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Posts Tagged ‘2008’

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Ambulance Driver: We had to dig him out from under the most peculiar things I ever saw.
Dr. Hill: What things?
Ambulance Driver: Well, I don’t know what they are, I never saw them before. They looked like great big seed pods.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956

It’s official – I have a serious problem:  it’s called edamame obsession. 

My first experiences with these beautiful green pods were by way of visits to local Japanese Fusion restaurants.  Now, I make regular trips to Trader Joe’s to keep an endless supply in my freezer!  Since my indoctrination into the pod people cult, I’ve been popping these cheap, salty little buggers in my mouth every chance I get.  However, there are two problems with this:

1. ADDICTION (duh!)
2. They produce hallucinogenic images in my mind of what is supposed to come next…an amazing assortment of sushi!! 

Well, I’m screwed there – take note:  Poor Man’s Chef, not Sushi Chef.  Miso soup?  Umm, nope.  Bento box filled with beef and chicken teriyaki?  No dice there, either.  On most days I usually have some beef or chicken lying around just waiting to be lacquered with coats of teriyaki, but not tonight – our little minka had zilch.

So what did we have?

Much like every other weeknight, I rummaged through the fridge and freezer, searched through cabinets and spice racks to find something good enough to satisfy the craving.   I was in dire need of finding something that would fulfill the fantastical images that were floating around in my head of what should come next after sipping on a well-deserved gin and tonic and devouring a 20-inch high pile of steaming hot edamame covered in garlic salt and black pepper.  

In my search, I discovered:

• 1pkg. of frozen grilling chorizo sausage
• 1 yellow onion
• ¼ bag of mixed frozen peppers
• 2 handfuls of fresh snow peas
• 1 handful of sun-dried tomatoes
• 2 ready cooked Jimmy Dean turkey sausage links
• 3 slices of deli-sliced sweet honey ham
• Dry cilantro, fresh black and white pepper, and salt from the spice rack

Wine?  Hell yeah!!  I always have some of that sitting around.

Ok, so not exactly sushi delight, but you‘ll definitely find this three-step dinner to be pretty tasty:

1. Grill chorizo sausage.
2. Char all the other ingredients on the list in a hot pan coated with olive oil.
3. Lay a couple of pieces of grilled chorizo sausage down on a plate and top with the charred ingredients from step 2.

Hoping that it would hit the mark, like the 2007 Calcu Red Blend, I paired my Spanish-inspired dish with the 2008 Calcu Carmenere Reserva (Sample, MSRP: $15 US).   Made from 100% Carmenere grapes grown in Chile’s central Colchagua Valley, this tight red needed a shot of coldness to loosen up its smoky grip.  So I decided to take it with me on the deck while I was grilling the sausage, and fed it a cool autumn breeze for about 20 minutes.

After giving it a little jolt, the 2008 Calcu Carmenere Reserva expressed penetrating flavors of blackberry, raspberry, and black currants, along with gripping tannins.

3 Stars out of 4 for the 2008 Calcu Carmenere Reserva.

Cheers!  I’m off for my next edamame score!

It all started with a peaceful Tuesday evening.  Yes, you read that right…TUESDAY!  By some twist of fate, there were no evening activities for the kids, their homework was done and they were sufficiently occupied.  Oh yea, we fed them too.  Anyway, it had been a while since I last had more than 20 minutes to whip up an incredible meal.

Carpe diem…into the kitchen I bolted!

Luckily, my wife reminded me that we had two lamb chumps (or lamb chops) sitting snug as a bug in the freezer that didn’t get put to good use at a recent swanky dinner party.  SCORE!

I marinated those two lamb chumps with lots of TLC.  I dowsed them with fresh-squeezed orange juice, pepper, sea salt, and minced garlic; allowing them to rest for an hour before cooking.  Note to self: some fresh lavender sure would have been swell for this marinade, too!

After we put the kids to bed (on time!), I ran back downstairs like a madman and started pulling things out of the refrigerator and pantry:  carrots, zucchini, red onions and roasted red peppers.  I also discovered some capers, chicken stock, minced garlic and a single box of Near East Whole Grain Blends “Roasted Garlic.”  Yes!  My plan was developing, and I could actually take the 30+ minutes needed to bring it all together – there was plenty of time to spare.

Taking a stainless steel cooking pan, coated with some olive oil, I seared the pieces on the stovetop then moved it into the oven to cook on a low fire [325°F] for about 30 minutes.  While the lamb chumps were cooking, I fired up another pan with some olive oil and sautéed the minced garlic, carrots, zucchini, red onions and roasted red peppers (all diced).  I then added the capers and chicken stock to keep the medley moist, and added a dashed of kosher salt with some Victoria Gourmet’s Herbes de Provence dry seasoning.

I was really hoping to find the “perfect” bottle to go with this meal, so I decided to give it a go with the 2008 Foppiano Vineyards Russian River Valley Estate Bottled Petite Sirah (MSRP: $20, Sample).

How do I adequately describe how this wine tasted?

It was AMAZING!

And I will drink it in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
It is so good, so good, you see!

This wine was remarkable all by itself:  it was silky-smooth, bursting with massive blackberry, blueberry, chocolate – all beautifully complimented with a beautiful aroma of anise, eucalyptus and white pepper spice.  With the meal:  it was off the charts!  The 2008 Foppiano Vineyards Russian River Valley Estate Bottled Petite Sirah had my wife and me at Hello!  And so ends my story of a most superb Tuesday night.

