Meatloaf

I’m stilling looking to meet someone whose mother did not make meat loaf. It’s a fact, if you grew up in America of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s and well, the most recent decade for that matter, your mom made meat loaf. Or bought it at Trader Joe’s. And you ate it.

Meatloaf is best served with mashed potatoes and green beans. While that may be debatable, anyone that takes up the debate against this position is likely to lose. Because most of us grew up with this meal, and its sides, full stop. How you make the meatloaf is entirely up to the chef, and I never tasted a bad version of it.

I’m showing a photo of a meatloaf sandwich to accompany this posting, because as fine as my meal was during the Christmas holidays with its classic sidekicks, the sandwiches the next week were off the hook! But first, details on the loaf itself.

I used one pound of ground chuck, then one-half pound each of ground turkey (dark meat only), pork and lamb, the latter of which gives it a subtle flavor yet not enough to over power the palates of people that don’t eat lamb. I’ve made good meatloaf with a third, third and third of beef, turkey and lamb, if you want to leave out the pork.

For the bread or cracker filler, which also lightens the loaf, and is the dish’s prominent feature, I soaked one complete brioche bun in a one-cup measuring cup and filled it to the brim with half & half and one egg whipped into the cream. The egg helps bind the loaf during baking.

In the meat mix, I used one white onion, shredded with a cheese grater (the same way I make my lamb burgers), 3 green onions, cut into small pieces, and two-thirds of a bell (sweet green) pepper, cut into really small pieces. For seasonings, I used tarragon and Herbs de Provence, with fairly generous amounts of salt and black pepper. 

The amount of moisture overwhelms the meat mix during the mixing, so I keep a container of Italian bread crumbs handy and shake some of that into the mix as I shape the loaf.

Folks cook meatloaf in different baking dishes and such, yet I am a fan of the open mound of meat, compressed into a large, flat-ish ball, placed inside my 4-quarter Le Creuset braiser, then baked at about 425 (lid off) for 15 minutes before removing it from the oven, covering the top with a heavy spread of ketchup, then finishing it in the oven for another 20-25 minutes or so. It comes out nice and browned and the juices and bits that seep out at the bottom become perfect drizzle for the mashed potatoes.

But the sandwich!

  1. Brioche bun, warm it but don’t over-toast it.
  2. A thick cut of leftover meatloaf, heated up in a non-stick skillet with a little olive oil
  3. Cheese topping; I used slices of Gruyere because I like the flavor profile for meat sandwiches but use what you like, or what you got. And I only sear it on one side, so the meat doesn’t get dried out. Once I turn the meat over, after only 3-4 minutes of medium-high heat searing, I turn the stove top off and top the meat with the cheese, then place the pickles on top of the cheese, before putting half of the bun on top of that. Before topping the meat, cheese and pickles, smear a generous amount of mayonnaise on the bun.
  4. With the bottom bun, I put the ketchup down first, then slices of red onion, and on top of that, a wedge of iceberg lettuce.
  5. Then put the meat and the upper-half of the sandwich on top.

Give Napa a Chance

The Wall Street Journal wine writer, Lettie Teague, just published her column, called “An Affordable, Highly Versatile Winter Wine,” and is it is about Chenin Blanc. She makes her position known about the varietal right out of the gate, with a lead sentence that reads: “I love Chenin Blanc.”

I love Chenin Blanc too, for all the reasons Ms. Teague points out in her excellent column (all of them are), plus a few more. For starters, I like Chenin Blanc because it is not Chardonnay! While I love Chablis, which is made with Chardonnay grapes, I’m just so blah with Chardonnay, even if the California winemakers have distanced themselves from “the oak-ee buttery” days of Sonoma-Cutrer. Chardonnays are more drinkable now, but just for drinking, or paired with some foods (Chenin Blanc even pairs well with turkey, according to Lettie), give me a nice Chablis or Chenin Blanc and I will merrily sit on my front deck chair overlooking the vineyard across the street, or start my kitchen prep for dinner that night.

When her recent piece mentioned Vouvray – early in the article, that Loire Valley wine brought me instantly back to the late 1970s, and skiing, in Aspen, Colorado. It was our habit to stuff bottles of Vouvray in our backpacks and, since we were always the first ones on the chair lifts and first to reach the top of the mountain (other than the ski patrol), we would cut into the woods near the top of the mountain, then place the Vouvray in snow someplace hidden, but findable, for a return about 5 hours later. The locations were always on the western side of the mountains so we could ski our asses off and then sneak off into the woods to a clearing in the sun and sit with our wine. Why it was Vouvray, I don’t recall. There was a high-end bottle shop in downtown Aspen back then – probably still is, that all of us had accounts with, meaning, we would pick up wine or spirits now and again and pay our tabs at the end of the month. What a charming thing. But we also thought we were big shots because we had wine accounts at a fancy liquor store in Aspen, and were barely of legal drinking age. What we didn’t know! At least we had good taste, yet the truth is, we were probably drinking that Chenin Blanc because it had a reputation for being good. Our palettes didn’t know any better, but since we all had good paying jobs, we could afford it, so why not? Besides, it was a lot more affordable than the blow back then! I digress. 

Which brings me to last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. We took ourselves on a little road trip. We call them “our adventures,” as it is our way of getting out of normal routines and places, and seeing the world. And some of our nearby places are world-famous, too. In this case, the Napa Valley. From where I live, it is 26 minutes through the mountains separating the Napa and Sonoma valleys, and the road taken drops us into the little hamlet of Calistoga, a slightly funky, historical tourist town but not for wine, rather, for its natural geothermal hot springs. People from San Francisco used to come up to Calistoga in the 1800s to “take in the waters” for arthritis and all sorts of ailments. Some of the medical practices and medicines back then were a little wacky, to say the least, but they were on to something – how soaking in warm and hot water is so healing. Calistoga is also the northern-most town in the famous Napa Valley, and many tourists don’t make it that far north, as the majority of the 900-plus wineries in the valley are in the center near Helena—or south around Rutherford. The “900” is likely debatable; that was the number our server at Inglenook gave us in his discussion of Napa Valley wines; a simple fact check tells me there are about 400 wineries in Napa (according to 3 sources) while another source lists 1,700 registered with some government agency as a winery. Does it matter to you, reader? Accuracy matters to me, but I’m only taking some research, so far. Any way you slice it, there are a lot of wineries in the Napa Valley.

