Thursday, February 6, 2014

January 6, 2014 Roasted Duck with Sautéed sweet potatoes and steamed sugar snap peas

There are two reasons why folks say that a chicken will serve four and a duck will serve 2 ½ persons.

Ducks are bonier or alternatively have smaller breasts and thighs and they are also much more delicious than chickens.

Suzette cleaned out the freezer in the garage on Sunday and found a whole frozen duck. We thawed it out on Sunday and Monday and when I was delayed at a meeting this evening she pricked the duck’s skin to release the fat when it cooked, rubbed the duck with five spice seasoning, impaled it on a spandex vertical roasting frame, and put it in a roasting pan filled to ¼ inch with water into a 425˚ oven for fifteen minutes and then reduced the heat to 350˚ and roasted it for 2 hours.

The duck was cooked to a super crisp finish that rendered most of the grease and left the duck meat relatively fat free, dry but not without flavor and tenderness. This was the first time I had ever seen a duck cooked in this manner and I admit that I liked it a lot better than the traditional greasy duck laid on its stomach.

I chopped ¾ of a medium onion and sautéed it in butter and then added five cloves of chopped garlic. After the onions and garlic softened a bit we added about two lbs. of sweet potato cubes in a large enameled Le Crueset casserole. Suzette added some water and covered the casserole and we cooked it on the top of the stove for about thirty minutes, as the vertical frame with the duck filled the oven.

I de-stemmed about 1 ½ cups of sugar snap peas and we steamed them for eight minutes.

I opened a bottle of Chateau Haut-Sorillon 2011 Bordeaux Superieur about thirty minutes before the meal to allow it to breath a bit. After cutting the duck into pieces, I poured glasses of wine and we were ready to eat and drink. Suzette took a small scoop of potatoes and I took a large scoop and we each took a thigh and leg section. We ate every part of the duck except the breasts, which we resisted so we would have enough meat for another meal.

We both loved the meal and I decided that we did not need to convert our diet to low cal-low carb foods, but just eat less of the things we know are high carb.

After dinner I broke the first rule of low carb and toasted two pieces of bread and fetched the brie from the fridge in the garage and smeared the toast with butter and brie and enjoyed the cheese with the last of the wine. At least I did not eat four pieces of bread.

To celebrate the conclusion of my cycle of antibiotics and hopefully the end of my sinus infection and crud in my chest, I was compelled to eat two truffles from the lovely box of chocolates made by Theobroma that Ken and Nancy Gillen gave us for Christmas with a glass of cognac mixed with the Grand Marnier that J.B and Cirrelda Snider-Bryan gave us for Christmas. The lovely chocolates and Grand Marnier made me feel better in two ways. The joy of friends sharing Christmas with us by bringing us thoughtful gifts made me joyous and the direct experience of enjoying the elegant gifts themselves.

Perhaps a third thought is that we should all support our local chocolatiers; having fresh truffles is a joy.

We watched the NCAA BCS Championship Game between Auburn and Florida State, which turned out to be a tremendous football battle to the very end of the game when Florida State finally won the game with 17 seconds left on the clock and remained undefeated for the entire season.

Let me say a word about the wine. Here is a review I found on the internet that captures my thinking about the wine.

Trader Joe’s French Wine: 2009

Chateau Haut-Sorillon

Bordeaux Superieur

By distilledopinion August 30, 2012

Chateau Haut-Sorillon

This is the second Trader Joe’s French wine to review. Trader Joe’s has a number of wines it sells in its stores. I can’t tell if this particular wine is an exclusive wine, however. Unlike some of these Trader Joe’s wines, this one appears to come from a real place and a real vinyard. Like most French wines sold by Trader Joe’s , this wine sports a very fancy and properly officious label, with just about everything that a French wine label is expected to have. The label indicates that the appellation is Bordeaux Superieur which requires that the wine spend at least one year in the barrel. The wine label does not say what sort of grapes are used to make the wine but it is marked officially as a “Red Wine” on the label. The website for the company suggests that their red wines are 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon.

What does it taste like? The wine has a perceptible berry aroma when it is tipped back. Unlike the last Trader Joe’s French Bordeaux that I tried, there is no earthiness or smoke. The tannins are fairly strong with the first sip and remain present all the way to the last drop and swallow. But the berry aroma and flavor is right there alongside the tannins and does not quit. I can say that the berry flavor is not overly complex and the tannins do overpower the berry flavor. There is also some alcohol balancing out the fruit and tannins. There is just a hint of cassis toward the end. I would give the wine about 3.5 out of 5 stars. It is a very serviceable wine and if it had just a bit more complexity in the flavor it might be much better. This might be a good wine to rack for a while as some website reviews suggest. For the price ($7-$9), it might be worth the try. This is a very good wine for that price range and if it improves with age it might be a steal.

