April 29, 2013 Dinner- Grilled Steak, with Ranch Style beans, Roasted vegetables and baked potatoes and steamed sugar snap peas with Chocolate crunch dessert with coffee flavored whipped cream.

April 29, 2013 Dinner- Grilled Steak, with Ranch Style beans, Roasted vegetables and baked potatoes and steamed sugar snap peas with Chocolate crunch dessert with coffee flavored whipped cream.

More cleaning out the fridge tonight.  We invited Charlie and Susan Palmer for a Texas style steak dinner.  Charlie asked for us to serve the beans I had made for Willy’s BD/Bon Voyage party and we decided to heat up the PPI roasted vegetables and to use up the sugar snap peas that I had bought at Ta Lin 1 ½ weeks ago.  Suzette had driven to Santa Rosa today and she called at 5:30 to say she would be home at 6:30 p.m.

So at 6:00 I de-stemmed the sugar snap peas and when she arrived I was slicing garlic and a shallot and mushrooms for the sauce after fetching the beans and roasted vegetables and having put them on the stove and in the oven.    The reason that Charlie liked the beans I think is because I put a mirepoix into the beans and so they had the French soup base flavor along with that distinctly Texas sauce of cumin and salt.   Ranch style Beans were made in Fort Worth, Texas and are one of the classic Texas foods that Charlie and I remember from our childhood.  To carry the theme a little farther, Susan baked a large baking dish of russet potatoes and yams, also. 

We bought four beautiful 1 inch thick rib eye steaks at Costco last Saturday ($7.39/lb.) so we took two out and let them come to room temperature.  At around 6:30 Willy’s friend, Tom, stopped by and we made gin and tonics and Charlie and I talked to him about his plans to go to Australia in a day of two.  Tom is an Australian citizen, although born in the U.S., through his dad, so he does not need a visa to settle in Australia.  He will live initially in Adelaide, where his family is from he said.  After Tom and Eli, who came by to meet him left, we all agreed that Tom, who is tall, dark, handsome and intelligent, is one of those lucky people who can go anywhere and get a job in a bar just by walking in.   Not to be ideally speculating, Tom did mention that his last job was at a bar on one of the San Juan islands in Washington State after he ended his education at Western Washington State.  He and Willy had visited occasionally, because his school was only 20 miles from the Canadian border, which made it about 80 miles from Vancouver.

When Tom and Eli left for their dinner, we started the mushrooms and steaks cooking, continued heating the beans and roasted vegetables, and started the sugar snap peas steaming.   In about ten or fifteen minutes everything was ready.

We gorged on all the good food along with the heated last six or seven butter flake rolls, which, predictably, Charlie loved even though they were over heated and had become quite hard on the outside (Again, one of those Texas 50/60's things).     

 We served a recently purchased bottle of 2010 Chateau du Buisson ($6.99, Trader Joe’s) that was a blend of 60% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Franc and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon.  It was very drinkable if a bit young and had won a silver medal in at an International Competition of Wine.   Pretty good for $6.99 with a light fruity taste and dark red claret color.

While we waited for Susan to go pick up Lisa, Suzette brought out two sets of binoculars and we did some planet gazing in the darkening evening sky as it cooled down on the patio.  

When Susan returned from picking up Lisa, she brought dessert; ramekins filled with a mixture of decadent baked chocolate cake and chocolates chips and bowl of coffee flavored whipped cream that we dabbed on top.  Both were excellent.  I made a cup of tea and enjoyed dessert, although I was a bit stuffed by this time.  

Bon Appétit

April 27, 2013 Dinner – Tanoan Country Club

April 27, 2013 Dinner – Tanoan Country Club

Debbie and Jeff invited Harry and Annie Weil, Suzette and me and Debbi’s new client named Brian from the D.C. area to the Retro Music dinner at Tanoan CC.  The dinner was served in a large room with a wall of windows facing the mountains on the north with a spectacular view like a large panoramic Wilson Hurley painting of the late afternoon sunlight brilliantly lighting the Sandia Mountains in golden light.  A dance floor was set up near the windows and one the other side of the room was a long buffet table and near it a bar area and a table with tea and coffee.

