Scheduling update

A song, to announce something way cool that is coming up very shortly, sung to the theme of this all time classic...

Food, Exciting and new,
Come aboard, we're expecting you.
Wine, life's sweetest reward,
Let it flow, it floats back to you...

Food Night! Soon we'll be making another run,
Fooooood Niiiight, promises something for everyone.
Set a course for Feb 13,
Your mind on a new bottle of vino.



Ok, sorry, I dunno where that came from but here's the deal.... FOOD NIGHT... is back on the books! Mark your calendars for February 13th. That's right, the day before Valentine's Day. And since we haven't exactly "done" that Food Night, we may go heavy on the red themed ingredients. You'll understand, won't you? Then again, perhaps we'll completely ignore the Hallmark Holiday. Who knows. Or maybe I should just stop talking now and let you go about your day...

But before I go, just an FYI that I'm almost done with one more post from the Truffle Food Night. I hate it when day jobs get in the way of recreation! But it's just a brief little number about what happens after Food Night, once the guests have gone home, and the food stuffs* that are left in the fridge are begging for attention... stay tuned......

* I love that term. "Food Stuffs". When I think "food stuffs", I think of DEECE ingredients. Pheasants, parmiggiano, good olives, heirloom tomatoes, micro greens, anything from Coastal Seafoods. Food Stuffs. That, is where Food Night begins... with simple Food Stuffs.

Oh, and happily, one of the main Food Night Players will be making a return appearance. You might think "Oh, I didn't even know anybody left". And you'd be RIGHT! You didn't know because I never told you. It wouldn't exactly seem right to say "Howdy, here's Food Night, and one of our main dudes is moving to California". I don't know much, but I know telling you that one of the main Food Nighters fled to Cali right after Food Night is not how to build momentum. But he's coming back. And if I had a picture of him, I'd put it right...... here. But I don't, since we seem to take more pictures of food stuffs* at Food Night than we do of ourselves.

* Told you it was fun to use that term. Food Stuffs. So delicious, yet so vague!

The Truffle Food Night, the dramatic conclusion

The Truffle Food Night transpired on 12/12/2009. My watch currently reads 1/10/2010. You see how massive Food Night has become?! One decade is not enough to contain the international phenomenon that is Food Night. Some might say the Truffle Food Night has been "dragged out". Others might say that Christmas and New Year's got in the way of finishing up the posts (and they would be correct, by the way). But who cares about all that, let's get going on the details of what transpired when I attempted to cook the leanest hunk of meat I've ever seen.

Braised Venison

fingerling potato confit, pickled red onion, meyer lemon cream

If there was a molecule of fat on this Top Round Roast* of venison, I didn't see it. Probably because fat molecules are really, really small. And this deer's muscles were definitely properly pumped up. So, given that this roast was 99.999999999% lean**, much like the Austrian gentlemen pictured here, I decided to chat with a few very, very talented and incredibly friendly local chefs about how I might want to go about cooking it.

* Really excellent diagram of exactly where this roast is located on the animal here (it is a part of the Whole Round), and a close up photo of the roast here (click the 'click to view' next to Top Round Roast on that page for the close up).

** What is going on with deer these days? I think all they do is eat (in my garden), work out, and make little deer. And they do all three of those with GREAT proficiency. I can't throw a rotten egg out my back door without hitting a deer. Currently I think there might be a deer pilates class on the north side of my house on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Stop by if you are interested. And bring your rifle, please.

After getting the advice of the aforementioned super chefs, I settled on a fairly traditional braise. Braising is something I do virtually every Sunday in the fall/winter, so that is something that is in my comfort zone, something I thought would work for the venison, and something I could do a little ad-libbing with if anything went wrong. The first step was to sear the roast in the workhorse 5qt Le Creuset. Then I caramelized some onions in the resulting mess that was on the bottom of the pan after searing.

Those are the caramelized onions on the right side of the stove, along with some chicken stock right before the aromatics (carrot, onion, celery, etc) were added... but of course, you already know stock is another post.