The back label says,”The Chateau Haut-Sorillon has been a family estate for generations and is located in the Commune of Abzac, just 5 km. from St. Emilion.”

Those who like St. Emilion will love this wine. It is a great bargain at $7.99 at Trader Joe’s.

Bon Appétit

February 4, 2014 Lunch – Pyramid Café Dinner – Pork chops cooked in apples and onions and spaghetti squash

I rode with Bill Turner and Sally Williams to Santa Fe for a hearing in the morning. The hearing ended at 12:20 and Sally wanted to go to Pyramid Café for lunch. We got a ride there with Blair Dunn, who was returning to Albuquerque. Although it was snowing heavily the place was full of people. We took a corner booth and looked at the menu and we each knew what we wanted almost immediately. Sally wanted the Mediterranean Combo Plate ($9.25) and I wanted the Roasted Leg of Lamb ($15.95).

The Pyramid Café claims to serve authentic North African Mediterranean and Greek Cuisine. The owner is Algerian. Our waitress was Polynesian Tahitian by way of Paris where she apparently grew up with lots of French North Africans.

The Combo Plate included hummus, tabouleh, baba ganouj, and dolmas served with pita bread. Let me say immediately that the pita bread was the best part of the meal. It was brushed with olive oil, sliced into wedges and grilled. I loved it. The baba ganouj was really creamy and fluffy and the hummus had an aromatic taste of fresh tahini. I ate tabouleh with my lamb dish. The lamb was sliced of roasted lamb served in a tomato and chicken stock sauce with roasted potatoes, green chilies, and tomatoes. It was good but not great. I probably should have tried the Chicken Tagine; slow cooked chicken with preserved lemons, olives and a blend of special herbs and spices. There were several items worth returning to try.

I drank hot mint tea with my lunch and Sally had coffee. We each also had a cup of soup. I had Avogolimono (chicken and lemon and potatoes) and Sally had vegetarian lentil soup. Her lentil soup was spicy, as were many of the items I ate, so be prepared to be inundated with picante flavors.

Disregard the lamb grizzle on the side of the vegetarian combo plate.

See how toasted the pitas are.

I enjoyed the Pyramid Café and would go back to try some of the more interesting items.

I got home at around 3:00 and thawed out two pork chops. Yesterday Suzette had brought home several spaghetti squashes and at lunch I had asked Sally how she prepared he spaghetti squash. She said she baked it and made a sauce with wasabi, soy and ginger. I decided to cut a squash in half around the middle to make two deep cavities and put olive oil into the cavities and brush the exposed surface with oil also and roast them in a 350˚oven. I put them in around 4:30 and baked them for about 1 1/2 hours until Suzette arrived home.

At around 5:30 I cored, peeled and sliced up 1 ½ apples and one medium onion and chopped about three cloves of garlic and sautéed them in a skillet with a bit of butter and olive oil until they were tender. I then added about ¼ cup of spiced apple juice to give the vegetables some flavor and liquid. Then I turned off the heat and waited until Suzette arrived.

When Suzette arrived home we put she put the pork chops into the skillet with the apples and onion. She added some white wine to add more liquid and sautéed the chops until they turned white. I then added about 1 Tbsp. of cognac to finish the dish the way we do the Spanish tapa version of this dish.

We served the pork, apple and onion mixture over the spaghetti squash that I had pulled out of its shell and Suzette had tossed with butter.

Sauteed pork, onions and apples on baked spaghetti squash

I drank PPI Pedigris 2011 Pinot Gris and Sicilian Grillo and Suzette drank some PPI Chianti Superiore.

Bon Appétit

February 5, 2014 Lunch – Azuma Dinner – PPI Lamb Stew

I picked up Robert Mueller to Azuma for lunch in the Land Cruiser, since it was snowing today. We stopped at Fano Bakery on the way to pick up my new favorite baguette in Albuquerque. It is almost a double and costs $3.00. I bought two and the attendant cut one in half and put it in a separate plastic bag so I could freeze it.

Robert bought a loaf of 9 grain bread for $4.00 warm from the oven. I love Fano’s.

