It has been a very long time since I’ve last posted.  My apologies!  Much has happened since I posted my last entry at the end of March.  I just celebrated eight months with a special person, I graduated from law school, and I took the California bar exam.  I am also back in DC, despite my previous plans of going back home to Los Angeles.

It’s a tough market for would-be lawyers.  I am working part-time at the Office of Student Affairs at the law school, and supplementing that income with wages from moving boxes and delivering wine for Ansonia Wines on Saturdays.  Needless to say, with law school loans coming due and the expenses of living on my own mounting, I have very little money leftover for purchasing wine.  (I have been drinking pretty well, regardless… a lot more beer and liquors.)  Mary Kate and I have been enjoying a box of Maipe Malbec recently.  In fact, we’re on our second box.  We saw the boxes at Total Wine, and as I’m a fan of Maipe we decided to pick some up for everyday consumption.  Though not the most refined wine, it is delicious, easy to drink, and a wonderful value at around $25-$30 for three liters (FOUR BOTTLES!) of wine that stays fresh for weeks.

I am also fortunate to be eating well despite my budgetary constraints.  Mary Kate and I cook at home often, and we also eat take-out from delicious, high quality-to-price ratio restaurants like El Pollo Rico, El Charrito Caminante, Fast Gourmet, Iota, and Shake Shack.  We usually find ourselves with leftovers, which are generally eaten as-is.

However, some leftovers need a bit more… finessing.  For instance, it’s one thing to gnaw on a cold rack of pork ribs (Rhodeside Grill) or slurp down reheated Szechuan lo mein (Great Wall Szechuan House).  What do you do with cold french fries?

I like most of my leftovers cold.  For instance, I think that cold pizza is often as good as hot pizza, and I thoroughly enjoy cold burritos and Chinese food.  I don’t think anyone enjoys cold french fries–how could they?  The fries are hard, cold, dry, and difficult for the process of peristalsis.  Being cooked and salted potatoes, however, cold french fries do have a good culinary use, especially on rainy days when going out for breakfast seems a drag.

Taking a cue from José Andrés, who uses potato chips as the starch base of a modern riff on the traditional Spanish tortilla recipe, I decided to chop up the cold french fries, soak them in beaten egg, and make the American diner equivalent.  Because this recipe uses french fries, which are rectangular/boxy in shape, I’m not sure if it qualifies as an actual tortilla (which uses finely-sliced potato rounds) but it’s tasty nonetheless!

French Fry Tortilla

Serves one for breakfast or two as a snack.

Materials

• 8″ non-stick skillet
• plate
• silicone spatula

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup chopped-up cold french fries
• 1/2 cup diced onions
• 1 tbl olive oil
• ground black pepper to taste

Get your ingredients ready! Chop up the cold french fries (I used thin, McDonald’s-sized fries and chopped them coarsely to between quarter- to half-inch pieces) and put in bowl. Crack open four eggs into bowl and beat until egg is creamy and fries are thoroughly soaked. Add black pepper.

(Soaking time affects how soft the potatoes will be. Five minutes takes the hard edge off the fries but retains a pleasant dense texture; you can soak for up to fifteen minutes for a softer consistency.)

Heat oil in skillet. Dice onion and add to skillet; sauté over low flame for about five minutes. Pour in egg and potato mixture to onions in skillet and mix thoroughly. Turn up heat to high. You want the skillet to get hot!

Use the spatula to push the edges of the tortilla down the sides of the skillet, and after two or so minutes use it to start to separate the edges of the tortilla from the bottom of the skillet. You will want to keep doing this over the course of five or so minutes until finally the tortilla can move about the skillet freely, in one piece. Banging the pan a few times on the burner or a hard surface helps separate the tortilla from the skillet. At this point the surface should be a bit runny but relatively firm.

Now comes the fun part. Slide the tortilla onto a waiting plate. Put the skillet on top of the plate and carefully flip both around so the runny surface of the tortilla is now on the bottom of the skillet. Fry for another two minutes. Remove from heat, slide the tortilla onto the plate, and serve with ketchup or, better yet, Sriracha chili garlic paste. You can serve the tortilla hot or eat it cold.

I was very excited about this wine, having had it shipped from invino to my home back in California.

