Here’s a great side dish with bling: roasted cauliflower and rice, finished with lemon juice, capers and a light amount of cheese. If you love lamb chops, that’s your protein. If you prefer pork chops, that’s your meal.
I’ve named this dish ‘Summer Cruise’ for two reasons. I will serve it in a ceramic boat—plus, it will feature bright flavorings that my active imagination believes would pair well with salty, sea breezes, as if you are on a small cruise ship or sailboat among friends, somewhere in the Caribbean or perhaps French Polynesia, where the famous, Post-Impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin, spent a significant part of his life. If you are reading this Mr. Vernon Minor, my Humanities Art 101 teacher in Boulder, I hope this brings a smile. I have not forgotton! In truth, part of my memory of Ganguin is because a very influential book I read, also during my youth, is largely set in Tahiti (also in French Polynesia), The Moon and Sixpence, by Somerset Maugham. I absolutely loved Maugham’s written command of English. His subject matter only enhanced the book’s appeal to me, a fanciful young traveler and adventure seeker, as Maugham traveled to Tahiti in 1917 for research, noting the blend of English, American and French influences.
For cooking:
Break up or cut a whole head of cauliflower. In a mixing bowl, place the cauliflower then sprinkle with olive oil, salt, pepper, tumerick, sliced red onion, and toss around that place into a baking dish.
Bake at 425 for 35 minutes until golden brown. Remove.
Add the rice, bake in oven another 10 minutes or so until some of the rice starts to crisp up. Before adding the rice, I removed the burnt red onion but left the pieces that were not too charred.
Once the veggie and rice is out of the oven, spoon in a small amount of RINSED capers, and squeeze half a lemon all over the dish.
Then top the dish with finely shredded parmesan and roughly shredded mozarella. Not too much, as this isn’t a cheese dish (but everything goes better with some melted cheese).
Please in ‘boats’ that were greased on the bottom, first, with peanut oil (for ease of cleaning).
To reheat before serving, I just use the microwave.
For wine, we drank a 2022 Full Boar Red from Eberle, which is Paso Robles based. For more on the winery founder, see the April 2024 post in www.blisteredonions.com.
This Full Boar Red is a new staple in my cellar. Sooooooooooooo drinkable, yet full bodied, and so affordable! At under $35, it’s a bargain. Here’s how Eberle describes it.
Full Boar Red is a Grenache blend that harmonizes the luscious flavors of black cherry cola and blackberry with the velvety embrace of cocoa powder. Let the alluring undertones of sweet leafy tobacco and exotic hint of cardamom transport you to a place of sensory bliss. This wine promises a symphony of flavors that dance across the palate, weaving a tapestry of complexity and indulgence.
There are many merits to pork chops: taste, ease of prep, affordability, and very short cooking time. In fact, it may take longer than all those steps combined, just to clean the stainless skillet. But like divorces can be expensive, it’s worth it!
After making the roasted cauliflower dish and telling my sister about it, and suggesting pork chops or lamb chops to go with the vegetable and rice dish, my sibling asked me how I do pork chops. Here goes.
I buy thin, bone-in chops from my butcher. I suppose a thicker chop would work, but they can finish on the dry side, given the added cook time to finish the meat.
24 hours in advance, I marinate the chops in:
Olive oil
Garlic powder
Salt and Pepper
Droplets of French’s Mustard
Tarragon flakes
The mustard and tarragon work together like a well-rehearsed church choir – a beautiful unison of flavors and vocal sounds!
For process, I put the olive oil down first, then the garlic, black pepper, and a limited amount of mustard, and lastly the tarragon.
Importantly, I salt each side of the chops before I lay them into the marinade, then turn them over and smear them around the bottom of the plastic wrap. You can use a Pyrex dish or some other vessel, but I use large sheets of plastic wrap because I can just discard the wrap once I start cooking, versus cleaning another dish.
Once the chops look evenly smeared (a technical cooking term!), I cover them with another sheet of plastic, seal the edges, then refrigerate until the next day.
Remove from fridge about two hours prior to cooking, so get them room temp.
For cooking!
Place a large, preferably stainless skillet, on the stove and turn heat up to high. You can use cast iron skillet or even a Teflon skillet, though you may not get the same golden-brown coloring to the fried chops.
Once the skillet is good and hot, drizzle in a little canola or peanut oil (it burns less at high heat, than olive oil), and drop the chops in once at time, searing each side for only 90 seconds. Once you flip to the second side, and after 90 seconds, turn stovetop off and let the chops rest while you plate the sides or toss the salad.
Serve the chops, then drizzle a little of the remaining juices and oil onto each chop.
I had a friend over and we drank a bottle of Cabernet Franc with the meal. It was perfect!
It may be a stretch to call any meal “the perfect meal,” but that was my thought when I pushed this platter to the side, empty.
It was so straight-forward, with texture and full, complimentary flavors, but not in an overwhelming way – the way some really great food is.
It was such an American meal! Steak and potatoes down-the-middle. Perfectly grilled New York Strip, creamy, rosemary and garlic red potatoes roasted just so, lightly dressed Caesar salad (homemade dressing) and New Orleans (hot and tangy) Brussell Sprouts. The contrast of the blackened sprouts (with Mongolian Chile oil and sunflower oil) and finished with butter and generous splashes of red wine vinegar sets off the steak bites and freshness of the salad.
