I Might Just Be a Wine Snob

In my twitter feed, one of the features the other day was the Wine Guy doing a bit on What Wine Snobs say.  It was beyond funny.  It made me think about how intimidated people get when they get around these wine snobs.  But then, the other week I found myself in the position of being the wine snob.  I must say I wasn’t really pleased with the picture I saw in the mirror. 

Let me explain.  The other night I met some friends for a wine tasting at a local spot called Tasting de Vine which features wines created by an Illinois winery.  Truth be told, I thought we were headed somewhere else or I might not have ventured down that path.

While there are a lot of things that I love about the Chicago area, we’re not exactly known for our fine wines.  That’s why there are great flights from Chicago to San Francisco so we can head up to Sonoma and Napa. I also have to confess that I’ve had a bottle or two of their wines in the past and to say I was unimpressed would be an understatement.

That being said, I trust my friend Nick.  He’s a fan of the Purple Pig in Chicago so he can’t have bad taste. We planned on meeting after work on Friday so I was ready to leave by about 3 in the afternoon.  The only problem is that someone had scheduled me into a conference call at 5 pm on Friday.

Now who schedules a conference call at 5 pm on a Friday? Obviously someone who doesn’t have a wine tasting to get to.  Not only was it scheduled for 5 but it ran long. And then it was clear by the time I left the office there were only amateurs on the road. You know them.  They’re the ones that are proud they’ve never even so much as been stopped let alone receiving a ticket but have caused hundreds of accidents around them.

Not only that, every single light I came to turned red just before it was my turn to go through the intersection. Remember when I mentioned that I thought that this was a different place? I parked by the place I thought we were going only to find out I was all wrong.

Not only was I an hour late, and 4 glasses behind on the tasting no matter how slow they were trying to drink, But I now wasn’t sure I knew where I was going. Thankfully there’s this technology called cell phones.  As I was guided into the tasting room like a 747 is guided to a gate, when I realized where I was headed, my heart sank a little bit.

My expectations sank a lot more.  As I sat down, I was looking forward to the evening if not the wine. I began working my way up to their current drink in a reasonable fashion and the more I tasted the more I was pleasantly surprised. I found myself really enjoying their wines.

It was while I was sitting there working my way up to the rest of the table that I realized that the recessive wine snob gene had taken over. I had pre-judged a wine based on my perception of its location and some of my previous experience. 

So what did I learn from this experience? That you can’t always judge a wine from its region. I guess the only thing I can do is to taste before I judge.  What’s been your experience?

The Unexpected Pair

Bogey and Bacall. Tracy and Hepburn. Diana and Prince Charles. You look at these pairs and some of them worked extremely well and others . . . well let’s just say they were a flop. 

But all had one thing in common. The pairing was unexpected.

I think it’s the same way with pairing wines with dinner.  I know there’s always some chart or another that suggests certain types of wines with certain types of food. And as a general rule it’s pretty good.  But it assumes that every wine of the same varietal tastes similarly.

But they don’t.

It seems to me that every wine takes on the character of the winemaker as well as the j’ne sais quai of the soil and environment in which it’s grown. That makes wine pairings with food a little more complex than just the red wine with beef, white wine with fish approach.

Perhaps it’s found in exploring wines beyond the norm.  By the norm, I guess I mean the traditional American standbys like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, White Zinfandel etc. Yes I pulled the white zin into the conversation.  I don’t know about you but that’s the type of wine many people get their start down the path of wine drinking.

All this to say, I had some friends over the other night, one of whom I don’t see on a regular basis because he lives out of town.  I had been thinking over the menu but hadn’t really landed on anything and then he arrived in the office on Monday.

It’s obvious that he’s taken a completely different approach to eating as he looked like he’d been spending a lot of time in the gym and a portion of him was missing. Now when I’m entertaining the last thing on my mind is trying to figure out the healthiest meal possible. 