I made some seeeeeriously delish pork stock the day before, so during the onion caramelization process I dumped some of that stock in there a few times to pick up all the crusty goodness on the bottom of the pan. Then when I was out of pork stock, I used maybe a cup of this very slightly smoked dopplebock beer from New Holland Brewing (buy it at Haskells in White Bear Lake). The stock was actually smokier than the beer, and the beer had a pleasant touch of sweetness to it. Plus it had a cool pig on the label. And it was already open... so, why not use it, right? Indeed.

To the pot of caramelized goodness, I added a bunch of San Marzano tomatoes, rich brown chicken stock, some delish green olives from Kowalski's, garlic, ancho chile, bay, a little honey, and other seasonings, covered it*, and stuck it in a 210 degree oven, and waited. Actually to be more specific, I went to bed. The venison went in the oven at 10pm Friday night, and came out at 8am Saturday morning. I know I mentioned in a previous post that I couldn't really classify this dish as "simple". But dang it, sure it is! Braising is amazing AND simple. Father Time does most of the work in a braise. So, sorry if I misled anyone... won't be the last time I'm sure.

* One of the coolest, and simplest, things I learned from The French Laundry Cookbook was that Chef Keller rarely has a lid on a pan in his kitchen. On page 190, there are instructions for how to make a parchment paper lid, which allows for some evaporation/concentration of the braising liquid, but keeps the meat from becoming too caramelized. Simple, yet effective. If it is good enough for Keller, it is good enough for Food Night, so that's how we roll - parchment lids.

The potatoes were done ahead of time as well. Thursday I gently poached them in olive oil and garlic, and stored them in the oil and garlic and a couple dried chiles until Food Night. Then Saturday night, I tossed them in a cast iron pan to put a nice sear on them. This was a quality, and painfully simple, do ahead preparation that I'll definitely use again. In fact I can't believe I haven't done this before. Plus I like saying "confit" potatoes. Sounds so regal and impressive, when it's actually easy as falling off a log. Can you simmer olive oil in a pan? Of course you can - and therefore you can make these potatoes, the inspiration for which I got here. Confit'ing is gonna become more common in my kitchen, I can tell. I wish I had done the venison that way, actually.

So, while I put together the first three courses of the evening, the venison was back in a really low oven, in the braising sauce had since been buzzed up with an immersion blender. When it was time to "slice" the roast, a small wave of panic passed over me. After poking and prodding the roast a bit, I could tell this thing wasn't going to be quite as succulent and tender like a lot of other braise-friendly cuts of meat I had worked with before. When I finally did take a knife to it, it flaked apart. Kind of like pulled pork, only without the moisture provided by fat (which as we've discussed, was nowhere to be seen here). It was indeed fairly dry, yet still tender, if that makes any sense. It certainly did not slice, so I did the only thing I could think of; I tossed the now "pulled venison" with plenty of that delicious sauce. Have another glance at the finished product... (there is venison in there, trust me, it's just being a little bashful)...

The final dish turned out really well. Better than I thought when I realized the roast had gotten somewhat dry. It had a nice slightly earthy/gamey flavor, without being overwhelming. Certainly nothing that I'd call an overwhelming success or anything. But the potatoes were very good, and the meyer lemon cream (basically sour cream, meyer lemon juice, salt) lent a nice contrast to the rich sauce.

In the end I was happy that I didn't completely ruin Tom's venison that he graciously donated to the Food Night cause. A week or so after Food Night, I was at Brasa for lunch and was talking to Tony about how the dish turned out. He suggested perhaps a brine would have helped. Great idea. Next time, I'll probably do that, or try to confit it, or use a gift that Santa brought me this year (pictured, from the interweb).

So that about does it for what the Food Night crew deemed "the best Food Night we've ever had". But fear not, because we of course have another Food Night coming up! It's looking like early February, but there certainly could be something done ad-hoc between now and then.

Finally, I'm really excited to announce that I have managed to convince a VERY special guest to attend a future Food Night! This guest is truly a gifted chef, not just some yahoo with a house, a couple cookbooks, a knife and an internet connection like yours truly. No, when this mystery guest goes to work every day, he goes to a restaurant. A freaking amazing, unique and fabulous restaurant. HIS restaurant, actually. OK, I need to stop there or I'll give away the surprise or have a stroke, and both of those things would lessen my enjoyment of the next Food Night.