Each of the servings were on the small side, which was plenty to eat and satisfying.
This meal goes with any of the full-bodied reds from Bordeaux or a big, juicy Syrah. We enjoyed a 2018 Merlot from Lambert Bridge.
It was one of those springs we just couldn’t shake. A warmish day yielded to cold and wet the next one, followed by a dry but cloudy day and some wicked Spring winds carried south from the Pacific Ocean’s Alaska-to-California current that cool our usual “sun-kissed valley,” a charming phrase coined by Jack London to describe what is now known as Silicon Valley – where the epic story begins in his book, The Call of the Wild. Whether London was ever in the Santa Clara Valley or not (my guess is he was), he wrote the book while living one valley east of me, in the glorious and stunningly beautiful Valley of the Moon. And that valley is, indeed, sun kissed.
Anyway, “the Spring that wouldn’t quit” drove me to planning a comfort food dish that I hadn’t made all winter, and we had it for Sunday dinner: lamb shanks.
I’ve roasted plenty of shanks in the past, yet I reached out to my good friend on the East Coast, Owen, for any ideas. Owen is a serious home chef, like me, and I trust him implicitly and explicitly with our favorite passion, food. He sent me a clip from Chef John and his site, Food Wishes.
This dish was as easy to make as it was delicious. I usually don’t cook with recipes but I tried to be faithful to this one, and it worked! The meat was fork tender and crazy good! Even non-lamb eaters might like it, though at my age I’m not taking chances (and not wasting one of these hunks of meat on a potential convert).
In a shallow roasting pan (I used my 4-quart Braiser from Le Creuset) lay down a large sheet of foil and put the shanks in, then generously salt both sides and also add black pepper. Roast them first, with nothing else in the pan, at 450 for about 40 minutes, until they are golden brown. The photo here is what happens after step 2, which is to add a dozen or so garlic pieces and fresh rosemary, then double wrap the meat and flavorings in foil and slow roast at 275 for about 3 hours. This is what the shanks looked like after I opened the foil.
Chef John served his shanks over a bowl of bean ragout, though I went with our favorite winter carb, creamy polenta, with steamed broccoli.
We drank a 2022 Petit Verdot, “Fence Line,” from Merriam. It’s in the Russian River Valley AVA, just up the road from where we live.
We still had to wait a couple of weeks until we got consistent California spring weather, yet this meal made the wait a lot more tolerable.
Doesn’t everyone remember the first time they went to New York City? I mean, the Big Apple, the inspiration of a Frank Sinatra song for the ages!Since this is a food blog, and about New York, we included a riff from another classic tune of the 20th Century, Billy Joel’s 1977 hit from his LP The Stranger, Scenes from an Italian Restaurant (‘in our Italian restaurant’). Never mind that I grew up Italian, those are some of the coolest lyrics (and music!) from my generation. Yesterday, on my weekly grocery run, I bought a nice piece of Atlantic Salmon. A little fatty, the way I like it, and on sale at $15.99 per pound. The Atlantic Ocean is colder than the Pacific Ocean, near my home, and hence the salmon is typically fattier than what we get from the Pacific Northwest waters.
I had no forward intentions about dinner based on the salmon, but this morning, it came to me. I would replicate a salmon and pasta dish I had in New York on my first night in the city. It was 1995 and New York at the time was transitioning from its gritty period during the 1960s and 70s. It’s hard to say, but disco and clubbing could have been instrumental in the city’s transition. Who can forget the 1983 release of (the Bee Gees) Staying Alive? Everyone remembers the movie’s star, John Travolta, though you would be hard-pressed to win a hand at Trivia to answer the question: who wrote the screen play? Sylvester Stallone! Rocky wrote it with Norman Wexler.
I was in New York for a job interview. It turns out, that was a transformative and seminal moment for me. I did seven interviews in one day and caught the evening flight back to San Francisco. A few days later, I got the word: I had the job. That job changed everything for me. I was in my mid-30s and had finally stumbled upon a career. Three decades+ later, that career, still going, became very fulfilling and lucrative (enough). Gratitude comes to mind.
The one-and-only night I spent in New York City on that trip was the night before the long day of interviews. I arrived in time for a walk before dinner, not knowing where I was per se, or much about the city. The company, at the time located on 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, had put me up in a business-class hotel not far from their headquarters. I walked the neighborhood, learning that a stretch of 52nd Street was a center of jazz performance from the 1930s to the 1950s.
An hour or so into my walk, I started getting hungry and began taking a closer look at the restaurants I passed. I would try the first one that caught my fancy.
Before I found the restaurant, a modest Italian joint (name long-ago forgotten) with (no kidding) red-checkered tablecloths, I passed a couple of black women dressed like prostitutes. Because they were. The larger one of the two – she was big but not fat, pretty, and with all the curves in the right places. She wore a snug-fitting red dress and solicited me. I was shocked, having never met a prostitute, and her suggestions for the next hour of my life made my head race.
Paul Simon’s lyrics come to mind, “I do declare there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there – la la la la la-la.” First time for everything, I thought.
Then I had a conflicting moment, and imagined that the ladies were plants, and the company I was about to interview with was testing my moral character, watching what was about to go down. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure that thought of precaution was why I declined the offer from the lady in the red dress.
