served with dessert) rounded out the rest of the meal.
The President pays for his own groceries in the White House but state dinners such as this one are paid for with taxpayer dollars. It is perhaps some comfort in this case? that at least two of those attending: President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are said to be teetotalers. Others in attendance included Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Chinese President Hu Jintao; German Chancellor Angela Merkel; and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Quick site update: I'm trying yet another advertising system, though at least this time I get to hand-pick the items, customize everything, and it's all handled seamlessly through Amazon.com. Click on the link at the left to check out my Amazon Store. Everything on that store is something I've either read, used, or consumed. When Amazon begins selling wine, I plan to include links for those bottles that I review. Obviously I want you to support your local wine shops and bookstores first, but half of the e-mails I get are people from all over the country asking me where to get a certain wine, book, or cooking utensil that I've mentioned, and if I can make a little scratch from the links, then life is good.
Monday night I attended a BYOB wine and cheese function at the Hunt Phelan Inn hosted by Slow Food Memphis. I was invited by my friends in the Squirrel Family. I didn't know until the last minute that it was Papa Squirrel's birthday, and the man actually gave me a gift: an autographed copy of Imbibe!, a history of the golden years of cocktails. I'll have more details in a future post, and look forward to making a huge punch that will serve two dozen people.
I felt the gathering of folks who were committed to preserving dying culinary traditions would be interested in trying a wine made from dandelion blossoms harvested by Amish children. I picked up the bottle during my trip to the Ohio Amish country this summer, but my desire to try it had been simmering since I read Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine at the age of 12. It's a beautifully written book that captures the pure experience of summer in its pages. And the wine also accomplishes that feat: while it's sweeter than I like, and certainly not as subtle as a fine grape-based wine, the aroma of dandelions will take you back to your childhood. When you're a kid, you're not allowed to touch pretty flowers like roses or tulips, but nobody stops you if you pick all the dandelions out of the yard. Maybe it has to do with the innocence of youth in distinguishing a weed from a prizeworthy iris, or maybe kids are just lower to the ground and better able to appreciate such things.
These were three of my favorites from the tasting, a Hawaiian pineapple wine (drier than you'd think and with a glorious nose), a big jammy Zinfandel, and a Super-Tuscan that had aged well and was a refined example of its type.
Additionally, cheeses from Mississippi State University were provided. I had the Cheddar, the Edam, and the Vallagret. All were savory and delicious, and the cheeses are available for order online or at the shop in Starkville, MS.
Future Slow Food events are planned locally--check the schedule for more details. If you're interested in eating local products, supporting local farmers, and saving heritage cuisine, look for a Slow Food group in your area.
After daylight savings ends, my thoughts turn increasingly to red wine. Once I set the clocks back, it gets dark faster than I expect. I start cooking dinner. The heat comes on. I wonder "is there a red wine in the house?"
And then there are the winter foods that start sounding just perfect right about now: beef stew, chicken chile, and soups made with late fall vegetables.
If this sounds like you right now, I've got a red that will knock your socks off and have you praising the wine gods. It's from Chile, which (like Argentina) produces some excellent value wines. This one is no exception, and it's made by Veramonte, the winery that also makes exceptionally good value Sauvignon Blancs.
The 2005 Veramonte Primus represents the best of what Chile has to offer to people seeking great value and great taste. This excellent QPR red wine drinks like a wine that's two or three times the cost. It's big, bold,a n balanced. Made from a mixture of 51% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 17% Carmenere, the first thing that will strike you if you get your own bottle is the beautiful, dark plum color. Then you will be bowled over by heady aromas of plum, blackberry, spice, and plum blossom. I loved the way that the promise of the aromas was delivered in the flavors, which echoed the smells beautifully--although the plummy notes did take center stage. The wine had rich, satiny texture that seemed more opulent than a wine with an under $20 pricetag deserved--but I'm certainly not complaining. Well-integrated tannins and a taste that reminded me of the spicy smell of my mom's cedar chest rounded out this nicely made, well-balanced wine. It's drinking very well now, but if you find some for a good price I think you might want to buy a couple of bottles and put them away for drinking between now and the end of 2009.
