Wines of the Giro

So it is that time again. We have survived the winter and the Spring Classics and it is time for the first Grand Tour of 2011, the Giro. Once again, I'll be drinking wines for each stage, or, day of the race, for those not familiar with stage racing. Unlike last year when I spent a panicked last few days shopping, this year I've done prep work with the help of 67 Wine, Biondivino and Solano Cellars. Below, my list. Note that if anyone can come up with a wine from the Austrian Alps I'd love to hear about it. Note also that the final wine is a champagne, a toast to the end of the race and according to Jason at Solano Cellars, the most popular champagne in Piedmont.

I'd love thoughts on other wines as well as food pairings if you have then. Be sure to check back in May as I'll be blogging each stage with a few words about both the day's race and the wine.

Stage	Date	Cities	Region	Wine
1	7	Venaria to Torino	Piedmont	La Torrazza Erbaluce
2	8	Alba to Parma	Emilia Romagna	Camillo Donati Malvasia
3	9	Reggio Emilia to Rapallo	Liguria	Claudio Vio Pigato 08
4	10	Quarto to Livorno	Tuscany	Talenti Brunello 05
5	11	Piombino to Orvieto	Umbria	09 Milziade Antano Grechetto dei Colli Martani
6	12	Orvieto to Fiuggi Terme	Lazio	Capolemole Carpinetti 06
7	13	Maddaloni to Montevergine	Campania	de Conciliis Selim NV
8	14	Scapri to Tropea	Calabria	Tenuta del Conte "Ciró" Rosso 08
9	15	Messina to Etna	Sicily	Cos Frappato
Rest	16
10	17	Termoli to Teramo	Abruzzo	Nicodemi Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 08
11	18	Tortoleto Lido to Castelfidardo	Marche	Conte Leopardi Sauvignon Blanc Calcare 08
12	19	Castelfidardo to Ravenna	Emilia Romagna	Lini 910 Lambrusco Rose
13	20	Splinbergo to Grossglokner	Austrian Alps
14	21	Lienz to Zoncolan	Friuli    Venezia	Edi Kante Vitovska 06
15	22	Conegliano to Gardeccia	Trento-Alto Adige	Tiefenbrunner Feldmar 2009
16	24	Belluno to Nevegal	Veneto	Soave (3 bottles)
17	25	Feltre to Sondrio	Lombardy	Castellazzo Gugiarolo PN Bianco 10
18	26	Morbegno to San Pellegrino	Lombardy	09 Vercesi Del Castellazzo Oltrepò Pavese Pezzalunga
19	27	Bergamo to Macugnaga	Piedmont	Valli Unite 09
20	28	Verbania to Sestriere	Turin	09 Ettore Germano Langhe Nebbiolo
21	29	Milano	Lombardy	N.V Doyard Champagne Cuvée Vendémiaire Brut

Smoking

For the April #charcutepalooza, the challenge was smoking. Much to my relief, and really not to my surprise given her remarkably well equipped kitchen, it turned out that Lisa owned both a smoker and a "big orange egg." So rather macgyering up something in my kitchen, we simply had to wait for a nice day. It took us two tries to get our "Day of Smoking." But, on a positive note, the drought warnings have been lifted in California.
As has been our wont on canning projects, we decided to try a few projects. I bought a piece of pork loin from Marin Sun Farms at the Ferry Building and coated it with a spice rubbed based on that in Charcuterie. Pork was rubbed, covered in plastic wrap and then refrigerated for 2 days before smoking in the "Sultan".  Lisa bought three kinds of fish and mussels at Monterey Fish in Berkeley: salmon, black cod and sturgeon. She brined overnight and then air dried in the fridge for 24 hours before smoking. We supplemented our charcoal with alder chips. Of course, we also did a taste test of our fish versus some Lisa had purchased. Our conclusion: our fish was a bit salty and also less smokey, but a few additional wood chips helped with that. Both of us agreed that the black cod was our favorite.

And what to do with the fish? Lisa's answer:
What to do with overly salty smoked fish, the result of too long brining of thin, skinless fish:  use as seasoning in fish stew.