At Azuma we ordered the usual, Donburi Chirashi (12 pieces of raw fish and octopus on a bed of sushi rice with two daikon pickles and two pieces of omelet). I drank green tea and Robert drank a Sapporo.

Lunch ended up taking two hours because Robert was willing to listen to me describe my Lower Rio Grande adjudication case.

After lunch I took Robert to his mechanic’s at San Pedro, south of Central to pick up his truck and then drove to Ta Lin to see what kind of fish they had and to check out the oysters. Yesterday Suzette had mentioned wanting oysters. She actually mentioned Fried Oyster poor boys, so since I had bought the best French baguette in Albuquerque, I thought we might try to make good use of it in a day or two. Ta Lin had lovely fresh pink grouper ($6.98/lb.), but I settled on two 8 oz. jars of West Coast oysters ($4.29/bottle) and a pound of 30-40 count heads on shrimp ($6.95/lb.); the kind we use for Cajun BBQ Shrimp (there will probably be some good Cajun food in the near future).

I also bought a can of sliced water chestnuts, a bog of baby bok choy, some shallots, a bag of eight BBQ steamed buns. a green ginger root, and two kinds of mushrooms; Maitake ($1.99/package) and lobster ($2.99/lb.) to go with our shitake and white mushrooms.

When I got home, I cut the whole baguette into thirds and put them into a gallon freezer bag and put that into the fridge to keep it fresh.

When Suzette arrived home 6:30 p.m. we decided to eat the PPI lamb stew with a piece of garlic bread.

I fetched the lamb stew from the basement and sliced one of the baguette thirds in half lengthwise.

We poured the PPI herb and garlic flavored olive oil that we had cooked the pork confit through a strainer into a bottle and brushed the bread with some of the garlic laden residue to coat the bread with oil. We then laid the baguette slices on a cookie sheet and baked them in a 350˚ oven for about fifteen minutes, while the lamb stew was heating on the stove. When the lamb stew was hot we turned on the broiler above the bread and toasted the tops.

We drank the rest of the PPI Leonelli Marchesi Chianti Superiore with the lamb stew and ate warm garlic toast with it.

We loved this simple, hearty meal on a cold snowy night. The lamb stew was mostly vegetables, rutabagas, turnips, beets, potatoes, onion, mushroom and carrots. I loved the thick stew of mostly vegetables with bits of lamb and its rich lamb flavor.

Bon Appétit

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

February 2, 2014 Dinner Party for Cynthia, Ricardo, Dick and Nora

We got up and after a bit of work and discussing the menu for the dinner party tonight at 11:00 we went to Sprouts to buy ingredients. We had decided to make pork confit, and a pasta dish and serve boiled artichokes as an appetizer. So I found our pork confit recipe in a November 2012 blog and around 10:00 we thawed and diced two pork tenderloins and marinated them in fresh and dried thyme and fresh rosemary and garlic and salt and pepper corns and five or six cloves of fresh chopped garlic and a bit of olive oil because the meat needed to marinate for 6 to 7 hours.

Here is the recipe:

Suzette started the Pork Confit by crushing in a mortar 2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt, 1 Tbsp. Black pepper, two leaves of bay laurel, and three sprigs of fresh thyme and about 1 Tbsp of dried thyme and 2 Tbsp. of fresh chopped rosemary leaves. I then put the spice mixture in a gallon Ziploc freezer bag and added two pounds of boneless pork tenderloin cubed in 1 inch cubes and tossed the pork with the herbs and let it sit in the fridge for 6 to 7 hours.

Then Suzette and I transferred the pork and spice combination to a covered enamel casserole and added enough olive oil to the casserole to cover the meat, about 1 ½ cups to 2 cups. Then we brought the casseroles to a boil and then put them into a 225˚ oven and cooked them for 2 ½ hours

END OF RECIPE

I suggested orzo, so I fetched a 1 lb. bag of that and then we left for Sprouts. Sprouts was crowded; I guess with lots of folks shopping for Super Bowl stuff. We gravitated to the olive bar first and filled a small container with roasted herbed tomatoes and filled another small container with pickled golden cherry peppers. I bought two red bell peppers (2 for $1.00), three large slicing tomatoes ($.88/lb.), and four pounds of fresh asparagus ($1.48/lb.). We also bought a lb. of crab claw meat for $8.99 and a lb. of sea scallops for $6.99/lb. Suzette was making up the pasta dish on the fly and she bought a bunch of lovely fresh arugula. When she saw fresh stalks of rhubarb ($2.49/lb.) and strawberries were $2.50 for a quart, she decided to make a rhubarb and strawberry compote and serve it with ice cream for dessert. I bought a 6 oz. plastic box of blackberries for $1.25 and several other items like lemons and onions and a half gallon of Blue Bell brown label vanilla ice cream ($6.99).