I love cheese and whole cream and butter. Yes I love butter. Not margarine. Not light butter but sweet cream butter. (The French have this butter with fluer de sel that is outrageous.) I come by this genetically.  My grandmother always liked a little bread with her butter. Even though the food is fantastic, that doesn’t lead to necessarily the healthiest cooking.

Back to dinner. What to cook? I decided on something relatively simple but it led to a bit of a crisis for me.  I decided to go with a chicken stir fry.  So what crisis am I talking about? I’m primarily a red wine drinker. I had just received a case of red wines from Seghesio that I was anxious to dig into.

Now it’s not like my wine cabinet is empty and there wasn’t a lot of choice on the white wine side, it’s just that I was looking forward to opening a bottle (or two) from my new case. My friend is a white wine drinker so not a problem as I had just opened a bottle of Chamisal stainless Chardonnay I had found at Costco.  That was a pleasant surprise!

But, alas, I had still not decided on a wine and I couldn’t find my handy pairing chart to tell me what I should choose.  It’s probably a little dangerous leaving me on my own to select the pairing but I guess I would be the only one who would suffer if the choice were poor.

I decided on the Seghesio Grenache.  I did have a bottle of their Old Vine Carignane in my hand and a bottle of the Marian’s Reserve but I eventually decided on the Grenache. I was pleasantly surprised that the pair was actually quite good.  At least to my pedestrian palate. I didn’t bother to find my pairing chart to see if that was something that was recommended or not.

But frankly more than the food or the wine, it was about getting caught up with a good friend. The wine and the food made it easy to have a great conversation and get caught up.

So, the next time you have a chance to rethink a pairing – take a chance. It’s possible that you end up with a Charles and Diana pairing (in which case you won’t be doing that again). But when you find yourself in the midst of a Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn pairing like I did the other night, well just enjoy an evening with an unexpected but exceptional pair!

And, if I might steal and modify a line from one of my gastronomical heroes, Jacques Pepin:  Happy Pairing!

Cheese Clock? Who Knew!

I know that there are all kinds of crazy things out in the marketplace.  You can travel to Wisconsin to see the biggest ball of twine or visit the mustard museum.  You can head to Boston and stay in a refurbished 1800s jail.  There’s no end to the crazy things that are out there.

I’m reminded of that every time I get into a Hampton Inn elevator where they feature some of the craziest destinations one could visit.  And, being somewhat cynical, I didn’t think I could be shocked by something that might be a little crazy.

That is until I visited one of my favorite cheese sources: The Artisanal Cheese Company.  I was surfing through their website looking for a possible cheese pairing for an upcoming Monday’s @ Mark’s evening when I ran across their Cheese Clock.

Now, I’m not talking about a clock that’s literally made out of cheese but where types of cheese are placed around an imaginary clock based on their make-up and in the suggested order of eating.   

Who knew?

It starts with mild cheeses moving through medium and bold cheeses ending with strong cheeses. Now I don’t really have a problem with the Cheese Clock because, frankly, it’s quite handy when thinking about pairing cheese and wine.  I did wonder why the clock starts at the 6 o’clock position. My German heritage had me blaming the French for this abomination. **

But being a guy, you probably have already guessed that I looked at the clock but didn’t really read the information that went along with it.  After all, instructions are for cowards, aren’t they? So here’s the deal, apparently it matches the position of the cheese on a plate.  But what if your cheese plate isn’t round?  What do you do then?

These questions and many more surfaced the deeper I began to dig into this cheese clock.  For instance, a strong cheese and a stinky cheese are two very different things.  I’ve had the Epoisses before.  Would you consider it a medium cheese?  Napoleon supposedly was a fan of this cheese – and I am, too.  But who would have thought it to be a medium cheese with Bold and Strong yet to come? I certainly didn’t.

Shows how much I know!

I buy that Gruyere and Parmigiano Reggiano are both bold cheeses but Uplands Pleasant Ridge?  Wow.  I have a lot to learn.  Isn’t it great that there are things like the Cheese Clock out there?  I know that sounds sarcastic, but it really isn’t. 

