Rob Feenie has recently appeared in television commercials for White Spot, trading on not only his name-brand recognition from his show on the Food Network, but his recent triumph on Iron Chef America.
It's bewildering. One can't help but wonder if our local boy is losing it, especially after seeing the dreadfully constructed ad for his own restaurants, Feenie's and Lumière, on the backs of buses. I have no objection to his advertising his own enterprises, although it looks as though he lost a bet and had to use something his competition picked out, frankly. The ads are ugly, and probably unnecessary. Both of his restaurants appear to be doing very well - filled with people every time I am there, or even walk past them. He owns one of the true destination restaurants in Canada in Lumière, and heaven only knows, the boy doesn't suffer from lack of exposure in this town.
Lumière was closed down for a while in April, for renovations. I haven't been back yet since it re-opened, although the menus look as delicious as ever (and the format has changed slightly for the tasting menus in the formal dining room). I really like the bar there - the staff know their drinks inside and out and you never have to worry that your vintage cocktail is going to show up in a metal "martini glass." The food at the bar is also exquisite - I haven't had a dish there that was less than fabulous, and some of them (the four-cheese macaroni, the wontons in Peking duck broth) I can get almost evangelical about.
In fact, as I have said before, I am willing to eat anything that Mr. Feenie puts down in front of me. This is partially why I'm so flinchy at his recent plugging of White Spot. The general thrust of the new White Spot adverts (some of which apparently feature John Bishop of Bishop's although I haven't seen that one yet) seems to be all about the use of fresh, local ingredients - something for which both Rob Feenie and John Bishop have long been vocal advocates. White Spot isn't adding foie gras to its (optimistically named) triple-o sauce, or forcing you into a prix-fixe format.
It seems like it should be a good deal for White Spot - endorsement of their product by some of the fanciest and shmanciest chefs in town, and since White Spot is a local chain, won't particularly contaminate their reputations abroad. However, is the name-brand endorsement really going to reach out to the target audience of White Spot? Is it going to elevate the clientele, or move the restaurant chain more up-market? Is it going to have anything other than amusing kitsch factor for the current patrons? Didn't it cost them a lot of money?
It would have to cost White Spot a lot of money. I cannot fathom how or why either of these chefs would stoop to shilling for a tedious local (BC & Alberta) burger chain without White Spot driving a dumptruck of money up to his house. With two booming restaurants, an established television show AND an Iron Chef America title under his belt, how much more does he need? Are we going to see him hawking his own line of cookware (although, that would be less irritating than what he's doing now)? Plugging the fish counter at Safeway? Has he lost all sense of perspective? Is it all a joke?
I can't help but be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't care if he does eat at White Spot, it looks like selling-out, to me.
May 04, 2005
May 02, 2005
Whoops, I did it again...
... I played with the requisite pan-size of the recipe that I was making. Consequently, the banana cake took almost twice as long to cook, and got rather firm on the top. Volumetrics, baby: always do the math.
The thing of it is, when I'm paying attention I know that you can't sub an 8" springform pan for a 9" square pan, for crying out loud! It doesn't matter what the recipe says. But no, I was thinking "Oh, I've got an 8" springform! I'll use that." I would have been better off using an 8" square pan, rather than the round one. The math was backwards. You can sub them the other way 'round. Oh, well.
Then, there was the ham. I was looking for something suitable for a jambalaya version that I've been working on, and when I saw inexpensive, marked down further, smoked picnic shoulder lurking in the supermarket, I thought, "Oh HO! This will work nicely!" Completely forgetting to check to see if it was going to need cooking, or was in fact fully cooked, I tossed it into the fridge (with a heavy thump, might I add, at 7 lbs of piggy goodness) and it didn't occur to me until about 5:30 that it might need some time in the oven.
Of course it did. It needed 2 1/2 hours in the oven, in fact! By the time it was ready, I was starving and the house smelled like an entire roast pig was turning on a spit somewhere. The cat was going ballistic whenever I went into the kitchen to check on things, and I was starving. No way was I going to much around with chopping up celery at that point - dinner was going to be revamped around the pork shoulder.
The thing about pork shoulder is, it's much fatter than pork hind-leg, from which we get ham. This means, that at 8:00pm or so on Sunday night, starving half-to-death in the face of plenty, I was rather sloppy about removing the fatty layer from the roast before slicing. The meat was succulent and very tasty, but the amount of grease I ingested has left me quite queasy even to this moment of writing. I really shouldn't have nibbled on the crackling.
Evenutally, I divested the meat and (most of) the fat from the remains of the roast, and placed the meat in large chunks in the fridge to be made into jambalaya today. The meaty bone, from which even the least greedy person could have found more flesh to carve, got wrapped and frozen with the vague notion of split pea soup in the future (Hi J!). Tonight, I get to carefully remove the remaining fat from the chunks of meat (and oh, how I will be scrupulous to get each bit!) and make it useful once again.