I received my bottle as a sample, but you should be able to find bottles of this wine all over the US for between $14 and $26. And they bottled some in 375 ml bottles, as well, which are retailing for $7-$14.
Enjoy the change in seasons. Get some red wine, snuggle with the one you love, and catch up on your movies and TV now that the election is over. Long winter nights can be a good thing, after all.
Dining in Thailand has been hit or miss for us. We are currently staying in a beach resort about 2 hours south of Bangkok, and it is not exactly cosmopolitan, despite this being the beach residence of the royal family (who probably don't get out to the local eateries much).
Before we left Bangkok we did have a fun meal at the impressive (and very expensive) Siam Paragon Mall. We ate at the Another Hound by Greyhound Cafe. The original Greyhound Cafe being at the Emporium Mall. It was a fun selection of updated versions of street food, with a passable wine list. Not cheap, but innovative and surprisingly good for a shopping mall.
Here in Hua Hin, the beach community that is our home for two more months, we have mostly visited local restaurants, which are a dime a dozen. Every few feet there is another establishment, ranging from a push cart to a 100 seat sit down restaurant. The quality of the food has nothing to do with how impressive the place looks, and we have found that even highly rated restaurants have constancy issues.
Thai food seems to be a fusion of neighboring India, China and Indonesian influences. At least as it is has been served to us, it seems to fail to live up to any of those origins. Some of the finest food I have ever had were in China, India and Indonesia, but don't judge those cuisines by their watered down American counterparts. To visit these lands is to be thrust into a culinary adventure.
France has long been my favorite destination for food, a bias no doubt propelled by the fact I have classic French chef training. On this year long trip I have made a point of cooking, no matter how meager our kitchen logistics may be, and my dinners almost always rival any restaurant's.
So it was with great expectation that we visited the Brasserie de Paris here in Hua Hin, Thailand. The modest restaurant is beach side with great views of the lighted fishing boats in the dark harbor. The food was good, and we enjoyed ourselves, but it was not our night for wine. The slim pickings on the wine list were pared down further by "finished" labels covering almost all of the red wine choices. Our first selection was greeted by a verbal "finished" and we had to settle for what would never have been my choice if only the list were fully available.
They had no Thai wines on their list, and after having tasted my first Thai offering, I am not altogether surprised.
Such is just one of the many problems with trying to run an upscale French restaurant at the beach, hours from the nearest city with its suppliers. For all of that we still managed to have a very nice savory style of Foie Gras (as opposed to the common practice of preparing it with a fruit sauce). Everything was perfectly nice, but the au gratin potatoes were especially memorable. Considering the challenges they faced, the Brasserie pulled of a feast that would be impossible for lesser restauranteurs.
We still have several months to explore, and even if we only eat out once a week or less, there is ample opportunity to find another gem, and when we do, you will read about it here.
For those of you who haven’t been keeping up on our sappy stories from the European Wine Blogger’s Conference that took place in La Rioja last weekend, allow me to catch you up. For three days, Robert McIntosh, Ryan and I gathered together several wine bloggers from around the world to meet and chat about…yup, wine blogging.
However, what you, nor anyone else, has known up until today was that we didn’t have a location set for the keynote tasting / dinner until a few weeks before the event - I kid you not. Don’t get me wrong, we were looking! But try as we might, from June to August, getting anything planned and confirmed in Spain is impossible. So with literally days remaining, we used one of Robert’s many Rioja connections - also known as the golden enchufe - to get us a reservation at La Chata.
Now mind you, none of us had ever been there, but the restaurant came on good authority as a wonderful place that would actually seat all 40 bloggers. But get this, they wouldn’t only make room our entire crew, but they even had a separate area where we could host our wine tasting consisting of cases upon cases of wine! This, my friends, was a miracle, and a reservation based on complete faith, because for all we knew, it could have been a mess!
So what made La Chata such an incredible find?