We opened it up yesterday for dinner, which was New York strip steaks topped with caramelized onion, creamy mashed potatoes, and a nice green bean, tomato, and feta cheese salad.  True to form, I opened it up about an hour before dinner to drink while cooking.  Very dark, saturated color.  On the nose there was prune and blueberry, and herbs.  When my mom tried it she said it tasted salty–I agree: there was sort of a cured olive aspect to the wine.  I got the prune and berries, along with tar, tobacco, licorice, and stone–nicely integrated, soft tannins.  It had a long finish, resolving to lighter red fruit notes.

Overall, very good and an easy-to-drink wine.  It paired well with the dinner, too.  However, I’m not sure if I’d pay $70 for the wine; I got it from invino for about $40.  If I can find this wine for $40 I would probably buy it again.  I enjoyed it more than the 2005 Clos du Val “Stags Leap District” Cabernet Sauvignon (85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc, 3% Merlot and 2% Petit Verdot) I had purchased from invino a while back.

While similar in style (Bordeaux, not Blockbuster) to the Cinq Cepages, the Clos du Val was simply not well integrated.  There were good things–terrific fruit, for instance–but the elements were distinct and not part of a unified whole.  That being said, I would definitely try it again in a few years just to make sure.  The critics love it and there are good things going on in the glass.

I am a lucky man.  Not only do I have a home to go to for Christmas, but I get to try some terrific wines.  Not least of all, however, I have a very cute dog to keep my spirits bright!

Happy holidays, everyone!

Kate and Rahul, who are esteemed members of both organizations, thus found themselves with about two cases of wine.  They invited us over for dinner where they would provide the wine; Meredith, a trained chef, agreed to coordinate a dinner to go with the wine.

The menu, as put together by Meredith, was as follows:

• Mushroom paté
• Bitter greens salad with shallot-dijon vinaigrette
• Coq au vin over potato puree
• Quince tarte tatin

I was responsible for the mushroom paté, which recipe you can find here.  It’s one of the few dishes I’ve made that requires more than two kinds of mushrooms (three kinds of mushrooms?!?  A double boiler setup?!?  Chilling afterwards for six hours?!?  It was only the day of that I realized this dish was significantly more labor intensive than I had anticipated.)

But the mushroom paté turned out surprisingly well; actually, all the food turned out extremely well.  The coq au vin, made with love and care by Meredith, was supremely flavorful and tender, with some caramelized onion and carrot that hit me like sweet/umami bombs.  The greens were a fine balance between bitter and buttery, and the quince tarte tatin was like something out of heaven.

We had a number of wines to accompany the fantastic meal.  For instance, we had the 2008 Clos la Coutale Cahors Malbec, a perennial favorite of mine that was showing extremely well.  I’ve had many vintages of this–for instance, the 2005 and 2007–and one thing I’ve noticed about this wine generally is that it’s somewhat inconsistent.  I’ve had bottles of a particular vintage that I’ve really liked and other bottles from the same vintage that just tasted strange.  I’m glad to report that the 2008 I tried was pretty fantastic, a prettier version of the Clos la Coutale–more red than black fruit, good acidity, nice spice, and altogether a great match for coq au vin.

We also had the 2007 Kermit Lynch Côtes du Rhône, which is one of the clear winners from the DC Wine Buyers Collective.  I’ve written previously about this wine, and if anything an extra year made a huge difference.  Nice acidity with much more body than I anticipated, with good fruit and a savory finish.  For about $11 a bottle, I would stock up on this and make it my house red.

There were a few other wines but, alas, I was drunk and it was some time ago so I don’t quite remember.  I do recall having a great deal of Scotch as well, which might have something to do with my memory!

Some lively debate–first from the right:

and then from the left:

More pictures from the dinner!

The always enigmatic Martin:

Diane waiting for food to be served:

The DC Wine Buyers Collective might never make a pecuniary profit, but it has certainly made me feel very rich.  Thank you to everyone who has purchased from it, and thank you to the DC Wine Appreciate Society for a very special evening!

Such were the trees on the road on the way to Lexington, North Carolina, whose Barbecue Festival my friend James (of The Eaten Path fame), our friend Nick (of the US Patent and Trademark Office) and I attended this past weekend.

(Thank you to the Lexington BBQ Festival for this poster!)

For those of you who do not know of James by this point, he is one of my good friends from Berkeley who has for the last year called Brooklyn, New York home.  While his more regular contributions to the blogosphere can be seen on The Eaten Path, he also is a huge aficionado of all things barbecued, once spending a few weeks traveling through the Smoky Crescent and eating and observing the best the South had to offer.  It is one of his goals to publish a comprehensive and awesome book on barbecue–a noble goal, indeed.