On recommendation and while driving south toward our first stop, we bought sandwiches to go at Guigni’s Deli in downtown St. Helena, a so-called “World Famous Sandwiches” place. We did devour them (pastrami) on a bench in the sun in the parking lot at Inglenook, which was a good thing – besides being hungry, because once we approached the entrance to the winery there was a sign that said “no picnicking.” Too late for that.

Anyway, on wine, we drank a lovely glass of a white Rhone blend at Inglenook that had Viognier among the three varietals in the glass, toured the facility, including the museum on property that is part homage to Francis Ford Coppola’s filmmaking career (he bought the winery in 1975, allegedly with the profits he made from making The Godfather). We even ‘met’ his daughter, Sophia, also a filmmaker, though in reality I just said hello to her when she arrived with her party of 4 (including her), for a book signing. Apparently, she has just produced a coffee-table book of some sort. Some fast facts from the visit. The winemaker at Inglenook, Philippe Bascaules, is also the winemaker at Chateau Margaux, the Bordeaux winery founded in 1855. Francis Ford Coppola’s father, Carmine, wrote all of the original music in The Godfather. What a talented family! Not bad for some guys from Detroit.

Inglenook is one of only a handful of wineries in Napa that are licensed to sell wines by the glass or bottle on the grounds, and that is exactly what they do. No wine tasting here. We just bought three glasses of wine at $17 each and walked around. In the second floor of this magnificent building, (which itself has a deep history going back to the 19th Century that involves a European ship’s captain with a significant interest in wine https://www.inglenook.com/story/history that led to the 1887 construction of the Chateau we toured), there was classic old car in mint condition parked opposite of the top of the stairs. It was a blend of blue, green and turquoise and without being a car guy, looked like it was from the 1940s. Upon closer inspection, I wondered out loud if this was the car Sunny was shot to death in at the causeway in Godfather 1. One of the staffers passed by as I said that, and he said “no, though a lot of people think it is.” The car is a Tucker.

1948 Blue Tucker Torpedo
1948 Blue Tucker Torpedo

This is a 1948 Blue Tucker Torpedo, which can be bought online for as little as $40 (for a model of the car). Francis Ford Coppola directed the 1988 movie, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, starring Jeff Bridges.

Wine consumed, we decided to stop by a place we eyed on the way south to Rutherford, as we drove back north to go to Chateau Montelena for a 3 pm tasting. The place we stopped was The Prisoner, and there, tasting a Viognier, then a Rose (made from GSM grapes that eerily reminded us of Marquiliani Vin de Rose, for good reason – Marquiliani (Corsica) is mostly Mourvèdre and Grenache), and finally The Prisoner’s classic Red Blend ($52, half Syrah, half Petit Syrah) and its rich uncle, called Derange ($100, and also a red blend with the Syrah’s plus some Cabernet Sauvignon). It was then that I came up the tongue-and-cheek phrase, Give Napa a Chance. The unusual title has its roots in the anti-war song written by John Lennon in 1969 (it was originally credited to Lennon-McCartney), Give Peace a Chance. Yet that goes back to an earlier and spontaneous comment Lennon made when answering a reporter’s question why he and Yoko Ono had spent all day in bed during a “bed in” day to protest the Vietnam War and to promote peace by staying in bed all day. Lennon said his reason for staying in bed all day with his woman was to give peace a chance.

Off topic, sort of, but writing this reminds me of the time I spoke with an older Vietnamese man (way back in the 1990s) who corrected me when I asked him about his experience during the Vietnam War. He smiled softly and gently corrected me in good though accentuated English: “We call it the American War.” I remember that I did not say a word in response, as I grasped his meaning instantly and clearly.

One primary reason I had the notion of cutting Napa some slack and in particular, this wine, The Prisoner, is that I had written about it a year or so ago and in less than complimentary terms. Mind you, it was not disparaging, though it was a little bit dismissive.

A secondary reason, and for readership background, we have a little fun over in the Sonoma Valley where I live, and routinely snub or eschew Napa wines for our home-grown favorites. We’ll even invoke the standard line that I first heard in the Central Coast wine region around Paso Robles, and one winery actually sold T-shirts, with the words printed on the back: “Napa is for Auto Parts.”


I started changing my mind about The Prisoner just a couple months ago. We were in Hawaii and our first night in Kapa’a (on Kauai), we did take out from a roadside grill shack called Chicken In a Barrel, where they smoke and BBQ chicken and ribs. FUCK! Talk about delicious! It was so good that we went back the next night. The only difference is that day we had stocked up the time share condo kitchen with groceries, spirits and wine from the local Safeway, which included a bottle of The Prisoner. We drank The Prisoner the second time we had Chicken In A Barrel. What a brilliant pairing!

I did not give the wine another thought until that Friday after Thanksgiving in 2023. The Prisoner is a very worthy winery, and affordable by Napa standards. I’m even thinking about joining its wine club. If a winery can satisfy my palette with three of my favorite wines to drink – Viognier for a white, Rose for any occasion, and Red Blends with a variety of foods, I have to change my mind about the wine and where it is produced.

Combine the total beauty of the Napa Valley, with its forested slopes on the western side of the valley and craggy, mountainous crests on the eastern ridgeline, and all those glorious vineyards in between, the delightful flight of wines we tasted at Chateau Montelena (great Merlot), I encourage everyone to do more than just give Napa a chance. Go and enjoy what the region does best – which is making and serving world-class wines.