When we arrived at home, I boiled two artichokes I had bought at Sprouts last week (2 for $3.00).

At 4:00 Suzette began cooking the pork by putting it in a large Le Crueset casserole and covering it with olive oil and putting the casserole into a 225˚ oven for 2 hours.

I made the sauce for the artichokes. I squeezed the juice of ½ lemon into a bowl and added ½ cup of prepared mayonnaise and added salt and chopped up several sprigs of fresh oregano and added that and a dash of Sleman’s olive oil.

Suzette then made the rhubarb and strawberry compote. She chopped the three stalks (about 1 lb.) of rhubarb into pieces and put them into a large sauce pan with about 10 to 12 de-stemmed large strawberries with about 2 Tbsp. of water and ½ cup of sugar and cooked them until they collapsed into a bright red compote.

Suzette decided to bake the asparagus in the oven with the pork, so I snapped the ends off the stalks of two bunches of asparagus and she oiled them and put them into a ceramic baking dish and put them into the oven. She looked at them after about 30 minutes and they were still hard, but when Cynthia, Ricardo, Nora and Dick arrived she started talking with Nora and Cynthia and eating artichokes stopped monitoring their progress and they over cooked and collapsed, but it was a good idea.

We cut eh artichokes in half and removed the hairy core covering the heart and put the sauce into a bowl and served the artichokes and sauce on our new appetizer platter.

Then we started a pot of water boiling for the orzo and I chopped the Italian golden peppers and roasted tomatoes into bite size pieces and Suzette chopped up an onion and she then sautéed the peppers, onion and tomatoes in a large skillet. While I showed Nora and Dick and Ricardo the art in the house, Suzette and Cynthia ate artichokes and cooked.

When the orzo was cooked, she drained the orzo and added it to the pepper, tomato and onion mixture to it tossed it with about 2/3 of the bunch of arugula in the skillet and we removed the confit and asparagus from the oven and we were ready to eat.

I had chilled a 2009 Antonini Cerese Grillo from Sicily (Indicaxione Geografica Typica, which I assume mens from a specific region) and a Gruet champagne. Dick and Nora and Cynthia and Ricardo arrived around 6:00, bringing several bottles including a Freizenet Spanish Cava Spumante from Sant Sadurni d’ Anoia, Spain that Dick and Nora brought from Maine.

Suzette wanted a light red so I went to the basement and fetched a bottle of 2011 Castillo de Monséran Garnacha from the Cariñena denominación de origen region in Aragon near Zaragoza, Spain that someone had brought to the Christmas Open House. I also brought up two bottles of Lionello Marchesi estate bottled 2010 Castello de Monastero Chianti Superiore (Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita).

I opened the 2011 Castillo de Monséran and it was a big full bodied fruit forward grenache. I also opened the Grillo white and poured Nora a glass. The grillo was a medium bodied delicate wine that I and Suzette found very pleasant. Dick removed the corkscrew puller from the bottle I had gotten it stuck in by turning the bottle off the corkscrew and I realized in a flash that Dick was very smart and how the electric corkscrew worked. It has a stationary corkscrew and a rotating side that turns the bottle up and down the corkscrew. Free at last.

When Suzette called us to the table for dinner, she had put the orzo mixture in a large bowl and the pork confit in another. The asparagus were served in their ceramic baking dish. We had a lovely dinner catching up on folks we had met in Maine and talking about Dick and Nora’s trip (they are driving a camper to California to visit their kids and grand-children). Their next stop is the Grand Canyon, with their final destination being near Eureka, California. We also discussed their newly acquired apartment on the Costa Sol near Malaga, Spain and traveling around southern Spain.

The dining room table set with the red and white French tablecloth and napkins and French chandelier with the two candelabras with their six candles looked great and made a good impression. Suzette noted that the color of the table cloth and the fabric covering the dining room chairs was almost identical.

After we had eaten and drunk the main course, we served the rhubarb-strawberry compote and vanilla ice cream with the Freizenet Spumante. I loved the Spumante. It was light and not as sweet as I would have imagined and it had that dry cava flavor, rather than the French Chardonnay and Pinot Noir taste. I liked it a lot.

