Suzette drove to Santa Rosa and back today so when she
called from Moriarty to say she was thirty minutes away, I started prepping the
meal. I had thawed out two rib-eye
steaks, but when I asked Willy if he thought we needed one or two, he suggested
one. I went to the basement and fetched
the dried thyme and a 2008 bottle of Les Vignes de Bila-Haut that has been in
the cellar since October 2010 (Costco $9.99) and opened it so it could breath
and open up a bit.
I then sliced a PPI Baked Potato and about ¾ of a medium
onion and about ½ lb. of white and portabella mushrooms and some shallot and garlic.
When Suzette arrived she was beat and said she was unable to
cook, so I asked Willy if he would take over her usual function of grillmeister.
He agreed and went to fire up the grill.
I put butter and olive oil in two different skillets, one for the
mushrooms and the other for the potato and onion. After about fifteen minutes Willy brought in
the steak, but the onions and potatoes had still not taken on color, so we let
the steak rest for ten or fifteen minutes while the vegetables cooked. I added about 2-3 Tbsps. of Amontillado
sherry to the mushrooms to make a light sauce.
When I started steaming the asparagus, Willy put the steak
back on the grill. After about 10 minutes, when the steak was cooked to medium rare, we were ready. Willy sliced the steak and plated it and I
garnished the meat with mushroom sauce and laid potatoes and onions and
asparagus beside that.
The wine was unusually heavy, and yet pleasant, so I looked at the label on the back and read,
“Made from Grenache, Syrah, and old bush vine Carignan, the
complexity of Bila-Haut reflects the diverse terriors and wind of the Midi.
“By meticulously hand-harvesting the best grapes from the
best vineyards of the Roussillon, a well-known Rhone producer has transformed
his magic to the Languedoc and created a wine with finesse.
“This wine is fleshy, well-structured with aromas of black
cherry and the warm and savage of the soils of the Roussillon area.”
The wine carried an Appellation Côtes de Roussillon Villages
Contrôlée designation that told me that the grapes were raised high on
hillsides above several different villages in the Roussillon area. Roussillon is west of the Rhone River in
Languedoc near the Mediterranean coast, an area that is windswept by the
Mistral, while the Rhone River Valley east of the Rhone, further inland. The rest of the label seemed to be correct
also. The full bodied earthy, black
cherry-like flavor comes from the warmer coastal climate, but I loved the use
of the word savage. In French Savage
means vigorous or wild or adventurous; like in a film when one comes into a room and finding their lover alone tears their clothes off of them and makes love to them.
After dinner I ate slices of brie cheese (Costco) with the
last of the wine.
Bon Appétit
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