Comfort Food

Of all the emotions, fondness may be the sweetest. It’s not a ‘hard’ emotion, like love or anger. Those are full-spectrum emotions, charged with loads of energy, and perhaps some history to arriving at those respective places, at those specific times. Nor is it a complicated emotion, like disappointment, which is full of nuance and metaphorically speaking, like taking a winding path through a forest – there is a same-ness to what you see but because you are traveling in an indirect line, there’s a new-ness to what you see, also. Plus, disappointed is a small act of betrayal, and comes with thoughts of ‘what could have been.’ It’s fair to point out, that while others may disappoint us, we sometimes disappoint ourselves.

The joy of feeling fond of something, or someone, by contrast, is that it is easy and uncomplicated. It’s not an emotion that requires much thought. In fact, most of our emotions are a product of much thinking, even over-thinking. Fondness is the sweetest of emotions, also, because it doesn’t require a big commitment. There’s a purity to it because it sort of creeps up on you and then, you feel it.

A couple nights ago, a friend and I were sending text messages to each other, asking about our traveling this year, and he was texting from New Orleans.

I have a fondness for the New Orleans restaurant, Restaurant August, because it brings back certain memories, all very pleasant, but also fun, and funny. Not to mention, the food, environment, and service, are excellent. We posted a piece on this back in February 2022, if you want to revisit that story.

We want to France in May of this year. It was epic in scale and style, with 23 days of eating and drinking our way through Paris, Corsica, the Cote de Azur, Provence and Lyon, and yet here we are late in the year and I had not posted a single note from that trip. Perhaps because the trip overwhelmed our senses – though doing the trip was not overwhelming, at all. A bit exhausting, but that is the nature of multi-city traveling. It makes you know, without having done it, why people like cruises so much. “You board the ship, get to your room, unpack, and that’s it,” they say. I get it, but it’s not me. Besides, as a former backpacker, I can unpack in 8 minutes and re-pack in about the same time. As the memories of that France trip go deeper into my psyche, I am sure there will be moments of fondness that I am left with.

As emotions go with food, ‘comfort’ comes to mind, because there is a food category of that moniker. And so it was last night, with a dear friend in town for a few nights, I made comfort food. Penne pasta finished in a truffle cream sauce, baked fennel, mixed with butter, lemon juice and parmesan cheese, and pan-seared chicken (boneless, skinless) cooked in a basil-infused olive oil, with red and green peppers, chopped garlic and green onions, and zucchini. The other day I read a column about one of my favorite chefs, Eric Ripert, and the story theme was ‘cooking at home with Eric” or something like that. As everyone knows, his 3-Michelin Star restaurant in New York City, Le Bernardin, does a lot of seafood. At home, the only spice he keeps around his kitchen, other than salt and pepper, is Herbs de Provence. Hence, I used a little of that with the chicken and vegetable dish. After a bottle of Bandol Tempier Rose (2021), for the meal I went with a Central Coast wine that paired perfectly with dinner, Sardius, a red Bordeaux blend from Red Lantern (2018), in Paso Robles. It’s 82% Merlot, 16% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Tempranillo. Fantastic, and only for about $50.

Christmas Food

I grew up Italian. And Irish. Most of the food we ate was American, except during the holidays. It was… what do you think? Italian, of course!

The truth is my mom was just an ok cook. We never went hungry and the food was down the middle of the fairway, as they say. Dad was a classic meat and potatoes man. He tolerated pasta at holidays, but don’t bother with rice or any other carb the rest of the week. Just potatoes, cooked in all ways possible, though I think there are only four of them. Which reminds me of one of my early golf trips to Ireland with a bunch of men – in my 40s. We played and then were having drinks and food afterward at the golf course restaurant and bar. The server brought out sides of fried potatoes and roasted potatoes. I asked if they had any other vegetables and he said “oh sure I’ll bring them right out.” He brought out a bowl of mashed potatoes with a tab of butter on it. Clearly, the joke was on me.

The Christmas Eve tradition in my family was all non-cooked food. Today we would celebrate it as charcuterie and all that. What I remember most was a cheese log covered in ground-up nuts. Walnuts, I think the were. I think I can speak for my sisters – it was an unsatisfactory dinner, to be polite about it. Practically speaking, mom cooked all day on Christmas Eve, so those ‘night before’ dinners had to be easy on her. On Christmas Eve, she made the gravy (red sauce with a variety of meats) because everyone knows, the sauce is always best the next day. She also made the pasta dough for the Christmas raviolis, which were assembled on the dining room table, after a giant cheese cloth had been put down. She would roll out the dough and dad would lay strips of it on the table, then mark the squares for the Ravs.

First down was the ricotta, followed by half a teaspoon of a parsley and olive oil mix, a sprinkle of Parmigiana Reggiano and lastly a small slice of fresh mozzarella. Dad would then cut them and we were taught how to tuck them together into individual raviolis with sealed edges. The sauce has fresh Italian sausage that my father had ground together the day before, and we all stuffed the meat into the casings. The sausages were lightly browned in the oven and then dropped in the gravy. Then there was the braciola, or a rolled meat dish pronounced – at least in our family, braaahzzyal, which is popular in Southern Italy’s Puglia region, among others. My parents made it with a top or bottom round beef roast, pounded flat so it could be rolled up, after it was stuffed with a mixture of bread crumbs, olive oil, garlic, fresh basil, a little prosciutto and pecorino cheese. And red pepper flakes with a little salt. Then it was rolled, tied together with strings, browned on the stovetop in a skillet with olive oil, then dropped in the gravy to slow cook for about four hours. When it was sliced and served, dripping in tomato sauce, it was fork tender. If I were to make this dish today, and something tells me I will, I will use truffle salt instead of regular salt.