It was one of those weekends, though, where almost nothing went quite right. There was an apple-raspberry crisp that turned out rather nicely, and I didn't manage to cut myself while slicing roasted chicken breast or anything, but that's the extent of the triumphs.
The thing of it is, when I'm paying attention I know that you can't sub an 8" springform pan for a 9" square pan, for crying out loud! It doesn't matter what the recipe says. But no, I was thinking "Oh, I've got an 8" springform! I'll use that." I would have been better off using an 8" square pan, rather than the round one. The math was backwards. You can sub them the other way 'round. Oh, well.
Then, there was the ham. I was looking for something suitable for a jambalaya version that I've been working on, and when I saw inexpensive, marked down further, smoked picnic shoulder lurking in the supermarket, I thought, "Oh HO! This will work nicely!" Completely forgetting to check to see if it was going to need cooking, or was in fact fully cooked, I tossed it into the fridge (with a heavy thump, might I add, at 7 lbs of piggy goodness) and it didn't occur to me until about 5:30 that it might need some time in the oven.
Of course it did. It needed 2 1/2 hours in the oven, in fact! By the time it was ready, I was starving and the house smelled like an entire roast pig was turning on a spit somewhere. The cat was going ballistic whenever I went into the kitchen to check on things, and I was starving. No way was I going to much around with chopping up celery at that point - dinner was going to be revamped around the pork shoulder.
The thing about pork shoulder is, it's much fatter than pork hind-leg, from which we get ham. This means, that at 8:00pm or so on Sunday night, starving half-to-death in the face of plenty, I was rather sloppy about removing the fatty layer from the roast before slicing. The meat was succulent and very tasty, but the amount of grease I ingested has left me quite queasy even to this moment of writing. I really shouldn't have nibbled on the crackling.
Evenutally, I divested the meat and (most of) the fat from the remains of the roast, and placed the meat in large chunks in the fridge to be made into jambalaya today. The meaty bone, from which even the least greedy person could have found more flesh to carve, got wrapped and frozen with the vague notion of split pea soup in the future (Hi J!). Tonight, I get to carefully remove the remaining fat from the chunks of meat (and oh, how I will be scrupulous to get each bit!) and make it useful once again.
It was one of those weekends, though, where almost nothing went quite right. There was an apple-raspberry crisp that turned out rather nicely, and I didn't manage to cut myself while slicing roasted chicken breast or anything, but that's the extent of the triumphs.
April 28, 2005
Gadgets
I have two new kitchen toys: a small "ice cream" scoop with a bar-release, and a pasta fork.
Those of you who have heard me objecting to single-use items cluttering up the kitchen (knives, toaster and coffee-maker excluded on the grounds of sheer volume of usage) might be a little surprised, but I actually love gadgets. The magpie aspect of my personality likes things that are shiny, small, and nifty while the spartanist futilely rails about the lack of overall portability in my life.
It's not like I fall victim to as-seen-on-tv items like the perfect pancake or batter pro or butter dispenser products, and I don't think I own anything sold by Ron Popeil. I do have a hard time justifying single-use gadgets, though. I tend to think long and hard before adding something else to my kitchen hardware. Even the olive pitter, which I had on my Christmas wish list a couple of years ago, I felt silly about acquiring (although it's a sleek, beautifully crafted metallic device) and ended up justifying on the basis that it could pit not only olives, but also cherries. Two uses! To be fair, it's the same usage on different items, but that doesn't really matter, does it?
My rationale for the ice cream scoop was similar. All it does is scoop, really. But it can be used for ice cream, or cookie dough (ah, the memories of my first job in Vancouver, at Teddy Bear Donuts Cookie Factory!) or - as in the case of last Sunday - falafel. Totally justified! I've already used it for two of its potential uses.
The pasta fork was a little harder to grit my teeth and buy. It cost under three dollars, but it just looks ridiculous and I felt a little silly buying it. However, in the past few months I have been developing a master recipe for spicy soba, which are types of Japanese noodle that are susceptible to clagginess if drained in the classic colander method. Portioning the final dish, using forks, was a bit annoying, too. The pasta fork has solved this dilemma entirely. Works like a dream, actually. It may look a little silly, but I no longer find myself struggling with the noodles. As far as I know, this device only performs the one function. Can I give it points for being able to accommodate multiple types of noodle? Being useful to more than one cuisine?
Optimistic with my latest acquisitions, I have pinned a list to the fridge of all the gadgets that I am currently attempting to rationalize. I may need a bigger kitchen, if I succumb to them all.
