WBW #8 – Summary
Ronald, from Love Sicily, has compiled all the entries for the 8th Wine Blogging Wednesday Sicilian Red tasting. And even a couple whites snuck in. :-) Take a look! There are some great stories and you just might find something that interests you, too!
WBW #8 – Sicilian Reds
When Katia and Ronald, at Love Sicily, announced the theme for this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday I was excited to see that I was going to taste something new! They selected Sicilian Red Wines as our wine to taste. And they had supplied some background on the region in earlier posts.
I read their posts and then did a bit of research in some books that I had on hand including, Culinaria Italy, one of my recent purchases in the Culinaria series.
I was a little worried that Seattle might not have a great selection of Sicilian wines. My search for wines from Lombardy took quite some time. I had three or four places in mind to check out and decided to start my search early in case I actually needed to order something.
My first plan was to look for something unusual – try something other than the Nero d’Avola which was the common wine from the area. My first stop was DeLaurenti. I was pleasantly surprised to find over a dozen red wine options on their shelves! Although I was looking for a non-Nero, I kept finding myself drawn to the many Nero d’Avola options. And then I thought – "Why am I looking for something else? I’ve never tried the Nero d’Avola, wouldn’t it be good to start with this and then branch out later?" And my answer to myself was, "Yes, that’s a very good idea!"
So I narrowed my choices to two that looked most interesting and had a price point I was happy with. The first was 2002 Santa Anastasia Passomaggio and the second was 2002 Donnafugata Sedara. The Santa Anastasia was a blend; 80% Nero d’Avola and 20% Merlot. The Donnafugata was 100% Nero d’Avola.
Donnafugata means "fleeing woman" and the name comes from a 19th century story about Queen Maria Carolina fleeing from the court in Naples and taking refuge in the Belice Valley in Sicily, according to the label on the back of the bottle. It didn’t mention why she was fleeing but I got caught in the romance of the idea and chose the Donnafugata Sedara.
Here is information from their site:
Name: Sedara
Type: Red – Nero d’Avola Igt Sicilia
Alcohol level: 13,5% vol.
Grapes: Nero d’Avola 100%
Trained in the counter-espalier system and pruned in spurred cordon. Average planting density, 5,000 rootstocks per hectare (2,204 an acre), production of about 8.5 tons per hectare (3.78 tons an acre). Terrain of medium consistency.Vinification: The grapes, harvested in September, are vinified in stainless steel with skin contact of about 10 days at a temperature of 26-30° C. (79-86° F.). Following malolactic fermentation, the wine is matured for about nine months in oak barrels used twice and then fined in the bottle for a further three months.
Description: The ruby-red color is rounded out by extremely lively garnet reflections. The impact on the nose is intense with sensations of tobacco and spices as well as mineral notes. In the mouth, the wine is balanced with flavors of red fruit, principally blackberries and cherries. The finish is remarkably persistent.
Food matches: Combine with introductory dishes with meat sauces, elaborate baked pasta dishes and red meats. Try the wine with lightly cooked fresh tuna.
Three dishes: Tonno con polenta (tuna with cornmeal mush). Cannelloni ai pistilli di zafferano farciti al fegato grasso (pasta tubes flavored with saffron and stuffed with foie gras). "Farsu magru" the traditional meal roll stuffed with eggs, ham, cheese and herbs).
Serve: In goblets of medium size; uncorked at the time of serving; excellent at 16-18° C. (61-64° F.).
Other research suggested this wine would be good with spicy red pastas, lasagne or game.
Since I would be tasting by myself I didn’t want to make a big lasagne, but decided I could use some red sauce I had in the freezer (leftover from my Easter Saturday dinner). So on Sunday I opened the wine, poured a glass and set about warming my sauce and making pasta for it.