I don’t remember any of the side dishes that were served with the raviolis, gravy and a nice slice of braciola, but there was probably a bowl of steamed broccoli on the table. We ate a lot of broccoli!

Once I left the nest, I kept the family tradition for awhile before it faded. My very first Christmas away from home, however, was in Aspen, and I made that dinner for my roommates and our friends. That was a magical night. After cleaning up the kitchen, we took our cross-country skis up to the old mining town of Ashcroft, which is 11 miles up Castle Creek Road. It was a full moon night and about 8 degrees below zero, without a whiff of wind. We skied out into the meadow when a nearby elk began to bugle. We stopped and listened, just smiling at each other, then someone pulled out a flask and we each drank from it.

I brought the tradition back once my daughter was born. I wanted her to know a little bit about growing up Italian. On Christmas Eve and instead of ravioli, we would make pasta together and use a machine I still have to cut fettuccini noodles, then hang them all around the house on shirt hangers to lightly dry the day before we cooked the pasta. We made the gravy the day before, just like mom did, but I bought the sausage. And made the braciola.

Fast forward to the new tradition, which is to get together as a family for Christmas lunch (a few days before Christmas)– dunch, really, even though we are no longer married. But our daughter is still our daughter, all of us love pizza, so I made pizza!

I made pizza a couple weeks earlier for some new friends. It was the first time in over four years since I made pizza dough (post-divorce, and not enough people to cook for—at least to trouble with homemade pizza) and while the toppings were delicious, I was rusty with the dough. It lacked the elasticity pizza dough should have, likely from either too much flour or not enough water. This batch of pizza dough was perfect! I made sure to use more water, and to the point that it was almost too hard to handle once I pulled it from the mixer. That early-phase stickiness is exactly what was needed to create elasticity in the dough.

We like our pizza with thin crusts, baked almost to the point (but not quite!) that the bottom is like a cracker, then loaded with ingredients on the top – and a bit “wet,” meaning no shortage of sauce. And not too much cheese!

With respect to the vegetarian in the family (our daughter), the first pizza was a classic margherita, with freshly sautéed garlic in olive oil, before the (vegetarian) tomato sauce was added. Instead of fresh basil, I hit the pizza pretty good with dried parsley and Herbes de Provence before putting on a light coat of parmesan and a light coat of mozzarella. That’s it.

The second pizza had a white truffle and tomato sauce base, with freshly steamed fennel cut up into small pieces, cherry tomatoes (halved) sliced black olives and both cheeses. We shared the first two pizzas. The third pizza was for my daughter. The tomato sauce had a little pesto as well as black truffle sauce, mostly feta cheese and a light topping of mozzarella cheese, with lots of black olives. The fourth pizza – the one pictured in this post, was shared by my ex and I. It had basic red sauce, cut up bell (green) pepper, a few of the sliced cherry tomatoes and a very generous portion of fried Italian sausage, broken up into pieces, and black olives. Then topped with both cheeses.

We drank a couple bottles of Chateauneuf du Pape, Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe, that I just got from Kermit Lynch. It was a bit young — a 2020, but I decanted it for a couple hours and paired more-than-well with the homemade pizza. The wine will no doubt improve with age, which is an appropriate metaphor to aspire to with what remains of our lives.

Rethinking Pinot Noir

Had this complex wine varietal actually slipped from my consciousness? Kinda sorta. I haven’t been drinking much of it lately. I was telling a friend that seven or eight years ago, if you asked me my favorite varietal, it would have been Pinot Noir. Before that, going 15 years back, it was Zinfandel. Now I seem to be firmly in Rose’s camp in the summer and bold red blends, or the fancier term for a blend, cuvee, more often than not. Now that the weather has turned cold, I’m making “big” meat-based food with sauces for dinner half the week, and I need wines that hold their own with the food. Tonight, for example, I’m doing a bolognase with freshly steamed fennel, sauted green pepper and garlic with an infused olive oil and leftover meatloaf (lamb, turkey, ground chuck, Italian-seasoned ground pork) in a tomato sauch with Marsala wine, which will be poured over mushroom raviolis swimming in a black truffle tomato sauce and topped with Mozzarella. For good measure, I’ll top the bolognase with freshly grated, 10-year-old hard parmesan after smothering the raviolis with the meat and vegetables. I haven’t gone through the cellar yet to pick the wine for tonight, but odds are on a red blend.

Anyway, back to Pinot Noir. I had lunch this past week with a fellow North Coast Hobo (that’s another story, another day) and we were talking about wine but not drinking it. Plain water with Chinese food was not fodder for a wine conversation, per se, but he was telling me that he had taken a viticulture class at the local JC to learn about growing grapes, because he and his wife had recently bought a property that included four acres of vineyard – along with their new home, and he took the class so he could communicate intelligently with the farmer managing his vineyard.

My new friend’s vineyard has Chardonnay grapes but the conversation shifted to Pinot Noir, and my new friend expressed his displeasure at most of the Pinot’s on the market today. Mind you, dear reader, we live in Sonoma County, with many micro-climates, some of which are either good for Pinot, great for Pinot or exceptional for the delicate wine. My friend started to say how they taste to his palate and paused in mid-sentence to find the word, when he said it. “They just taste so…….raw, to me” he said, adding: “I don’t know how to describe wine like the wine writers and Sommeliers do.” Neither do I.

Coincidentally two days later I got an email from one of the local Pinot Noir makers, Black Kite, offering some holiday specials, with the only thing being special was the free shipping. In the past when I have purchased this excellent wine I would just go pick it up, as it is right up the road from me. But what the heck the shipping was included and I bought a six-pack that included Anderson Valley Pinots from 2016 and 2018, for $300.