Those of you who have heard me objecting to single-use items cluttering up the kitchen (knives, toaster and coffee-maker excluded on the grounds of sheer volume of usage) might be a little surprised, but I actually love gadgets. The magpie aspect of my personality likes things that are shiny, small, and nifty while the spartanist futilely rails about the lack of overall portability in my life.
It's not like I fall victim to as-seen-on-tv items like the perfect pancake or batter pro or butter dispenser products, and I don't think I own anything sold by Ron Popeil. I do have a hard time justifying single-use gadgets, though. I tend to think long and hard before adding something else to my kitchen hardware. Even the olive pitter, which I had on my Christmas wish list a couple of years ago, I felt silly about acquiring (although it's a sleek, beautifully crafted metallic device) and ended up justifying on the basis that it could pit not only olives, but also cherries. Two uses! To be fair, it's the same usage on different items, but that doesn't really matter, does it?
My rationale for the ice cream scoop was similar. All it does is scoop, really. But it can be used for ice cream, or cookie dough (ah, the memories of my first job in Vancouver, at Teddy Bear Donuts Cookie Factory!) or - as in the case of last Sunday - falafel. Totally justified! I've already used it for two of its potential uses.
The pasta fork was a little harder to grit my teeth and buy. It cost under three dollars, but it just looks ridiculous and I felt a little silly buying it. However, in the past few months I have been developing a master recipe for spicy soba, which are types of Japanese noodle that are susceptible to clagginess if drained in the classic colander method. Portioning the final dish, using forks, was a bit annoying, too. The pasta fork has solved this dilemma entirely. Works like a dream, actually. It may look a little silly, but I no longer find myself struggling with the noodles. As far as I know, this device only performs the one function. Can I give it points for being able to accommodate multiple types of noodle? Being useful to more than one cuisine?
Optimistic with my latest acquisitions, I have pinned a list to the fridge of all the gadgets that I am currently attempting to rationalize. I may need a bigger kitchen, if I succumb to them all.
April 25, 2005
Salad days, ahead of schedule
You can tell that Spring is finally here (apologies to those suffering under the blizzard in southern Ontario) for a whole host of reasons: half of the town have tucked away their leather coats into closets, brighter shades of green and pink and yellow (it's the new orange!) are showing up, the young, nattily-dressed men on the #22 bus into downtown have shaved their heads, and I'm making salad.
I'm very fond of salads, actually. My mother favoured huge leafy salads that she constructed individually right on each dinner plate (and covering at least half the plate, maybe more) in the summer, and cole slaw in the winter. It wasn't until I left home that I encountered things like tabbouleh, rice salads, lentil salads, pasta salads. I took to them rather fiercely.
After my lamby foray into Turkish and middle eastern cuisine this weekend (yesterday I experimented deliciously with baked falafel) I find myself with an interesting assortment of leftovers, which, individually do not constitute a meal, but together, and augmented a tad, will do just fine. Leftover slices of roast lamb with cacik and olives (!) and a few sliced tomatoes, feta and cucumbers can make very satisfactory sandwiches, stuffed into pita bread, as will the falafel. What I really needed to go with it was a salad.
The Shephard's Salad that went with the original lamb dinner was rather fun. Much like a Greek salad in that it consists primarily of chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and green peppers (and even more so since I added some cubed feta) it also featured lettuce (not to be found on any self-respecting Greek salad, thank you very much Eastern Coast!) sliced radishes, and was dressed with a combination of fresh lemon juice, olive oil, fresh sliced mint leaves and the all-important sumac, a woodsy-lemony flavoured spice. It was quite delicious, but having had it two days in a row, I am sort of looking for something else.
Lentil salad it is. There is, as it turns out, a Turkish version of green lentil salad lurking in the pages of The Sultan's Kitchen: a Turkish Cookbook. It is both similar to and quite different from the Ethiopian recipe "Azifa" that I like to make in the summer, being a combination of cooked, chilled green/brown lentils dressed with finely chopped vegetables and a simple vinaigrette. Whereas the African recipe has hot peppers, mustard, and red wine vinegar as its distinctive ingredients, the Turkish version is mellower, featuring more chopped mint, cilantro, sumac, and fresh lemon juice.
Lentil salads keep very well for a couple of days in the fridge, and lend themselves well to packed lunches - whether or not you have refrigeration available. They are also a fantastic source of both protien and vitamin-rich vegetables, and if you have a conservative hand with the olive oil, they can be healthily lean, too. In the summer, they are a favourite accompaniment (second, perhaps only to couscous salad) to grilled lamb burgers. Really, they make a great, easy side dish at any time, and I'm really looking forward to it tonight.