So keep checking back as there certainly will not be a dearth of posts between Food Nights. I've actually got a few in the queue already, not the least of which is the one you've been clamoring for. The one I had to call Comcast to request extra bandwidth for. The one that will change your life.* The Stock post. I'm telling you, my cooking life is divided into B.S. and A.S. Before Stock, and After Stock. Wait, what did you think B.S. meant?

* Individual results may vary.

I guess what I mean to say is, we are just getting started here at Food Night. Glad you are along for the ride.

The Truffle Food Night, part 3

Just when you thought you had opened every Christmas gift under the tree, Food Night went and hid one more in the back corner of the closet next to the Scrabble board you never use. Now, before you get too excited, our gift to you is more of the intangible variety. You can't really put this gift in your fanny pack to take over to Aunt Mable's New Year's Day pot luck. You can however use it as inspiration to make some fresh pasta for yourself, or to at least take a step in that direction by investing in that pasta roller attachment for the Kitchen Aid you've had your eye on. Worst case, you can use it to kill 10 minutes of your life that you'll never get back. So rip off the bow, tear open the paper, and enjoy Food Night's gift to you...

Fresh Pasta
reduced stock, tarragon, parmigiano-reggiano, black truffle

Looks fairly deece*, eh? Midday on Saturday, I made the dough for the pasta. Semolina flour, couple eggs, salt, olive oil, stir, knead, bang - pasta dough. So simple. I think making fresh pasta deserves it's own post, so I won't belabor the details here. Recently I've been trying to keep the fresh pastas relatively simple around here. Six ingredients - pasta, stock, butter, parmigiano, fresh herb, salt. But at Food Night, we gave those six a + 1. The Truffle.

* Deece. An abbreviated form of "decent", that though the magic of irony, means "yummy, fantastic, delish, and all-around super-duper" here at Food Night. But you, the dedicated and loyal reader, already knew that from post numero uno.

Let me first say the truffle was WAY harder to slice than I thought it would be. It wasn't as firm as a titleist, but it was close. I definitely used a little extra caution while passing it over the mandoline since it took more force than I thought to slice it. The texture of the exterior was absolutely incredible; all kinds of knobs, nooks, crannies, patterns, randomness, roughness, curves - it looked "important". Does that make sense? You could just tell this thing was something. If you are like me, you contemplate things like "Who was the first person to eat X, and why did he or she think eating X would be a good idea?", where "X" is something like sea urchin or tripe. I thought of the truffle along those lines before this one arrived on my doorstep, since it's basically a dirty hunk of fungus buried underground on the root of some tree. But once you see it, it is quite impressive. It has presence. You can tell it is... kind of a big deal.

Once it was sliced... wow. The aroma; the intricate, delicate, yet assertive aroma. Not to mention the texture, and the amazing color and pattern of the truffle's interior. Prior to slicing, the smell was somewhat muted, but that scent of what I thought a truffle would smell like was definitely there. And when I think of how a truffle should smell, lacking experience in handling actual truffles I unfortunately think of the often extremely pungent and slightly manufactured smelling truffle oil. A little dab will do ya there. But once sliced, the truffle released organic smells of fresh, wet potting soil and other delightfully earthy scents. And I mean that it the best possible way. Really, I do.

And so, the Six + 1 ingredient pasta came together quite easily. The dough - done ahead of time. The water - on to boil. The stock - reducing nicely in a nice wide skillet. The herb (tarragon) - diced and ready. All that was left was to roll out the pasta through the brilliant and utterly genius Kitchen Aid pasta rolling attachment. From there, the noodles were cut, a knob of butter tossed into the reduced stock, pasta plunged into the water for 3ish minutes, then into the sauce with the herb and parmigiano. Toss to coat, divide amongst the five plates, and top with more parmigiano.