With the knowledge that my Black Kite would be replenished this week, I grabbed a 2018 Gap’s Crown Vineyard bottle that was from an estate vineyard in the Sonoma Coast Appellation. This is an AVA (American Viticultural Area) that encompasses more than 500,000 acres – mostly along the Pacific Coastline, and extends from San Pablo Bay (an off-shoot of the San Francisco Bay) to the border north of Sonoma County at Mendocino County. The appellation is known for its cool climate and high rainfall relative to other parts of Sonoma County, and given the size of the county, it has no fewer than eight sub-regions in the AVA. For wine nerds, I will spell them out:

  • Chalk Hill AVA
  • Fort Ross-Seaview AVA
  • Green Valley of Russian River Valley AVA
  • Los Carneros AVA
  • Northern Sonoma AVA
  • Petaluma Gap AVA
  • Russian River AVA
  • Sonoma River AVA

Farmers must appreciate this post!

The Black Kite Pinot paired perfectly with last night’s dinner, and the wine was absolutely declious. Dinner was simple and classic comfort food after a day of hard and very cold rain: baked potatoes with butter, finely diced red onion, sour cream and dried parsley; chicken wings (all flats) that I had brined five hours and then seasoned with garlic powder, sage, paprika, black pepper and rosemary, and Sicilian (oven) roasted broccoli (tossed first with olive oil, truffle salt, red pepper flakes) and when the broccoli was fully roasted, I clustered the vegetables in the middle of the baking dish and drizzled fresh-squeezed lemon juice and then topped the veggies with grated parmesan-pecorino.

The food and wine was so good it led to music played loudly (Christie McVee singing You Make Loving Fun – Fleetwood Mac) and a little dancing. Then we cleaned up the kitchen and retreated to watch the 2004 movie and much revered, Sideways, which is a lot of things but in the category of wine, it elevated Pinot Noir to stardom while in the name of unitended consequences, led to the tanking of wine sales for more humble varietals, namely Merlot.

At about 56 or 57 minutes into the movie, there was the ah-ha moment about Pinot Noir, and the essence of this wine varietal was more than aptly described by Paul Giammati’s character in the movie.

Maya, played by Virginia Madsen, asks:
“Can I ask you a personal question, Miles? Why are you so into Pinot?”

Miles answered:

“It’s a hard grape to grow. It’s thin skinned and temperamental. It ripens early.

It’s not a survivor like Cabernet, which can just grow anywhere and ah, thrive even when it’s neglected.
No. Pinot needs constant care and attention.

In fact in can only grow in these really specific, little tucked away corners of the world.

Only the most patient, and nurturing of growers can do it, really.

Only if somebody really takes the time to understand Pinot’s potential, they can then coax it into its fullest expression.

And then its flavors are the most haunting, and brilliant, and thrilling, and subtle and……they are the most ancient on the planet.

I mean Cabernets can be powerful and exhalting too but they seem prosaic by comparison.”

Wow!
Hats off to writers!

For the record the writers were Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne, the latter of which also directed the movie. In case you don’t recall what prosaic means, it was not a flattering word choice by Miles, because it means “lacking poetic beauty.”

Get over it, Cab lovers.

Going forward, I might be a little picky about which Pinot Noir I buy and drink, but after last night, it is firmly back in the rotation.

###

The Prisoner (wine)

The first time I drank The Prisoner, a red blend wine from Northern California, was about 10 years ago with friend Tom S. in Sacramento where he lives. I was there on business and we met at an Italian place in Roseville. The wine was impactful, different, really good and memorable. The Prisoner has in fact gained ‘cult’ status among many wine aficionados since it emerged on the wine scene about two decades ago. The wine was embraced by regular wine drinkers as well as critics for its bold new interpretation of what a California red blend could be. The wine blend changes by the year and harvest but is consistently comprised of Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Syrah and Charbono. Rutherford-born winemaker Dave Phinney launched the brand, now based in Oakville, in 2000. Given Phinney’s Napa Valley orientation, the wine drinks “big” and features that signature, fruit-forward style that Napa is famous for.

Of course the name, as well as the label, is pretty unforgetable too.

From its website, The Prisoner Wine Company’s “brand name and flagship label were inspired by an etching titled Le Petit Prisonnier by 19th century Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Its subtitle translates to “the custody is as barbaric as the crime”. The sketch is part of Goya’s series The Disasters of War, created as a visual protest to the injustice and brutality of the Spanish War of Independence in 1808. From our founding, The Prisoner Wine Company has stood against oppression while embracing creativity. Fighting injustices in our society, especially those tied to our prison and policing systems, is indelibly etched into our identity and a focus of our commitment as an organization. At The Prisoner, we know that the problems in the U.S. prison system are ingrained, nuanced, and seemingly intractable. We also believe that change can happen and that it starts with conversation, collaboration, and creativity.”

That’s some pretty deep shit for a wine. But hey, it’s your life, your wine, etc., do your thing.

Anyway back in the restaurant with Tom – I had veal saltimbocca, the classic Roman dish made with proscuitto as well as the veal, and a butter sauce of light red wine. The most memorbable part of the evening, however, was not the food, The Prisoner or great company, it was something Tom said, and last night’s dinner reminded me of this moment in time – funny how a wine can do that. Our server that evening was somewhere between super-cute and gorgeous; late 20s, maybe 30. Here’s two average-looking and married white guys with “dad bods” in their mid-50s and the young lady was the kind of pretty that you just couldn’t ignore, and even as a pair of respectful gentlemen, we naturally compared notes on our server’s good fortune – her looks.

At which point Tom said: “Yeah but we’re invisible to her.”

It was funny as hell, and so accurate.

My other good Tom friend, Tommy R., brought a bottle of The Prisoner over for my cellar on one of his recent visits (which normally entails eating and drinking in Healdsburg), and last night knowing I was going to do a meat feed of tangy barbecued ribs that were leftovers from a house party I had catered earlier this summer (and they held up extremely well, frozen), I busted out The Prisoner (2019).