Karma’s a funny thing, and who knows, had my temptation succumbed, I may not have got the job offer.
That night I dined solo on a salmon and pasta dish, with a side of sliced, warm beets, and serving of fresh spinach lightly sauteed in olive oil and garlic. The salmon was roasted with light seasonings, the pasta in a cream sauce that was perfectly prepared, not too-thick or too-rich as it could overwhelm the simple deliciousness of freshly caught roasted salmon. The sides were a delightful complement, especially since I had rarely eat beets.
Notes on the cooking
I make my white sauce with a classic butter roux, with a twist; I add in a couple heaping tablespoons of white truffle sauce I buy in cans from Urbani Truffle (in New York, where else!) and have them shipped to the house. The sauce includes butter, flour, parmesan cheese and half and half. I used penne pasta for my replica.
I cooked a couple of fresh red beets earlier in the day in boiling water. Once the beets had softened, I ran cold water in the pot (in the sink). After they cooled a bit, I removed the skins with a sharp knife. Then put them in the fridge until dinner, when I would slice them, then warm them (microwave or oven), and serve them unseasoned.
Roast the salmon skin down; after smearing some peanut oil on the bottom of the dish so the skin can be removed easily after cooking. Salt and pepper the top (lightly). Discard the skin, unless you have a dog or cat, and serve the same wedges on the same plate as the pasta and beets.
If the spinach is a little wet, drain it so its juices don’t mix with the main components of the meal.
I used four (4) medium-to-large sections of garlic (from a fresh clove), which I put through a garlic press in an extra-large skillet with a light amount of good olive oil. I started cooking the garlic without the spinach, yet before the garlic started to turn golden brown, I added a big tub of fresh spinach in batches, until my (deep) skillet was full, then drizzled a few tablespoons of water on it. Cover tightly, cook on medium heat for 5-6 minutes then turn the stove top off. Leave the lid on, unattended, for another 10 minutes. Remove lid, turn heat back on to evaporate some of the liquid and lightly salt to taste and a little more olive oil. That’s it. Serve all four dishes at once!
Wine
I had some ideas on what to pair with this meal, ranging from a Fume Blanc (too light, I thought) to a clean, stainless steel tank-fermented and non-oaky Chardonnay from Merriam Vineyards to a Pinot Noir or a Rhone varietal or blend. But first, I shot off an email to my wine rep at Kermit Lynch Wine Merchants in Berkeley, Bryant V. and asked for his thoughts once I sent him the menu and cooking notes. Now, I would trust this man with my dog and my truck if I needed someone to keep an eye on my valuables, so I had full confidence in his opinion. Wow, I was not disappointed!
Here it is
What would you pair with my dinner tonight?
Sounds delicious! My pairings to go with your meals:
Roasted salmon (lightly seasoned): (I would love a white Burgundy, perhaps a Macon Village if not a Sancerre for white, a light red Morgon or Liguria Rossese)
Penne pasta in a white truffle cream sauce (light on the truffle, but there) (You would want a white with a bit of richness, perhaps an aged Savinieres or Viognier like Condrieu. If not again a White Burgundy a safe choice that has a bit of neutral oak)
Fresh spinach in garlic and olive oil, sauteed (Chablis – especially a lean, unoaked style – Crisp, steely, and a natural match for greens. Muscadet – If you want something ultra-refreshing with a subtle saline touch. Or a lighter red like red Burgundy)
Warm beets sliced thin – (Saumur-Champigny) – Herbaceous, slightly peppery notes work beautifully with beets.
There you have it.
Just so happens, I had just returned from a leisure week in Hawaii and after putting in a long day at the desk, prepping dinner and doing laundry in between, I had a hankering for martinis, since you can’t enjoy them in the islands (too warm, the glass warms quickly). I had a couple while finishing the cooking. Bryant was right, a light red paired nicely. There was an unfinished bottle of Cotes-Du-Robles (aka Rhone) from Eberle (a 2021) in California’s Central Coast region (Paso Robles) on the shelf. It’s 54% Grenache, 38% Mourvèdre, 8% Syrah. It was just right.
The first time I served a steak to someone else, I was a couple weeks shy of my 13th birthday. A year earlier, while still 11, I got hired by the local Moose Lodge to be their Friday night dishwasher, when the members gathered for cocktails, grilled steaks and breaded, deep-fried fish, which was either catfish or halibut.
How I got that job, and ended up cooking for others at such a young age, is like a lot of life: it was unplanned, and just happened.
I was shooting hoops at the Boys Club when am man walked into the gym and bellowed: “Would anyone like to make ten bucks for two hours of work?”
There were only nine or 10 of us in the gym that night, with six guys playing a 3-on-3 half-court match and the rest of us practicing free throws or playing horse. I looked around, and when no one else raised their hand, I did.
Big Dave yelled, “Great, let’s go in and see Mike, and call your parents.”
Mike Bonner was one of the gym managers and apparently this fellow from the Moose Lodge, Dave, used the club to recruit dishwashers periodically, as most of the kids usually just did it for a couple months, then quit.
I was a budding entrepreneur since I was 10, mowing lawns, washing cars, helping neighbors clear out their garages, that sort of thing, and $10 for two hours of work was the equivalent of a massive pay raise. Bear in mind, in 1970 the minimum wage was $1.45 per hour, this night happened in December of 1969.