Then, it was of course time to shave the truffle over each dish. Steaming hot pasta, topped with shards of black truffle, and a glass of profound wine. Thankfully, nobody lost consciousness. The dish was clearly a success. However, it was unanimous amongst all the Food Night attendees that... we needed another truffle. One just wasn't enough to properly truffle* five pasta portions. We definitely got the essence of it, but because of the relatively modest amount of truffle each person received, the dish was not as "decadent" as I had hoped. The truffle shavings tasted a lot like they smelled - very much like wet earth. Now, before you say "Well why didn't you just go dig up your backyard and toss a hunk of that in with your pasta", I'll tell you that 1). I currently have about two feet of snow in my backyard thank you very much, and 2). this was the coolest earth smell and taste ever. It was exactly what I've always wanted truffle oil to be; a flavor enhancer, but not a palate dominator. I think a few more shavings on each plate would have pushed the dish to another level.

* Yep, I just used "truffle" as a verb. Cool, huh.

Conversely, perhaps we should take a page from Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David. They brought "Seinfeld" to an end while the show was still at the height of its powers because they wanted to go out on their own terms, instead of being shown the door. They wanted to leave the audience wanting more.

The truffle definitely did that - it left all of us wanting more. And that is probably just the way it should be.

An Epic Food Night, part 2

If you missed the eagerly anticipated and highly acclaimed part 1 of the recent Food Night, fear not. Through the magic of linking, I can send you there if you click here, or even here.

I mentioned previously that sometimes Food Night happens on a weeknight. That means, I don’t exactly have all day to grocery shop, cook, prep and whatnot. OK, yes, I have used vacation time at my day job to cook, prep, and grocery shop for Food Night, but that is beside the point. The point is that I didn’t really HAVE to do that, I just wanted to because cooking makes me happy. So in an effort to achieve that euphoria via cooking, and still hold a day job, there are two main concepts that I try to adhere to (for the most part) when it comes to the food at Food Night;

1). Prep in advance. Cook something that lends itself to doing at least some of the job ahead of time, without sacrificing the quality of the finished dish.

2). Simplicity. Use great ingredients, treat them simply, and get out of the way.

Of the four dishes served at the most recent Food Night*, all four fit into (1) and three fit into (2). The outlier was the venison. It’s not like the dish was rocket science or anything, but there were definitely more than a few moving parts it, so I think as a whole it falls outside the simplicity zone. Braising itself? Simple indeed. But that's another post. And today I’m going to focus on two of the simple dishes. Shall we begin?

* I think we are going to have to assign names to the various Food Nights, because I'm sick of saying "the most recent Food Night". And we'll likely need to refer back to Food Nights past at some point, so they should probably all have names. I was thinking we could go with something simple, kind of like how Larry David named episodes of Seinfeld. "The Contest", for example. So, from this point forward, we shall refer to the 12/12/2009 Food Night as....... "The Truffle Food Night". So let it be written.

Bruschetta
avocado, pickled tomato, arbequina olive oil, Maldon sea salt

The fabulous Bar La Grassa was the inspiration for the pickled tomatoes, which were really the star of the dish. I had them as an appetizer on a recent outing there, and of course they were fantastic. I’m beginning to think Isaac Becker could cook a shingle or an old shoe and make it taste good. Maybe he'd even serve the shoe on top of the shingle and call the dish "Fiddler on the Roof"? No? Yeah, probably not. Anyway, I decided if I could still find little Minnesota grown cherry tomatoes at the store I’d attempt to pickle the dickens out of them. Thankfully, I did, because these little flavor grenades are immediately going into the “killer accompaniments” folder on my PC.* I’d never even thought of pickling tomatoes before!

* I know, I know, I’m sooooo not cool because I have a PC and not a Mac. But in my defense, I think I bought it around the time of iPod v1.0, so, the jury was still out for me at that time as to what direction to go. In hindsight, yeah, I probably zigged when I should have zagged. Whatever.

Pickled Tomatoes a la Grassa
1). Cut cherry or other small tomato in half through the equator

2). In a container that will fit the tomato halves relatively snugly, fill with white wine vinegar (but leave enough room for the tomatoes, I'd say I used roughly 7oz of vinegar), and add a tablespoon of sugar, and a couple pinches of kosher salt,

3). Stir to dissolve sugar and salt, then add a few strips of the peel from a lemon (meyer, if you have it), small pinch of saffron threads (again, if you have it), a dried chile or two, and some thinly sliced garlic. I had some fresh tarragon, so I tossed a good sized stem in there too.

