Cooking with Wine

So, not to sound snotty, but I probably will anyway when I say "So, I read this great article in the New York Times the other day"... but, well, I did. So sue me. I read this article in the Times last week about cooking with wine, and it was quite interesting.

First, those who know me know that I love to cook. I don't cook all that often, though - it's hard to get excited about it on a regular basis when there's just the two of us. It's also hard to get motivated to cook when I work a 40+ hour week and I'm just mentally exhausted when I get home at the end of the day.

That being said, there are only a few things that bring me as much joy as putting together a really great gourmet meal and entertaining good friends. When I have the time, I can spend an entire day cooking. I really love trying new dishes and new techniques. Sometimes I fail, sometimes it's "ok", and sometimes it's a wicked-good success. The successes make all the failures worthwhile!

So, anyway, about the NY Times "wine" article. Basically, after a lot of foo-farrah about this wine and that wine and blah blah blah cooking techniques and making dishes I've never even heard of, what it all boiled down to is that cooking with really expensive wine is NOT - repeat NOT - worth the extra money.

Here is a particularly well-written section from the article. The analogies to pencils and skittles made me laugh out loud...

"After cooking four dishes with at least three different wines, I can say that cooking is a great equalizer.

I whisked several beurre blancs — the classic white wine and butter emulsion — pouring in a New Zealand sauvignon blanc with a perfume of Club Med piña coladas, an overly sweet German riesling, and a California chardonnay so oaky it tasted as if it had been aged in a box of No. 2 pencils.

Although the wines themselves were unpleasant, all the finished sauces tasted just the way they should have: of butter and shallots, with a gentle rasp of acidity from the wine to emphasize the richness. There were minor variations — the riesling version was slightly sweet — but all of them were much tastier than I had expected.

Next I braised duck legs in a nonvintage $5.99 tawny port that reminded me of long-abandoned Halloween candy, with hints of Skittles and off-brand caramels. Then I cooked a second batch of duck legs in a 20-year-old tawny port deliciously scented with walnuts, leather and honey. Again, the difference was barely discernible: both pots were dominated by the recipe’s other ingredients: dried cherries, black pepper, coriander seed and the duck itself.

Wincing a little, I boiled a 2003 premier cru Sauternes from Château Suduiraut (“The vineyard is right next door to Yquem,” the saleswoman assured me), then baked it into an egg-and-cream custard to see whether its delicate citrusy, floral notes would survive the onslaught. They did, but the custard I made with a $5.99 moscato from Paso Robles, Calif, was just as fragrant.

Over all, wines that I would have poured down the drain rather than sip from a glass were improved by the cooking process, revealing qualities that were neutral at worst and delightful at best. On the other hand, wines of complexity and finesse were flattened by cooking — or, worse, concentrated by it, taking on big, cartoonish qualities that made them less than appetizing."

There you have it from Julia Moskin and the New York Times. I don't know who she is, but sounds like she did her homework.

Apparently, "back in the day" (when I wasn't cooking anything more than ramen noodles, Kraft Mac & Cheese and frozen pizzas), Julia Child released a cookbook which said cooking with anything other than a really good wine is just sinful.

So, everyone followed suit and dumped out their bottles of "cooking wine" in favor of more expensive alternatives. The Times author's test kitchen pretty much proved this to be unnecessary. However, the article said that the old fashioned "cooking wine" is NOT a very desirable solution, due to the fact that it often has salt and other flavorings added, and that can distort the flavor of the dish.

SOOO, there you have it. I'll no longer worry about using my $5 or $10 vino for cooking!!

Coming up this weekend... our monthly "ChowHounds" gathering. This is a group of 13 crazies who try to get together every month at a different host's house for a great meal. This month we're having a Hawaiian theme, and since I wear the crown of "dessert queen" I am bringing the final sweet du jour.

I plan on having some fun with bananas, coconut, pineapple and rum!! I'll let you know how it turns out! Cheers!