I'm very fond of salads, actually. My mother favoured huge leafy salads that she constructed individually right on each dinner plate (and covering at least half the plate, maybe more) in the summer, and cole slaw in the winter. It wasn't until I left home that I encountered things like tabbouleh, rice salads, lentil salads, pasta salads. I took to them rather fiercely.
After my lamby foray into Turkish and middle eastern cuisine this weekend (yesterday I experimented deliciously with baked falafel) I find myself with an interesting assortment of leftovers, which, individually do not constitute a meal, but together, and augmented a tad, will do just fine. Leftover slices of roast lamb with cacik and olives (!) and a few sliced tomatoes, feta and cucumbers can make very satisfactory sandwiches, stuffed into pita bread, as will the falafel. What I really needed to go with it was a salad.
The Shephard's Salad that went with the original lamb dinner was rather fun. Much like a Greek salad in that it consists primarily of chopped tomatoes, cucumber, and green peppers (and even more so since I added some cubed feta) it also featured lettuce (not to be found on any self-respecting Greek salad, thank you very much Eastern Coast!) sliced radishes, and was dressed with a combination of fresh lemon juice, olive oil, fresh sliced mint leaves and the all-important sumac, a woodsy-lemony flavoured spice. It was quite delicious, but having had it two days in a row, I am sort of looking for something else.
Lentil salad it is. There is, as it turns out, a Turkish version of green lentil salad lurking in the pages of The Sultan's Kitchen: a Turkish Cookbook. It is both similar to and quite different from the Ethiopian recipe "Azifa" that I like to make in the summer, being a combination of cooked, chilled green/brown lentils dressed with finely chopped vegetables and a simple vinaigrette. Whereas the African recipe has hot peppers, mustard, and red wine vinegar as its distinctive ingredients, the Turkish version is mellower, featuring more chopped mint, cilantro, sumac, and fresh lemon juice.
Lentil salads keep very well for a couple of days in the fridge, and lend themselves well to packed lunches - whether or not you have refrigeration available. They are also a fantastic source of both protien and vitamin-rich vegetables, and if you have a conservative hand with the olive oil, they can be healthily lean, too. In the summer, they are a favourite accompaniment (second, perhaps only to couscous salad) to grilled lamb burgers. Really, they make a great, easy side dish at any time, and I'm really looking forward to it tonight.
April 24, 2005
Impromptu
I didn't really intend to have a dinner party last night, it just worked out that way. Last week I picked up a de-boned half-leg of lamb at the supermarket, and plunked it into the freezer. Large pieces of lamb are always useful, whether one intends to roast them or dice them for stew/kebabs - always a good thing to have around. My plan was to try my hand at a rather attractive looking Turkish dish in one of my cookbooks, so I took it out of the freezer and started defrosting it on Friday.
The dish was quite simple, actually - it did require a shopping trip, as I did not have any pistachio nuts on hand, nor did my dwindling supply of dried apricots look up to the task. There was also the matter of the fresh mint - my garden mint is not yet sufficiently large to harvest, so I picked up a bag at the market.
The actual finished main dish was a boneless lamb half-leg roasted over a pilaf (or pilav, in Turkish) of long-grain rice cooked with garlic, onion, pistachio nuts, diced dried apriot and a good quantity of finely minced parsley and cilantro. The rice was carefully concealed under the meat so that the juices from the meat would soak down into the pilav and enrich the flavour. Once cooked, the meat was rested briefly and then sliced and served platter-style.
It was a simple enough dinner not to require over-thinking on my part. Cacik, the Turkish answer to Greek tzatziki, was simple to prepare, and the Shephard's Salad from The Sultan's Table by Oczan Ozan was the most sensible of side dishes (although I added feta... because I like feta and have been craving it lately). The lemon juice dressing went beautifully with the freshly chopped cucumber, tomatoes, radishes and peppers. A little pita bread from the market, and we were pretty much set.
It was my sneaky thought that, while I was at an afternoon event yesterday, I could casually invite a friend or two over for a casual little lamb dinner. In my usual spirit of testing recipes out on my friends, this seemed a most excellent plan, and mojito consumption in the afternoon made the whole thing sound just that much more fun. By the time the lamb came out of the oven, there were five of us, some of us a little tipsy, wine was being opened, and the cat was banished to "boarding school."
I forgot the olives. I don't know how, exactly, after making several mental notes on the order of how much I was looking forward to the olives, but I forgot them until the plates were cleared and I was putting out a plate of Turkish Delight and some fresh Iranian dates as a sort of dessert. I also forgot the napkins until prodded, but this is an ongoing mental lapse. If I don't set a fancy table with cloth napkins, I will completely and entirely forget that they might be necessary. Happens every time.
The lamb turned out exactly as I wanted it to, and everyone had kind things to say about the food in general. After dinner was done, more friends joined us for a glass of absinthe and to listen to a few cds. As far as unscheduled dinner parties go - I had a ton of fun.