Thus, when he said there was a barbecue festival in North Carolina I asked if I could go.  I figured I wouldn’t have very many more chances to have a purpose to go to North Carolina, and besides, any reason to get out of DC is reason enough.

James has an excellent post–with pictures!–about our journey, so I won’t try to recreate the wheel.  Suffice it to say that North Carolina BBQ is pork, sometimes cooked over wood, and either sliced or finely chopped, sometimes with the delicious crackling, and served in trays or sandwiches, usually with “red” (BBQ) cole slaw and hush puppies.  The sauce, which arrives sometimes infused in the meat or sometimes on the side, is vinegar-based, unlike the sauce in parts of South Carolina which is predominantly mustard-based.

Some other items of note: we saw a lumberjack contest with three separate events–the chainsaw, the traditional hand-ax, and–get this–the throwing ax!  The throwing ax was crazy.  One of the competitors was an 11-year-old girl.  Seeing her throw that double-bladed ax fifteen or so feet into the center of a banged-up wooden target made me feel sorry for the soldiers of the Union Army.  Another item of note was a series of races involving pigs, Vietnamese potbellied pigs, and billy goats.  Good ole’-fashioned fun if ever I’ve seen it!

(Thanks to James for this picture–note the 11-year-old girl in red and the ax, which you can see at top-center of the picture.)

Keeping with the theme of my blog, however, we did have a few wines, two of which we picked up at the beginning of our journey at a Whole Foods in Virginia:

2008 Borsao Viña Borgia garnacha: I bought a bottle of this for the low price of $6.99 because it has a cool, modern-looking label and is from the man, Jorge Ordoñez, a very well-known and respected importer of Spanish wines.  I’ve had a number of his wines before and they’ve all been great.  This particular one, however, was a wash for me.  It was relatively light and had a LOT of fruit.  I found the tannins to be a bit weak and the acid to be a bit, well, underwhelming.  This wine was unoffensive and still a decent deal for the price.  James and Nick liked it more, calling it “vibrant.”  I think other Ordoñez selections such as the Juan Gil (mourvedre), a powerful and expressive red wine, or the Botani (moscatel seco), a unique and refreshing white, are better examples of his portfolio.

2008 Trapiche malbec: from the Mendoza Valley of Argentina, it clocked in at a price of about $8.00.  James had previously had their pinot noir, which he liked.  This malbec was decent–nothing to write home about, and it didn’t really exude “malbec-ness” to me, but it was drinkable and pretty good with the barbecue from Lexington No. 1 BBQ.  And it was infinitely better than the wine we had opened for that particular meal, a wine that in retrospect showed all the warning signs of a horrible, horrible bottle.

This wine was the 2009 Childress Vineyards Fine Swine Wine, which was 40% syrah blended with cabernet franc and “residual sugar.”  A few things should have alerted me to the possibility that this was going to be bad.  First, the name…?  Granted, it was created specifically for the Lexington Barbecue Festival and for eating with BBQ (this was the second year in a row it was made), but really?  The label boasts a pig stomping grapes in a big wooden vat, which I suppose is another sign.  Also, it’s bottled with “residual sugar,” which isn’t necessarily bad in of itself but is probably going to be bad when the vintage is this year.

(Thanks to The Eaten Path for this great picture!)

James and I each purchased a bottle for $15 from a stand at the festival, where the owner/proprietor of Childress Vineyards, NASCAR driver Richard Childress, was signing bottles.  I was pretty excited–hey, it was a festival!  And hey, I like wine!

Ugh.

I mean, there are probably people who like it.  It did well enough last year that they made it again–500 cases of it–this year.  I’m assuming it probably sold out or is close to sold out.  But it’s just not good wine.  It tastes like jug wine: it’s thin, lacks any semblance of tannin and acid or structure, and is super sweet.  It tastes like Manischewitz, but at least Manischewitz is (1) fuller bodied, so you can fool yourself into thinking it’s almost a dessert wine, and is (2) Kosher.  I would much rather drink Manischewitz, Charles Shaw, or even Franzia.

The winery says it best itself.  Says winemaker Mark Friszolowski: “It’s like sweet tea with a kick.”  A very big, unpleasant kick.

Do not get this wine.  If you should find yourself at the Lexington BBQ Festival, spend the $15 on the delicious North Carolina-style BBQ pork sandwiches, or smoked turkey legs, or deep-fried apple pies, or funnel cakes, or anything else.