I let it sit for just 15 minutes or so before my first taste. I would say it had medium body, was a little spicy and had some fruit. Specifically it tasted of black pepper, blackberry and a little cherry. It lingered with a mild, pleasant aftertaste. After a few sips of just wine I added a new element – an aged Parmesan cheese. I took a small bite of the cheese and then tried another sip of wine. I was pleasantly surprised at how well they paired! I could see myself with a plate of salami and some nice chunks of cheese enjoying this wine.
I plated my pasta, filled my glass and went on to "round 2". And this is where I ran into trouble. The wine and sauce clashed! I was not expecting this! I tried again. No better. Yikes! the wine and sauce seemed to bring out all the wrong elements in each other. I’m not sure what will really describe it but the wine became almost vinegar-like, although that’s not quite the right description. I took a breath, ran to the fridge and brought out a couple slices of deli-type roast beef. A bite of beef and a taste of wine and order was restored! The wine and the beef sort of melded together. Much better.
I decided to cork the bottle, using a VacuVin wine stopper. I sometimes find that holding an opened wine overnight can mellow it a bit – especially if the wine was opened before it should have been. I thought perhaps this was the case with this wine. Monday night I tried the wine again but now it wasn’t even good on its own. I decided that the recommendation for a spicy red sauce was just wrong, although intuitively you would think that would be a perfect pairing.
I would buy this wine again and will definitely try other Nero d’Avola’s. I’d really like to try the suggested pairing with tuna! That sounds great.
Note: I’ve been trying to learn to use the "proper" words when describing wine. Not so much because I think it’s necessary but because I think any kind of communication is better when everyone is on the same page. To aid with this, here is a Wine Aroma Wheel that breaks down the descriptions into three levels. The document also helps explain how wines are scored.
Wild Salmon Scam
This morning’s NY Times has a very interesting article on what is being sold as "fresh, wild salmon" in Manhattan. (Free registration is required.)
BYO Wine Rant
This is actually a Public Service Announcement! :-)
I decided to post this rant today for two reasons:
- It’s Worldwide Wine Blogging Wednesday so the day seemed appropriate
- More importantly, I haven’t had a recent party where this happened so hopefully I won’t upset any friends by them thinking I was talking about them specifically!
Most of the time when I entertain I provide everything – all the food, beverage, snacks, whatever. I really enjoy doing it and often I want all the individual pieces to add up to a coordinated whole. But since I’ve been taking time off over the last several months I have, on occasion, asked people to bring their own wine. Sometimes leaving it open and sometimes asking for something within a parameter – for instance, when I did the Tapas Parties last summer I asked people to bring Spanish wines.
When a host asks you to bring your own beverage be generous in what you bring.
What I find happens is that the single people bring a bottle of wine. Perfect. The couples bring a bottle of wine. And that’s where my rant begins. I can tell you that during the course of an evening, two people will almost certainly drink more than one bottle of wine – even if they plan to be "good". They may not (or they may!) drink two whole bottles but they will definitely be well into the second bottle.
I mean think about a normal evening and the number of hours you will spend at your host’s house. As people are arriving everyone sits around, gets introduced or caught up on news and has a glass of wine. Depending on the type of appetizer or snack some people will probably pour a second glass. If you are part of a couple your first bottle of wine is basically now gone. Next comes dinner – everyone has the next glass of wine or adds to their glass to bring it up to level. Since dinner is normally a social event, it’s not uncommon to need to fill a glass a second time during a meal. And even once dessert and coffee or port have been served, people often linger at the table talking and laughing and having one more glass of wine. Or even two. It’s not uncommon for dinner parties to last 6 hours from beginning to end. Do you really think you’ll only have 2 1/2 glasses of wine in a 6 hour period? Or even a 4 hour period?
Since I normally have a mix of singles and couples, the singles end up picking up the slack for the couples. This is just not fair at all! Or I end up pulling out a few bottles when the donated stash runs dry. Which, in some ways I don’t mind, but sort of defeats the request to bring your own.
So if you have been asked to bring wine to an event, please bring one bottle per person. I mean what it the worst thing that could happen? You don’t drink it all and have to leave some for your host? Hmmm, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
This is an end to this Public Service Announcement!