Don’t get me wrong, the wine was delicious, and the pairing excellent with the ribs, which I jazzed up with some Korean BBQ sauce and also poured a little of the wine in the bottom of the baking dish so they wouldn’t dry out in the heating process. Yet what struck me about drinking the wine was how unremarkable it was. It also reminded me something JP said at a wine tasting I was doing at Lambert Bridge (JP is the in-estate Sommelier) when we were talking about sparkling wines and Champagne – even though we were not drinking that varietal and for context, the discussion was about wine marketing and the evolution of Americans’ embrace of wine drinking. Someone in our group brought up Veuve Clicquot as an example of moderately high-priced Champagne mediocrity that managed to get a fan base, and keep it, years ago. I know because when I was first married, it’s what my then wife and I drank on special occassions, some 30 years ago now. JP agreed with the analogy as, if memory serves, we went into a tasting of LB’s Crane Creek Cuvee.

The Prisoner wine experience I had this weekend speaks more to my own changes in taste, as again, the wine was delicious and there’s a place for it in your wine rack. At nearly 50 bucks, however, it’s too expensive for a Tuesday night wine but would I open it with friends at my house when I make a home-made ‘gravy’ to go over bowls of creamy polenta and Sicilian-roasted broccoli? Probably not. I’d go for something I got from Kermit Lynch, a (red) Bandol perhaps, or maybe something local, like Lambert Bridge’s Malbec, or even a Petit Sirah that Portalupi makes up in Mendocino County, and save The Prisoner for a Thursday night with delivered pizza.

Indian Summer

Us old timers still call Indian Summer, Indian Summer, while the PC police would have us call this uniquely American season “second summer’ or something that borders on goofy. For example, somewhere on the Internet I found suggestions to call it badger summer, or pastrami summer (I’m not kidding) and even quince summer – whatever that is. It’s not happening in this blog. All those names have the charm of four-day old banana bread. Blah!

OK, I get that the term, Indian Summer, can be interpreted by some to be offensive to Native Americans, but who says ‘Native Americans’ isn’t offensive to this group of people, anyway? If they had their choice way back when, European settlers would not have showed up at all. Too late for that. Even so, when I worked in Canada earlier in the 21st Century I learned the name of what these folks should respectfully be called, as the Canadians call their own indigenous people “First Nation People.” Turns out the Canadians can do more than just play hockey, so let the Canadians take over the PC Police!

Sorry. This is a food blog, so I’ll get to the food shortly.


But to complete the thought and by contrast, Indian Summer is a charming name. I first came across it living in the Colorado Rockies as a teenager, and it meant that we had a warm spell after a cold snap. It was a reprieve from an early winter, and a reminder of the glorious summer weather that was about to be gone for eight months or so. Living in Aspen, our Indian Summers also came with a color – the colors, actually, of yellow, gold, red and every combination those colors can make, as the aspen leaves changed colors in Autumn. A forest of aspen trees blanketing a mountain hillside in the fall is one of the prettiest scenes God and Nature have ever created on this earth.

Allegedly, ‘Indian Summer’ first came into the lexicon when English settlers saw our first nation people set prairie fires as part of their autumn harvest methods, and the English gave it a name, based not only on the unseasonably warm weather but also the haziness in the sky caused by the fires.

So, every chef or amateur cook knows the summertime feeling when you want something for dinner, but it’s a little too warm for anything heavy. Naturally, in summer, we default to salads with some kind of protein and whatever else the pantry can offer up, and we get by.


But as this was our first Indian Summer evening in the Sonoma Wine Country, I wanted something that was more savory, and a little substantive, because I had eaten lightly earlier in the day, and was hungry.

Fortunately, I had the ingredients in the fridge.

Leftover, previously baked and relatively firm sweet potato. Actually I only cook with Yams, the orange-colored ones.

Zucchini.
Little Gem Lettuce.

Heirloom Tomato.

Pancetta slices.


In a 9 inch skillet I put three of the pancetta slices in the pan and without oil, reduced them until they were a little crispy, but not dry.

I cut the zucchini in 4 sections and fried them flat-side down, in olive oil, garlic salt and black pepper.

Once done, I removed them and cooked slices of sweet potato in the same skillet, adding some butter toward the end, with salt and pepper, which kind of caramelized them. Yummy.

I cut up some of the tomato and put them on top of torn-up lettuce leaves, then drizzled this crazy good Milanese Gremolata-infused olive oil that I found at store that only sells olive oil and vinegars, then salted the tomatoes with a black truffle salt I buy from Urbani Truffles in New York, via online. I also drizzled some balsamic peach vinegar on the tomatoes and lettuce.

To plate the food, I just mixed the sweet potatoes and zucchini adjacent to the salad and placed the crispy pancetta on top.

The meal was full of flavor, savory and sweet, and like a good French meal, fulfilling yet didn’t leave one feeling overly fed. Just right. I happened to have a chilled bottle of Bandol rose, a Domaine Du Gros Nore, year 2020, in the main kitchen fridge and opened it. I meant to keep the consumption to the usual school night ritual of two glasses, but with the western sky ablaze in an orange, sun setting glory, and that meal….. I could not refrain and enjoyed a third glass of wine.

La Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita, which besides the literal transaltion in Italian is ‘sweet life,’ was also the title of a 1960 satirical-comedy movie directed by Federico Fellini, and the story’s plot follows a tabloid journalist (Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini) over seven days and nights in Rome in a fruitless search for love and happiness.

Well, don’t let late deter you. Living La Dolce Vita is an intentionial way of life, and it’s highly recommended if you like better than average doses of pleasure.