That bad wine experience aside, North Carolina was great.  There was so much good food and the trees and countryside were beautiful.  But this is where James and I differ, perhaps.  I like traveling, but at the end of the day, after 1000 miles and countless dirty bathrooms, it is nice to come back and sleep in one’s own bed.  James is still there in North Carolina (Nick and I dropped him off in Raleigh, where he spent a few nights couch surfing) doing more research for his book.  He revels in the journey, in the exploration and the paths–beaten, eaten, and otherwise.

The concrete reason for my trip was to visit two of my former residents (and current friends), Semra and Kana, and their awesome apartment up in the hills on North Side.  There was a sentimental reason, too–namely, that all of my residents and thus the vast majority of the people I knew in Berkeley would be graduating and leaving for the big vast world after college.  

There was a oenological reason, too: I wanted to drink a lot of great wine!

Again, as in my New York post, I’m going to just write down phrases that will hopefully serve to jog my memory when I’m looking back after a few decades.  =)

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Wednesday, May 13
Flight in to Oakland.  BART to Downtown Berkeley and up Euclid, right on Virginia.  Up up up Virginia.  Apartment.  Met up with Kana, went down to get lunch at Poulet. Realized they had only $5.00 corkage. Went to Andronico’s and got two bottles–a bottle of the Domaine E.C. (Emile Cheysson) “Clos les Farges” Chiroubles Beaujolais cru for lunch with our poultry, and a bottle of the 2000 Senorio de P. Pecina Rioja crianza for later.  A huge amount of delicious food at Poulet with a lightly-chilled bottle of the Chirouble (perfect!).  Some of the Rioja later with Kana and Semra at home. Wandering around seeing the sights.  An iced Americano at the Free Speech Movement Cafe. Met up with Stephanie with two of her friends outside the newly-created East Asian American Library on campus.  Fat Slice and La Burrito.  Home, more drinking of the Rioja.

Thursday, May 14
Unsuccessful run at both Gregoire and Vintage Berkeley (they both open at 11 am). Hung out with Aileen. A wonderful subsidized lunch of a pork tenderloin sandwich, fries, glass of Ampelos Rosé of Syrah, and citrus-infused panna cotta at Adagia. An iced Americano at Strada. Shopping with Semra and her awesome roommate Hilary at Andronico’s (for late-night snacks) and Kermit Lynch (for late-night drinking). Some more of the Rioja, which had developed into a very different wine–away from earth but more towards a mushroomy, old-wine sort of taste; not unpleasant but wholly unexpected.

Out to SF. A cappuccino at the SFMOMA cafe. Dinner with Dre at Osha Thai. Back to Berkeley. Back to Andronico’s for more ingredients. Cooked a series of three snacks. First, shrimp ceviche (cooked Bay shrimp with a salsa of tomato, avocado, cilantro, onion, serrano and jalepeno pepper, garlic, salt, and lime juice) and tortilla chips served with the 2008 Denis Jamain Reuilly pinot gris rosé–clean, crisp, and very very light, with just the hint of berries and minerals. Second, garlic shrimp (shrimp cooked in the shell with olive oil, garlic, salt, and crushed red pepper) served with the remainder of the rosé and some of the absolutely gorgeous 2007 Domaine A. Et. P. De Villaine “La Fortune” Cote Chalonnaise Bourgogne. Third, filet mignon rolls (filet mignon sliced thin, half a fingerling potato, a circle of leek, and goat cheese) served with the remainder of the Bourgogne and with some of the brooding, restrained, iron-fist-in-a-silk-glove that is the 2007 Clos la Coutales malbec from Cahors (I had been disappointed with this wine in DC, but I am happy to report that that bottle was a clear aberration). Drunk, drunk, drunk.

Friday, May 15
Hung out for a while at the apartment, then went to Nefeli Caffe for cappuccinos and a pizette with Semra and Hilary. My first time at North Berkeley Wine Imports. Browsing wines to the tune of the great Dark Was The Night album. Picked out some more bottles. Dropped off at Strada. More iced Americano. Dropped off my bags at my new place with Stephanie on Durant. Met with Kana at Strada again for another iced Americano, met a new Phi Delt (my old fraternity) who had been initiated long after I had graduated, found out from him that some Phis were at the Bear’s Lair. Went to Bear’s Lair. Met up with Patrick, Matt, Evan, and some new Phis and Jess B.; ran into my old residents Danny, Alicia, Jessica, and Catherine. Dinner at the I-House with Dana. Wine with Michael, Emma, Jed, Jose (the old Adagia crew) and Atsuko (who was hired long after me). First the 2007 Domaine Diochon Moulin-a-Vent “Vieilles Vignes” cuvee–nice fruit, impressive structure. A unique Ballantine petit verdot that opened up beautifully in the glass courtesy of Jed. Last, the 2005 Bodegas Monte De Reina Tinta de Toro Edicion Limitada from North Berkeley Wine Imports: lush, dark, with full body and nice tannins. Then Brian Martinelli, Teeny, and Chuck showed up; I hitched a ride in Brian’s Le Sabre to the Smokehouse, where I conquered the near-mythical double chili-cheese dog with a side of fries and a Coke (double as in two hot dogs in one bun).