Today, I'm going to eat the olives.
The dish was quite simple, actually - it did require a shopping trip, as I did not have any pistachio nuts on hand, nor did my dwindling supply of dried apricots look up to the task. There was also the matter of the fresh mint - my garden mint is not yet sufficiently large to harvest, so I picked up a bag at the market.
The actual finished main dish was a boneless lamb half-leg roasted over a pilaf (or pilav, in Turkish) of long-grain rice cooked with garlic, onion, pistachio nuts, diced dried apriot and a good quantity of finely minced parsley and cilantro. The rice was carefully concealed under the meat so that the juices from the meat would soak down into the pilav and enrich the flavour. Once cooked, the meat was rested briefly and then sliced and served platter-style.
It was a simple enough dinner not to require over-thinking on my part. Cacik, the Turkish answer to Greek tzatziki, was simple to prepare, and the Shephard's Salad from The Sultan's Table by Oczan Ozan was the most sensible of side dishes (although I added feta... because I like feta and have been craving it lately). The lemon juice dressing went beautifully with the freshly chopped cucumber, tomatoes, radishes and peppers. A little pita bread from the market, and we were pretty much set.
It was my sneaky thought that, while I was at an afternoon event yesterday, I could casually invite a friend or two over for a casual little lamb dinner. In my usual spirit of testing recipes out on my friends, this seemed a most excellent plan, and mojito consumption in the afternoon made the whole thing sound just that much more fun. By the time the lamb came out of the oven, there were five of us, some of us a little tipsy, wine was being opened, and the cat was banished to "boarding school."
I forgot the olives. I don't know how, exactly, after making several mental notes on the order of how much I was looking forward to the olives, but I forgot them until the plates were cleared and I was putting out a plate of Turkish Delight and some fresh Iranian dates as a sort of dessert. I also forgot the napkins until prodded, but this is an ongoing mental lapse. If I don't set a fancy table with cloth napkins, I will completely and entirely forget that they might be necessary. Happens every time.
The lamb turned out exactly as I wanted it to, and everyone had kind things to say about the food in general. After dinner was done, more friends joined us for a glass of absinthe and to listen to a few cds. As far as unscheduled dinner parties go - I had a ton of fun.
Today, I'm going to eat the olives.
April 21, 2005
¡Viva Mexico!
Cinco de Mayo is fast approaching, which means that I'm craving Mexican food. The few good Mexican restaurants that I know of in this town will be packed on May 5 - often featuring misguided live mariachi-as-noise - so I'm contemplating putting together a potluck dinner. In 2004, we had a lot of fun with a St. Patrick's Day planned potluck, so I see no reason it shouldn't work for Cinco de Mayo.
Theme dinners on weeknights work best when more than one person is doing the cooking. I'm picturing a lovely pan of enchiladas in the oven, maybe a jicama salad, and a few Dos Equis Amber floating through my veins. Tortilla chips and salsa everywhere! Now I just need to persuade some participants...
Biggest obstacle? I need a larger kitchen table.
Theme dinners on weeknights work best when more than one person is doing the cooking. I'm picturing a lovely pan of enchiladas in the oven, maybe a jicama salad, and a few Dos Equis Amber floating through my veins. Tortilla chips and salsa everywhere! Now I just need to persuade some participants...
Biggest obstacle? I need a larger kitchen table.
April 20, 2005
South African Red Wine
Last night was the 8th anniversary of my wine club. I really ought to know more about wine than I do, after eight years (although I did take a year off for health problems). We drank reds from South Africa, and were generally pleasantly surprised by the quality.
South African wines are often compared to Australian wines - both have that southern hemisphere hot-and-consistant weather going on, which means that there's one less variable to contend with as far as the wine making process goes. Most of the wines that we tried come from the Stellenbosch or Paarl districts in the Coastal Region near the coast on the Western Cape, where the average temperature is a pleasant 35 C - cooler than you would expect from its latitude. Check out the brief history of South African wines.
It is significant that around 75% of the red wine vineyards in South Africa are less than 10 years old. It takes time for a new vineyard to produce grapes that yield good wine, and many of their wines are just now reaching a level of quality that can make them contenders on the international market. The red wine varietals most often cultivated are shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, and pinotage (a local hybrid of pinot noir and cinsaut developed in 1925), but really there is a full gamut of reds produced there.
A particular quality that was noticed almost across the board in everything from the cabernets to the pinotages to the proprietary blends, was a distinct smokiness to the wines that is a characteristic that I haven't found in wines elsewhere. There was a slight hint of burning brush and barbeque that hit the palate like a surprise, as it wasn't really represented anywhere in the nose. The more sophisticated wines, such as the Saxenburg Private Collection 2000 Shiraz (Stellenbosch) had a smooth quality despite the smokiness, but the young, feisty and affordable Beyerskloof 2003 Pinotage had a strong smoky redolence with a lot of acids and a slightly acrid (but appealing) overtone of burnt coffee grounds and crushed black peppercorns. It made almost everyone at the table desperate for barbequed ribs.
