December 20, 2014 Cream of Asparagus Soup, Roasted Duck Legs and Spaghetti Squash

December 20, 2014 Cream of Asparagus Soup, Roasted Duck Legs and Spaghetti Squash

At 5:30 after a ten mile ride, we drove to Costco to start our Christmas Eve shopping.

We bought eggs, butter, lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, string beans, Mexican Beer and most importantly, Mexican cokes with real sugar, French crackers for cheese, two more French cheeses (Caval and Linet) and loaves of La Brea whole grain bread.

When we went home I discussed wanting to roast the fresh duck legs I had bought at TaLin yesterday and Suzette said we should also roast several of the spaghetti squashes we grew in our garden.  

After the duck legs were in the oven roasting I found the PPI orange sauce and went to the basement for a bottle of Perrin Reserve.

We heated up the PPI cream of asparagus and cauliflower soup as an appetizer.  Then we ate a simple meal of roasted duck with orange sauce and spaghetti squash with butter and sea salt and drank the southern Rhône wine.  The texture of the duck was tough.  Suzette criticized it and I was charmed by it.  I told her, “It makes me feel like a couple of old French farmers eating the old duck that died.”  She was not amused, but I was.   

  

The high point of the meal was the wine, which was light and well balanced as one would assume a premium Perrin Family wine would be.  We had ordered this wine at Stephen’s of Santa Fe last year for their restaurant week meal.  It is a good food wine (Trader Joe's $9.99).  I especially like a southern Rhône red with duck. 

After dinner I ate the last of the wedge of brie I had bought at Whole Foods on La Brea Whole Grain (Costco) with a final glass of the Perrin Reserve.

Americans tend to select a bottle of wine for an entire meal, while the French tend to drink a different glass of wine with each dish or course.   So in American it is important when planning a menu to try to match as many dishes as possible to the selected wine.  If we had been in France we probably would have had a heavy white (like a white Rhone) with the cream soup and then the red with the duck and cheese or even switched to a Pinot Noir for the cheese course, which usually includes several different cheese selections.

Bon Appétit