The rhubarb strawberry compote was still bright red and deliciously fresh and not very sweet either. My impression was one of fresh fruit and it was particularly delicious with the creamy vanilla ice cream with its little flecks of vanilla bean.

I thought dinner was terrific. It was simple fresh food cooked in a pleasing manner. The pork confit was particularly good. It melted in your mouth and the extra bit of olive oil on the meat mixed nicely with the orzo mixture. Dick commented that he liked dishes like the orzo that include ingredients that are pickled in vinegar, such as the pickled golden peppers in this dish. He made a good point. The orzo was deceptively complex because it contained roasted tomatoes marinated in herbs and olive oil, pickled Italian sweet peppers and fresh arugula that gave the dish a fresh vegetable flavor but with an edge of bitterness. Hooray, finally the fresh Spring vegetables are starting to come in.

After dinner I offered them glasses of liquor and Dick selected a black thick Sambuco because he liked licorice. I also poured Ricardo a glass of Suzette’s European juniper berry infused vodka.

At around 10:00 Cynthia and Ricardo started nodding off because they were exhausted from preparing, cooking for and hosting their marriage reception that went until 2:00 in the morning the night before. We said goodnight at 10:15.

Bon Appétit

Monday, February 3, 2014

February 1, 2014 Winter Wine Festival and Cynthia and Ricardo’s Wedding Celebration

We got up with renewed vigor today, after Suzette conquered the impasse to connectivity to my blog yesterday. This was to be a long day with lots of things to do. We ate breakfast at 8:00 at the Taos Guesthouse. It was lovely Leslie’s famous baked egg and green chili casserole, cranberry muffins made by Tim and a bit of fresh chopped fruit salad. I called Davida and Josefo to tell them we would see them at 9:30 at the Stage Coach Inn, where they were staying, for breakfast. The Stage Coach Inn is Taos’ oldest Hotel Motel and probably was a stagecoach Inn at some point in time. It lies about ten miles outside of Taos, on the southern end of town and dates back to the 20’s. Georgia O’Keefe stayed there in the summer of 1929 or 1930 when she spent her first summer in New Mexico. It is an old large rambling adobe structure, like so many I remember from the 50’s of my youth; big lobby, big dining room, big Swimming Pool area and huge bar, where lots of drinking took place.

The wait staff directed us to the much more functional breakfast room with its low ceilings and two smaller rooms at the other end of the lobby, where we waited for Davida and Josefo, who were staying at the Stage Coach Inn. Suzette wisely, did not eat anything, but I took a complimentary breakfast of French Toast, which was lovely, along with Josefo and Davida.   We spent an hour eating and schmoozing and then took our leave and drove to the Taos Ski Valley.

Even though seven inches of snow had fallen during the night, the roads were clear and we made good time arriving a half hour before our 12:00 seminar.   We were able to sit at the front of the room near the lecture table. At 1:00 we returned and said hello to Becky and John Cook, who were sitting across from us and the Doug of Brick House Winery who was sitting beside us. The seminar as a vertical tasting of Chateau de Beaucastel’s Chateauneuf du Pape reds from 1998 to 2010. The panel included Andy Frankel, Vice President of Vineyard Brands under the legendary Robert Haas, the American importer, Joe Spellman, master sommelier, currently affiliated with Justin Vineyards, and Greg. The cost for the seminar was $75.00, which was a bargain for seven glasses of Beaucastel. The Perrin family owns Beaucastel and many other vineyards in the Southern Rhone Valley of France. We learned some really interesting things about wine and Beaucastel and tastings. For example when Joe made his opening remarks, he picked up the Coca Cola cup provided for spitting out wine after it is tasted and when he got through describing the set up of the paper and glasses, he said, "And this cup", and threw the cup over his shoulder. Which meant that no one was going to spit out any of this wine. Andy in his opening remarks said that Beaucastel always uses all of the 13 allowed varietals in Rhone in its wine every year, but the two main grapes used are 30% each of Syrah and Grenache, with about 10% each of Mouvedre and one other grape and lesser amounts of the others.

Here is some history on Robert Haas and Vineyard Brands and his newest venture, which has been starting Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, CA to make Rhone style wines.

The Tablas Creek Team

Tablas Creek > Our Story > The Tablas Creek Team

Meet the people of Tablas Creek Vineyard and Winery.