The least interesting or appealing wine was the thin, smoky K.W.V. 2003 Roodeburg (Western Cape, Paarl) with a nose of dusty wood and a sour taste of oily, burnt wood. No surprise, it was the least expensive wine, with little to no information on the bottle regarding varietal.
Probably the best wine of the evening was the Warwick 2001 Three Cape Ladies Cape Blend (Stellenbosch), which was a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinotage. It had a minimal nose, but flavours of dark berries, a hint of gooseberry, and a delicate, balanced quality. However, it was the interesting, expensive De Toren 2002 Fusion V Private Cellar (Coastal Region) blend of five varietals with its nose of vanilla, chocolate, leather, nutmeg and gingerbread and flavours of tobacco, violets and plums that got the most exclamatory comments.
The cabernet sauvignons tended toward very classic nose or palate - green peppers, cedar, and a certain amount of dust. The shirazes were a divided between overripe (a quality often found in hot-weather shiraz and merlot) and the simple (but smooth).
The overall quality of the wines was higher than my previous - albeit limited - experiences with South African wine led me to anticipate. Some of the wines were in the magic zone of being quite drinkable and quite affordable, but the best of the wines were a wee bit overpriced for what you're getting. Still, more and more South African Wines are becoming available now, and as the wineries settle on which grapes they want to produce and develop their vines, it's well worth watching (and tasting) to see where they go from here.
Previous tasting:
Spanish Wines
South African wines are often compared to Australian wines - both have that southern hemisphere hot-and-consistant weather going on, which means that there's one less variable to contend with as far as the wine making process goes. Most of the wines that we tried come from the Stellenbosch or Paarl districts in the Coastal Region near the coast on the Western Cape, where the average temperature is a pleasant 35 C - cooler than you would expect from its latitude. Check out the brief history of South African wines.
It is significant that around 75% of the red wine vineyards in South Africa are less than 10 years old. It takes time for a new vineyard to produce grapes that yield good wine, and many of their wines are just now reaching a level of quality that can make them contenders on the international market. The red wine varietals most often cultivated are shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, and pinotage (a local hybrid of pinot noir and cinsaut developed in 1925), but really there is a full gamut of reds produced there.
A particular quality that was noticed almost across the board in everything from the cabernets to the pinotages to the proprietary blends, was a distinct smokiness to the wines that is a characteristic that I haven't found in wines elsewhere. There was a slight hint of burning brush and barbeque that hit the palate like a surprise, as it wasn't really represented anywhere in the nose. The more sophisticated wines, such as the Saxenburg Private Collection 2000 Shiraz (Stellenbosch) had a smooth quality despite the smokiness, but the young, feisty and affordable Beyerskloof 2003 Pinotage had a strong smoky redolence with a lot of acids and a slightly acrid (but appealing) overtone of burnt coffee grounds and crushed black peppercorns. It made almost everyone at the table desperate for barbequed ribs.
The least interesting or appealing wine was the thin, smoky K.W.V. 2003 Roodeburg (Western Cape, Paarl) with a nose of dusty wood and a sour taste of oily, burnt wood. No surprise, it was the least expensive wine, with little to no information on the bottle regarding varietal.
Probably the best wine of the evening was the Warwick 2001 Three Cape Ladies Cape Blend (Stellenbosch), which was a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinotage. It had a minimal nose, but flavours of dark berries, a hint of gooseberry, and a delicate, balanced quality. However, it was the interesting, expensive De Toren 2002 Fusion V Private Cellar (Coastal Region) blend of five varietals with its nose of vanilla, chocolate, leather, nutmeg and gingerbread and flavours of tobacco, violets and plums that got the most exclamatory comments.
The cabernet sauvignons tended toward very classic nose or palate - green peppers, cedar, and a certain amount of dust. The shirazes were a divided between overripe (a quality often found in hot-weather shiraz and merlot) and the simple (but smooth).
The overall quality of the wines was higher than my previous - albeit limited - experiences with South African wine led me to anticipate. Some of the wines were in the magic zone of being quite drinkable and quite affordable, but the best of the wines were a wee bit overpriced for what you're getting. Still, more and more South African Wines are becoming available now, and as the wineries settle on which grapes they want to produce and develop their vines, it's well worth watching (and tasting) to see where they go from here.
Previous tasting:
Spanish Wines
April 19, 2005
Snap, Crackle, Fffffzzzzt!