Saturday, May 16
MacArthur BART station to meet up with Ratha. Lake Merritt. A cappuccino and eggs scrambled with lox, cream cheese, and chives at the Lakeshore Cafe. Through the Farmer’s Market. A walk around part of Lake Merritt. Visit to Ratha’s place. BART back to Berkeley. Picked up a whole bunch of books at Pegasus and Pendragon (including first editions of Near the Ocean by Robert Lowell and Praise by Robert Hass). An iced tea (for once) at the Free Speech Movement Cafe with Lauren. Dinner at Angeline’s with Jeff, who is going to the Philippines for his internship. A brief detour on Addison to see Semra one last time at her British friend Ben’s apartment. Some Becks on the roof. No wine all day. Home, and sleep.

Sunday, May 17
Packing for LA. Iced coffee at Peet’s with Stephanie. Brunch at La Note, consisting of a cup of coffee and the omelette de pommes de terre (open-faced potato and caramelized onion omelet) for me and the cote nord (eggs soft-scrambled with goat cheese over French bread) for Steph. Airport. LA.

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This trip was bittersweet, as always, but not for the usual reasons. This trip was bittersweet more for the fact that an era had passed, and that I’d have to stay in SF or Oakland the next time I went up to Berkeley. I certainly had more money during this last trip than I ever had while in college, and I had a great time, but some things can’t be bought and certainly cannot be reproduced: scraping together change for an Americano, grilling cheap frozen hamburger patties on a rickety old deck, holding hands while watching the sun set over the Bay.

And now I might very well be older than they were at the time.

(My torts professor summed it up quite nicely when he quipped, “It’s a strange feeling when both the president-elect AND the chief justice are younger than you are.”)

Now that I’m a quarter century old, I feel as if I should be an adult.  I certainly feel adult-like at certain moments–for instance, when I cook dinner, or when I go to the Ritz-Carlton for drinks (that one time!)–but sometimes feel as if I’m a child playing grownup. I think many of my peers feel the same way.

All that aside, it IS nice to get together and do grownup stuff–like hold wine tastings.  My roommate and I decided to throw a wine tasting; I decided also to throw a wine tasting before that wine tasting to get the feel of things.

I’ll spare you (and myself) the details of the parties.  The first coincided with the arrival of Margie’s friend Ruth from Michigan and Alisa’s friend Kami from Arizona.  The second coincided with Margie’s birthday.  All in all, fortuitous timing.

This was the first wine tasting event I hosted, so I was anxious to do it right.  To that extent, I went to the Wine Specialist and talked to J.C. (their Spanish wine buyer) for over an hour, picking out wines.  The combined wines over both tastings were:

• 2007 | Visión “Cono Sur” | Sauvignon Blanc | Casablanca Valley, Chile
• 2007 | Verget du Sud | Chardonnay | Vin de Pays du Vaucluse, France
• 2007 | Mulderbosch | Chenin Blanc | Stellenbosch, South Africa
• 2006 | André Lorentz | Riesling | Alsace, France
• 2007 | Jean Descombes | cru Beaujolais | Morgon, Beaujolais, France
• 2007 | Maipe “Rosé of Malbec” | Malbec | Mendoza, Argentina
• 2006 | Domiciano de Barrancas “Cosecha Nocturna” | Malbec | Mendoza, Argentina
• 2007 | Oracle of the Stars | Pinotage | Western Cape, South Africa
• 2007 | Thorn-Clarke “Shotfire” | Shiraz | Barossa Valley, Australia
• 2007 | Cueva de las Manos “Bonarda Old Vine Reserve” | Bonarda | Mendoza, Argentina

I bought a few repeats, as well.