4). Add the tomatoes to the brine, cover, refrigerate overnight.

And that’s it! Top creamy soups with them, toss them in salads, or with feta, or with goat cheese, or stick them on some lightly toasted baguette with some avocado, good olive oil and salt like I did. Drizzle the plate with more olive oil and some of the pickling liquid, and there’s your appetizer. I cannot recommend these little gems highly enough. Unfortunately, we are every so slightly past prime tomato growing weather here in the midwest. But how about trying this with fresh picked little sungold tomatoes right from the garden, hm? I’ll try to remember to post this recipe again next summer. That is of course is assuming we actually HAVE a summer next summer, unlike this summer which was decidedly unsummerlike. Let's move on to the next dish before I pack a bag and move to Fiji.

Crudo Duo
Zucchini, Hawaiian striped marlin

I think this was the most successful dish of the evening, and it was the simple melding of two great tastes that taste great together.* The first was the Zucchini Crudo that Michael Ruhlman posted about recently. He authored the new Michael Symon cookbook, and featured this zucchini crudo recipe in a recent blog post. I had occasion to make it recently, and was absolutely amazed that something that simple could taste that good. And if it is simple, and good, it is definite Food Night material.

* Are you kidding me with that commercial??! You of course noticed that one of the participants in this culinary Big Bang event is walking down the street eating peanut butter. Out of a jar. With her FINGER. And did you see the size of their iPods?! They were huge! I bet they only held like 512MB of music back then. Prehistoric.

The second component to the dish was... raw fish! Who doesn’t like raw fish?! Of course the genius part about a raw fish course at a dinner party is the cooking time. As in, there is no cooking time! Obviously there is some effort that is required, but that effort can be made before your guests arrive. The fantastic fishmongers at Coastal Seafoods steered me towards this gorgeous Hawaiian Striped Marlin, which just so happened to cost HALF as much as the sushi grade tuna I tend to buy. $6 got me all I needed to use this in a dish for five people. About an hour before people came over, I cubed up the fish, tossed it in some stuff that sounded good like olive oil, soy sauce, cilantro, green onion, sesame, pickled chile, a little dash of this Rick Bayless smoked chile sauce I like, and plenty of lemon zest.

This dish was a snap, provided you have one of these (which, you do have, don’t you?). Slice and toss the zucchini with salt 10 minutes before serving. Then arrange the zucchini on the plate, dot with some of the marlin, a drizzle of good olive oil and a couple flakes of Maldon, and there you go! And if you had some pickled tomatoes in the fridge (check) toss those on the plate too. Some pickled red onion?* Sure! But definitely finish the plate off with a drizzle of good olive oil, and a couple flakes of Maldon.

* I make these pickled red onions frequently. Find the recipe, which takes all of 5 minutes to throw down, here from the brilliant David Lebovitz. The work great on a multitude of things, but I absolutely cannot imagine tacos and carnitas of all kinds without these little gems now.

This was such a great dish, and one that came together without one of mankinds most important discoveries. Previously when I looked at zucchini, I'd shrug my shoulders and think “I dunno, grill it?”. And I’m usually wasn't all that jazzed about the results, either. But through the wonders of a simple yet effective naturally occurring substance, the previously uber-blah zucchini just found a spot in the Food Night rotation.

Salt. It’s not just for your margarita glass anymore.

(Still to come; Posts starring "The Venison" and "The Truffle"...)

An Epic Food Night, part 1

Every Food Night is an occasion we look forward to with great anticipation. Of course they are all unique and fun and provide us with an opportunity to sample and discuss some really great wines. However, the Food Night that came together Saturday December 12th was completely off the charts. Epic, even. The food turned out great (after MUCH consternation about the leanness of the venison), and the wines were absolutely special. That's the only word I can come up with; special.