Management

Robert Haas, Partner and Founder

Robert Haas has played a leading role in the American wine industry for over half a century. After graduating from Yale in 1950, he joined his father’s firm, M. Lehmann, Inc., a retailer of fine wines and spirits in Manhattan. As a buyer for the company, Haas traveled through the cellars of France, establishing a formidable reputation as a wine taster while forging lifelong relationships with premier wine producers.

In the mid-1960s he set out on his own to import fine estate wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Loire, Alsace and the Rhône Valley, where he met the Perrins of Château de Beaucastel and became the exclusive American importer for Beaucastel. As his company Vineyard Brands grew, it introduced the American market to brands such as La Vieille Ferme, Marqués de Cáceres, Santa Rita, Warre’s Port, and Villa Maria. The company also served as a representative for newly emerging California wineries including Chappellet, Freemark Abbey, Clos du Val, Joseph Phelps, Rutherford Hill, Hanzell, Kistler, and Sonoma-Cutrer. He founded the symposium "Focus on Chardonnay" in 1984 to promote dialogue between producers in Burgundy and California.

As Managing Partner of Tablas Creek since its foundation in 1989, Haas has consistently spoken in favor of organic viticulture, minimum-intervention winemaking and wines of terroir and sophistication. He has spoken on wine and winemaking topics at festivals around the country, including the New York Wine Experience, the Boston Wine Expo, Society of Wine Educators annual meeting, Santa Fe Wine & Chile Fiesta, Hospice du Rhône, Central Coast Wine Classic and many others.

Haas is one of four American members of the Académie Internationale du Vin. In recognition of his contributions to the international wine community as an importer, a vintner, and an advocate for quality, he was elected as the AIV president in 2000. He manages Tablas Creek with his son Jason.

Jason Haas, Partner and General Manager

Jason Haas, the son of Tablas Creek Vineyard founder and renowned importer Robert Haas, learned the wine business at an early age, accompanying his family on yearly European wine-buying trips and spending two summers working at Château de Beaucastel.

After obtaining a Master’s Degree in Archaeology from Cornell and spending a four-year stint managing a tech company in Washington, DC, Jason moved to California to join Tablas Creek in April of 2002. In addition to managing Tablas Creek's operations, he is active in Tablas Creek's winemaking and directs the vineyard’s local and national marketing efforts. He is also the principal author of the Tablas Creek blog, which won the Wine Blog Award for Best Winery Blog in 2008 and 2011.

In addition to his work at Tablas Creek, he has served on the board of directors of the Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, the Rhone Rangers, and the Family Winemakers of California. He speaks regularly on topics including winery marketing and management, Rhône varietals, organic farming, and the Paso Robles region.

- See more at: http://www.tablascreek.com/story/staff#sthash.3n4YCCUG.dpuf

Soon it became apparent that the room was full of serious wine folks. For example, the Cooks, sitting across the table, had contributed the 1998 from their cellar. Gregg had contributed the 200 and 2001 from his. I guess Vineyard Brands contributed the rest of the seven vintages, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. The seven glasses of wine were poured and sitting on a sheet of paper with circles printed for each year, so you could pick one up and taste it and replace it in its year circle, so you did not get confused. Just like the Reidel stemware tasting the day before, this was an interactive tasting with opinions and comments coming from all parts of the room. Byron Wahl was in attendance and asked about a bacteria common to aged wines. He asked if the slight mustiness in one of the years was due to the bacterium. Andy was quick to say that when the bacteria is present it usually is evident immediately in the wine, no matter how young and this mustiness is due to age in his opinion because that complexity developed over years and was not evident immediately after the wine was bottled. Every aspect of every year’s vintage was discussed and considered and commented on by the panel and many of the attendants. In a little over an hour we had tasted and discussed all seven vintages. I loved the 2000 best. It had the most united flavor and luscious complexity of tannins and fruit to my taste. Becky Cook sitting across from me said the 1981 was her favorite vintage of Beaucastel, so I asked her which of the seven was her favorite and was surprised when she replied that she liked the 2000. She and John were lawyers that seem to have exchanged the practice of law for travel and wine tasting.

After the tasting we returned to Albuquerque, arriving at around 4:00 p.m. We took showers and rested and at 7:00 p.m. we grabbed a bottle of Gruet 1997 Gilbert Vintage Reserve champagne and the bottle of

Louis Bouillot Perle d'Aurore Rose

750ml

91	Beverage Dynamics

Elegant, Cherry, Medium-bodied

Burgundy, France- A sophisticated rose made using the Champagne method from Pinot Noir grapes. Pale rose in color with a medium-body and fine bubbles. The bouquet and palate feature cherry and strawberry notes with a dry creamy finish. Superb with Salmon, Shrimp and Lobster.