Indoor electric grill + coffee maker + ancient house with wiring done by drunken monkeys = blown fuse. Well, and the breaker was tripped, too.
So, now I still don't know how long it takes to cook fat sausages on an indoor grill.
I was also interested to note that making the coffee took priority over rescuing the sausages, but that may have been a stress-related choice.
So, now I still don't know how long it takes to cook fat sausages on an indoor grill.
I was also interested to note that making the coffee took priority over rescuing the sausages, but that may have been a stress-related choice.
April 17, 2005
Rah, Rah, Rasputin!
За ваше здоровье!*
Friday night we took in a singular entertainment at Rasputin Restaurant on West Broadway. I've been there a few times, but not recently. Nothing had changed, however, except that I think the portion sizes have increased.
The reason to go to Rasputin - a slightly unnerving name for a restaurant, unless you take comfort in the notion that Grigori Rasputin survived at least one attempt at poisoning - is for the ambiance. Well, the food is good, too, and they have the best vodka selection I've seen in this town, but in what other restaurant do you get to listen to the owner belting out Russian folk songs, accompanied by two staff members playing the synthesizer and the triangular balalaika?
The service is friendly, occasionally edging on pushy, as the owner patrols the restaurant between sets. We were sharing a zakuski (appetizer) of pickles when he interrupted us to tell us that the enormous pickled whole tomatoes on the plate were "the very best." Naturally, we had to try those next. They were fantastic! I also suspect there may have been some vodka in the pickling process. I wonder if they make the pickles in-house, as certainly they were unlike any commerical pickles I've ever seen, even in shops that cater to Russians and the eastern European market.
I ordered the lamb shashlik - meat cooked on a "sword" that is in fact an enormously long metal skewer. The seasoning was simple and very complementary to the lamb, whose flavour came through beautifully. The meat was not overcooked, but still retained a steady pink colour inside. The portion size was astonishing - it almost seemed as though they had managed to get an entire lamb threaded onto the skewer. The lamb was served on a rice pilaf (plov) and accompanied by a large, multi-vegetabled salad. I couldn't finish it all.
Our host, working his garrulous way around the room, serenaded the newest waitress, Marina, by singing a folk song of the same name. She seemed greatly embarrassed, but went about her duties with an only slightly red-faced dignity. The owner made a point of announcing to the entire restaurant that "Tonight, we have very special guest, famous movie star, many many movies" but couldn't seem to place the actor's name. So, he asked us. Fortunately for all, we did recognise Michael Moriarty (Law and Order's Ben Stone) and were able to supply the missing information. Our host, suave as ever, made up for this by singing "a special song, just for Mr. Moriarty." He did not, however, appear to recognize Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor on Smallville) who managed to eat in peace.
The wall closest to the musicians is dominated by an enormous, heavily stylized painting of three Russian horsemen in medieval garb, clutching clubs and staring into the distance. Tatars, I would guess. The painting is carefully lit so that it can be enjoyed by the whole restaurant, and it is not the only painting of its kind - just the largest. Although, the huge, idealized painting of the Mad Monk himself looms just inside the doorway.
The music is loud enough during sets that conversation is difficult, if not impossible. Your best plan is to submit to the ambiance, enjoy the well-prepared food, and tap your toes to the catchy folk rhythms.
It was, all in all, a lovely evening.
*To your health!
Friday night we took in a singular entertainment at Rasputin Restaurant on West Broadway. I've been there a few times, but not recently. Nothing had changed, however, except that I think the portion sizes have increased.
The reason to go to Rasputin - a slightly unnerving name for a restaurant, unless you take comfort in the notion that Grigori Rasputin survived at least one attempt at poisoning - is for the ambiance. Well, the food is good, too, and they have the best vodka selection I've seen in this town, but in what other restaurant do you get to listen to the owner belting out Russian folk songs, accompanied by two staff members playing the synthesizer and the triangular balalaika?
The service is friendly, occasionally edging on pushy, as the owner patrols the restaurant between sets. We were sharing a zakuski (appetizer) of pickles when he interrupted us to tell us that the enormous pickled whole tomatoes on the plate were "the very best." Naturally, we had to try those next. They were fantastic! I also suspect there may have been some vodka in the pickling process. I wonder if they make the pickles in-house, as certainly they were unlike any commerical pickles I've ever seen, even in shops that cater to Russians and the eastern European market.
I ordered the lamb shashlik - meat cooked on a "sword" that is in fact an enormously long metal skewer. The seasoning was simple and very complementary to the lamb, whose flavour came through beautifully. The meat was not overcooked, but still retained a steady pink colour inside. The portion size was astonishing - it almost seemed as though they had managed to get an entire lamb threaded onto the skewer. The lamb was served on a rice pilaf (plov) and accompanied by a large, multi-vegetabled salad. I couldn't finish it all.
