Yes, It's a work in progress

I am hoping to make this blog a little nicer to look at. A bit more considered, now that I have finely attuned each one of my four or five cherished readers to my lack of postings.
Last night I drank some not all of a bottle of Houillon/Overnoy Savagnin 2000. At first it was so pungent in the nose that you think of something more akin to musk or truffles with an edge of acidity, if that is possible, and it was such a shock that I put down my glass!
But then I picked it up again and again. I just wrote down all these scents. Incomprehensible! And not really the experience at all. I kept smelling and smelling and tasting, and then a little bit of comté cheese and then another taste and all the time the wine engages you, dances with you, if you let it lead. Yes, please lead!
I must admit I was a bit scared to open up the bottle as I had a perfectly lovely white chinon chenin open and the reputation of savagnin in general is one of a challenging wine...But it was wonderful wild alive and really beautiful complicated wine that I won't hesitate again.
I can't wait to try it again tonight and see what it feels like showing me.

Blood of the Grape

"WIne is the Blood of the Grape"

From the Hours of Catharine of Cleves owned by the Morgon Library in New York. I saw this on Friday. There are many many wonderful images in this book and you can see them either online or the original (or most of it) on display as individual plates for maybe the only time for a very very long time as it is going to be rebound as one book after the exhibition.

"I could not eat dry!"

This is a quote from Richard Olney in his sometimes wonderful, sometimes crazy autobiography, "Reflexions". I could not eat dry! was his excuse when caught drinking wine at lunch in New York whilst working at a bookstore. I guess it worked as they never bothered him again and continued to drink wine whilst on the job, as they saw it...

And it does sometimes amaze me that we don't spend more time thinking about wine and how great it is with food and how great food is with wine.

Last night I made up a kind of impromptu dinner of pasta with some beet greens I had cooked with garlic the day before, some pork confit that I had way in the back of my fridge and made long ago (too long ago to mention here and not worry everyone, (anyone out there?), be sick with worry that I would keel over, but no I am still alive and feeling great). I sprinkled it with a little parmesan and a bit of lemon juice. It was very simple and delicious in the way that hunger and whatever you have in the fridge can often be.

The beet greens were wonderfully earthy and healthy tasting, especially the broth which I slurped down first thinking it was too much liquid for the pasta and the little nuggets of the browned, sweetish, salty and nutty pork confit.

But after a just few bites I knew it all needed something: wine. I had just bought a bottle of Matthieu Baudry Cuvvee Clasique 2007. It's from Chinon in the Loire Valley in France. The wine is just delicious fruity berries strawberries and raspberries but with this earthy quality that I love about cabernet franc from here.

And I'm not saying that it was the perfect match but it was so much infinitely better than eating or drinking one without the other.

Mrs Stephenson's Cucumber Mousse

I know it's a bit late in the year for this light cool dish...but just serve it with hot brown bread toast! And there are still lots of delicious cucumbers in the markets. Perhaps the only vegetable that did really well this summer of lots of rain.

And it's really fun turning something out of a mold. Really cool!

The recipe for the mousse comes from Jane Grigson's cookbook "Jane Grigson's Book of Vegetables", but I have also seen it in the Salads volume of Time Life Good Cook series, edited by my favorite—taadah! : Richard Olney. I think the Salad book credits the Jane Grigson book but Jane credits this lady, Mrs Stephenson. She made the mousse for this restaurant café I remember going to as a young girl with my mother when we were in London shopping. (Sounds very posh, I know. I certainly felt a bit posh, at least for an American.) The restaurant called Justin Le Blank was cafeteria style. The food was great, sort of a rare occurrence in 70's London at the time. I remember it quite well and I think I even remember the cucumber mousse.

Here's the recipe and what Jane says:

Mrs Stephenson's Cucumber Mousse

This recipe comes from Mrs Victoria Stephenson, who makes a variety of mousses and slads for Justin de Blank's provision shops in London [I just remember one].

Sometimes we eat it on rye bread, witha bottle of white wine, at five or six in the evening [love the hour!], sometimes as a first course. It goes with cold salmon trout and whilemeal bread and butter, as the main course of Sunday lunch in June.

1/2 large cucumber, peeled, diced small

1 heaped tablespoon salt

3 tablespoons tarragon or wine vinegar

15 g (1/2 oz.) gelatine

6 tablespoons hot water

300ml (1/2 pint) whipping cream

1 lb curd cheese or 1/2 lb each sieved cottage cheese and cream cheese [I sometimes use a mixture of fromage blanc and cream cheese or goat cheese, anything I can find that gives the mousse richness but at the same time a tangy lightness to it as well]

black pepper

chopped chives, parsley, spring onion

Mix the cucumber, salt and vinegar in a bowl thoroughly. Then turn it onto a colander, put a heavy plate on top and leave for an hour at least. Then remove the plate and press the cucumber with a clean cloth to get the last of the liquid away.

Dissolve the gelatine in hot water and whisk the cream gradually until the mixture is smooth and very thick, but not stiff. Break up the cheese and add it to the cream. Mix in the cucumber.

Taste and add a little more vinegar and salt if necessary, but be careful to overdo neither. Sometimes a couple of pinches of sugar will help to bring out the flavor; this depends on how good the cucumber was to start with. Grind in plenty of black pepper and add an abundance of chopped chives, parsley and spring onion—enough to make a strongly speckled effect. Turn into a oiled decorative mold and leave overnight in the refrigerator to set. Turn out onto serving dish.

Always provide wholemeal or rye bread with the cucumber mousse, whether it is the only dish or one of several; the rich cool mixture needs that kind of flavor and texture to set it off.

So sorry it has so long

I guess I have fallen prey to that sad aspect of new bloggers—they fall by the wayside. But I am back!

This summer I brought a bunch of the wine for a family holiday on the beach. Basically I brought a bunch of my favorites: Clos Roches Blanches Sauvignon Blanc #2, their rosé of Pineau D'Aunis, Pépière Muscadet, Bisson Prosecco and two very different dolcettos: De Forville (wonderful picnic cherry and mineral and Brovia vignavillej (a "serious" dolcetto! who knew? Dark in the class yet not too heavy in the mouth but sort of brooding, Will from Rosenthals calls it "dark woods with dark plum. I like that.)

This is a picture of my parents Bob and Kathleen celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, August 22 1959.

To help usher in the next I brought a Magnum of champagne, Chartogne-Taillet NV Brut Sainte-Anne. It was delicious and I must admit to not being able to remember too much of it (shame shame damn damn) as I got all emotional with the thought of 50 years and all that.

We had a great time with lots of nieces, yes all the grandchildren are girls. I will admit that there were moments of stress: 6 parents, 6 little girls, 2 grandparents and me.

Lots of good wine drinking and eating helps smooth out any crazy muscle spasms (which actually did happen to me the first night. My pysche no doubt trying to get the worst over quickly and succinctly. Speedy recovery as I was down at the beach the next morning swimming with, well, near dolphins and lots and lots of fish.)

We made huge mounds of spicy shrimp and I made this great cucumber mousse to drink with that wonderful wonderful Clos Roches Blanches sauvignon #2. I will post the recipe soon.

Cantaloupe

Tonight smelled of cantaloupe.