Once we were in Mike’s office, Dave asked Mike to call my parents, since he knew my father, who would drive me to the Boys Club, drop me off, then come and get me a couple hours later.
Dave asked me my name, and when Mike reached my dad and said hello, he then handed the phone over to Dave. Dave said to my dad: “Mr. Marsh, this is Dave from the Moose Lodge. We need a dishwasher for tonight’s grill and fish fry, and your son volunteered for the job. I’d like your permission to take him to the club and put him to work.
My father readily agreed and also to swing by the Moose Lodge around 9 p.m., as Dave promised him that I would be done by then.
I kept that job until my junior year in high school, some five years later.
The Moose Lodge cooks were themselves members of the Lodge. Big Dave was a dentist, and enjoyed his cocktails. His sidekick, Bill, was an accountant, and smoked cigarettes. The two men worked shoulder-to-shoulder during prime dinner time, from about 6 pm. to 7 pm., but otherwise took breaks to go out to the lounge and drink and smoke with their friends. Often, one of them would stay in the kitchen to manage orders as they trickled in. Toward the end of those Friday nights, it was common for both of them to be in the lounge.
At first, when a late-night order came in, one of them would return to the kitchen and make the meal – or two, for the members. After I had been there for many months, however, Dave started teaching me how to grill a steak, and how long the fish had to be in the fryer, as well as how to drop a fresh basket of fries.
I would be in the kitchen by myself, cleaning up cutlery, cutting boards, dishes, pots and pans, and suddenly I would hear Dave boom from the lounge: “Order up!”
And that’s how I ended up serving my first meal of grilled steak and fried fish with a side of fries to a grown up.
Fast-forward to the present, and readers to this blog know my strong preference for Snake River steaks, particularly, New Yorks and Ribeye’s, though lately I’ve been doing a stove-top, pan-seared Filet Mignon for a wicked-good Asian meal with jasmine rice and a large side of mixed vegetables (Bok choy, celery, red onion) fried with a light amount of sesame oil, sunflower oil, a few drops of fish sauce, a generous spoon of chili garlic sauce and finished with a nice sprinkling of ponzu sauce.
For food adventures, friends and family have joined me for some memorable meals at some of America’s best steak houses. Benjamin Steak House on 41 Street in New York, and Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse in Cincinnati, come to mind.
But my recent Chicago steak house experience?
I have to stop embarrassing myself in restaurants, which also aggravates my partner – and no doubt embarrasses her, too. It’s not the usual thing about poor restaurant behavior – i.e., public intoxication. Rather, it’s my food snob snobbery and asshole attitude when things go awry.
The recent episode in Chicago has set my resolve to either, A. not go to certain restaurants where my disappointed is assured, if not guaranteed; B. go to the restaurant and order something that won’t disappoint me; or C. go to the restaurant, adjust my attitude, that it’s about the company etc. and don’t complain about the food.
The incident in Chicago, at one of the city’s most popular steak houses, for example, I could have ordered the Chilean Sea Bass, which is pretty much good anywhere. But no, we were there for the steak.
After careful consideration, we settled on the St. Louis cut – a bone-in New York strip.
It was cooked perfectly medium, medium rare, the way we like it. But it was flavorless, and dry.
I don’t remember which wine I ordered because my behavior after the first few bites of steak blurred the rest of the night.
When the server – who was very engaging, cheerful and could not have been nicer, came around to ask how the steaks were, I looked at him without any sort of facial expression or projection, and said without menace. “It’s dog food.”
Taken aback, the server said: “What?”
“It’s dog food,” I said again.
The server and manager swung in to action to resolve the matter and cooked a fresh, different cut of steak. They even swept away the sides to bring fresh sides with the fresh steak (asparagus, mushrooms, and probably the best onion rings in the world).
And they brought me a fresh martini, on the house, which was ice cold and filled to the brim flipping perfect.
Seeing the expression on my partner made me remorseful. The night had started so pleasantly, and here I was, acting The Dick!
The second round of steaks and sides were more or less the same, and I acted like the meat was much improved. When I settled the bill, I left a ridiculously large tip.
So, there you have my resolve and resolution for future dining in American cities.
Meanwhile, back home a couple weeks later, I marinated a wonderfully affordable cut of beef, skirt steak (pictured above).
This meat is tender and full of flavor!
The marinade
In a large casserole dish, add:
Enough good olive oil to nearly cover the entire bottom
Sprinkle garlic powder evenly throughout
Black pepper, the same
Fish sauce – add drops here and there throughout the dish
Terriyaki marinade sauce, the same.
Lemon – squeeze the juice of one lemon, throughout
Salt each side of meat before laying them into the casserole dish, and turn them over
Cover tight with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night
Remove them from fridge the next morning, and turn them over in the sauce, cover and refrigerate again
Remove them from the fridge 2-3 hours before cooking
Pat dry with paper towel, but don’t dry them all the way.
I’ve cooked this inside on a hot steel skillet and they are good, but not as good as grilled on my Weber, with charcoal.
Once grilled, let the steaks rest for 10 minutes, cover them loosely with foil, then (using kitchen scissors), cut them along the grain into half-inch to three-quarter inch slices, serve.