In today's post, I'm going to focus on the wines of Food Night. I've been stressing out about how I can possibly organize and detail what transpired at Food Night in some logical and (somewhat) succinct manner. I thought about just beginning at the beginning, cranking out around nine thousand words, and then twenty eight days later I'd be done with that post, and you'd spend your entire day reading a rambling, unorganized, meandering diatribe that would probably end up being the last Food Night post you ever read. And we certainly don't want that. You deserve something a little more focused and entertaining as you sip your morning coffee.* I'll absolutely throw out some photos (above) of the food that I made to hopefully wet your appetite for the soon to follow food related posts. And heck, I'll list out the full menu too. But I really think you will be thankful for this more organized approach. Really. Trust me. I've been doing this for a week now. I know what I'm doing.**

* I'm sure that's how you start your day, right? Shower, drive to work, coffee, check for Food Night updates. And Food Night has no problem playing second fiddle to your morning coffee, or other bevie of choice. Clearly, that is the priority.

** I do not have a clue what I'm doing.

Enough preamble. Let's get started with the menu and wine list from Food Night!

Bruschetta

avocado, pickled tomato, arbequina olive oil, Maldon sea salt

Crudo Duo

zucchini, Hawaiian striped marlin

Fresh Pasta

reduced stock, tarragon, parmigiano-reggiano, black truffle

Braised Venison

fingerling potato confit, pickled red onion, meyer lemon sour cream

When we discussed the wine possibilities for the evening, lots of us focused on Northern Rhone, figuring the funky, gamey nature of a lot of those Syrahs would play well with the venison. And in general, at least from my recollection*, we do tend to have more European wines at Food Night because that is where the preferences of some of the participants lie. Not so, this time. Out of the ten (that is not a misprint.... 10) wines we sampled, six were domestic, like this gem...

*See, this is a huge reason why I wanted to start the blog; to keep a tally on exactly what we've tried. I'm going to even start a running post or document of some kind here to keep track of the counts for various countries. I know, I think it's going to be awesome too! Moving on to the wines of the evening....

United States

Calera, Rosé of Pinot Noir

2008

Calera, Jensen Pinot Noir

2006

Calera, Selleck Pinot Noir

2002

Rock, Hudson Vineyard, Carneros Syrah*

2005

Joseph Phelps, Le Mistral (Syrah, Grenache, Petite Sirah), Monterey*

2003

Freemark Abbey, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley*

2005

Spain

Clos Mogador, Priorat*

2005

France

Carruades de Lafite, Bordeaux (Pauillac)*

2003

Chateau De Fieuzal, Bordeaux (Pessac-Leognan)*

2005

Joseph Drouhin, Clos des Mouche (Cote de Beaune, Burgundy)*

2005

The *'s in the above wine list indicate that these wines were tried blind. We've probably had a dozen undocumented Food Nights and amazingly this was the first time we'd tried anything blind. As we learned from experience working at Haskell's, there is no better wine education than to taste good bottles blind in a setting with someone who really knows wine. Blind, as in, a glass of wine is handed to you, and without having any idea what it is you have to name the country of origin, the varietal(s), and the vintage. This really doesn't work terribly well with say $8 wine. But last night, Alex* really went crazy and brought some astounding wines for everyone to try blind. The results, were impossibly cool.

*I should really work on a post that introduces you to the "players" at Food Night. Until then, what you need to know is that Alex is the C.W.O. of Food Night. Chief Wine Officer. Alex knows his wine, and actually he knows YOUR wine too, and he's disarmingly unpretentious about the whole thing. Honestly, the reason why the results of this maiden Food Night Blind Tasting were so cool was because Alex has taught all of us a ton about wine by sharing his knowledge and his bottles.

Let's talk about the bottles we tasted blind.

Blind Bottle #1

Everyone initially thought it was grenache, or certainly Spanish wine of some kind. But it had low tannins, and lofty jammy fruit, and a really cool nose. I thought it lacked that white pepper sort of thing that I get out of most grenache, so my final guess was 2004 California Syrah. Tyler and Tom both went with Spanish grenache, but the year they guessed escapes me. I know, huge error on my part, I hope you'll still be able to sleep tonight.

The Bottle; 2003 Joseph Phelps Le Mistral . 57% Syrah, 36% Grenache, the rest small amounts of other varietals. So, I kind of, um well, I kind of nailed this one. Tyler and Tom also were also basically right on here as well. Just not as right as, you know, me.

