Archive for April, 2011

Seminar two's wines

Hospice du Rhône is dedicated to advancing the cause of wines made from the Rhône varieties, and this annual event, now in its 19th year, brings together hundreds of Rhône wine lovers at the Mid-State Fairgrounds in Paso Robles, California. The event kicked off Friday night, with the Rhône n Bowl tournament, but kicked into high gear today, with two seminars, a rosé-themed lunch, four hours of afternoon tasting and an evening soirée filled with big bottles.

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The beloved grilled cheese. There’s really nothing like it. Simple and comforting, it’s amazing how satisfying this holy trifecta of bread, cheese and butter can be. The grilled cheese of my childhood was far from gourmet—Wonder bread and Kraft singles—but truth be told, it soothed my young soul. When mom placed a grilled cheese sammie in front of me, gooey American cheese oozing from two slices of crispy, buttery white bread, cut into triangles, all was right in the world.

Today, the allure of this nostalgic sandwich is sweeping the country and people are falling in love with the grilled cheese all over again. Whole restaurants are devoting their menus entirely to the glorious grilled cheese, food trucks are popping up in every major city, there’s even a highly competitive and well-attended Grilled Cheese Invitational, now in its 8th year. This isn’t the grilled cheese of your youth though. No, she’s all grown up now, with artisanal bread, high-quality cheese and gourmet toppings.

The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen in San Francisco sports a perpetual line of customers spilling out the door who cheerfully await their cheese binge. A popular choice is the Mousetrap, a hefty three-cheese stack of Tillamook sharp cheddar, creamy havarti and monterey jack on artisanal sourdough bread from a local bakery.  Order it with “The Works” and you’ll get applewood-smoked bacon, roasted tomato and house-made bread n’butter pickles too. Co-owner and Commander-in-Cheese, Heidi Gibson, was inspired to open up a gourmet grilled cheese restaurant after her many victories at the Grilled Cheese Invitational.

In Los Angeles, fellow GCI champion alum Eric Greenspan, also has sights on opening up a grilled cheese restaurant. Greenspan, chef-owner of the Foundry on Melrose, plans to open Greenspan’s Grilled Cheese right next door. You can bet that his signature haute grilled cheese will be on the menu. The Champ features creamy taleggio, slow-braised short ribs, oven-dried tomatoes and an apricot-caper pureé on raisin bread.

Food trucks represent a burgeoning food scene and many a melty grilled cheese has found a home amongst these roving food-mobiles. The Grilled Cheese Truck (Los Angeles) has a devout following with its over-the-top creative combos. Their famous Cheesy Mac and Rib is a full Southern meal in a sandwich, with sharp cheddar macaroni and cheese, BBQ pork, and caramelized onions stuffed between buttery grilled white bread.

The Grilled Cheese Grill (Portland) has two vehicles, a double-decker bus and a school bus, serving up heart-stopping concoctions like The Original Cheesus, a behemoth 1/3 pound burger sandwiched between two grilled cheese sandwiches (American cheese and pickles in one, Colby jack and grilled onions in the other).

The Milk Truck (New York), feeds hungry weekend shoppers at the Brooklyn Flea. They do classic well with their Ham and Cheese, applewood-smoked ham, Vermont aged cheddar and spicy Coleman’s mustard on rosemary Pullman bread.

The Big Cheese (D.C.) pays homage to fine cheeses, using cult favorites like Cypress Grove’s Midnight Moon goat gouda and Cowgirl Creamery’s triple-cream Mt. Tam.

Inspired to make your own gourmet grilled cheese masterpiece? It doesn’t take much, just some attention to making the few ingredients involved really shine. A trip to the farmer’s market inspired my Honeycrisp Harvest Melt.  I sampled some delicious New York extra-sharp cheddar from my cheese guy and then feasted my eyes on a basket of shiny honeycrisp apples. True to their name, they are incredibly sweet, juicy and crispy. As I carried my bounty home, hints of sage and gingerbread swirled through my thoughts. I decided to experiment with an oatmeal-molasses bread recipe, combining it with elements of my favorite dark gingerbread recipe. The result was a wonderful discovery—a hearty, homey loaf of whole-wheat/oat bread sweetened with molasses and honey, and spiced with ginger, cinnamon, and allspice.

I brushed two slices of my Ginger-Molasses Bread with generous amounts of sage butter and grilled it up in my frying pan.  The scent of fried sage bits and warm spices filled the kitchen. Oozing melted cheese and delicately crispy, sweet-tart apple slices finished off the sandwich. Try pairing this meal with an Alsatian Gewürztraminer. The wine’s lush, floral, fruity perfume will bring out the honey notes of the apple while its spicy notes complement the gingerbread.  Now that’s a grilled cheese lunch, grown and sexy.

Honeycrisp Harvest Melt

Grilled cheese made with New York extra-sharp cheddar, honeycrisp apple, and sage butter on ginger-molasses bread.  Enjoy this with a velvety rich bowl of butternut squash soup and you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.