I used the pound of un-smoked mussels left over from our day of smoking; a 16 oz. jar of tomato juice (technically tomato water) from last summer's tomato canning extravaganza; some green garlic, leeks and cilantro from my CSA box; some previously-roasted celery root; and some potatoes that I steamed last weekend.  I added a little marash chili and dried thyme; the smoked fish (about a handful of salmon and sturgeon) added all the salt and some nice texture.  After tasting, the tomato was too dominant so I added about 1/2 cup of Sauvingon Blanc.  This was a great way to use a bunch of stuff from my CSA box and the smoked fish didn't overwhelm the stew with saltiness.

-Saute 3 stalks of green garlic and 3 smallish leeks in olive oil along with the spices until the leeks and garlic are translucent
-Add tomato juice and bring to light boil
-Add all the other ingredients except cilantro and cook until the mussels are open, about 5 minutes.
-garnish with chopped cilantro

Taste and adjust seasonings.

The stew just before adding cilantro:

Birthday Cakes

Hard to believe, but K is turning 9 on Wednesday. As I have said many times, there are some very long hours, but the years fly by. In her honor, I present a year by year look at her birthday cakes. What I find interesting is that despite all the baking we do, I purchase birthday cakes. 

Only twice have we made cakes and one of those year's, it was a large cookie for her cookie party. 

The other key thing is to know that almost all of her cakes came from Miette. Katie first met Caitlin Williams (now Freeman) when she rode in her Bjorn as I shopped at the Berkeley market. We followed them from Berkeley back to the Ferry Building where many tourists enjoyed photographing K covered in frosting from her Miette cupcake of the week. As you will see below, the cakes they made for her were simply amazing.

Year 1: Strawberry layer cake is confusing

Year 2: Elmo before

Elmo after

Year 3: Elmer the Patchwork Elephant. Wish I had a better picture of this one. Based on Elmer

Year 4 Princess cake before

Princess cake after

Year 5 Kind of 70s rainbow

Six! Purry, possibly my all-time favorite. Based on a favorite toy: Purry

 

 

Year 7, homemade and K decorated.

Year 8, the cookie party

And for the 9th birthday from Mr and Mrs Miscellaneous

Candied violet ice cream cake!

Online Bake Sale for Japan

We have all been shaken by the recent events in Japan. First the earthquake, followed by the tsunami and now the ongoing nuclear fears. Today I am happy to announce my participation in an online bake sale for Japan. Coordinated by Sabrina Modelle, the bake sale will take place on March 30th with bidding live for one day only. You'll have a chance to bid on baked goods and other sweets that participating bloggers are pledging. Although I have not seen the complete list yet, I'd imagine there will be some rather appealing items.

All proceeds will go to Second Harvest Japan http://www.2hj.org/index.php/eng_home

More info can be found at:
http://www.thetomatotart.com/recipe/update-on-online-bake-sale-for-japan-meet-the-bakers/
http://www.thetomatotart.com/life/bake-sale-to-help-japan/
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2011/03/online_bake_sale_for_japan_now.php
http://missionlocal.org/2011/03/the-mission-responds-to-the-crisis-in-japan/

For those in the Bay Area, there will be a traditional bake sale as well on April 2nd. Because I'll be hosting a sleepover for K's 9th birthday that day, I will not be able to participate, though perhaps it might be a good place to find a birthday cake. I wonder if anyone would accept a commission? Details for that sale, taking place in several Bay Area locations, are here.


For my contribution,  I decided not to bake. As I have said before, my sweets taste good, but my decoration skills are lousy. Instead, I asked K to choose three jars of preserves, with a theme. She chose citrus, because,"It is cheerful."

1 jar Honeyed blood oranges
recipe here:  blood-and-honey 
1 jar Rosemary Orange Marmalade
(no post for this one)
1 jar Kumquats in Mint Syrup recipe here

All have been water processed and are shelf stable.