We arrived early a bit before the designated 7:00 start time, so I took a cup of Earl Grey tea with cream and sugar to relax and rehydrate me from the 10 mile bike ride we had taken to Montano.  In a few minutes folks started rolling in.  Soon we were all together around a table near the dance floor talking, when the servers began to bring large steaming trays of food out and insert them into the hot water containers on the buffet line.

After a few more minutes when folks began to wander over to the food, we went over and took plates of food.  The selections were lovely: a green salad with grape tomatoes and the usual three types of dressing (Vinaigrette, Ranch and Blue), roasted potatoes, egg noodles and beef stroganoff, chicken in a tomato and onion sauce with capers and fresh parsley and three kinds of rolls.   There were also two desserts, a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling and a cherry cheesecake.  The best dish of the dinner was the potatoes.  Suzette thought they had been boiled and then sautéed in oil.  I thought they were boiled and then roasted.   Any way they were dried out on the inside and flakey and not greasy.  I ordered glasses of Sterling Central Coast Pinot Noir for Suzette and me.   

The music was provided by Matt Rixx, who played the guitar and a synthesizer; mostly a selection of 60’s and 70’s easy listening ballads like Jimmy Buffet’s “Just another Tequila Sunrise”.   In fact tequila seemed to be the theme of Matt’s evening of entertainment, perhaps to not so subliminally influence folks to drink more.  When we left I asked for and received Matt’s card and found out his day job is running the MattRixx Institute of Subliminal Influence and Persuasion.  No wonder we all liked his music so much.  Actually I though he had a lovely soft voice that made it easy to listen to the music.

All in all, a very pleasant evening.  Linda and some of the girls club girls were in attendance but I did not gab with them and only danced my required two dances with Suzette and no others.   Also, I asked Harry, who is half Jewish, how he came the U.S. and he told me a harrowing story of being separated from his parents in Austria, when they fled to Switzerland ahead of him by six weeks at the age of 8 years old and then how he crossed into Switzerland on his own and left Europe from Le Havre in April 1939, ahead of the German invasion six months ahead of the war.  How far it seems we are from the terror and dislocation that ruled the world and traumatized so many lives for so long as we sit drinking lovely wine and food with friends in the evening sunlight of New Mexico.   

Bon Appétit

April 26, 2013 Fish and Eggplant in Garlic Sauce

Tonight we wanted to use up some of the odd assortment of unused ingredients left in the fridge.  We had two kinds of cooked fish, halibut and Corvina and a Chinese Eggplant, so we decided to make Suzette’s favorite, Eggplant in Garlic Sauce and add the fish and some vegetables to it.  We started by making 1 cup of rice.  Tonight I added a few dried lily pods and a black wood ears, I had dried from fresh.

The Eggplant and Garlic Sauce recipe (page 169) is in the new Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking Cookbook she had bought me for Christmas last year.  The author, Eileen Yin Fei Lo, cooks with a style that adds fragrance to the food by adding small amounts of rice cooking wine to many recipes, rather than overpowering them with flavorings. 

Eggplant with Garlic Sauce.

You first make the Sauce (This is the recipe from the book but we doubled this recipe because we had two pounds of eggplant and some other ingredients we were adding to the dish.)

1 Tbsp. double dark soy sauce

2 tsp. Oyster Sauce

1 tsp. white rice wine vinegar

½ tsp. Shaoxing wine

½ tsp. pepper flakes from hot oil (we reduce this to avoid making the dish too spicy)

½ tsp. of cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tbsp. of chicken stock

Then I sliced the large Chinese Eggplant into three inch by ½ inch strips (about two pounds) and 1/3 of a medium onion and about ¼ cup of red bell pepper and Suzette sautéed those until tender in 1/4 cup peanut oil as needed.  Suzette stir fried three batches of eggplant strips (the recipe calls for deep frying the eggplant strips in 4 cups of peanut oil, but we never use that much oil), but she used ¼ per batch for a total of ¾ cup for all the eggplant, onion and red bell pepper.

After Suzette had cooked the eggplant, onion and bell pepper, she stir fried the garlic and then added the 1 lb. of cooked fish with one chopped up one baby bok choy.  Then she returned the eggplant mixture to the wok and stir fried it with the meat mixture for a minute and then made a well in the middle of the ingredients and added the sauce and cooked the eggplant mixture for a minute or two while I was stir frying the vegetable dish.