The Perfect Feeling
The historic restaurant is nestled inside the old part of Logrono on a tiny Gothic style street called, Calle Carnicería, just a stones throw away from the Plaza del Mercado and the Catedral de La Redonda. Stepping through the door, you enter a small room holding a set of wooden stairs, a long hallway to the right of the stairs that lead to a white tiled kitchen, and a narrow wooden bar that sits about 6ft in front of an enormous stone oven. Built in 1821, this monster of an oven has seen more carcasses than I hope any of us will have seen in a lifetime, and was the first of its kind in Spain. Two stone ovens were later constructed in the Plaza del Mercado in the early 19th century, primarily for bread, but La Chata had already gained a reputation for creating the first of its kind.
Walking up the stairs, you enter a long cozy room with wooden floors, thick wooden tables and chairs, and cozy atmosphere that feels more appropriate for a large Sunday brunch with a Riojan family than a restaurant filled with foreigners. But strangely enough, that is exactly how they try to make you feel, like part of the family.
La Chata is owned and managed by the Belber family, a patient and loving group of people who were eagerly willing to not only endure my 1001 questions on cooking a suckling pig, but also handling a loud and passionate group of international wine bloggers who were ridiculously excited to experience a traditional Rioja meal. With grace and professionalism, they handled the most inquisitive and cautious among us with a humor, entertainment and kindness. For me, it was a feeling of complete acceptance regardless of whether or not I enjoyed the food. As stated by the chef and owner’s wife, Estela, “How cool that you all came from around the world to appreciate our food and culture. I appreciate that!”. So do we Estela, so do we!
Fourths Anyone?
And as if the service and atmosphere wasn’t cozy and heart-warming enough, the food was quite good. Granted, the caveat being that the conversation and gales of laughter may have influenced my perception, making every dish seem incredible, but hey, take my impressions for what they’re worth. From what I remember, between Juan mistaking Ryan as my brother and Emidio training his child how to differentiate aromas from various wines, in the end, it all tasted good to me
Our meal began with four appetizers:
Ensalada Templada de Perdiz Escabechada con Endibias (Partridge Endive Salad)
Jamón Ibérico de Bellota (Traditional Cured Ham)
Espárragos Especiales de la Ribera (White Asparagus served with Sliced Tomatoes and Mayonnaise)
Revuelto de Boetus Edulis con su Cebolleta Fresca (Scrambled Eggs with Fresh Onion and Edulis Mushrooms)
Of these four, I’d like to call attention to the Revuelto de Boetus Edulis con su Pebolleta Fresca. Having only had Huevos Rotos (scrambled eggs with chorizo and a touch of vanilla) in Rioja, I was extrememly happy to have tried another version. The eggs held a perfect delicate, yet firm texture, while the mushrooms added that earthy flavor that paired beautifully with the 2007 Pazos de Lusco from Rias Baixas. I´m still dreaming about this dish today!
Once the plates were cleared, a large heaping pile of Cochinillo (suckling pig less than 6 months old) was placed on the table with a crisp skin to contrast its tender and juicy meat. This was paired with Escarola de la Tierra con su Aliño de Ajitos, a stiff and curly leafy green lettuce (similar to frise) in a light garlic dressing. The crisp green texture and spicy garlic flavor added that perfect touch to the slightly sweet meat.
In short, this restaurant is a must visit, a place I would highly suggest you go if you wish to experience a traditional Rioja meal in a cozy and quaint family run restaurant, where good service and a big smile are a normal part of the experience. Sigh, only a few months to go before we’re back again. I can’t wait!
This was originally going to be one of those quick and dirty reviews. Two Argentinean wines, a snack provided by Chef Tim (that would be Tim Ellison, one of our favourite local sommeliers and co-founder of the BC Wine Appreciation Society), followed by a fast dash through the Cambie Liquor store to stock up on a few winter staples like Cognac and Champagne. Oh well, things change.
Uncharacteristically for a Saturday, there was plenty of parking ? must be something to do with the snow. Vancouver + Snow = Mass Panic.
