Wine tasting - the results

Last Saturday was the mini-wine tasting. Four friends, two bottles of wine, a couple wedges of cheese, and some crackers. Since we only had two bottles to taste we chose to forgo the spit bucket, and just drink it up.

The first wine was a Robert Mondavi 2006 Woodbridge Chardonnay. Not rated that I know of, and about $10 a bottle.
The second wine was a 2004 Patz & Hall Chardonnay. The Patz & Hall was the $40 wine that was "rated" by one of those magazines.

The first thing we noticed was that these were two very different wines. The Woodbridge was very fruity, smooth, a little creamy, and had no spice or oak to it. The Patz & Hall was much leaner--less of the creamy mouthfeel--more acidic, and had lots of oak and spice flavors and aromas up front.

It's safe to say that there was more going on in the Patz & Hall bottle, that it was more complex than the Woodbridge. But it didn't make us like the wine any better. In fact, the acidity was a little off-putting.

When we went back to the Woodbridge, that's when the fruitiness really came out, and we found we liked it even more after drinking the Patz Hall wine.

Now, I'm not saying that I disliked the Patz & Hall. In fact, since there was some left over, I had a glass of it with some brie the other night, and it was rather nice. But it certainly wasn't $30 worth better than the Woodbridge, especially when there's so many decent Chardonnays out there.

My thoughts? One, more money equals more complex, but does not necesarily translate into more enjoyment. Two, the Chardonnays were actually fairly different from each other in style, so a little hard to compare. And, finally, perhaps my palatte is not developed enough to appreciate a great wine, or to distinguish it from a good wine. That's fine with me. There are still wines out there I like, that are quirky, tasty, and pretty cheap, (like Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc Viognier) and I can still enjoy those knowing that I'm not really missing anything by being thrifty.

Update: Checked the Woodbridge site, and apparently there is just a touch of oak-aged wine that they add to the mix. But not much.

Vampire sugar cookies

My friend brought this recipe to my attention:

http://www.popularcookierecipes.com/Sugar.html

Just a simple sugar cooke recipe, right? Looks so on first glance. But look again.

Go on, I'll wait.

That's right, the recipe calls for 8 cloves of garlic. Chopped, as if it makes a difference.

Now, I'm all for using garlic in wierd ways. Chocolate covered garlic and garlic honey ice cream are two recipes that I've made, and enjoyed, before. But this has got to be a mistake.

If you look down in the recipe instructions, there's no other mention of the garlic. This makes it pretty clear to me that it's a mistake in the recipe--perhaps someone mixed up a garlic bread recipe with a sugar cookie recipe.

Just another reason why you should 1. Not trust every recipe you find on the 'net, and 2. Read your recipe thoroughly before starting. I've got to imagine that one or two unlucky people chopped up the garlic before realizing the error, or, even worse, actually used the garlic in the recipe.

In related news: I'm proud to say that if you type in the phrase "sugar cookies with garlic" into Google, my blog is the first search result that pops up. Makes me giddy.

Wine tasting: the experimental setup

As I was thinking more about this wine tasting thing, I realized that, in addition to the fancy bottle of Chardonnay I bought, I still have an unopened bottle of Chardonnay from when I hosted Christmas dinner for my family.

So, I've decided to drink both of them, tasting-style, with crackers and a spit bucket and everything, to compare and contrast. My only problem is that I will need others to experiment with me. So, the tasting may have to wait a couple of weeks until I can get some friends together. But then, I'll have more data points with which to compare.

This should be fun!

The wine snob?

I've never been accused of being a wine snob. But I do enjoy food. And I consider wine a part of food.

That's why I wish I was just a little bit better at tasting wine. I'm not a world-class wine taster, but I definitely know what I like to drink and what I don't like. I can tell if something is sweet or dry, acidic, tannic, and can detect floral and fruity aromas.

But the flavors, textures, aromas of wine, and how to pin them down, are still somewhat elusive to me. I need a better vocabulary. I need to drink more wine.