This was a simple dish eaten with a beer.

Bon Appétit

April 25, 2013 Lunch –Anatolia; Dinner – Stir Fried Pork and Broccoli with Hoisin Sauce

 April 25, 2013 Lunch –Anatolia; Dinner – Stir Fried Pork and Broccoli with Hoisin Sauce

I went to Anatolia for lunch and had the daily special of Chicken Tawa, a chicken stew made with green chili, chicken served on a bed of rice with succotash and a green salad and yogurt sauce.  The dish was delicious with tender pieces of chicken that had been stewed until all the liquid cooked out of the stew, leaving only the moist meat.

We decided to eat as much of what we had at home as possible, but since I had bought pork steak, fresh corn, vine ripened tomatoes, red bell peppers, and broccoli at Sprouts yesterday, we decided to make a pork and broccoli stir fry.

Before Suzette arrived at home I stripped the husk from the three ears of corn.  When she arrived Suzette started water boiling in a large pot and I chopped a 1 lb. pork steak and one head of broccoli flowerets into large chunks.   Then Suzette squeezed some Hoisin sauce on the pork and let it sit for a few minutes while I chopped about three Tbsp. of garlic and garlic greens, ½ onion, about 1 Tbsp. of fresh ginger, three shitake mushrooms, and ¼ cup of red bell pepper.  We heated a wok with some peanut oil and stir fried the onion and bell pepper and put the broccoli flowerets into the boiling water with the corn to blanch.  Then we added the meat to the wok with about 1 tsp. of sesame oil and 1 Tbsp. of soy and 1 Tbsp. of rice cooking wine and cooked that mixture until the meat was cooked (about fifteen minutes) and then added the garlic, ginger, mushrooms, and the blanched broccoli and stir fried that until it was all cooked.  Suzette had sliced one of the tomatoes and placed that on a plate.  When the stir fry was ready we placed it on the plate with the tomato and the corn and opened Sessions lagers and watched the news until Charlie Palmer called to remind me that tonight was Last Thursday Book Club and he was sitting outside waiting to pick me up.  I had had a bad result in Court today and completely forgot about Book Club.

I jumped up and grabbed a shirt and the baking dish of chocolate fudge and ran to the car. It was 6:45 and I had promised to meet him at his house at 6:30.  As it turned out we were the first to arrive at Ron Bousek’s house at 6:55, a whole five minutes ahead of its 7:00 p.m. designated starting time.

This month’s book was Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, which got amazingly favorable reviews and turned out to be one of the Club’s all-time favorite books.

Ron had a picked some items for appetizers that had a relationship to the seafood industry described in the book, like sardines in tomato sauce and smoked clams.  Cannery Row packed mostly sardines and squid.  His choice of wines included an Estancia Pinot Noir from Monterrey County, also grown in the area where the book was set.  It was fun to eat and drink the products of that area while we talked about the book.

Bon Appétit

April 24, 2013 New Recipe: Cedar Plank grilled Corvina with PPI Calabacitas and Tropical Salsa

April 24, 2013 New Recipe: Cedar Plank grilled Corvina with PPI Calabacitas and Tropical Salsa

I call this a new recipe but it is really exploring the versatility of cedar plank cooking with a new fish with a different glaze that we usually use for salmon marinated in Teriyaki sauce. 

When a meeting with a client evaporated and there was no sitting, I was suddenly free to cook this evening.   I had stopped at Sprouts today and bought a large (1.3 lb.) fresh filet of corvina (sea bass) that  looked and cooked like red snapper ($7.99/lb.).  I had made a fruit salad with papaya, pineapple, orange, and mango two days ago, so we decided to make a variation on fish tacos, by grilling the corvina.  When I handed the filet to Suzette and she opened the package and saw that the filet was over 18 inches long, she said, “This looks like something that should be grilled on a cedar plank.”  I immediately agreed because I love plank cooked fish because it does not burn and it holds the sauce in suspension with the fish juices for a terrific combination of flavors.

 Suzette wanted to make a basting sauce with butter and herbs, so I cut 4 oz. of butter and put it in a pyrex measuring cup.  Suzette added some oregano and a couple of dashes of dried ancho chili powder and I chopped and added about 2 Tbsp. of fresh garlic and garlic greens from our garden and melted all of that in the microwave.  Then Suzette took the saw and cut a cedar board to fit the size of the filet (we buy 1”x6”x8’ cedar planks at Home Depot for this purpose).