Our host, working his garrulous way around the room, serenaded the newest waitress, Marina, by singing a folk song of the same name. She seemed greatly embarrassed, but went about her duties with an only slightly red-faced dignity. The owner made a point of announcing to the entire restaurant that "Tonight, we have very special guest, famous movie star, many many movies" but couldn't seem to place the actor's name. So, he asked us. Fortunately for all, we did recognise Michael Moriarty (Law and Order's Ben Stone) and were able to supply the missing information. Our host, suave as ever, made up for this by singing "a special song, just for Mr. Moriarty." He did not, however, appear to recognize Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor on Smallville) who managed to eat in peace.
The wall closest to the musicians is dominated by an enormous, heavily stylized painting of three Russian horsemen in medieval garb, clutching clubs and staring into the distance. Tatars, I would guess. The painting is carefully lit so that it can be enjoyed by the whole restaurant, and it is not the only painting of its kind - just the largest. Although, the huge, idealized painting of the Mad Monk himself looms just inside the doorway.
The music is loud enough during sets that conversation is difficult, if not impossible. Your best plan is to submit to the ambiance, enjoy the well-prepared food, and tap your toes to the catchy folk rhythms.
It was, all in all, a lovely evening.
*To your health!
April 13, 2005
Many Food Blogs and Two-Lentil Soup
There are an awful lot of food blogs out there. I didn't really look for them, before I started my own, so I had no idea the amount of information smog I was contributing to. I knew that blogging had become awfully popular, but I didn't realize how many amateur food writers there are out there. They range from the fascinating to the tedious to the downright ugly. Incoherent gibbering about restaurants to sly, sophisticated observations on cultural foibles. I've got my eye on a few of them, and may put up a link section in the future.
I made lentil soup for dinner tonight, as threatened. Most soups made with brown/green lentils suffer a little texturally, being a little too thin unless you purée at least half the finished amount. Since my decision to make soup was at least partially predicated on laziness, that sort of pre-empted any notions that would dirty up the food processor or blender. (Perhaps I need an immersion blender). I decided to go with two different lentil types, instead. Brown lentils and red lentils, to be precise.
I usually use red lentils to make Bengali Red Lentils a dish which is simmered for long enough that the lentils dissolve into a creamy mass. I decided that their tendency to self-purée could be put to good use in soup, as well, and I was right. I had mentally prepared myself for needing to get in there with the potato masher to squash them into compliance, if necessary, but it wasn't.
I was originally planning a very simple soup, just lentils and fresh vegetables, but one look in the fridge while fetching the carrots, celery and leek suggested otherwise. Countless little containers of things like mashed potato, diced ham, and a peeled yam (not to mention the red bell pepper that was languishing) and even a little leftover pizza sauce resulted in a thick, hearty but still healthy soup in the fine tradition of Heirloom Soup. Only enough leftover for lunch tomorrow, however.
I contemplated making biscuits to go with the soup, since they would be a fine match, and we were out of any other type of bread, but eventually decided on focaccia. Basically, I just used the herbed version of my pizza dough recipe, and allowed it to rise in the pan a little before spritzing with oil, sprinkling with salt, and baking for about 10 minutes. Dead easy, and healthier than the biscuits would have been.
I made lentil soup for dinner tonight, as threatened. Most soups made with brown/green lentils suffer a little texturally, being a little too thin unless you purée at least half the finished amount. Since my decision to make soup was at least partially predicated on laziness, that sort of pre-empted any notions that would dirty up the food processor or blender. (Perhaps I need an immersion blender). I decided to go with two different lentil types, instead. Brown lentils and red lentils, to be precise.
I usually use red lentils to make Bengali Red Lentils a dish which is simmered for long enough that the lentils dissolve into a creamy mass. I decided that their tendency to self-purée could be put to good use in soup, as well, and I was right. I had mentally prepared myself for needing to get in there with the potato masher to squash them into compliance, if necessary, but it wasn't.
I was originally planning a very simple soup, just lentils and fresh vegetables, but one look in the fridge while fetching the carrots, celery and leek suggested otherwise. Countless little containers of things like mashed potato, diced ham, and a peeled yam (not to mention the red bell pepper that was languishing) and even a little leftover pizza sauce resulted in a thick, hearty but still healthy soup in the fine tradition of Heirloom Soup. Only enough leftover for lunch tomorrow, however.
I contemplated making biscuits to go with the soup, since they would be a fine match, and we were out of any other type of bread, but eventually decided on focaccia. Basically, I just used the herbed version of my pizza dough recipe, and allowed it to rise in the pan a little before spritzing with oil, sprinkling with salt, and baking for about 10 minutes. Dead easy, and healthier than the biscuits would have been.
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