Blueberry Pancakes
A perfect weekend breakfast: Blueberry Pancakes and a side of Chicken Apple Sausage! Yum!
Blueberry Pancakes
1 1/4 cups flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup milk
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
Mix together dry ingredients and set aside.
Mash 1/2 cup blueberries with a fork until all berries are broken. (For frozen berries, place in microwave for about 20 seconds and then mash.)
Mix together liquid ingredients and then add, all at once, to dry ingredients. Add mashed blueberries. Mix until blended and almost smooth. Batter will be "marbled".
Heat grill to 350°F. Lightly grease. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto grill. Place several whole berries in each pancake. Grill until bottom is golden brown and bubbles on top of pancake have quit popping. (Top will begin to look dry.) Turn pancakes over and grill until bottom is golden.
Serve on warm plate with lots of butter and maple syrup!
14th Dinner Club – New Orleans Menu & Recipes
Friday night was our dinner club meeting. We only meet once every two months which often seems to be too far apart, however, monthly seems a little too often with the amount of planning and research we do. I guess it’s better that we all are anxious to get together for each meeting.
K was host this month and had originally tried to schedule the meeting closer to Mardi Gras time but with Easter (and therefore Lent) coming so early this year it just didn’t work. So instead of a specific Mardis Gras theme she went with New Orleans.
Here was our menu:
Appetizer: Mini Crawfish Profiteroles with Citrus Butter Sauce
Cocktail: Ramos Gin Fizz
Salad: New Orleans-style Italian Salad
Main: Pan Sautéed Catfish with Cajun Crawfish Butter
Sides: Dirty Rice and Maquechoux
Dessert: Quintin’s Bread Pudding
14th Dinner Club – New Orleans Summary
Friday night we convened at K’s house for our 14th Dinner Club meeting. It’s amazing that we are part way through our third year! We talked about how it seems both like we’ve been together forever yet like we have barely started our meetings.
Meeting time was 6:30 and I tried to get there a little early to do final assembly on the appetizers and then get going on the Ramos Gin Fizzes. However, I guess everyone was anxious as nearly everyone was there prior to 6:30! M2 arrived about mid-way through and we did introductions all around. She seemed to fit right in and I’m sure that by next time it will be like she’s been part of the group forever!
We started with the Profiteroles and Fizzes. A couple of notes about the Profiterole recipe: the batter for the profiteroles themselves would probably make about 30 golf-ball size puffs – maybe more; the filling was the right amount for 20 (as the recipe states); I made 1/2 the butter sauce recipe and it was enough to drizzle over 20 and probably would have been enough for 30, too. Also, I did not use Emeril’s Essence as the recipe calls for. Instead I just tossed in some of each of the ingredients used to make his Essence and that worked just fine.
At first I thought the Butter Sauce was just over the top for the Profiteroles but I really liked the buttery and citrusy elements it added to the spicy crawfish filling. These were really good and actually fairly easy to prepare, even though they are rated as Expert for proficiency – don’t let that scare you at all. I was really happy with the Fizzes. As you may know, I took some time to get these right! And I really want to thank Danno for his perfect timing! Everyone seemed to enjoy them (even M wanted to and she really doesn’t like gin). They are just such a fun drink with their frothy texture and refreshing citrus tang. I think you should try them out this summer!
Then we moved on to salad. R’s Italian Salad had everything but the kitchen sink in it! She had arranged them beautifully, so they were a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. She also mentioned that her recipe made way more than needed – especially of the muffaletta olive salad. We all got some to take home!