Spring Fever, Summer Flu

Now that the weather is finally starting to get a little warmer (crap, now I've gone and jinxed it... we're in for a freak snowstorm next week. Just you wait), I am really starting to get major spring fever.

Carlos and I sat out on the back patio tonight after work, sipping some amazing Irish whiskey and watching the dogs whittle assorted sticks into toothpicks. It was positively balmy, and my mind started racing with all the pleasures that spring brings. "Looks like the chives made it through another winter." "What do you think about maybe taking the patio furniture to the car wash and giving it a good spray clean?" (that one got me an "uhhhhhh, NO" look from Carlos) "Can you believe all the buds on the lilac hedge?" "I think I will put vinca in these rectangular boxes this year, but I just don't know what to do with the elevated pots." (I'm thinking I'm going to do geraniums again). "Boy, the patio sure needs a good sweeping."

As I do every year, I will get too excited too soon and rush off to buy a bunch of annuals that I will plant exactly 2.8 days prior to an unexpected temperature dip and overnight freeze. But I can't help myself. I love planting things. The look of the freshly-turned earth, the excitement when new blooms pop open. But mostly the beautiful colors. Every year I fall in love all over again with a freshly planted garden.

This new romance lasts approximately 2 or 3 months. Then the heat of summer comes. "Hell no I don't feel like weeding the garden - it's 98-f*cking degrees outside!" "What do you mean the potted plants look dried-up and shrivelly... I thought YOU were watering them!" With the furnace that is our Iowa summers, the garden falls into disrepair. Too hot to tend it. Too hot to even be outside enjoying it. By the time cooler temps roll in with the fall, the garden has become a dishevelled, overgrown mess.

Weeds and wildflowers choke out the carefully planted annuals and perennials. Moles (those F*CKERS. MAN I HATE THEM!!) will have churned-up every other square inch of my lawn. Our yard will look like a combat zone, but I won't care because I'll be inside, hiding in the dark cave of my air conditioned house.

Such is the ritual every year. But I can't help it. I don't know what else to do. If we lived somewhere more temperate, I'd be willing to take better care of my garden and yard, but LORD do I hate hot, humid weather. (although I LOVE the hot weather if I'm sunk up to my neck in river water, a beer in one hand and a stogie in the other!! BRING IT ON!)

Maybe my good friend (and master gardener!) BB will have some suggestions for keeping up with my garden during the hot summer months. So, until such time as Iowa summers get a little more palatable, my poor garden will perpetually suffer the consequences of my neglect. Anyone care to be my summer landscaper!?

A Secret Revealed

I think probably most people have more than a handful of secrets that they keep buried deep within the cobwebbed hidey-holes of their minds. Secrets they've never told anyone.

Not me, buddy. I'm virtually secret-less.

I really haven't had many events in my life that would require secret keeping. I'm just lucky that way, I guess. Maybe good things always seem to happen to me because I choose to just ignore the bad things. I dunno. Maybe I don't have secrets because I can't KEEP secrets. No, that's not true, either. I'm a really GOOD secret keeper. I just don't have many of my OWN secrets.

ANYway, so on to my secret.

My buddy Trelvix thinks this is going to be some kind of amazing story. It's not. Although it IS really out of character for me.

Here's the scene: Summer, 1985. My awesome parents had given me a choice a few months earlier when I graduated from college: take the savings bonds they'd put aside and pay off my college debt, or use the money however else I wanted (but I'd still be responsible for the college loans!!). I opted to take a big chunk of the money and go to Europe.

My good friend Sarah and her sister Katie were along for the ride. Just the three of us. Going to Europe for THREE MONTHS, riding the Eurail, with youth hostel passes, backpacks, bed rolls and passports. Why the hell did my parents agree to this? Was the world just that much less scary 20 years ago??

I will have to blog at a future date about some of the other amazing adventures we had while we were there: Katie being mugged by the gypsy kids in Paris, getting hit-on by the old man in Munich, hanging out in Switzerland with the boys from Belgium, staying on the Botel (a boat/hotel) in Amsterdam... anyway, I digress.