Thus, we found ourselves in “Poor man’s Italy,” Northern Italy specifically, for an afternoon after seeing the Alicia Keys concert in San Francisco the previous night at Chase Center. Sausalito, on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge and southern tip of Marin County, never fails to remind me of an Italian coastal city. The waterfront, the steep hillside covered with expensive homes, the streetside cafes and restaurants, stunning views of San Francisco, Angel Island, the Tiburon Peninsula.

After a stroll by the yacht harbor and town, we settled for lunch at Poggio Trattoria, a classic Northern Italy trattoria located on Bridgeway at the base of the Casa Madrona Hotel & Spa. The choices were many but we wanted something simple, as it was a tad hot for Sausalito (a heat wave was underway) and chose pizza. Mine – fig and prosciutto. Hers – mixed meats with mushrooms. Both with crispy crusts from the wood-fired oven visible to all diners with the restaurant’s open kitchen. We were going to pass on wine but after our first bites, the pizza was too good to only drink water, so we enjoyed Brunello di Montalcino, a Camigliano 2014.

There are No Freds in France

Intro: In June of 2001 I was supposed to go on a golf trip to Arizona but injured one of my hands and I could not grip a club. The woman I was living with at the time had been to France and wanted to return to the country. I had not been as an adult. Coincidentally, American Airlines had just started promoting a new route, from San Jose, CA to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, for the incredibly affordable rate of $220 each way. Since children under 2 could fly free, I bought a RT ticket for $440 plus taxes and used miles to get my gal’s seat. The three of us flew to Europe for under $500!

This was about the time my passion for food was really getting serious.

We only had a week for this trip, and since my father’s first visit to France involved D-Day, I had to see Normandy. Ironically, we ended up there on the anniversary of D-Day, 57 years later (June 6, 1944).

I found a hotel in Paris and my lady found us a wonderful Chateau hotel with 14 guest rooms just outside of a little town near the Normandy beaches. I wrote this piece shortly after getting home. GM

There are No Freds in France

Vincent had a serious and officious look about him, from the perfectly fitted suit, clipped manner of speaking and brisk pace to his walk, to the small spectacles on his face and hawkish nose.

He was the consummate professional in France for his industry, and since the French Republic is still the epicenter of food and dining, we were not altogether surprised by his seriousness.

Watching Vincent work and experiencing his expert service made me think of the restaurant service in America.  Even in formal restaurants, I thought, the service staffs treat everything a bit more casually than its peer group in France.

We were guests at a comfortable chateau near a long stretch of beach in Normandy made famous by World War II, and we took our main meals in the hotel restaurant each evening. We marveled at the length of the days and did not have dinner until it was nearly dark, or close to 10 o’clock.

As hotel guests, we naturally had the sense that during our stay, the chateau was in part ours. But when we dined in the chateau’s restaurant, Vincent left little doubt about whose place it really was — it was Vincent’s.

I shaped my opinion of Vincent’s professionalism after a couple of days at the chateau. My first impression of him and the chateau’s version of French dining are considerably different. After being seated, we waited a long time for anyone to acknowledge our presence. More important than acknowledgement, we were extremely thirsty, and also a little anxious to enjoy some wine.

The day had been long, with more stress on the front end than we had bargained for. The rental car company had delivered our car on schedule to our hotel in the 8th Arrondessement in Paris, but forgot the child seat for our eleven-month-old daughter. The fellow at the reception desk called the rental car company for us, and we were told there are no child seats available, but perhaps one would become available on Tuesday. We had no intention of driving in France without a child seat for our child. It was Sunday. Monday was a French national holiday and we were going home on Thursday. Waiting two days for a child’s seat was not an option.

Luckily, the day before we had visited with friends from the Bay Area, who are living across from the Luxembourg Gardens on the Left Bank. They have kids. They have car seats and they were home that Sunday morning. They loaned us one.

The drive out of the city was a little tense, but once on the toll roads heading north from Paris, the time passed easily.

We arrived late in the afternoon, checked in, dropped our bags and headed straight away for Omaha Beach, to see where my father and another 150,000 men had landed almost 57 years earlier.

It was a warm, sunny afternoon. So pleasant, in fact, that it seemed impossible to think of what happened here years ago. We drove around the frontage road at Omaha Beach, which is one of the longest beaches we had ever seen. We looked at memorials. We walked to the water’s edge and looked across the English Channel, trying to imagine the huge armada that appeared off this shore on June 6, 1944. I took an empty film canister and filled it with sand to bring to my father, who will turn 80 later this year. We went back to the chateau, thirsty and hungry.

Hotel guests occupied maybe six tables in the dining room. Most of them were also American. Two men and two women were busy doing various functions associated with the dinner service. We watched them bring bread, water, wine, salads, main dishes, desserts and a cart full of cheese to the other guests. We made small talk. My baby girl was asleep in her stroller. Minutes passed. We made more small talk. After a while, our chatter fell away like a 20-pound rock dropping into an abyss. I wondered if the rock would gain speed as it dropped, or actually de-accelerate, lifted by some magical updraft within the walls of the imaginary abyss.

About the time I ran out of patience, Vincent appeared and nodded as I asked thirstily for water. Someone else brought it and the wine followed shortly thereafter. We had been saved.

About an hour earlier I had been looking for something for Margo to eat when I spied the dinner menu in the hotel lobby and scanned it for rack of lamb. Normandy has a reputation for producing some of the best lamb anywhere, allegedly because of the salt air’s influence, the soil and the feed grass this combination yields. So what if the area is also famous for its Dover sole, scallops, crabs and miniature lobsters. I wanted lamb, and there it was on the menu.

There was another item on the menu that caught my eye, sounded delectable and seemed perfect as a starter. Unfortunately, this would be a problem for our waiter, who three days later would tell us his name is Vincent.

“For starters,” I said, “I would like the warm apple stuffed with Camembert cheese and served with baby green lettuce. Then I’ll have the rack of lamb.”

The headwaiter’s response stunned me.