We fired up our propane grill with our new canister of propane and, while Suzette was grilling and basting the fish, I heated up the PPI Calabacitas from last Thursday evening’s party for Willy and took the fruit salad from the fridge.   I then diced two small avocados (Pro’s Ranch Market 4 for $.99) and mixed them with about 1 ½ cups of fruit salad and squeezed one half of a sweet (Meyer’s) lemon on the fruit and avocado mixture and added a finely diced large shallot. The shallot made the salsa a bit bitter so I added the juice of ½ Mexican lime and a handful of fresh cilantro and the salsa tasted better to Suzette.   The calabacitas was not very moist so we added some PPI chicken stock that Suzette had made from the chicken bones from last Thursday’s party.  

When the fish was grilled to medium rare at its thickest portion, Suzette took it off the grill and I fetched two Negra Modelos and crema from the fridge and heated 8 small corn tortillas wrapped in a damp tea towel in the microwave for a couple of minutes and we were ready to eat.   We put a scoop of calabacitas and a wedge of grilled fish on each of our plates and took that with a beer to the table where we added salsa and crema and folded those ingredients into the tortillas.

 

We received a great photo from Luke of Willy and Luke with their cousins, Rebecca Simon and Ryan Goggans, eating at the restaurant Luke works at sometimes in Brooklyn named "EATS".  I cannot suppress my good feelings about Willy’s departure on Thursday, April 25^th for his European trip and his arrangements for graduate school in Dublin in September.

Bon Appétit

      

April 23, 2013 Dinner – Steak with Mushrooms, Potato, and Asparagus

April 23, 2013 Dinner – Steak with Mushrooms, Potato, and Asparagus

Suzette was re-organizing the restaurant and food service at the Center and I was working with a client until 7:00 so we were distracted from cooking today.  I thawed out a rib eye steak and we needed to eat some of the asparagus I bought at Sprouts last week for $.88/lb.  I had also bought a small container of White Beech mushrooms a Ta Lin for $1.59 and re-filled our canister of propane gas today, so when we discussed how to proceed with dinner at 7:00 we agreed to skillet sauté the steak with garlic greens and the mushrooms and steam the asparagus. 

I had thawed the steak during the day and at 6:00 had washed and poked holes in four russet potatoes and put them in a 400˚ oven to bake.  So prep for dinner was easy for Suzette.  At 7:00 I chopped about three Tbsp. of garlic and garlic greens and a large shallot and  took the soil and roots off the mushrooms and de-stemmed about 15 asparagus and she put butter and oil in a skillet and put the steak in to sear and then added the mushrooms and sautéed all those ingredients and steamed the asparagus.  When the steak and mushrooms were almost cooked Suzette said, “We need some kind of liquor in this.” and we decided to add about two Tbsp. of cognac and let that cook for another minute and we were ready to eat.  I fetched a bottle of 2010 Slingshot Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, CA from the basement and we plated up the steak.  Suzette had removed the steak from the skillet before adding the cognac and when she sliced it it was rare, so I sautéed my slices of meat in the sauce in the skillet for a minute to cook them to medium rare.

Suzette plated up the potato and we slathered it with butter and sour cream and I chopped about ten stalks of chives and then we added our slices of steak and asparagus and mushrooms and I poured the wine and we had a fine meal.

 

This simple steak dinner reminded me of the kind we used to have in Texas, when I was a young lad back in the 50’s, when you would go to your local meat packer that had a cold storage locker where they stored meat to age it and picked your own side of beef that they aged to your specifications, usually 20 or 21 days, and then processed into steaks, roasts, and hamburger meat.  Those were the days when you picked your side of beef and picked your steak at steakhouses, like Jesse Roach’s Cattlemen’s Steakhouse on North Main near the Stockyards on Fort Worth’s north side. 

 

I put two butter flake rolls in the still hot oven and heated them while we ate and after dinner I fetched a piece of blue cheese and we buttered pieces of roll and ate them with slices of blue cheese (Costco) and the last sips of Slingshot.