I love trying new things – whether it’s a new wine, a new recipe or even a new food.  I would never have thought to pair honey with a blue cheese if I hadn’t read about that somewhere.  So now, as I peruse the Cheese Clock, I’m running through my wine cabinet thinking about taking a wine and pairing it with some new cheese. 

I’m just going to make sure I know the time!

** This just in from Max McCalman from the Artisanal Cheese Company:

"As with most dishes chefs serve, the focus is on what is at 6:00, closest to you. The far end of the plate comes later.  Cheese has its peasant roots. You're hungry? Whatever is closest goes in your mouth first. And besides, the "clock" assembly of cheese plates has not been embraced anyway. The cheese(s) on the plate(s) end up wherever they fall. The more rigid clock construct is provided for people who do not readily recognize the progressions as illogical as they may be. And personally, my day begins closer to 6 than to 12."   

Don't Try This . . . Alone

We’ve all heard on TV when someone’s trying something that could result in loss of life or limb that you shouldn’t “try this at home.”  Well there are some things in life that we shouldn’t try alone.

One of those things is enjoying meals.  Because of my work, I’ve traveled a lot over the years.  Often, I’ve been traveling alone.  That inevitably leads to eating meals alone. It’s not nearly as much fun eating dinner with a Kindle as sharing a meal with someone or a group of people.

Frankly, some of my best memories have occurred over dinner with a close friend or two. And, by the way, I’ve even been known to enjoy a dinner or two with family, too!

When you’re eating alone, it’s just . . . well, it’s just eating. 

Our European friends understand this better than we do, I think. They’re not so much in a hurry to be off to do something else. Often dinner starts around the time many of us in America are beginning to turn in for the night. It’s a different pace where relationship is valued every bit as much as the food (and they LOVE the food!). 

I was thinking the other Saturday morning that there’s one other place where you shouldn’t try this by yourself. It’s in the kitchen.  Cooking is not a single person effort it’s a group effort.

What reminded me of this that Saturday morning was watching Brunch @ Bobby’s where Bobby Flay shared the kitchen with his wife Stephanie March.  I’ve seen his show plenty but liked it all the more when watching the interaction between Bobby and Stephanie. It was somehow more real especially when he made a suggestion and she did it her own way.

The chemistry between Jacques Pepin and Julia Child was phenomenal.  Two fantastic chefs who each had their own ideas of how something should be done but who worked together beautifully. The banter between the two when they approached the same dish with different techniques or approaches was always respectful  . . . and fun.  At the end of the day, I think that cooking is a communal event.  There’s nothing better than watching everyone work together to complete a meal.

Maybe that’s the best memory of last summer. While there were a lot of exciting events and activities, one of my very best memories was camping with my brother and sister-in-law and their four kids. And with three of the four teenagers, you can imagine the fun.

But meal time was fun time.

Nothing like grabbing a bunch of too-tired-from-waking-up-too-early teens to set the tone for the day. It’s a little like getting up with four of the seven dwarfs, one’s Happy, one’s Sleepy, one’s Doc and one’s Grumpy.  (I’ll let the four of them duke it out over which one’s which!)

I loved getting up in the morning and crawling out of the tent (literally . . . I’m not what you call Mr. Flexible). Stretching and putting on a pot of coffee.  Restarting the fire from the previous night –  hoping that there are few embers to get things going.

Then, as the kids wandered out of the tent or camper, begin to gather up the food for breakfast.  Luckily we snagged another picnic table from an empty campsite so we had two – one to work on and one to eat on. Everyone had a hand in making the meals. Yes there was a little bit of arguing (remember that three of the four were teens) but all in all it was a lot of fun.

It’s just been in the last few years that I’ve really started to hit my stride in the kitchen.  It could have been that was the case because it was always independent work.   I think I’ve decided that it’s a lot more fun when you’re cooking with someone than when you go it alone.

I know for me it’s always helpful to have the voice of reason working alongside of me. That’s so I don’t take the recipe that one step too far, going from tasty to trashcan in a single spice.

But that’s just me. What do you think?