The other problem is my pocketbook. I don't have a lot of money to spend on wine, or on courses where somebody can tell what's a good wine. It's not that I need somebody to tell me what's good, it's just that I'm the kind of person that likes to pick apart everything food. I get additional enjoyment of waxing descriptive about my food when I'm eating it. (My husband calls me a "commercial" and laughs.)

So, as a birthday present to myself, I bought one of my most expensive bottles of wine. (My most expensive bottle is a champagne I sipped often on my honeymoon, which has great sentimental value to me, so it's priceless.)

The bottle cost $40. It's a chardonnay--I can't remember the name--and it was rated 92 by Wine Spectator. Or perhaps it was Wine Enthusiast. Wine Today? Vine?

So far as I know, this is the first "rated" wine that I will ever drink.

It will be interesting to taste the wine to see what the "professionals" consider a high-rated wine, and to compare that against what I usually drink. Maybe I'll be able to taste a difference, or maybe not, but the experience should be fun. I'll learn something no matter what.

Cooking Goofs For The Soul, Part 3

I know I said I was going to do a poll, but one individual's cooking goofs are so clearly above and beyond the level of most mortals, I felt it was OK to make a unilateral decision.

Congrats to Dave, aka Stupid Reality, for his list of cooking nightmare stories, many which involved heat and/or chemical burns.

Runner-up status is awarded to Reggie for valiantly trying to burn down his school in his Home Ec kitchen, not once, but twice.

Both of you may redeem cookies from me by e-mailing me at themanicscribe at gmail dot com. You get your choice of one dozen Cookie Monster Cookie Dough Cookies, made by yours truly, or any cookies up to $15 in value off of Amazon.com

Thanks to everyone who posted their stories.

And, to wrap up this series of posts, let me share one last cooking goof with you all. This just happened last week. It was a comedy of errors.

I was trying to make a recipe called Maple Candy in the Snow. On its surface, it seems simple. Boil a pint of maple syrup until it hits 270 degrees Fahrenheit, then drizzle the hot liquid on some fresh, clean snow. The result should be chewy maple candy.

My first mistake? I used too small a pan, so every time I cranked the heat above medium low, the mixture would foam up and threaten to leap out the sides of the pan.

My second mistake? I used a meat thermometer to check temperature rather than a candy thermometer. For some reason, the temperature of my liquid stopped getting any warmer at 230 degrees. Well, a bit of critical thinking led me to why this happened. Meat is cooked to a much lower internal temperature than candy. Therefore, meat thermometers don't need to go to such high temperatures. So, I wound up guessing on the exact temperature of the syrup. I tried to use the method where you put some of the syrup in cold water, and feel for texture, but this wasn't working for me.

My third mistake? I didn't pack the snow down firmly. I just drizzled the syrup into the snow on my friend's back porch. Since the snow was light and airy and the syrup was thick and heavy, the syrup disappeared underneath the snow onto my friend's deck.

Bah. Just goes to show you that even a simple-seeming recipe can be complicated, and even an accomplished cook can have lapses in judgement every now and then.

'Tis the season for hot toddies...

It seems like almost everybody gets sick this time of year. Whether it's the stress of the holidays, or the cold, dry weather that tends to keep us inside, it's hard to say.

At any rate, it's a good time of year, sick or no, for hot toddies. Here's a link to some great hot toddy recipes. Skepchick is normally not a food blog. However, some great hot toddy recipes and cold remedies have shown up in the comments thread.

My favorite of these is the recipe from a nun, which includes ice cream as a main ingredient. Yum. I think I'll try that one tonight.

One word of warning: Don't overindulge on these, and be very, very careful when mixing alcohol with cold medicines. A toddy a day at most.

Christmas success!

On Saturday, December 22nd, I seated and served 20 people in my small, midwestern home for an early Christmas dinner. Other than spilling part of a bottle of wine, the dinner was a complete success.

How did I do it? Mostly, I followed the advice of my previous blog post.

One, I delegated. I was only making the meat--turkey and lamb--and some dinner rolls. Each family member brought side dishes, salads, or desserts. My family was extremely gracious and helpful in making sure there was enough to go around.