Bon Appétit

April 22, 2013 New Recipe: Lunch – Two Fool’s Pub; Dinner- Sautéed Smoked Pork Chops with Bubble and Squeak

April 22, 2013 New Recipe: Lunch – Two Fool’s Pub; Dinner- Sautéed Smoked Pork Chops with Bubble and Squeak

Today’s food was an all British Isles affair. I met Matt and Mike Runnels for lunch at Two Fools Tavern http://www.2foolstavern.com/ for a lunch of Irish food.  They both ordered the always reliable Fish and Chips, but I was a bit more adventurous and ordered “Guinness Beef Boxty”, which was a large potato pancake folded over a large scoop of beef stew containing chunks of beef, potatoes, carrots and onions cooked in a Guinness stout sauce and garnished with a bit of stew for color contrast.   The thick dark brown sauce was delicious and I enjoyed the roughly equal balance of meat to potatoes, onions, and carrots.  The potato pancake was surprisingly light and balanced the weight of the stew nicely.   I drank a liter of Irish Magners Apple cider, which Two Fools has on tap.  The cider was fine, not too sweet and not too bitter; just right; cold and refreshing.  I realize that when we were in England last summer, we were drinking mostly Irish cider, when we were drinking Magners and Bulmers ciders, although we were distracted from that fact by the British, who would often say that these two ciders were, "proper English ciders".  Yet, another important reason to visit Willy in Ireland.

I lay down at about 4:30 for short nap and did not awaken until Suzette called me to dinner at 5:30.  So I missed all the excitement of the dinner prep.  When I walked into the kitchen, I saw a skillet filled with cabbage and potatoes browning and another skillet that had been used to sauté pork chops that now held chunks of apple sautéing and Suzette was chopping a large handful of greens from our garden, which she added to the apples to braze the vegetables with the apples.

She said, “We need a bottle of rosé for this dish.”  I responded, “I chilled just the right bottle last night,” and went to the basement fridge and fetched a bottle of 2010 Toulouse Anderson Valley Rosé of Pinot Noir.

 

Suzette served a large scoop of Bubble and Squeak and laid a smoked pork chop on it and then garnished that pork chop with a scoop of apples and vegetables.   I poured glasses of Toulouse Rosé and we carried them out to the garden to eat dinner and watch doves fly in for drinks of water from the birdbath and the pond.   The birds seem to be practically immune to our presence and staring and only fly away when we walk near them.  So our dinners in the garden are going to be shared with doves this summer.  How fun!

Recipe

Bubble and Squeak is an old English dish that was very popular during WWII in England when rationing made everything except potatoes and cabbage hard to get.  It is made with PPI potatoes usual from last night’s dinner smashed or chopped and fried in a skillet with cabbage until brown on the edges. Suzette made it fresh by shredding ½ head of organic cabbage and grating one or two russet potatoes in the Cuisinart and then frying those small pieces in a skillet with butter and oil.  It had a fried polenta like texture, soft in the middle and crusty on the edges and made a nice complement to the sautéed smoked pork chop, apples and vegetables.

The wine was heavenly.  Anderson Valley, CA rosé of Pinot Noir is my current favorite American wine because it has fruitiness and is not acidic like many of its French cousins or overly sweet like many of its American cousins and projects  the delicacy and deep reddish color of pinot noir.   Last year when we went to the Pinot Noir Grand Tasting in Anderson Valley, CA in May, we made a point of tasting all the rosés and agreed that the Toulouse was the best.  After the tasting we went to the Toulouse Vineyard and ordered a case of their rosé.  So there will be a few more meals with great rosé this summer.  

Here  are the two beds of greens that we uncovered yesterday, some of which were used for the dinner.

Bon Appétit

April 21, 2013 Stuffed Grilled and Baked Halibut and couscous with greens

April 21, 2013 Stuffed Grilled and Baked Halibut and couscous with greens

This morning we took the covers off the two hooped raised bed areas of our garden and found that everything was growing with a minimum of weeds.  We also inspected the exposed garden area and saw 7 new little Italian parsley plants growing where I had laid the old parsley plant that went to seed last year on the ground and the two curly parsley plants growing vigorously.   This will be the first full year growing season in our new raised beds and I am getting very excited. 