“No,” he said. In French, the enunciation of this common word makes it sound more like a powerful denial than a simple rejection — “Nnnnoo,” said Vincent.

After a moment of silence, and while I did a few mental calisthenics to sort out what I might say next, Vincent continued.

“Zhey cheese is not served before dinner. It is for after dinner.”

Tell this to someone born in Wisconsin (like me), I thought, but instead just said “okay” and ordered Scottish salmon, hoping this was an acceptable choice. When Vincent scribbled the entree into his notepad, the tacit approval gave me a sense of relief I had never before felt by merely ordering an appetizer. In America, ordering appetizers is only a function of dinner and not an emotional experience. I wondered, what could be wrong with a few crackers and slices of cheese before dinner?

If a moral battle was being waged between the restaurant’s headwaiter and me, it was clear he had won the first round.

I said to my woman and mother of our child: “What’s up with that? Here we are paying a modest premium for the short-term privilege of staying in a 19th Century manor house near the Normandy coast and we get a food server with attitude telling us when we could eat what.”

“It’s just a little faux pas, honey. They have their ways here,” she said. Normally her words are soothing and comforting but they did little to abate my frustration. The waiter had been condescending and made me feel like a hayseed.

In my head I reviewed the first 15 minutes in the chateau’s restaurant and thought, oh my god, I’m in for three hours of torture dressed up as a fine dining experience. It made me little homesick, and this was only our third day in France. We were seated promptly and then ignored forever. We nearly died of thirst, couldn’t get a cocktail for the love of money and then I was told I could not have a salad with a cheese-stuffed, baked apple.

In America, you are hustled to a dinner table so the owners “can turn” the table for higher revenues. Then, a smiling young blond or a non-English speaking person will rush to your table and forcibly deliver huge glasses of ice water, whether you want ice in it or not. Invariably, some of the water spills on the table, your lap, or somewhere, because there’s so much of the stuff and all the ice makes the glasses sweat. There’s an intensity to the activity in American restaurants, as great big platters of food are whisked past you to people who have probably not missed a meal in years but act as though it has been days. This staccato burst is followed by the sudden appearance of a harried young man in his early thirties, who probably wishes he could have had a better short game (in golf) so he could have made the pro tour, instead of waiting tables in this no nothing town. He whips out a pad and pen and practically boasts:

“Hi. My name is Fred and I’ll be your food server tonight.”

By comparison, there are no Freds in France. For a moment at the chateau, I wished for one before regaining my senses. It was a fine meal, even if it was not in the sequence of my choice.

Spanish Omelette Part 2

In May of this year I wrote about Spanish Omelettes, or Frittatas, and today I am updating that story to encourage readers to make this dish, and make it often. A slice, or wedge of this, is a great mid-day meal during the week when you have the combined factors of hunger, nothing worthwhile eating in the fridge or there is something worthwhile but you don’t have time to make it. So you put a wedge of what you made on Saturday or Sunday on a plate and give it 45 seconds in the microwave and you have some really good (and healthy) eating!

I have started to make a habit of making varietals of this dish every few weeks, circumstances dictating the composition of the tortilla, a new word for this dish, but not at all, if you are from Spain. More on that later.

Last weekend we did a wine tasting at Lambert Bridge, one of our favorite Dry Creek Valley wineries (JP is a national treasure as the in-house Sommelier) and uncharacteristically we did not eat much of the two platters of charcuterie (there were 9 of us) because I had made Cubano sandwiches for the group for lunch and we were still stuffed. So I’ve had all this cheese in my fridge this week – goat, brie, some others, not to mention leftover feta from a tomato salad I made for friends before grilling Snake River New York steaks as well as the ubiquitous Manchego and mixed-shredded Mexican cheese I always have in my fridge.

This batch also included some cooked but not fried red potatoes, some leftover fried zucchini and a big head of Swish Chard I got on Friday and then cooked and seasoned it. I used more than a half cup of half & half cream and 7 eggs, whipped with black pepper and tarragon. Oh. I also had three pieces of uncooked pancetta (that I made crispy) I had not used with the cantaloupe dish I made with olive oil and salt. First I friend the pancetta to get it dry and crispy, let it cool, then cut it into small pieces with kitchen scissors. I added this to the omelette after first putting oil down on the bottom of the pan then all the vegetables.

For good (moisture) measure I added 6 mini-tabs of butter spread around the pan and also drizzled a smidge of olive oil before finishing with the egg mixture and shredded cheeses (Manchego and Mexican) as a topper.

As you can see, you can add almost anything to this dish. I even forgot the onion this time, but that’s OK. There was plenty of flavor to go around.

Definitions: Spanish omelette or Spanish tortilla is a traditional dish from Spain. Celebrated as a national dish by Spaniards, it is an essential part of the Spanish cuisine. It is an omelette made with eggs and potatoes, optionally including onion. It is often served at room temperature as a tapa.

Wikipedia really doubles down on this topic. After reading about the origins of the dish dating back to 1817 and perhaps earlier, the online encyclopedia provided a language tutorial to distinguish what Americans think of tortillas vs. our Spanish counterparts.

 

Nomenclature


The word tortilla, in European Spanish as well as in some variants of Latin American Spanish, means omelette.[8][9] As such, a potato omelette is a tortilla de patatas or papas.[10][11]

As the dish has gained international popularity, and perhaps to avoid being confused with the thin flatbread made out of wheat or maize popular in Mexico and Central America, the española or Spanish naming gained traction. As such, Spanish omelette[12][13] or Spanish tortilla[14][15] are its common names in English, while tortilla española[9][13][16][17] is formally accepted name even within the peninsula. In Spain, an omelette (made of beaten eggs fried with olive oil) is conversely known as tortilla francesa (lit. ’French omelette’).[18]

Tortilla is the diminutive form of torta, meaning ‘small pancake’.[8][9]