Two, I kept clean-up to a minimum by using plasic plates and silverware. I found some nice looking stuff at the local warehouse store that didn't look paper-plate chintzy. I also rented some 8-foot tables to seat everybody, from a local rental company. I got 2 tables and 25 chairs delivered, set up and picked up for under $100--money well spent. I also used green disposable tablecloths, which complemented the red place settings nicely.

Three, I did a lot of the prep work and the cooking in advance. I brined the turkey and marinated the meat a few days before. I set up the tables the night before. I set the tables early in the morning. The meats were cooked nearly an hour before the first guest arrived. The roll recipe I used was also largely done in advance. All I had to do the day of was let the rolls rise, then bake them at the last moment.

I did break my rule and tried two new recipes, rather than one new recipe, for the event. I'd never cooked a leg of lamb before, and I'd never done homemade dinner rolls. However, I had a superb marinade for the lamb, and a good recipe in a cookbook that I trust. I also had kitchen thermometers in both meats, to make sure that I did not overcook them.

I did make a bit of an error with the thermometers, though. For both the turkey and the lamb, the thermometers said the meats were done when they still needed a good half hour to an hour more of cooking. Now, I know that each oven is different, and that cooking times in recipes are just guidelines. However, my cooking times were coming up a good 45 minutes to an hour short of the times in the cookbooks. Something was definitely off, and it was either the recipes, or the thermometers.

This is where having confidence in your recipe comes into play. I knew that I could trust both recipes, and that the cooking times shouldn't be more than 10 or 15 minutes off of what was listed. So, I reasoned, I must have made a mistake when placing the thermometers; I must have placed them too shallow. I jiggled the thermometers to place them a bit deeper into the meat, and, lo and behold, the internal temperature went down a good 20 degrees.

It's also about your confidence as a cook. Even if I wasn't so sure about the recipe, I would still have checked the thermometers, jiggled them a bit, or even pulled them out and put them in a different spot of the meat, to see what the problem was. If my second readings had told me the bird was done, then I'd have pulled the bird, even though the recipe may have given a longer cooking time.

The dinner rolls were more of a wild card. However, the recipe was from Cooks Illustrated magazine, another source whose recipes I trust. Rolls are also similiar enough to breadmaking--and I've done enough breads that I felt fairly confident with them. And, with all the other side dishes coming, if the rolls did not work out, no one would miss them. I confess, I was not 100% sure about the rolls until after they came out of the oven, and I palmed one and ate it under my breath. I still had time to shuffle them to the garage if they weren't any good. Thankfully, the rolls were lovely.

A huge thanks to my family for their hospitality and for coming out to my house, some of them for the first time. And a big thanks to my husband, who did a lot of the final cleaning and running to the store for me that day. It was a little stressful to plan, but the execution was beautiful, and the cleanup was a breeze.

Versatile meat marinade
Adapted from from Cooking New American by The Editors of Fine Cooking (The Taunton Press, 2004).

I got this marinade from a Splendid Table Weeknight Kitchen E-mail, and adapted it for my own use. I've used this marinade with great success on beef and lamb. It would also be good for a pork tenderloin. It's probably too strong for chicken, but you could try it, so long as you don't let it marinate too long.

2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds, crushed lightly
Pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Juice and zest of one lemon
Juice and zest of one orange
Sprigs of cilantro or mint

Lightly crush coriander seeds with a mortar and pestle, or by nesting a smaller glass inside a bigger glass and pressing gently but firmly. Stir all ingredients together, except for the cilantro or mint, until well blended.

If you like, reserve a few tablespoons of the marinade to drizzle over the meat after it's cooked. Reserve it before you add the meat.

Put your meat (beef, lamb pork) into a zip-top bag or shallow dish, and add marinade. Bruse the herbs by rolling them roughly between the palms of your hand like you are warming up your hands on a cold day. Add some herbs to each side of bag. Marinate for at least a day, two would be better, turning at least once. I like to turn it every few hours--before work, then after work, then before I go to bed.

Before cooking, wipe meat off to remove the coriander seeds and any bits of herbs that are hanging on. Cook meat in your standard way, whatever that may be.