We made an omelet for brunch with PPI chopped baked ham, sliced shitake mushrooms, grated Swiss Gruyere, mustard greens from our garden and a diced shallot and ate it in the sunlight on our newly remodeled patio.  While we ate brunch, we decided to try to include as much produce from our garden as possible in our dishes this summer.   We even talked about finishing the garden by planting fruit trees on the west side of the garden and moving the fence to the sidewalk.

We had picked a bag of greens last night to stuff the halibut steak with but we went to the Annat Cohen concert instead, so after a ride to Rio Bravo on the tandem and a short rest, we decided around 4:00 to cook the halibut.  I pulled and chopped the white part of two garlic plants and then 3 green onions, a shallot and the leek Willy pulled from the garden on Thursday and Suzette Cuisinarted them until fine with about 2 cups of the greens and 2 Tbsp. of butter and stuffed that mixture into the stomach cavity of the halibut with a squeeze of lemon juice and stood the fish cavity side up, so it made a cup and stood it on slices of lemon to support and flavor the fish so it did not stick to the grill.   

 

A butter, herb and green onion stuffing is a classic Swedish method of baking stuffed fish, so we were still on the page, so to speak.  But things went off course pretty quickly after we decided to grill the stuffed halibut.   We ran out of gas after about twenty minutes and only achieved a temperature of 400˚.  We decided to bake the fish the rest of the way and that took another hour because it was an over 1 ½ lb. piece of fish.

 I had asked my favorite fish monger at Ta Lin for a 1 lb. piece of fresh halibut on Friday, and waited while he fetched a fresh halibut from the big box they are shipped in and cut off its head and scaled it and cut me a center cut piece of fish that turned out to be a bit over 1 ½ lb.  I thanked him profusely for his effort when he handed me my $18.00 chunk of halibut.   When we took it out of its plastic bag we saw that he had made an executive decision to cut the fish behind the stomach wall so that there was an enclosed cup in the piece of fish when placed vertically on the grill or cookie sheet that could be filled with herbs.  So we had a great piece of fish to stuff, but it was bigger than we usually cook.  After twenty minutes on the grill and then an hour of cooking in the oven, the bottom of the fish that was closest to the flame had dried out a bit where it was nearest to the heat source and it finally dawned on us that we should have wrapped the fish in aluminum foil and baked it in the oven, so that the fish and vegetables and butter and lemon juice would have steamed together.      

Suzette wanted me to make a large quantity of couscous with green vegetables from the garden, so she fetched the large enameled Le Creuset  casserole and the pot of chicken stock she had made Thursday from the PPI chicken bones when we made tacos for Willy’s party, while I rough chopped the other cup of greens.  I then put 1 ½ Tbsp. of butter in the casserole and when it melted, added about 2 cups of chicken stock and 2 Tbsp. of chopped garlic and shallot.  When the butter and stock came to a simmer, I added 1 1/2 cups of couscous and the greens and covered the pot and reduced the temperature and cooked it for about five minutes. 

 

When I checked it after five minutes I saw the greens were not cooked yet and realized that there was not enough liquid and heat to steam the greens, so folded the greens into the couscous and added a bit more chicken stock and covered the pot and raised the temperature for another five minutes and then let it sit while the fish baked.

I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of Dashwood 2008 Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough District of Australia.  Finally, we checked the e fish and when the flesh was still translucent and would not pull cleanly away from the bone, we decided it needed ten more minutes in the oven to cook the inside fully, so I stirred the couscous once more to make sure the vegetables were covered with couscous and turned on the heat under the casserole to the lowest temperature to heat but not scorch the couscous. 

After ten more minutes I was able to easily split each half of the fish from the large central bone.  Suzette handed me a plate with a scoop of couscous on it and I laid one half of the halibut on it.  We set the table in the garden because it was in the shade at 5:20 p.m. and ate a lovely dinner of baked fish on couscous.  I turned the heat back to 400˚ in the oven and toasted four butter flake dinner rolls I had bought at Pastian’s Bakery on Wednesday for five minutes.  We pulled the hot rolls apart and slathered the pieces with butter.  The hot rolls coated with butter nicely complemented the delicate fish and couscous infused with slightly bitter greens.  