4 Stars out of 4 for the 2008 Foppiano Vineyards Russian River Valley Estate Bottled Petite Sirah.  For under $20, it’s easily one of the most beautifully crafted red wines that we’ve tried so far in 2011.

Let’s talk about the S-word.  Say what?! Relax…not that S-word!  But I am about to talk about the S-word that gives some peeps a case of queasiness deep down in their bellies just by hearing it: Sushi! Sushi! Sushi!  Chances are though, you or someone that you know has a thing for eating fish without cooking it first.  This once uniquely Japanese dish is practically everywhere you turn with Western influences creating “fusion” variations to entice even more legions of followers.  Many of these purveyors of “fusion sushi” are able to please the spectrum of those eager to get their chopsticks on their first California roll, while satisfying the more adventurous sushi lovers with creations that include delicacies such as octopus and eel.  So what does this have to do with wine?  Well, my wife and I LOVE sushi and we’re always on a hunt to find the perfect wine to pair with it.  After picking up a mélange of sushi delights from our favorite sushi hot spot, Mikimotos, I grabbed two bottles (a white and a red) that I hoped would create a moment of rapture in our mouths.  Okay, that might be a bit much – but you get where I’m going with this.

We started with the 2009 Fritsch ‘Steinberg’ Grüner Veltliner (Sample, MSRP:$15).  Grüner Veltliner, Grüner or Gru-Vee as it’s been dubbed, is the flagship white wine of Austria’s wine industry. GROO-ner VELT-lean-er velt-LEEN-er has a variety of expressions that can range from a light bodied spritzer, to a edgy spicy white wine with tons of grapefruit, white flower and cracked pepper poppin’ around on the finish.  The 2009 Fritsch ‘Steinberg’ Grüner Veltliner provided an explosive attack on our taste buds from the first bite of our seaweed salad to the very last bite of our Double Fantasy sushi roll.  It’s a gorgeous Austrian white, bursting with crisp acidity and freshness that worked tirelessly through the seaweed salad (a nightmare for any wine) and the line-up of delicacies being passed from soy sauce to wasabi.  It was just an exceptional wine all–around, and a must try for any sushi lover.  The only thing that could possibly make this Grüner any better would be to super-size it to a 1-Liter bottle, like so many other Austrian wineries are doing. (4 Stars)

Our second wine of the evening, 2008 Zum Martin Sepp Zweigelt (Sample, MSRP:$14), had 3 things to Ooh and Aah over:

1.)   A generous 1-Liter bottle.
2.)   A bottle cap for a wine closure – that was a first for me!
3.)   ZWEIGELT: What the what is that, you ask?

Zweigelt is a red wine grape invented in 1922 by an Austrian researcher named Fritz Zweigelt. He created it by crossing one of his favorite Austrian red grapes called Blaufränkisch (sometimes called Lemberger) with a relatively unknown member of the pinot noir family, called St. Laurent  – and the rest is Austrian grape growing history.  So, now that I’ve told you that the bottle is Über-cool with its 1-Liter size, that it’s got a bottle cap for an enclosure, and familiarized you a bit with that groovy named red grape called Zweigelt, I’m sure you’d like to know how it actually tastes…

Well, it’s kind of like chewing on a savory piece of Hickory Farms Summer Sausage or like snappin’ into a Slim-Jim with juice.  It was just odd with its light effervescent pinot noir characteristics touched with a mouthful of cured meat.  It was a combination that unfortunately missed the mark for me, and left the remaining sushi longing for more of that terrific 2009 Fritsch ‘Steinberg’ Grüner Veltliner. (2 Stars)

If you have a favorite wine to pair with Sushi, please share!  I’d love to try something new on my next Sushi adventure. 

Thursday night is a special night of the week in our house.  It usually involves catching up on all that’s going on in the worlds of a 1^st and 2^nd grader, 9 to 5 work stuff, DVR’ed Survivor, and a couple large pizzas with some wine to wash it all down.

Last week, my 1^st grader was the proud recipient of a golden ticket to receive 1 free Pizza Hut personal pizza.  How did he receive such a marvelous prize, you ask?  It was a reward for dutifully reading 15 or more books over a 30-day span.  As you might imagine, he was quite pleased with his achievement and wanted to quickly cash in on his grand prize.  Now we don’t usually make our Thursday night pizza trek to “America’s Favorite Pizza” joint – but with his big brown eyes turning up the heat on me, I felt compelled to pick up the phone to call 1-800 – ‘The hut’.

When I got home from ‘The Hut’ with the pizzas, my son’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree as he opened up his prize.  While he was enjoying his reward, my wife and I mulled over what to drink with the large mushroom, pepperoni, and sausage pizza that was sitting in front of us.  Knowing that it was going to be a long night of eating and TV watching, I grabbed a 1.5l (i.e., 2 X 750ml) bottle of the 2008 Glen Ellen Proprietor’s Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel ($9.99, Sample).   It just seemed like an ideal fit for this particular laid-back evening.

The 2008 Glen Ellen Proprietor’s Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel isn’t an especially complex red Zin. However, it does offer just the right mouthful of slight sweet red berry and spice flavors to make it extremely compatible and gulpable with pizza.  Not bad for what works out to be 5 bucks per 750ml bottle.  Alone, this soft red Zin is a solid two stars on the WL365 rating scale; but feed it some cheese, dough and red sauce and it gets a whole lot closer to a 3 star rating.

2 Stars out of 4 for the 2008 Glen Ellen Proprietor’s Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel.  It’s a fine, inexpensive red for any pizza or spaghetti night with friends and family!