Makes: 1 sandwich

Ingredients:

2-3 slices New York extra-sharp cheddar

3-4 thin slices of honeycrisp apple

2 tablespoons butter, melted (plus butter for the griddle)

1 teaspoon finely minced sage

2 slices of Ginger-Molasses Bread

Preparation:

1.      Mix together the melted butter and minced sage.  Brush on both sides of the bread.

2.      Melt a pat of butter on your griddle or frying pan over medium heat.  Place the bread in the pan and toast one side until golden brown.

3.      Flip the bread and place cheddar on top.  Cover the pan and turn down the flame to low.  Cook until the cheese melts.

4.      Remove from the pan, top with apple slices, sandwich it all together and enjoy!

Adapted from Bon Appetit (November 1994).  This gorgeous whole-wheat/oat loaf is sweetened molasses and honey, and spiced with ginger and a touch of cinnamon and allspice.  Hearty, homey, and best of all, you can hand-make it without even a mixer.

Makes: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

½ cup packed old-fashioned oats

¾ cup boiling water

1 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)

2¼ teaspoons dry yeast

½ cup unsulfured molasses

¼ cup honey

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

2 teaspoons cinnamon

½ teaspoon allspice

1¼ teaspoons salt

2½ cups whole wheat flour

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 tablespoon melted butter mixed with 1 teaspoon honey (glaze)

1 tablespoon old-fashioned oats

Preparation:

1.      Place 1/2 cup oats in large bowl.  Pour 3/4 cup boiling water over it. Let stand 30 minutes.

2.      Pour 1 cup warm water into a glass measuring cup. Sprinkle yeast over and stir to blend. Let stand until yeast dissolves, about 10 minutes.

3.      Mix molasses, honey, 2 tablespoons melted butter, grated ginger (a microplane works best), cinnamon, allspice, and salt into oat mixture in bowl.  Mix in yeast mixture.

4.      Add enough flour, 1 cup at a time, to form medium-soft dough, mixing with a large spoon/your hands until well blended, about 3 minutes.

5.      Turn out dough onto floured surface.  Knead until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if dough is too sticky, about 5 minutes. Form dough into ball.

6.      Butter large bowl; add dough, turning to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap, then towel. Let dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

7.      Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 400°F.  Butter 9×5-inch loaf pan. Punch down dough; turn out into floured surface and knead 3 minutes. Form into 8-inch-long loaf. Transfer to prepared pan. Cover with plastic, then towel; let rise in warm draft-free area until dough has risen about 1/2 inch above rim of pan, about 45 minutes.

8.      Bake bread 10 minutes; reduce temperature to 350°F. Bake 25 minutes longer. Brush top of bread with glaze; sprinkle 1 tablespoon oats over. Bake until bread is golden and sounds hollow when tapped on bottom, about 10 minutes longer.

9.      Transfer to rack; cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn out brad onto rack; cool completely.

Note: Bread can be made 2 weeks ahead. Wrap tightly in foil and freeze.  Reheat wrapped bread in 350°F oven about 15 minutes.

Recently, I received a voice mail from an irate importer, in which he said he was “fairly disappointed” with the reviews his wines had received from me. It seems the same wines have been well reviewed in their home market, and my ratings were “out of whack with what [Critic X] has given them.” Furthermore, he demanded that we not publish the reviews. Oh, and I should call him back immediately.

So I did some homework–I looked up what I had rated the wines, and checked out what another major U.S. wine publication had written–and called him back.

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“This is an interesting wine,” said the wine steward as he poured the bruised-looking white into our glasses. “I think you’ll find it….meaty,” he said, a wobbly sales pitch at best.

Everyone at the table looked at each other with sly, faintly amused alarm. That word: interesting. When someone describes a book, a movie, a lecture as merely interesting, it usually indicates a colorless, banal experience. With wine or food, though, the word can signal something ghastly or wonderful or both; a love it or hate it experience; a discovery at least.

I was about to have it all.

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With the Jewish holiday Passover starting tonight, this past weekend was filled with questions about what wine to pick up for consumption during the traditional Seder. I’m sure I’ll get my fair share of these questions today as well, as people make their way to their local wine shops to pick up some selections before sundown. I don’t mind answering these queries; in fact, I love when people ask and I get the opportunity to geek out a bit. What I don’t like is how these questions, especially when it comes to kosher wine, are proposed.

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Researching my recent story on Australia’s Alternative Varieties for the May 2011 issue got me thinking about some of the other unexpected vinous treasures I’ve recently encountered. These range from discovering d’Arenberg‘s unique Sagrantino-Cinsault blend from McLaren Vale to, well, read on.

For starters, how about more examples of unique varieties–this time from Bodegas Valdemar, in Spain’s Rioja region. The family company owns approximately 300 hectares of vineyards, which has allowed it to cultivate small parcels of such oddities as Tempranillo Blanco and Maturana Tinta.

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A hint of sun, temps reaching close to 60°F and a girl on the subway trading in her UGGs for sandals can only mean one thing; menu changes.  Yes, spring is slowly peeking its head from behind the snow-filled clouds of winter. With this new emergence into spring comes the desire to start making menu changes, not only to the revolving seasonal food menus we have grown accustomed to, but also to our ever- expanding cocktail lists.

The seasons changing can be motivation for us bartenders, as it gives us an opportunity to tweak our menus to reflect seasonality in our ingredients, but also seasonality in our selection of spirits.

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