Next up was our catfish, dirty rice and maquechoux. The sauce on the catfish was very similar to the filling in the profiteroles – in fact if you choose to make this recipe I think you could make a batch of either and use it in both – did that make sense? :-) If you are in the Seattle area and are looking for crawfish and catfish, both K and I found our supplies at Central Market in Shoreline. The catfish was fried to crispy perfection and the spicy crawfish sauce added the superlative New Orleans’ bite of spice! Yum! The two sides were wonderful accompaniments – M did a great job in selecting these. The maquechoux was a happy combination of crispy sweet corn, onions and tomatoes with just a hint of green pepper and spice. It was the yin to the catfish’s yang. The dirty rice creamy and smooth with a bit of spice also but just enough to make it interesting not hot. The combination of the three took me right back to Bourbon Street! (Actually probably somewhere off Bourbon where the "real" people go to eat…).
Although we were all pretty stuffed at this point we weren’t going to miss an opportunity to indulge in bread pudding – especially one with bourbon sauce! We all rested a little as M2 made the sauce and plated up the dessert, with M assisting. (Although her recipe says it’s for 8 – 10, it was really about enough for 6 servings.)
Heaven. Soft and cinnamony with a buttery bite of whiskey. That’s all I can say.
At this point we were all in a bit of a food coma! Our meeting broke up earlier than normal because we just had nothing left to give – that meal was so good that we just needed to leave K with all the dishes and head home to our comfy beds.
Herbs from My Yard
Food Blog Scool…
or food blogs cool! :-)
Check out the new Food Blog Scool started by Sam of Becks & Posh! This is a new forum for food and drink bloggers to share tips and tricks and generally learn from each other.
Rabbit Salad
This is not about salad made from rabbits but made for rabbits! :-)
About 10 minutes from my house in Lower Woodland Park there is a large rabbit warren. Originally it was a small group of rabbits but over the years the number have increased – not so much because they are rabbits but because people think it’s a fine place to dump domestic rabbits they’ve grown tired of. While some of the domestics do survive many die as they are not cut out for life in the wild.
Periodically, I go through the produce around my house and pull out everything that’s past it’s prime or just been in the refrigerator for too long. I bundle it up and head to the park for a peaceful interlude with the rabbits.
My favorite time to go to the park is early in the morning before the area is overrun with dogs (many off-leash, unfortunately, as they chase the rabbits and occasionally take a bite out of one) and small children who squeal with glee as they chase the rabbits trying to get close enough to touch them. Both of these influences, of course, have the effect of sending the rabbits scurrying back into the rocks that guard the entrance to their complex tunnels within the warren.
At this time of day the rabbits are still waking up themselves, but as I approach the area I start calling them and sure enough, bunny heads start appearing from behind the rocks. Then, as they realize food is involved, they approach to see what’s for breakfast! Along the warren are several flat rocks where people place food for the rabbits. I generally place the leafy greens on the rocks but hold out some special treats to hand feed them. Carrots are their very favorite but they are also partial to broccoli and apples.
The rabbits are semi-tame and will sometimes let you touch them as they are taking a treat from your hand. (A little warning: Rabbits are rodents and, as such, wild rabbits carry many of the same diseases that other rodents carry. So if you choose to touch wild rabbits, wash your hands thoroughly afterward or, even better, wear disposable gloves.) I love when they grab a little carrot piece right from my fingers and then take off to gobble it up before any of the other rabbits can steal it away!
This morning, the sun was just over the horizon and it was very quiet in bunny-land. All I could hear was the sound of rabbits munching. :-) The quiet was broken only by the raucous calls of a pair of Blue Herons passing overhead. I was enjoying the experience when it suddenly got even better! Over on one side of the warren I noticed baby bunnies! I carefully made my way to that area and was treated to the sight of about eight babies frolicking in the fresh morning air. They were just a little larger than the palm of my hand. They were still very shy, so I had to stay very still so they wouldn’t take off for cover. They were so cute!
I love the sight of those little ones, although it means there will be even more rabbits this summer and food is already scarce for those in the warren. Earlier this year I counted over 50 in an area that used to support just a couple dozen. If you happen to have produce past it’s prime and live in the area, think about stopping by and sharing it with the rabbits of Lower Woodland.
Culinary Fool 