Corned Beef and a Bit of a Ramble

So Charcutepalooza.
Our March challenge was brining. Given that I have brined both chicken and pork chops numerous times, I decided to go with the Charcutiere Challenge: brine, and then corn, a piece of beef. Brisket is the classic cut. Cow tongue is another option. You choose. I opted for brisket, sourced from Marin Sun Farms at the Ferry Building Market.

Making the corned beef was easy enough that it kind of surprises me that I had never done it before. After all, we had corned beef every year for St Patrick's Day. Always boiled with potatoes, cabbage and carrots. In my memories I would get home from school, start the dinner and by the time my mother arrived home from work, the house would be fragrant with a scent I associated, in my 10 year old head, with Ireland. This was important because at 10 I was obsessed with Ireland. To be honest I was obsessed with Ireland, the Boston Red Sox, Brooklyn Dodgers stories, Chris Mullin and Theodore Roosevelt. Really.

The Ireland obsession came from two places. One was the copy of the collected poems of WB Yeats I found on my mother's bookcase on a rare sick day. How could I not fall in love?

"Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand."

The second reason for the Ireland obsession was genealogy. Like most Americans I am a mutt. But more Irish than anything else. And the stories from that side of the family were endlessly fascinating. My Welsh Congregational great-grandmother Sarah married my Irish Catholic great Grandfather,  Frederick, and was disowned by her family. They went on to have 17 children in 21 years, all of whom lived until adulthood.  For the record: Sarah, William, James, Verna, Mortimer, Bryan, Frederick, Mary, Vincent, Eugene, Rose, John, Virginia, Richard, Thomas, Ruth and Michael.

Their fourth son Bryan would go onto marry my Lithuanian Catholic grandmother, Antoinette, one of 9 herself. They had 7 children of their own, 6 boys and my mother, Sarah. Sarah would go on to marry Edward, a mostly Irish Brooklyn boy, whom she met when they both worked for the Brooklyn Public Library System.

But, you are probably not here to read about my family history. There is a recipe buried in this rambling somewhere. So we have the boiled corn beef for my mother's side of the family. But for my Dad, the Brooklyn boy, we have corned beef hash in honor of the visits to Junior's where I was only allowed cheesecake if I ate "real food" first. For me, real food at Juniors was corned beef hash, a much finer version than the canned hash I liked to eat at home, often combined in a bowl with canned corn.

Attempts to find the Junior's recipe online failed me, so instead I found a version on Epicurious and played around with it a bit. I could pretend that the changes I made were because of careful planning, but, really, it was a matter of market and Mystery Box leftovers in the fridge. So yellow onion became spring onion, cream changed to whole milk and red bell pepper to yellow. I'd probably use red pepper in the future, although the yellow is an okay substitute. After all, what better than hash to use up fridge leftovers?

• 1 lb yukon gold potatoes, boiled, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice
• 1-lb piece cooked corned beef, cut into chunks
• 1 bunch spring onion, chopped
• 2 medium yellow peppers, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 4 large eggs (optional)

Coarsely chop the corned beef.

Sauté onion and pepper in butter in a cast iron skillet over moderately high heat, stirring, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add potatoes and continue to cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in corned beef and salt and pepper to taste, then cook, stirring occasionally, until browned. Add whole milk and cook, stirring, 1 minute.

As I like my hash with scrambled eggs,  I kept my hash in a warm oven while I scrambled a few. But, feel free to substitute the egg preparation of your choice.

Below and blurry, me at six or so walking in the New York City St Patrick's Day Parade with my mother. Note the fake rabbit fur coat on me and real fur on my mother. 

Rhone Rangers Giveaway

An event that I look forward to every year is the San Francisco Rhone Rangers Tasting. It can be said, and has been, that the first wine that ever wowed me was a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It is also true that the first winery I ever visited in California was Bonny Doon.  I even wrote a few incoherent words (from Disneyland) about the tasting last year for Palate Press. 