Crémant de Bourgogne Rose (Total Wine $17.99) and drove to Cynthia and Ricardo’s house. The house soon became packed with about fifty or sixty people, most brought food and wine or beer. We talked to Steve, who made the best item of the night; a freshly made chocolate truffle with a smooth shiny shell of dark chocolate covering a luscious fondant of white chocolate and reduced blood orange with a texture somewhere between a liquid and a nougat. I ate four of those and stayed up most of the night, perhaps because I also ate ½ of a slice of the Flying Star chocolate mousse cake and a few other chocolate creations.

The furniture in the dining room and living room had been removed. Terry’s trio played music in the dining room and many people danced and listened to the live music. There were lots of Breaking Bad folks in attendance. At one point in the evening every one came outside and surrounded the fire pit and sang “Happy Birthday” to Andy, the Mill Supervisor for Breaking Bad, who was in charge of set construction. I said hello to Ricardo’s sister and few other folks and Dick and Nora from Maine were in town, traveling to California to spend time with their children, which was probably the impetus for the evening’s celebration, because Dick had married Cynthia and Ricardo in Maine last September and were among their oldest friends in Maine.

I enjoyed a freshly made dolma and several other dishes, such as Dick’s spicy sautéed shrimps and Cynthia’s now famous warm artichoke heart spread.

I could not eat or drink much, but we did try the Crémant and found it to be a little heavily Pinot Noir flavored and to have a slightly bitter flavor on the back of the palette. I guess after seven silky smooth glasses of Beaucastel, small imperfections may have stood out more glaringly. Of course, everything is relative. Beaucastel costs well past $100.00 per bottle and is ranked No. 8 in the world and the Crémant costs $18.99 and probably is not rated.

Finally, after a lot of wonderful food and music, we left at around 10:30 p.m. We learned the next day that the party went to 2:00 am.

It is days like this that remind me that I have a blessed life, with lots of great wine, food and friends.

Bon Appétit

Saturday, February 1, 2014

January 31, 2014 Reidel stemware seminar and Reserve tasting

January 31, 2014 Reidel stemware seminar and Reserve tasting

We went to the dining room around 7:30 a.m. and I started a blog and then when breakfast was ready at 8:00 Suzette ate blueberry and nut muffins, a green chile quiche, fresh oatmeal with fruit and yogurt and tea and coffee.

We the returned to the room and Suzette worked on my computer for four hours and finally got me reconnected to the blog, which is so wonderful, I can hardly express it. At around 12:30 she checked to see when the Reidel seminar was starting and found out it started at 1:00 so we drove over to El Monte Sagrado and went upstairs to the seminar. We were the first to arrive. There were three lovely different shaped glasses in front of each seat with three pieces of chocolate. Julianne Crystal was the Reidel representative presenting the seminar and we soon found out by tasting three wines, a cabernet sauvignon, a Syrah and a Pinot Noir, that the different shaped glasses accentuated and maximized the flavor of each of the wines. This was a wonderful new world that we had only heard about and to experience it directly with the guidance of a Reidel representative, who knew everything about the glasses, was extraordinary. We were given the glasses in a carrying box. Here is a picture of them.

After the seminar we went to Mission Gallery and caught up on all the local gossip from Rena Rosenquist. Then at 3:30 we returned to El Monte Sagrado for the Reserve Tasting. They allowed us to walk into the Tasting early, so we bagan eating and drinking at 3:45.

The Reserve Tasting is our favorite wine event of the year, when both the wine and food are great. This year was the best ever.

Everywhere you looked there was duck confit being served in an interesting way. The best was Zippy's with his wonderful thick onion marmalade from Doc Martin's. I asked Zippy how he got the duck to have a slightly smoky flavor and he said he marinated it in chipotle.

There was an new Bakery that made the best puff pastry I have eaten in a long time, as well as lovely beef picadillo and curried squash empanadas (See picture above). There was gravad lax (60/40 salt/sugar, almost like I make it), lamb meat balls and lamb stew; a profusion of good food. My favorite was the Taos High School's Culinary Food Division's sweetbread ragout served in a puff pastry shell; simply out of this world. The flavor of the sweetbread dish was soft and slightly sweet, so I asked the teacher how it was marinated and he said in buttermilk. I loved that tip.