Blind Bottle #2
I took one whiff and said "This is Burgundy". But before you roll your eyes at the author, know that while Tom and Tyler were in agreement with me, they actually whittled it down to the exact freaking town in Burgundy where the wine came from. You might ask, how is this possible?! How can so much wine knowledge be concentrated in so few people?! Maybe they born with it? Maybe it's Maybelline?*

* Answer; No. It is not Maybelline. Don't ask me where I came up with that one either. I remember commercial tag lines. What can I say. I'm every every advertising big-shot's wet dream. The answer is actually that we've all tried quite a few bottles of wine, and if you are interested in wine like we are, you learn a few things along the way. And actually, the better quality the wine, the easier it is to pick out what it is (and, what it ISN'T) blind. Of course there are exceptions, and books are probably written about this, so, I digress.

Back to Blind Bottle #2, Tom said it was a 2005 Cotes de Beaune (pronounced "bone"), while Tyler said 2005 Pommard or Volnay (which are both in the Cotes de Beaune). I had no idea what plot of land it was from, other than I was sure it was Burgundy, and was pretty sure it was 2005. This would probably be a good time to state the obvious and say that Alex, Tyler and Tom are all very, VERY well schooled in French wine country knowledge. Not only do they know the aromas, the tastes, the textures, they know the towns, where they are, what they are near, how big and/or famous and/or reputable the towns are, etc. Perhaps you think possessing this knowledge is even more impressive than recalling the tag line from a make-up commercial. And I would tend to agree with you.

Anyway, while we discussed the possibilities for this bottle, I was asking the guys questions about were exactly the town of Beaune was located in the Burgundy region of France, culminating in this classic, age old question; "How long is Beaune?". Now, the fellas diligently did their best using wine glasses, knives and other objects on the table to illustrate to me how things were situated in Beaune. But as the follow up questions pertaining to the "length of Beaune" kept spewing forth, one guest finally broke down and said what needed to be said. (And there was much laughter.)

The Bottle; 2005 Joseph Drouhin Clos des Mouche, Cotes de Beaune, Burgundy.

Blind Bottle #3
One of the most complex, most aromatically astounding wines I've ever tried. The only other bottle in my tasting history I can compare it to from an aromatic standpoint is the 2002 Chateau Margaux. I know. Heady stuff. But I'm not kidding. In the end, ALL of us guessed Priorat, and Tyler even nailed the varietals, cabernet and grenache! I don't think I can even describe the utter ridiculousness of how good this wine was, so let's just reveal the bottle.

The Bottle; 2005 Clos Mogador, Priorat.

Blind Bottle #4
It is said the the Pauillac region of Bordeax produces wines that have a lot of "pencil lead" or "graphite" characteristics about them. This wine immediately exhibited those characteristics, so all of us said Bordeaux. Tyler even went so far as to say that the wine tasted almost like (ahem) "sucking on a pencil", in a good way of course. Not the... nevermind.


The Bottle; 2003 Carruades de Lafite . This wine is the "second label" of Lafite Rothschild, which is one of the five First Growth Bordeaux chateaus. This means that the juice in this bottle was the stuff that wasn't quite good enough to go into the chateau's best label, which is one of the five best Bordeauxs in France. An awesome bottle to add to our tasting rolodex.

So yeah. Not a shabby little lineup of blind wines. And how about your Food Night crew absolutely crushing and nailing every single bottle?! I told you the results were impossibly cool. And we haven't even talked about the other six wines yet! Relax, I'll spare you all the gory details, but I do want to say a couple words about Calera wines. One of the best wines of the night was the Calera Rosé. This $18 Rosé is fairly available here in the Twin Cities, and is hands down the best Rosé any of us have ever had by a long shot. It has a gorgeous color, something darker than usual, yet still very elegant. I'd love to show you the color, but, um, yeah, I was a little tardy with the camera as you can see. My bad (tapping my chest). It is soft and round yet still vibrant and fresh, with lively acidity, and is a breeze to pair with food (it was absolutely phenomenal with the somewhat bold flavors of the Crudo, pictured here). Really amazing stuff for under $20. Oh, and anyone who tells you that you should only drink Rosé in the summer is cracked. Last I checked, there was no season on good wine.