We flew into London and took the train all the way south to Italy, then a boat across to the Greek Islands. It was unbelievable. Being an art student and seeing all these amazing places... it was surreal. Our first day in Greece we were staying on the small island of Korfu. We got off the ferry and were immediately bombarded by locals offering us rooms in their homes. We were exhausted, and ended up just picking someone who looked moderately clean and had most of their teeth. In broken English he beckoned us to follow him through a winding, cobblestone street, past row after row of white-fronted houses (like rowhouses), all joined together, through a little doorway into his home.

His wife was just as you'd expect - leathery skin, dark, deep-set eyes, whispy grey hair falling across her forehead, standing there in her well-worn apron with a broom. She greeted us in broken English and a large smile, and her husband ushered us up a narrow staircase to the room upstairs.

There were three single beds in the room, with two small windows that looked out onto the street. The windows had no glass or screens - just shutters that were open to the sunlight. There was no traffic noise - I don't really recall even seeing many cars. Just people sitting on their stoops, chatting or cleaning vegetables.

We dropped our backpacks and immediately dug for our swimsuits. We were headed for the beach. We had to ride a bus to get to this incredibly private area, surrounded by vertical cliffs and blue water as far as the eye could see. From the bus stop, we walked down, down, down this long, winding road which eventually dumped us out onto the beach. It was unbelievably gorgeous. Maybe only a dozen other people were there, most nude or partly nude.

Being pasty white and prudish Americans (of course, each of us wearing ONE PIECE bathing suits... HA!!), none of us had the nerve to disrobe. But here's when my secret happened.

We'd been frying all day in the sun, and I'd gone out into the deep water to cool off. I'd been watching this young Greek man all afternoon, but hadn't had the nerve to approach him. What would the point have been? We were only there for a few days. Besides, I had a serious boyfriend back home.

As I'm standing there in the deep water, my arms floating, eyes closed, just feeling the cool of the water, I hear a whisper RIGHT behind me. "Hello" he said, in a low voice. "Hi," I said over my shoulder, awkwardly, somewhat nervously. I didn't turn around - I wasn't really sure WHAT to do. Neither of us said anything, just sort of floating there for what seemed like an eternity.

Next thing I know, he's right behind me, AGAINST me, just the two of us floating there, as he starts to run his hands along my shoulders and sides, and, well, I'm not going to get all romance novel here, but the long story short is I totally let him feel me up. For a long time.

Eventually, I turned to say something and he kissed me, hard. And it was great, and we made out, groping at each other for quite a while, and I could totally feel his hard-on pressing into me. It was then that my brain woke up and it said "WHAT THE FUCK do you think you're doing missy??" I pulled away from him and started to giggle, and he started to giggle, and then I said something like "what's your name?" or some other retarded question, and it was then that I realized he didn't speak a word of English. Well, other than "hello" I guess.

He looked at me with a sheepish expression and said something in Greek, which of course was Greek to me (arr arr). I honestly don't really remember how we broke it off and both ended up heading back to the beach, but I remember he just went back to where he'd been sitting all day, and so did I. Sarah and Katie had missed the entire thing. They'd been sleeping on their beach mats. I didn't say a word about it.

The day was winding down, and it was obvious that all three of us had burnt the crap out of ourselves. It was time to go. We packed up our belongings and started the trek across the beach towards the road. I took a sidways glance towards the Greek boy, and he was watching us leave. He shot me a smile. I smiled back and nodded, giggling to myself. Nobody had a clue.

I never told anybody that story, and I don't know why. It's not like anything really bad happened. I guess I cheated on my boyfriend by making out with some STRANGER, and maybe I think I felt pretty guilty about it. But shit, when you're 23 years old, you need to experience all of the many flavors that life has to offer, right??

More on Europe at another time. Until then, today's advice: CARPE DIEM!!!