So this was one of those imperfect meals that teaches you a lesson or two.  Next time we will wrap our stuffed fish in aluminum foil and steam it in the oven or steam it over water in a wok.  The wine was a little oxidized or bitter for some other reason, such as age.  I made a mental note that I preferred French Sancerre to Australian Sauvignon Blanc, because I do not like that overly grassy and slightly bitter flavor of the Australian S.B. and decided to return to Costco for more of the Chateau Thauvenay Sancerre for $14.99 a bottle and not buy any more of the Australian Dashwood S.B. for $12.99.

Bon Appétit  

April 17, 2013 New Recipe – Ham and Asparagus in Mornay Sauce on Egg Noodles

April 17, 2013 New Recipe – Ham and Asparagus in Mornay Sauce on Egg Noodles I was drafting a pleading with Scott Boyd, one of my clients in the LRG adjudication, all afternoon and Josefo Martines another client, who is an electrical contractor, who was kind enough to volunteer to come over to repair a short in the electrical system at my home was working on that with Willy as his assistant,, so I was busy until after 5:00 p.m. when Scott left.   Suzette had come home and she was hungry and I had not taken any steps to prepare any dinner, so she took over and in her own special way, went through the fridge and assembled ingredients and created a new dish.   The dish she created included chopped baked ham, two kinds of mushrooms sliced and sautéed, finely sliced fresh asparagus in a Mornay sauce served on egg noodles. The unique part of the recipe was the Mornay sauce.  It was made with a roux and then grated Swiss Gruyere was added, but instead of milk, Suzette used some pasta water from the egg noodles, a little heavy cream and when I finally came into the kitchen, some Amontillado sherry and a little white wine.   The combination of liquids created a light yet creamy and flavorful sauce that coated the noodles and ham and mushrooms beautifully. The dish was wonderful.  We drank a 2007 Lazy Creek Vineyards Anderson Valley Riesling that we had bought in 2009 on our second trip to Anderson Valley for its Pinot Noir Festival.  Lazy Creek sits on the plateau above the north side of Anderson Valley, where its south facing vineyard catches more moisture and sunlight at its higher elevation.   If you love Pinot Noir and have not been to the Pinot Noir Festival in Anderson Valley, I recommend that you go.  It is usually held the second or third weekend in May.  Friday night there is usually a catered barbeque to which every attendee is supposed to bring an interesting bottle of wine to drink.  I have had amazing wines at this event, like a Sangiovese dessert wine.   Remember, many of the attendees are winemakers or growers. There are technical lectures during the day on Thursday and Friday.  Then on Saturday there is a Grand Tasting, usually in a huge tent in the middle of Golden Eye Vineyard where only Pinot Noir in all of its manifestations is served; red, blush, rosé, and champagne.  If you like Pinot Noir, entering the big tent after a walk through Golden Eye’s beautiful tasting area and part of its vineyard will be closest thing most of us on earth will experience, short of arriving at the gates of heaven.   It is wonderful in every way.  Three food lines with delicious food and about seventy booths serving some of the best wines you have ever tasted in one spot. Saturday evening is devoted to wine dinners,  much like those we have here, where a vineyard or two will provide the wines for a dinner at a restaurant or winery with a kitchen.  That trip we stayed at Shirlee and Larry Londer’s Londer Vineyard guest house with Rick Davis, their winemaker, and attended the Boonville Hotel’s Wine Tasting Dinner given in conjunction with Navarro Vineyards.  Navarro produces consistently great wines of many different types.   