Tim and I do our usual three-kiss-on-the-cheek greeting ? that?s right cheek to right cheek, left to left, and right to right in case you?ve ever wondered. The beef he?s carving with Melissa Popp from Hills Foods smells wonderful and the Chimichurri Sauce looks even better. Both wines on offer are from Bodega del Fin del Mundo from Patagonia, Argentinean ? Southern most White and Southern most Red. Hmmm. White and Red. That tells me a lot, but what the heck.
Turns out our white is a 60/40 Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay blend. Surprisingly crisp with a pleasing length to the finish ? not huge but pleasing. Today, however, this wine seemed just a bit too citrus without food ? or maybe I?m just cantankerous from the snow. Still, at the price point of $12.95, this is one worth stocking for when you need a sipper with light nibblies. I?m already thinking summer sailing and it?s only December.
The red is 70/15/15 Merlot, Malbec, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Once again priced at $12.95, this is one good value. A hint of tobacco and a nice, round mouth feel. I was surprised I liked it as much as I did. And it went fabulously well with the beef ? although I had to check that particular pairing twice just to be sure. Tim and Melissa Popp from Hills Foods were happy to provide a photo op for the results of their combined cooking talents.
Tasting Aftermath at the Computer
Arriving home, I thought it would be fun to find out more about a winery located ? literally ? at the end of the world. One thing lead to another ? like good surfing usually does. I spent, let?s just say ?a while,? including a browse about through the Hills Foods site (who generously provided today?s beef) ? some great recipes and cool organic meat products. But here?s the summary about the wines.
Bodega del Fin del Mundo was founded in 1999 when the owners planted vines on a deserted plot of land in Patagonia, Argentina. First problem ? no water. From the pictures on the website, there?s not only no water, there isn?t much of anything here ? think bleak, windswept, and desolated. Twenty kilometers of irrigation canal with computerized pumping system later, there was water, but now each plant needed its own windbreak to protect it from the gales that swept across the land on a seemingly daily basis. These folks clearly have plenty of the stubborn gene.
In 2002, their first vinification produced 30,000 bottles and netted a silver medal for Malbec. The owners began constructing a new, contemporary winery so they could move out of the small warehouse they?d been using to date. By 2004 were winning gold and silver medals at the Brussels Wine Expo and the Mondial du Pinot Noir in Switzerland, and their list of medals gets longer every year.
Also interesting, Bodega del Fin del Mundo continues to consider itself an experimental vineyard and is researching the viability of grape varieties seldom associated with Argentina ? Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc, Aspirant Boushet, and Viognier.
And here?s a bonus, Tim even shared his recipe for his Chimichurri Sauce. Check it out. Thanks Tim!
TIM'S ARGENTINEAN CHIMICHURRI SAUCE
A light oil and vinegar sauce with chopped parsley, cilantro, and garlic. Use as a garnish on your favourite cut of grilled beef. Makes 1 cup and would be wicked with fish and chicken too.
Ingredients: 1/2 cup vegetable or olive oil 1/4 cup red wine or sherry vinegar 1 med white onion, minced 1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, finely chopped 1 tbsp cilantro, finely chopped 2 tbsp oregano, fresh, finely chopped 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped 1/4 tsp chili pepper flakes 1/4 tsp black pepper, coarse grind 1 tsp lemon juice salt to taste
Method: Whisk together oil and vinegar in non-reactive bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and combine thoroughly. Season with salt to taste. Cover and refrigerate for 2-3 hours to allow flavours to develop. Serve as a garnish with all types of grilled meats and fish. Will keep covered in the fridge for 2-3 days.
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Aerates wine faster with an extra-wide base. The Riedel Ultra Wine Decanter offers a modern design in crystal while creating maximum breathing room for your wine. Made of 24% lead crystal the wine decanter has a broad base that allows the wine to aerate and release flavors and aromas which enhance the attributes of your wine. Decanting wines (particularly old wines) just before serving ensures clarity and true color while preventing any sediments from interfering with the wine-drinking experience. Decanting young wines gives it a chance to open up and tame overpowering tannins and fruit flavors. Pair the Riedel Ultra Wine Decanter with our large wine decanter glass stopper. Size: 8-3/8'H 45-3/8 oz.
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