This year, the event will take place March 26-27 at the Fort Mason Center with over 100 of the top American producers of Rhone varietals in town for seminars Saturday and Sunday, a winemaker dinner Saturday night and of course the grand tasting on Sunday. Unlike many events, these are open to both the trade and the general public. Information can be found at: Rhone Rangers San Francisco Tasting. 

All of the seminars sound appealing, but my top choice is probably:  

Seminar #2 - " Mourvedre on the Move."

Saturday, March 26, 2:45 p.m., The Firehouse at Fort Mason.

Moderated by Jon Bonné, Wine Editor, San Francisco Chronicle 

Participating Wineries: CORE, David Girard, Folin Cellars, Kenneth Volk Vineyards, Quivira Vineyards & Winery, Tablas Creek Vineyard, Tercero Wines

Long known for its ability to add structure and age-worthiness to blends, American Rhone producers are pushing Mourvedre to new heights. Taste Mourvedre-based wines from up and down the west coast--both varietals and as leading roles in blends--and learn why Mourvedre is on the move! Tickets are $45 each.

I also think that for those of you with slightly deeper pockets, the Saturday dinner sounds great:

A tasting of current and library releases, dinner with the winemakers and live auction at Dogpatch Studios, 991 Tennessee St in San Francisco.  Participating wineries include: Bonny Doon, Caliza, Clos Saron, Folin Cellars, J. Lohr, Kukkula, Landmark, Quady North, Quivira, Qupe, Ridge, Rock Wren Wines, Stolpman,Tablas Creek, Tarara, Terre Rouge, Terry Hoage, Thacher and Waterbrook. Proceeds benefit the Rhone Rangers Scholarship Fund. Ticket link here.

You can follow the Rhone Rangers on twitter @RhoneRangers and for those of you attending the event, they have asked you to tweet your thoughts with the hashtag #RRSF. 

I'm pleased to say that I have one pair of Grand Tasting tickets to give away to a reader. To win, simply tell me in the comments section either your favorite Rhone grape or your favorite producer. 

 

And if you are from out of the Bay Area or unable to make the event, I am pleased to offer instead a copy of the soon to be released The Finest Wines of California: A Regional Guide to the Best Producers and Their Wines by Stephen Brook. Just let me know one of your favorite California wineries and why.  The book features many California Rhone producers, as well as many more. More info about the book can be found here.

Winners will be chosen randomly on March 10, 2011. Thanks!

Blood and Honey

The hardest part about today's canning project was evicting a purring Oolong from my lap so I could head out to Lisa's house. This week, Honey Blood Orange Slices and Grenadine.

Honey Blood Orange Slices based on a recipe from Happy Girl Kitchen Co.  

Ingredients:
5 1/2 cinnamon sticks
1 T of cloves
5 pounds blood oranges, cut into slices (The oranges I purchased were virtually seedless, but if they ave seeds, remove and discard)
water (to cover oranges in a pan)
2 1/2 cups of sugar
2 1/2 cups of honey
1/3 cup lemon juice

In a non-reactive pot, combine the oranges with water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and boil gently peel is tender, about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile in a separate pot. combine the sugar, honey and lemon juice. Heat until sugar is dissolved and transfer oranges with a slotted spoon. Add the spices. Add 1 1/2 cups of your orange water.  Boil gently until orange slices are well glazed, about 40 minutes.
Prepare the canner. Using a slotted spoon, pack hot oranges into your jars, leaving slightly more than 1/ inch headspace. Ladle hot syrup into the jar to cover oranges. Wipe rim and put on lids. process 10 minutes.

4 pints and 2 quarts oranges,  plus 2 pints of the syrup.

Spiced Grenadine recipe from the SF Chronicle can be found here Do-it-yourself Cocktail Ingredients .
Because Lisa has a love of the Scofflaw cocktail, we were able to do a taste test with Stirrings, a commercial brand, the Small Hand artisan product and our homemade recipe. Stirrings was much milder and very sweet, probably perfect for a Shirley Temple. The Small Hand version was intensely pomegranate. Our homemade version was rather adult, wit a strong spiced flavor. Next time, we may cut down a bit on the star anise.