Serve with sides of your choice, though roasted potatoes, asparagus and mushrooms for mushroom lovers makes for a fine meal.
I don’t recall how this meal became a late summer tradition for me and those I care for and cook. But it has. Maybe it’s because the heirloom tomatoes – and the green beans, are in season? No, that can’t be it. Perfectly ripe heirlooms, drizzled with Milanese-infused olive oil, lovingly caressed with truffle salt then hit with dry basil flakes goes with about anything in August. And green beans in season? They are great with roasted salmon and a baked potato with all the good stuff piled on top. So, who needs a lamb burger to serve perfectly fresh summer beans?
I made lamb burgers recently for a group of friends that visit annually to run the local marathon, or half-marathon. I think I made this for them the first time they gathered in my new house three years ago. But the tradition goes back further than that. Perhaps it is because as we go deeper into summer, we still want fresh, hot, cheese-laden burgers coming off the grill, but want them to be a little different? Besides, we love lamb. Isn’t it curious, with lamb, that you either love it or hate it?
Since our friends are social runners and do not aspire to threaten any running records when they run marathons, our marathon weekend always includes a wine tasting on the Saturday before the marathon at one of our local wineries. This time we went to Merriam Vineyards, which is just south of Beverly Healdsburg – or just Healdsburg if you are a traditionalist. But that’s another story.
Oh boy. Did we get the white glove treatment! We must have tasted a dozen wines. And the cool thing about Merriam Vineyards is they intentionally make wines from the affordable range of “$30ish” per bottle to a mid-range offering and a top shelf collection of wines priced from $65 to $100 for their best Cabernet Sauvignon.
Merriam achieves an affordable-to-exquisite range of wine offerings by how they source the fruit and how they make it. For example, and while I am not a big fan of Chardonnay nor do I buy it, we did a neat side-by-side tasting of the winery’s low-end Chardonnay that was fermented in stainless steel (2022 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay) for $30, and concurrently the 2022 Eastside Estate Chardonnay barreled in 30% new French Oak ($46), and both were delicious. The stainless version would pair nicely with cheese, crackers and fruit on a warm afternoon, while the Estate Chardonnay, with its oak, had the depth to complement that roasted salmon, baked potato and green bean meal mentioned earlier in this post.
After tasting a series of red wines, for the lamb burger dinner that night I took home a 2020 Right Bank Red Blend ($84) that is comprised of 60% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Franc and 5% Malbec. Its tasting notes say the wine “opens with dark, alluring aromatics reminiscent of black plum, cranberry and brambly boysenberry pie with accents of cardamom, clove, cedar and a hint of vanilla.” There’s more, including “lush, juicy layers of tantalizing dark berry fruit and a lovely core of Russian River Valley energy.” And finishes with “the palate is rich and luxurious, full-bodied with velvety tannins and flavors of dark cherry, pie crust, cocoa nibs and fig compote gliding to a bright, elegant finish.”
The word choices and elegant prose take me back to my freshman year in college and the spring Art History class taught by Vernon Minor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The class was part of the Humanities 101 series that all of us incoming freshman were subjected to. You know, Homer and Greek Mythology, Beethoven and Mozart, and Mr. Minor’s class. Which I loved dearly!
As a language aficionado, I had never heard the power or potential of words! It was as if I was learning an entire new language. And it did make the art we studied come alive.
I loved going to his afternoon lectures, delivered to a large and boorish group of pimply-faced, punk-ass kids (I was NOT one of them, as a 24-year-old, married owner of a 4-plex). I don’t remember the lecture hall name but it was huge, cavernous, a little dark, and a perfect venue for Mr. Minor to point out the various details, artistic thinking of the artists and even technical aspects of painting in some works of art. For example, he must have used the word, chiaroscuro, so frequently that here I am about 40 years later using the word in a sentence, and in my entire life – other than the three months or so in Mr. Minor’s atmosphere, have I ever uttered the word, chiaroscuro. Perhaps that’s because I don’t spend any time describing works of art. Chiaroscuro, by the way, is a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modeling three-dimensional objects and figures. Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Goya and Georges de La Tour are among the more famous artists that deployed this technique, and without doubt, Mr. Minor was talking about one of their works when he called out the chiaroscuro in their respective paintings.
Back to Merriam and knowing what was on my menu for that night, I also took home a bottle (or 2?) of Merriam’s 2020 Lower Pond Vineyard Malbec ($54), which was excellent and moderately priced for such a premium wine. Malbec, to me, is a nuanced wine and always leaves me with a ‘wow’ response after the first taste. The second is usually a gulp.
The Red Blend and Malbec did indeed pair well with the lamb burgers, sliced tomatoes, a Caesar salad with house-made dressing, and the green beans.
About the Burgers (makes 7 generous sandwiches)
1.75 lbs. ground lamb
0.75 lbs. ground chuck
0.25 lbs. ground pork
1 white onion
Harissa seasoning
Turmeric seasoning
(dried) Parsley flakes
Salt and Pepper
Italian breadcrumbs
First, grate the onion until you can’t hold on to what’s left of the onion, then chop the remainder of it into small pieces, and sauté that in a generous amount of good olive oil. Add the spices and seasonings, and don’t spare the amounts. Other than the meat itself, this gives the burgers their unique flavors and taste.