Here is a list that demonstrates their overall quality of wine: Prior Release Medals - March 2011   In the past three years Navarro Vineyards has released 67 wines, with 62 winning Gold or Silver medals in National and International Wine tastings. SILVER   2008 Chenin Blanc, Mendocino (Dry) GOLD   2009 Chenin Blanc, Mendocino (Dry) GOLD   2006 Chardonnay, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Chardonnay, Mendocino GOLD   2008 Chardonnay, Mendocino GOLD   2006 Chardonnay, Première Reserve GOLD   2007 Chardonnay, Première Reserve GOLD   2008 Chardonnay, Première Reserve SILVER   2007 Chardonnay Table Wine, Mendocino SILVER   2008 Chardonnay Table Wine, Mendocino GOLD   2003 Cabernet Sauvignon, Mendocino GOLD   2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, Mendocino GOLD   2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Edelzwicker, Mendocino GOLD   2008 Edelzwicker, Mendocino GOLD   2009 Edelzwicker, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Gewürztraminer, Cuvée Traditional (Dry) SILVER   2009 Gewürztraminer, Cuvée Traditional (Dry) GOLD   2007 Gewürztraminer, Estate Bottled (Dry) GOLD   2008 Gewürztraminer, Estate Bottled (Dry) GOLD   2009 Gewürztraminer, Estate Bottled (Dry) GOLD   2009 Gewürztraminer, Late Harvest GOLD   2008 Gewürztraminer Table Wine, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Mourvèdre, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Muscat Blanc, Estate Bottled (Dry) GOLD   2008 Muscat Blanc, Estate Bottled (Dry) GOLD   2009 Muscat Blanc, Estate Bottled (Dry) SILVER   2006 Navarro Brut, Anderson Valley SILVER   2007 Navarrouge, Mendocino Red Table Wine SILVER   2009 Pinot Grigio, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Pinot Gris, Anderson Valley GOLD   2008 Pinot Gris, Anderson Valley GOLD   2009 Pinot Gris, Anderson Valley GOLD   2008 Pinot Gris Table Wine, Anderson Valley GOLD   2006 Pinot Noir, Deep End Blend GOLD   2007 Pinot Noir, Deep End Blend GOLD   2006 Pinot Noir, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Pinot Noir, Mendocino GOLD   2006 Pinot Noir, Méthode à l'Ancienne GOLD   2007 Pinot Noir, Méthode à l'Ancienne SILVER   2005 Petite Sirah, Mendocino GOLD   2006 Petite Sirah, Mendocino GOLD   2006 Riesling, Anderson Valley (Dry) GOLD   2007 Riesling, Anderson Valley (Dry) GOLD   2008 Riesling, Anderson Valley (Dry) GOLD   2009 Riesling, Anderson Valley (Dry) GOLD   2007 Riesling, Cluster Select Late Harvest GOLD   2007 Riesling, Late Harvest GOLD   2007 Rosé, Mendocino (Dry) GOLD   2008 Rosé, Mendocino (Dry) SILVER   2009 Rosé, Mendocino (Dry) SILVER   2009 Rosé of Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley (Dry) GOLD   2007 Sauvignon Blanc, Cuvée 128 GOLD   2008 Sauvignon Blanc, Cuvée 128 GOLD   2009 Sauvignon Blanc, Cuvée 128 GOLD   2006 Syrah, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Syrah, Mendocino GOLD   2006 Zinfandel, Mendocino GOLD   2007 Zinfandel, Mendocino GOLD   2006 Zinfandel, Old Vine Cuvée GOLD   2007 Zinfandel, Old Vine Cuvée Both the Boonville Hotel's dinner and the wines were really impressive.  My strongest recollection was the wine served with dessert, Navarro’s Late Harvest Cluster Select Riesling or Gewürtztraminer.  It blew me away.   I had never known that an American winery could create a wine with a taste similar to noble rot and manipulate it into a wine that stood on all fours with the great wines of Sauterne, but they did.   This wine has won many awards and sells for $59.00.  There is also an Alsace Festival in February in Anderson Valley that is very interesting.  Anderson Valley, because it is so far north and so near the coast, produces not only exceptional pinot noir, but all the other northern grapes.  Its climate enhances all wines that benefit from cooler, wetter growing conditions.  Anderson Valley is only twenty miles over one ridge from the Pacific Coast and the valley’s open end is at the Pacific at Mendocino.    It used to be filled with Coastal Redwoods and still has a significant grove of redwoods. The secret to learn from this meal is that there are a range of options one can choose from when making a cream sauce from all milk and the addition of cheese for a very creamy taste to all stock and wine for a very non-dairy taste.   This dinner specifically demonstrated that you can mix those different approaches to reach a desired taste and consistency.    In the case of this meal Suzette was pushing both ends of the spectrum at once.  Cream and Swiss Cheese combined with sherry and pasta water and a bit of white wine to produce a sauce that is not distinctively at either end of the spectrum.   That is what was unusual about this meal, that you can have both ends of the spectrum in one sauce and enhance it further with the woody flavor of sautéed shitake and white mushrooms.   Bon Appétit