There was also a Chilean cabernet sauvignon that I wasn’t intending to serve (and so didn’t write down) but ended up serving after the first tasting; we also went through a few other bottles from my own “collection” and from others.

The theme for both tastings was “1.5 Generation Wines: Between the Old and New Worlds.”  Many of the varietals–sauvignon blanc, syrah/shiraz, and malbec, especially–have had great success after being transplanted to different parts of the world.

The first tasting was a bit more improvised–I didn’t have any food to go along with the tasting, but we more than made up for that by drinking a lot of wine.  The second tasting was more planned–Alex and I made appetizers such as pork sausage fried with apples and cider, lox with chevre and green garlic on melba toast, roasted Hungarian peppers with Greek goat cheese on sliced baguette, hummus, dark chocolate drops with raspberry, etc.  Daphne brought some spicy tuna rolls and vegetable rolls, as well.  Delicious.

I won’t comment on all the wines, but only the notable ones.

The Visión “Cono Sur” is an excellent sauvignon blanc–midway between the Old World (minerals, concentrated) and the New World (lush, grassy) styles, this was a real crowd pleaser.  The Maipe “Rosé of Malbec” was an intense blood red, almost as dark as the Beaujolais or a pinot noir.  It had a bit of a rubber boot nose, but this gave way to some nice berry fruit that ended on dried notes of raisin.  The Oracle of the Stars pinotage was a favorite–smoky, nice acid–and a steal at $7.99.  It’s definitely a wine I’d keep around for dinner or easy drinking.

Jordan and Margie donated a bottle of 2005 Bodegas Arrocal tempranillo from the Ribera del Duero region of Spain.  We poured it in a decanter and swished it around.  I happen to love tempranillo from Ribera del Duero (Tinto Pesquera, anyone?)–they’re intense and dark, with earth and tobacco.  “This is going to be evocative of a dry, dusty riverbed,” I announced drunkenly as I poured out tastes from the decanter.  Yup.  It WAS like a dry, dusty riverbed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the process of hosting a wine tasting, and people seemed to like it.  Then again, who wouldn’t like to pretend they’re adults and get drunk off of good wine?

5:50 pm
I am exhausted from nine hours at law school. With the exception of an hour-and-a-half gap in between for lunch and socialization, I was at it all day. With finals coming up, there is a distinct change in the atmosphere at school… people are definitely getting more stressed.

Nonetheless, I finished my civ pro assignment for tomorrow, put my books in my locker, and set for home.

6:15 pm
I am cutting vegetables I bought at Eastern Market yesterday. The rabbit recipe calls for two red bell peppers–I bought one red bell pepper that was streaked with green (yum!) and, for variety, two big sweet red peppers. (I cut those into pieces and, because they looked so good, ate a piece… SO delicious! I could almost eat those like fruit.) I bought a small onion. Some mushrooms. 16 kalamata olives. I had garlic at home, a big can of chopped tomatoes from Trader Joe’s… flour, check. Bay leaves, rosemary, thyme… check.

The rabbit is extremely meaty. It doesn’t look so tough, either–probably didn’t spend its days foraging on some lonesome meadow a la Watership Down. The butcher cut it into six pieces–two hindquarters, two midsections/ribs, and two forequarters.

Rabbit has been compared in taste to chicken… it seems that way, actually, although it has a certain characteristic of its own. I wouldn’t call it gamy, because it’s not. It’s just… well, I dunno… all I can say is that it’s the type of meat that would go well with dried herbs and rustic wines.

6:50 pm
Okay–I cut up the vegetables, I patted the rabbit down with salt, pepper, thyme, and flour, and browned the pieces in my wonderful cast iron skillet. I recommend cookware from Lodge, which is very affordable and comes pre-seasoned. You can buy those pans at Amazon.com, like I did, and not have to pay shipping for orders over $25. (Believe me, that saves a LOT of money… my pan weighs a ton.)

I removed the rabbit from the pan, then fried the onions, then added the rest of the vegetables (sans the olives). I put the rabbit back into the pan, added a bay leaf, some rosemary, more thyme, and then topped it all off with the can of tomatoes. Then, I closed the lid and will now wait for 35 minutes. I might get some contracts reading done…

I am also trying some of the Clos La Coutale I mentioned in my previous post.  Very herbaceous… taste some mushroom… strangely, get an avocado sensation.  High acidity, more than I remember from last time.  Might need to open up a little.  Not unpleasant, though–still pretty good.