There were many exceptional wines this year also. My favorite new wine was one of the first I drank, a Brick House Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon. But after we had drunk
at least forty or fifty glasses of wine and eaten at least forty appetizers, at 5:30 we gave up, after we tasted the exceptional Martini and Rossi 150th anniversary Gran Lusso Rosso Vermouth, my second favorite wine of the night.

We went to the Taos Guest house and sat in the hot tub for about thirty minutes and went to be stuffed and completely relaxed at around 7:00 p.m.

Bon Appetit

January 30, 2014 Winter Wine Festival The Range and Mosaic restaurants

Today we left town at around 11:30 for Taos. We stopped at The Range in Bernalillo for lunch a little after noon. There was a special menu and we both ordered off of it. Suzette ordered a Mediterranean Egg Sandwich with egg whites cooked with greens including spinach, the bread was smeared with pesto ($7.99). I ordered the two tamale plate with double beans. The beans were boiled pinto beans and very delicious. I had eaten a piece of quiche for breakfast so I ate only one of the tamales and half the beans. The tamales were stuffed with carne adovado and the carne adovado sauce was used to sauce the tamales, so it was very spicy.

Then we drove to the Taos Guesthouse and checked into the room we like next to the hot tub area by 2:45. We got settled in and then went to the Harwood Museum in time for the 3:30 p.m. opening of the Art Show and wine tasting. The Culinary Arts division of the Taos High School was cooking and they had come up with some lovely items, such as a skewered half of a yellow and red cherry tomato on either side of a piece of fresh mozzarella cheese garnished with vinaigrette and micro greens. There were four wineries pouring: a Clos de Val 2009 Stag's Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon (one of the best wines I drank at the Winter Wine Festival), an Italian importer, Vivac and Black Mesa. I immediately walked over to Clos de Val and saw that the wine being poured was from the Stag's Leap Wine district. I soon found out that Clos de Val is next door to Chimney Rock and Shaefer and that the wine district is very small. It lies on the eastern slope of Napa Valley east of Rutherford.

I then went to the next table of Italian wines and tasted a good 2007 Brunello and two lovely whites, a Soave Reserve and an even more interesting Sardinian vermentino.

The art in the silent auction this year was not a good as last year's, mostly reproductions of photos and posters, although there was a signed Fonseca poster that both of us liked.

We met the couple that owned the Mosaic restaurant that we had made reservations at for dinner. The husband was named George Bartel and was from Fort Worth. He was the son of a lawyer with the Cantey Hanger firm named Harry Bartel, who I had heard of.
Even more interesting was meeting Ann Quinn, who has moved to Taos. She was also from Fort Worth and was my mother's banker when she ran the women's banking division of the Continental National Bank in Fort Worth. What a small world.

I toured the storage areas in the basement where the collection is stored and the museum is photographing the collection. We were pleased to see that they had named a gallery space for Bob Ellis and Caroline Lee.

Then at 5:30 we were finished and went to the La Fonda Hotel on the plaza to eat dinner at the Mosaic Restaurant.

We were the first to arrive and were the only diners other than another couple and a few folks at the bar during the time we were at the restaurant. The menu was limited but interesting. It included Bouillabaisse, Cassoulet, Orecchiete with an Italian sausage and beef Bolognese. Suzette selected Cassoulet and I selected the orecchiete that George had recommended.

We did not see any cheap good wine, so we asked the waiter if there as a good cheap Spanish wine by the glass and he said there was a Monistral. We took two glasses of it. They gave us a $2.00 per glass discount making the total of $6.00 per glass.

We were served an appetizer of lentil mousse on a sweet potato chip garnished with a beet chip.

We both thought the dinner was good but not great. Putting the orcchiete on a bed of fresh baby spinach leaves was a nice touch. The cassoulet had slices of Spanish Chorizo in it that was lovely and spicy. In fact the pasta was seasoned with red pepper flakes that made it quite spicy also. After the spicy carne adovado sauce on the tamales at lunch my throat was a little raw and I reacted to the pepper flakes with a cough or two. Suzette sent the cassoulet back to be re-heated because she found the heat to be uneven in the dish, even though it seemed to be baked in a ceramic dish. It was fun to eat hardy peasant food on a cold windy night.

After dinner we ordered a Chocolate torte with flambeed strawberries and whipped cream and took it back to the Guesthouse and read and ate dessert and went to bed.

Bon Appetit