Second, while the onions are reducing, mix the meats well. I find that breaking up the meats that the butcher bags for me before I mix in the seasoned onion makes it easier to shape the burgers once that task starts.
Third, integrate the onion mixture with the meats and shape the patties. This is when the Italian breadcrumbs are handy. I add them as I mix the meats in order to bind them into patties (the olive oil and onion mixture makes it wet). I put them on a platter for that night (there were 5 of us) and refrigerated them until dinner while I put the two remaining burgers in plastic and froze them for another time.
The burgers were served on brioche buns with slices of melted Havarti cheese and dressed with mayo, mustard for some, ketchup, pickles and grilled onions.
I was trading emails the other day with a prospective customer who told me he lived in the San Luis Obispo area (SLO) and had been there for about two years. I asked him if he had gotten into the local wine scene in Paso Robles (no, but thinking about it, he said) so I told him about some wineries that are worth exploring. I had refreshed my own memory just a year or so ago, when my partner and I opted-out of Thanksgiving weekend and instead, did a short road trip to Paso, where we ate, drank, looked at the ocean from jagged seaside cliffs, toured the Hearst Castle, and walked the wonderful beach in Carmel – home to legendary film maker and past mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Clint Eastwood.
Two of the wineries we enjoyed most on the recent visit was Four Lanterns, so-named by the proprietors for their four children – all girls, if memory serves, and McPrice Myers. Both make excellent blended or cuvee reds that are easy to drink yet structured enough, and pair with many foods. They are also less expensive than most Northern California wines of comparable quality.
Here’s the blend of McPrice Myer’s 2020 Beautiful Earth red wine: 48% Syrah, 16% Grenache, 14% Mourvèdre, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Petit Verdot, 4% Petit Syrah and 2% Zinfandel. Like musicians in an orchestra or symphony, each varietal has a role to play to bring that delicious wine to life. Currently listed at $75 a bottle, this wine ranked #16 in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of 2022. I won’t trouble you with all the tasting notes, but will call out its last sentence: “Broad, weighty, and plush on the palate with a densely packed finish.” I would like to hear the winery’s founder and wine maker, McPrice (Mac) Myers talk about this wine. I don’t know how common it is for wine makers to blend both Bordeaux and Rhone Valley varietals into a wine, but this more-than-casual wine drinker thinks it’s a brilliant mix that produces a robust yet soft wine drinking experience. You get the calming influences of Grenache, Mourvèdre and Syrah (Loire Valley) with the punch of Cab Sauv and Petit Verdot found in France’s southwest. Anyway, whenever one thinks of the Paso Robles wine area, and this man’s namesake winery is also worthy – for both visiting and buying his wine to drink for all occasions, you think of Gary Eberle. It may not be an overstatement to say that the Paso wine region as we know it today was made possible by this pioneering wine maker.
Gary Eberle: The Godfather of the Paso Robles Wine Appellation
I wrote this circa 2013-2014 for a private-label magazine. Mr. Eberle recently turned 80, and can still be seen at the winery on most days.
Gary Eberle: The Godfather of the Paso Robles Wine Appellation
Gary Eberle has come a long way since playing on the defensive line for the Nittany Lions. The Pittsburgh PA native is one of the four pioneers of the Paso Robles Wine AVA and a winemaking veteran of the region, having arrived in 1973 to help start Estrella River Winery (which became Meridian Vineyards and is now Cellar 360). Along the way, he earned the title of the Godfather of the Paso Robles Wine Appellation as well as a couple other monikers, such as the King of Cab and the Padre of Syrah.
Like any wine region, and just as it has been for Oregon’s Willamette Valley and even the Napa Valley, Paso Robles needed time to develop into a quality wine region.
“A limited number of vineyards were planted here in the 1950s and 1960s and a lot of the original wineries were essentially home wine makers, who could make some great wines in two out of five years but you don’t get anyone’s lasting attention with inconsistency. Furthermore, vineyard management is farming and it takes years to figure out what works… where and how. It wasn’t until we had a good critical mass of wineries and university-trained enologists that we really started producing good wines on a consistent basis. Paso in the 1990s just blossomed. Today, I am stunned at the quality of the wine makers here … they bring good ideas, credentials and experience to their craft,” said Eberle.
Eberle picked up his craft and a desire to be in the wine industry after graduating from Penn State University with a degree in biology and going to Louisiana State University (LSU) to pursue graduate studies in cellular genetics.
During his time at LSU, a professor introduced him to the magical world of food and wine. Tasting a sampling of fine, classically made Bordeaux from his professor’s cellar, Eberle took a keen interest in Cabernet Sauvignon. He began to envision the possibility of creating a wine that would rival those of Bordeaux and soon found himself on an airplane to California.
He arrived at the University of California at Davis, where he met with the chair of the enology department and explained that he wanted to become a winemaker. Impressed with Eberle’s credentials, the professor admitted him to the doctoral program without the usual qualifying exam.
During his work at Davis, Eberle realized the untapped potential of the Paso Robles region and decided it was where his winemaking future lay and arrived in 1973. Eberle made a few trips to Paso with some of his Davis professors, including pioneering viticulturist Dr. Harold P. Olmo, and was hooked.