7:30 pm
Done. I uncovered the pan, turned up the heat, and added chopped kalamata olives. I also heated up some Trader Joe’s polenta (from a tube, I know, but still good in a pinch). I plated the food: a mount of polenta, then a piece of rabbit, then a ladle of vegetable stew. I brought a plate for myself and my roommate out to the dining room table. Then, the moment of truth: ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! The vegetables and herbs married well together, and the rabbit was sublime, very tender and flavorful.

Rabbit, I realized, actually tastes and feels a lot like duck.

One thing about rabbit is that its bones–well, are like a mammal’s. Four legs, vertebra, etc. It’s not like eating a piece of chicken. My roommate–a recovering life-long vegetarian–had a bit of trouble with the bones: otherwise, the rabbit was good, he claimed.

I would definitely make this dish again. I would consider making it with chicken breast for a “safer” dinner, but I would strongly recommend trying this recipe with rabbit as called for.

The wine was decent–it didn’t open up as I had hoped it would. It tasted a bit thin, actually. Luckily, I’ve experienced the wine a few times before, and this bottle was probably an anomaly. Oh, the dangers of drinking imported French wine and cooking strange meats!

(P.S. I don’t currently have a digital camera–it’s at HOME home–so I had to take these pictures using my phone camera.  Sorry for the poor quality!)

It’s been a while, I know.  I just finished a 12-page memo for my legal writing class; I have a very small window of freedom before the wheels of finals start turning.

Just because I haven’t written for over a month doesn’t mean I’ve stopped drinking.  Well–I’ve cut down my alcohol consumption generally, which is a good thing.  (For instance, I can actually remember what I’m doing while I’m doing what I’m doing!)  Nonetheless, I have had many, many bottles of wine.

My original intent for this wine blog was to keep track of the wines I consumed.  I’ve let dozens slip through the cracks, unfortunately.  My solution for this is to post shorter comments more frequently.  Occasionally–when I have time–I will post longer musings on wine and its connection to life, etc.

Photo Credit: Elise @ Simply Recipes

Autumn in DC has been pretty cool–literally.  Currently, it’s about 55 degrees outside.  There were days of high 30s – low 40s.  I’m used to short bursts of cold weather in California (especially up north), but sustained cold is something new to me.  I like it, however.  I don’t get all sweaty walking around; I can layer; my roommate Alex can make thick, hearty stews; and I feel more alert.  Oh yeah, and there are no more darn mosquitoes to eat me alive.

Concomitantly, I’ve turned away from white wines and have started to look more to reds to sustain my alcoholic tendencies.  Côtes du Rhône come to mind, as do malbec from Cahors and tannat-based wines from Irouleguy.

I will be making rabbit stew for dinner tomorrow (you can buy rabbit at Eastern Market for like… $3.99 a pound!) and am thinking of serving it with a Clos La Coutale from the Cahors region of France.  This wine–70% malbec, 15% merlot, and 15% tannat–was one of my favorites from Kermit Lynch in Berkeley, and I was so excited to see one lone bottle at the Wine Specialist the other day… for $13.99 it was a bit more expensive than in California, but then again, we ARE on the opposite side of the US from Berkeley.  I will be sure to post my thoughts on that meal afterwards–if I have the time!

Needless to say, I am pretty content right now.  Washington, DC is a great town, and I find myself enjoying law school much more than college.  One of the reasons for that is there are some good people here, and fun things to do.  Like drink.  And cook.  And drink and cook I did for three consecutive days.

Wednesday

My friend Adrian invited a few people over (all guys, regrettably) on Sunday for beef stew and poetry.  I brought over my “house red”–a bottle of Nero d’Avila from Trader Joe’s (retail: $4.99)–and we discussed Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” over steaming bowls of stew and sips of wine.  To repay the favor, I invited Adrian and two of our friends to my place on Wednesday for a meal of roast lamb, honey-rosemary potatoes, and roasted garlic asparagus.

The meal turned out okay–I don’t have a meat thermometer, and I think the recipe short-changed the time required to cook the lamb.  It was pretty rare when I started carving it, but the problem was solved by quickly pan-frying the slices over high heat.

With the lamb I served a 2005 Cahors Chateau du Cèdre Héritage ($12.99); afterwards, for dessert (along with Alisa’s wonderful little vanilla pudding tarts) we had a 2006 Baron K’ riesling kabinett from the Rhine ($19.99).