And while we are talking about Calera, I may as well tell you that you could probably go ahead and call Calera the Official Winery of Food Night. We've intentionally not opened bottles of Calera Pinot Noir next to other VERY expensive high end bottles because Calera so thoroughly destroys damn near everything else that is opened along side of it. It's like the mercy rule in Little League. But once you smell a Calera Pinot Noir, you'll know. As I sat at my kitchen table writing the previous post, two bottles of Calera were decanting next to me. Their singular perfume literally filled the air around me, which only served to heighten the anticipation for that evening's Food Night. With Calera wines, it doesn't matter what year, what vineyard site, what score some wine magazine or website gave it, if it was raining acid rain in buckets at harvest... whatever. Josh Jensen makes brilliant wine. Every year. Period.

If only everything in life was so predictable, right? One thing I can predict, are posts about the actual food we had at Food Night (imagine that!). Coming shortly, to a computer near you.

One last wine note, I promise. The 2005 Chateau De Fieuzal Bordeaux. Robert Parker gave it a somewhat modest 90 points, but his description of the wine was too tempting to pass up; smoke, black truffles, crushed rock (?), fresh mushrooms and cassis. And it was tremendous, but we got more dried fruits out of it than earthy notes. And actually, Parker's review of the wine a year before he wrote the above tasting notes indicated notes of plum and fig, which was totally on the mark with what we experienced. Note that this wine is quite closed down, and we actually opened it the night before Food Night, poured it into a decanter, poured it back into the bottle and then let is sit overnight. Then about 6 hours before we drank it, I poured it back and fourth from decanter to bottle a few more times, and let it sit in the decanter for the remaining time before consumption. I did sneak a sample of it before decanting, and the acids were sky high, but calmed down after the decanting process. This stuff can be had for under $50 as well, and is a great bargain in my opinion at that price.

Finally, I have to give an e-shoutout to Alex. The reason these Food Nights are so over the top is because of the wines. When you think about it, that only makes sense. I'm just some dork with an electric stove and a very narrow, modest culinary skillset. On the other hand, these wines we get to drink out of Alex's stash are crafted by truly brilliant winemakers from grapes grown on the best terriors in the world. I say that literally and without exaggeration.

So on behalf of Tyler and Tom, thanks Alex - you really outdid yourself this time.

Tuber Unicinatum

It arrived Thursday, right on schedule. The "very special guest ingredient" of tonight's Food Night. Tuber Unicinatum. The French Burgundy Black Truffle.



Just look at this orb of goodness, and all it's funky textures and curves and....



Maybe some sense of scale is necessary. Here it is positively dwarfing $.01...



That, my friends, just happened! Shake and Bake!

I don't know if I'm more nervous, excited, fascinated or awed by the mere presence of this culinary diamond in my kitchen. I seem to have snapped more pictures of it than most people do of their first born child. Not sure what that means, but I'm sure it's perfectly normal.

Food Night did not see it fit to take out the requisite loans required to procure an Italian white truffle at $260/oz. I think I would have been shaking like a leaf* while trying to shave it on my handheld mandoline, and would have probably sliced off a finger (or two), which would have significantly altered how I grip a golf club, not to mention greatly upset my dear Mother who serves as the unofficial Chief of the Mandoline Police. (Love ya, Mom).

* For you Top Chef watchers, I'm sure you recall how Jen was shaking like a polariod picture as she was serving Thomas Keller and friends during the Bocuse d'Or elimination challenge a few weeks back. Yeah, she would have looked positively comatose compared to me trying to slice a hunk of fungus I paid $260 for.

So, at Food Night we are going to be slummin' it with the mere $40/oz French Burgundy Truffle. You'll notice that the D'Artagnan link indicates they are "out of season". I called last Friday to check the price of the white truffles (because the website says "call for pricing"... never a good sign for the consumer), and the fine gentleman told me they were $260/oz. After a LONG pause to collect my thoughts and organize my priorities in life, I went ahead and had him send me one black truffle. When I went back to the website a few days later, bang... out of season. See you next September.

Food Night dodged a MAJOR bullet there. And we can't wait to share our good fortune with you fine readers. Check back soon for all the details on tonight's Food Night!

It's all downhill from here

We may have peaked here at Food Night before we really even began.

This arrived at Food Night HQ yesterday... and there was much jubilation...