One of his first jobs in Paso was to plant vineyards and see which varietals would thrive. On a little more than an acre, he planted 18 vines with 40 different varietals. All the clones from Pinot Noir, Beaujolais and Chenin Blanc did poorly, but the Bordeaux varietals did very well. At the time, Eberle didn’t know that it was the beginning of Paso’s emergence as a great venue for producing excellent Rhone-style wines.
10 years after founding the Estrella River, Eberle’s dream was realized with the release of his first Eberle wine, a 1979 Cabernet Sauvignon that was released in 1982. And a year later, he opened Eberle Winery, which is located 3.5 miles east of Highway 101 and along Highway 46. It was the same year – 1983, that Eberle and the three other Paso pioneers were successful in establishing the Paso Robles and York Mountain Viticulture Areas (AVA) as recognized and defined by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).
“Robert Mondavi largely gets credit, and deservingly so, for Napa Valley becoming recognized as a premium wine region. He was our industry’s greatest marketing visionary and a true genius. I met him a few times when I was at Davis. In Paso, a few of us knew that getting a recognized AVA was a crucial step for the region. Outside of California, no one had ever heard of Paso Robles,” said Eberle.At the time there were fewer than 10 appellations in the entire United States. Eberle teamed up with Herman Schwartz, who had a large vineyard in the area, Victor Hugo Roberts (winery Victor Hugo) and Tom Martin, who owned Martin Brothers Winery.
“The AVA application was only 10 pages or so. We filled in the forms and sections on geology, meteorology and even drew the boundaries using U.S.G.S. topographical maps. The fee was modest. I delayed labeling and selling my 1980 Cabernet so I could use the Paso AVA and I ended up having the first wine with a Paso AVA. Eberle’s 1980 was first released in 1983 and “it still drinks beautifully,” Eberle said. He added that a limited number of bottles are available to purchase – for $1200 each.
The 69-year-old Eberle serves as the winery’s chief marketing officer and periodic grill master and pizza maker. The wine maker is Ben Mayo and the winery produces about 25,000 cases a year. About half of the wine is sold at the winery and the other half through distributors. Eberle flies his Cessna 340 (six seats, twin engine) with his wife to major markets for wine tasting events, sales meetings with distributors and wine makers’ dinners, making the 9-hour flight to the East Coast and meetings in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston or other U.S cities as often as possible, stating: “I built a business model to make more money selling direct to customers from our winery, but my ego demands that we have a presence in major markets, plus it brings in out-of-state tourists.”
Eberle Winery is one of the few of the 1500 or so California wineries that still pour complimentary wine tastings.
“We never charged for tastings and I think it is counter-productive. If you charge, you take away the customer’s ability to reciprocate and the way they reciprocate is to buy wine. I think we’ve sold more wine because we understand this aspect of human nature,” he said.
The winery also sells more wine by hosting barbecues and more recently, serving wood-fired pizzas from the new outdoor pizza oven. Three times a month in summer and once-or-twice a month in winter Eberle grills Tri Tips, duck sausage and baby back ribs and asks people to make a 25-cent donation to the Children’s Museum in Paso (it was started by Tom Martin). Wood-fired pizza was added in late 2013.
“It’s a lot of fun, our customers have a better wine tasting experience by pairing some of the wines with food, and it is a great return on our investment of $350 in food costs,” Eberle said.Don’t expect Eberle to retire any time soon. A self-avowed people person, he’s at the winery seven days a week and simply loves what he does too much to even consider quitting.
Coincidentally, in March 2022 I posted a piece in the blog called Food Dreams, and the featured food was pot pies. In that case, the meat ingredient was rabbit.
Two years later, I am updating that post with some pie-making experiences of the past 6-7 weeks, or during the dreariest of winter months. Winters are more bearable around the holidays, because that is such a joyous time, with parties, gifts, celebrating the birth of Christ, a little extra wine, and more time for naps. Yet once you get past the first couple weeks of January, you enter that period comparable to any other session in which grinding is the best method to get through it. For survival, we make great, wintry meals, such as the classics: braised ribs served with creamy polenta, Osso Buco, again with polenta, though I like it with mashed potatoes, too, or chicken pot pies.
The following recipe sounds like more work than it is, but I have found breaking up the cooking in phases is a bit easier than all at once, I think the flavors are richer, if you:
Make the dough one day, and refrigerate it
Cook the chicken, stock and vegetables including the green beans the next day
Make the thickening sauce and assemble the pies on the 3rd day
At the very least, you have to make the dough a day in advance so it is cold and can be manipulated into pie toppings. I own a KitchenAid and make the dough with the machine. I break up the shortening into smaller pieces that what the recipe calls for, and same for the butter, so it mixes more evenly. Once all the ingredients- except the water, are in the bowl, mix until the shortening and butter is broken down into small pieces, then pour the water in all at once while the mixture is on. Mix for about a minute, and it’s done. It should be sticky. So much so that you need flour on your hands to handle it. This batch makes enough dough for about 10 pot pies, if you like the crust on the thinner side, as I do. if you are making 8–10-inch fruit pies, it is probably enough for 4 crusts.