I am in love with the “black wine” of Cahors.  They must contain at least 70% malbec, which is very unusual given that malbec is a minor grape in the rest of France (see: Bordeaux).  This varietal has been transplanted to the New World with HUGE success, so much so that many people immediately associate malbec with Argentina, for instance.  The Old World and New World styles are very different, however: New World malbecs tend to be denser, bolder, smoother, with more dramatic notes of chocolate and earth.  Old World styles are more refined, more restrained–in my opinion a bit more “leather-dampness-earth” than “sunny-earth”; definitely a rainy-weather red.  The Cèdre Héritage did not disappoint.  It went extremely well with the lamb.

The riesling had a bit of sweetness to it and a high level of acidity.  It wasn’t the best I’ve had, however, because it was a bit too insubstantial for my taste.  Pairing the riesling with the tarts wasn’t the best idea, either, as the sweetness of the pudding clashed a bit with the riesling.  Oh well.  Writing more of the first legal memorandum of my law school career afterwards was fun.

Thursday

I got it in my mind to cook Hungarian paprika chicken for dinner for a certain lady.  Hungarian paprika chicken’s three main components are chicken, LOTS of paprika, and sour cream.  I didn’t know exactly which wine to pair with this dish–I first thought of Jean-Luc Matha’s marcillac, which is made from a little-known local varietal called mansois.  The marcillac had very pronounced notes of paprika and pepper, which would have made it an excellent match.  I DID manage to find a marcillac from the Wine Specialist, but I decided to go with a South African pinotage (a cross between pinot noir and cinsault) from Indaba.

The Indaba… well, was very acidic at first, very spicy.  It later opened up and mellowed out and became a pretty enjoyable wine… but it’s definitely a food wine in my book.  It also got me really, really hungover for some reason!

Friday

Bell Liquor and Wine Shoppe was having a FREE champagne tasting.  Six of us decided to make reservations and go to the event.  We all dressed up fancy and walked en masse to the store, where we went to the upstairs tasting room.  They were serving eight champagnes–four from Piper Heidsieck and four from Charles Heidsieck.

The first four were an extra-dry, brut, rosé, and “cuvee supreme.”  All were mostly chardonnay, with smaller parts of pinot noir and pinot meunier.  The rosé had some reserve pinot noir wine blended in later during the fermentation process.  Of the four, the consensus favorite was the extra-dry, which, despite being extra-dry had a pleasant sensation of sweetness, probably from the citrus fruit on the palate.  It had an aroma of nuts and vanilla, and had nice body and a crisp, clean finish.

The last four were the expensive bottles.  The 1999 Charles Heidsieck rosé was MUCH more enjoyable than the previous one, probably because it was aged much longer and was fermented directly from whole pinot noir grapes with their skins.  It was also like… $80.

We got the chance to drink the “Champagne Charlie” brut from 1985…  What a fantastic champagne!  Members of my party described its nose as rubber or cheese–normally pejorative terms, I know, but fitting and perfectly appropriate in this context.  It had that nutty, slightly-oxidized character of old white wines.  Interesting and delicious–though, at about $180 I won’t be buying it anytime soon!

A few of us got bottles of the extra-dry ($33.99) to save for special occasions.  End of the semester, maybe?

Not just any red–something that could stand up to thyme and rosemary. Something that would accentuate the lovely rareness and juiciness of the meat.

I was thinking of something from the Cotes-du-Rhone, but bleh. I haven’t been impressed with any of my selections from that region lately. I was at a loss as to what to get.

Luckily, Chris at Mission Wines had the perfect wine: the 2006 Tierra Prometida malbec from Bodegas Enosur, which is located in Mendoza, Argentina.

This wine is a solid malbec, dense but silky, tasting of plum and chocolate and a whiff of tobacco. With the roast the wine revealed notes of herb and pepper… very good match with the thyme and rosemary combination. The medium tannins of the Tierra Prometida worked well to cut through the “fat” of the tenderloin. There’s not a lot of fat on a tenderloin, anyway, so any more tannic wine might have been too much.

I tried some of the leftover wine tonight with Korean food: rice, kimchi, kalbi, and even some raw crab pickled in soy sauce. Surprisingly, the malbec went well with the spices and strange textures of the Korean food. There was just enough umami for the crab, enough body to counteract the acidity of the kimchi, and enough fruit for the kalbi. My usual aversion towards mixing sticky rice and wine (in my stomach, NOT in a bowl, mind you!) was overcome, and I had a very enjoyable meal.

I would highly recommend the Tierra Prometida. It might even be better than the Maipe malbec I love so much!