Pie dough
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1.5 sticks butter, cold
Half-cup shortening, chilled, cut into 4 pieces
One-half cup cold water
Pie filling (for 5-6 pies)
3 or 4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Olive oil for cooking the chicken
1 large onion, cut up good
2 cups chopped carrots
1.5 cups chopped celery
3+ cups chicken or vegetable stock
2 cups cut up green beans
Half-stick butter
¾ cup half & half or better yet, whipping cream (unwhipped)
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 brioche hamburger buns
Spices (for cooking the chicken): salt, pepper, garlic powder/granules, turmeric, harissa (not much), herbs de Provence, tarragon (not much)
Rinse the chicken then brine it in copious amounts of salt and warm water for at least 3 hours before rinsing, drying, and cooking.
In a 4-quarter pot, heat the olive, cook chicken and add the spices while cooking. I normally top the chicken while it is cooking with half the spices, and after turning them over to brown the other side, add the rest of the spice. Once cooked, remove the chicken to cool, add onions (and a little more olive oil) and cook until soft and golden, then add carrots, celery and stock and cover – and lower heat to simmer.
In a separate pot cook the green beans (I prefer French) and once done, drain and cool.
Using kitchen scissors, cut up the chicken into pieces and also the green beans (into 1-inch pieces). Leave on a plate for immediate assembly or if you are spreading out the pie-making over two days, store separately for ease of assembly. I also do it this way for better quantity control, or so the same amount of chicken and green beans are in each pot pie.
Once the vegetables and stock are done, turn heat off and store overnight, or keep going if you want to assemble the pies then.
In a bowl or measuring cup, put the cream in, then break up the brioche buns into small pieces and add them to the cream. Add the tablespoon of Dijon mustard, stir, let rest. This is the thickener to the pies, and easier than making a butter roux. The cream also gives the pies the color and texture you want.
If assembling the pies the next day, warm the stock and veggies after making the (cheater) roux. Once the stock is warm, turn heat off and mix in roux.
Then assemble the pies.
First, ladle in (most of) the vegetables and juices
Add the chicken and green beans
Add a little more veggies and stock-roux, leaving enough room for the dough topping Set aside the baking dishes
Cut the dough into enough sections to cover the number of pies you made
Press and role the dough and lay the sections over each ceramic dish
Drizzle olive oil on top and salt the top of the pies
Bake at 385 for about 25-30 minutes, until tops are brown
IT IS SUPER IMPORTANT TO BAKE THE PIES ON A BAKING DISH.
Unless you love cleaning messy ovens, because the pies inevitably bubble over and out of each ceramic dish. Not much, but enough to mess up your oven, big time.
Eat when cooled, though I have found them to be as good, perhaps better, when reheated another day.
For reheating, get oven to 400, then microwave the pie(s) for 1 minute, and place in oven (again, for insurance, on a baking dish) for 6-7 minutes to bring the crust up and heat the ingredients fully.
Like meatloaf, lasagna, Spanish tortes and many other dishes, there is a lot of variety to the way Green Chile, the Mexican (or New Mexican?) stew made with big sections of port shoulder and butt, though they all feature highly seasoned and roasted meat, and are slow braised for hours in liquids with chiles and onions.
The version I make is David Garcia’s grandmother’s version. David was the landscaper I hired to make improvements to the yard (and then maintain the plants, trees and bushes on the property) of a house I purchased in Marin County in 2000. He was referred to me by my Realtor, and while interviewing him, I said I would hire him on the condition that he brought me a batch of his grandmother’s Green Chile, with loose instructions on how to make it. I told him it was OK if his grandmother wrote it down on a piece of paper, since I can read Spanish and speak a little of it. The stew was delicious, and I have been making this version of Green Chile ever since. In fact, the main reason my collection of Le Creuset pots grew early on was the size of the batches I made, depending on the situation and number I was serving. And the key to that is the size of the piece of pork I would buy at the market – going up to 8-and-9-pound roasts. For neighborhood block parties, for example, I would use the 9-quart pot and with a large hunk of meat and added onions and chiles, and of course liquid and spices. Our block parties would get 50 or 60 people together so I also made a big batch of creamy polenta, and put the polenta down in throw-away bowls then ladle the Green Chile on top of that. Some of my neighbors ferried the bowls of food down to the street on trays (that house was on a 20-degree slope and well-off the street) until my contribution to the party was fully served.
Hence, I own 5, 6 and 9 quart Le Creusets in yellow, blue and orange, respectfully, and the most indispensable piece of cookware I own in my kitchen, Le Creuset’s 4-quarter braiser, in red. In fact, my collection is so colorful (intentionally) that when I built my current house, I made the end cap of the kitchen island that greets guests when they reach the second level of my home (where the kitchen and great room is) and serves as an introduction to my kitchen and for that matter, the entire second story of the house.
Today, I hardly use that 9-quart Le Creuset, but I did use the 6-quart pot to make the latest batch of Green Chile on one wintry, wet and cold Saturday in late January. Can you think of a more perfect time to eat and enjoy this meal?
You can serve this dish with rice, though I prefer creamy polenta the first night the dish is served, in part because if there is leftover polenta I can make crispy polenta a few days later, and eat another bowl of the stew, and have a very different eating experience.
As for a wine pairing, a good California Zinfandel works with Green Chile, yet so does a smooth Rhone wine that is blended with Mourvèdre, Grenache and perhaps Syrah.
Missing from the photo, and to make this a richer green sauce, toward the end of making this batch I added a big can of Hatch Green Chile Sauce. It made the sauce a bit creamier, greener, and more delicious.
