"King Corn"

http://www.kingcorn.net

This was a great movie, available via the Netflix instant online view application.

Follows one acre of corn in Iowa for a season, tracing how this crop is grown, how it has affected small town America, and how it is finding its way into everything that we eat and especially drink. Very worthwhile to watch - at least the trailer, which is available at the movie's website - http://www.kingcorn.net/

Eating good during harvest

During harvest, it can be difficult to remember to eat healthily and regularly. It can be hard to even get laundry done and bills paid sometimes! All of us depend a lot upon the other members of our families at this time to keep daily life together.

Our suppliers know that this is an intense time of the year for us as well. Though we generally don't have time for sales calls during harvest, many of them instead make an effort to take care of us - bringing by harvest tee shirts, lunch, cold beers (though I have way too many guys here at EOS to set a precedent of letting them have a beer at work,) and generally showing their appreciation for our business.

This week, we ate particularly well! First, early in the week, Gary Kroll of World Cooperage brought by fantastic Pizza for the entire crew - not sure where it came from, but the crust was perfect and crispy, with sesame seeds around the edge and really good quality toppings. I particularly loved the Jalepeno & cheese pizza!

On Wednesday, the guys from NomaCorc (a synthetic cork that we use for several projects and client wines,) came by with a BBQ feast on wheels! NomaCorc is headquartered just outside of Raleigh, North Carolina - an area that knows a thing or two about BBQ! Wes Ward, the technical sales director for the company, shipped his custom-built, cork-shaped BBQ smoker all the way out from NC and has been spending a couple weeks going from winery to winery, treating them to authentic, 10-hour roasted, pulled-pork North Carolina goodness! Christened the "NomaQue" it is a pretty cool contraption, with built in storage, cooler, and grill all on a tidy trailer.

Donna, the wife of our Cellar Master Dave, has agreed to bring us a healthy, filling lunch every Thursday through harvest. She started this week with delicious, home-made lasagnae for the crew, along with fresh vegetables, green salad, drinks and dessert. Next week is pulled-pork sandwiches, with a full schedule to follow! The love and care that she puts into this is appreciated greatly, and the crew really looks forward to this each year.

Year-round, our favorite, nearby places to dash out for lunch are the excellent restaurant at Hunter Ranch Golf Course where the Kobe Burger and Cobb Salad are perennial hits. And if you really need a decompression break, and excellent small plates, check out Cass Winery, tucked back in a canyon on Linne Road. They have a full kitchen, and a trained chef Brendan, who turns out great stuff. (As an added bonus, nobody seems to get cell phone reception out there!)

I am planning to organize BBQ for the guys on Saturdays, once we get into 7-days a week harvest. It is good to mark the passage of the week and build some comraderie. The winery has an old, but useable Santa Maria-style BBQ pit trailer, and we always grill on used wine stave wood from barrels that are past their useful service life - they burn hot and impart delicious French oak smoke to the meat. Plus we have some pretty capable pit-masters on staff here, and this can be a chance to let them shine!

More harvest photos here

San Vicente - on the way and back

This was a great day in many ways. I had been wanting to see this process since I first heard about the DIAM closure, and the plant tour really confirmed my trust in this technology as a top quality closure for high-quality wines.

In addition, the countryside was beautiful - cork oak forests, stone walls, mountains, plains, horses, sheep, cattle, even Iberian pigs. We passed through the hilltop fortress town of Alburquerque, with its impressive fortress guarding the valleys on each side and controlling the pass.

Maybe more impressive still was that I managed to have Jamon Iberico for breakfast, lunch, as a snack, and at dinner!

Port Bou, Spain

When taking the train along the southwest coast of France, going into Spain, you have to change trains immediately upon entering Spain at Port Bou. There were a couple of hours in between trains, so I grabbed my bags and headed down into the village.

Port Bou seems to be a small, sleepy village, (granted, it was Sunday,) that clusters around a small, sheltered port on the Mediterranean. Tall cliffs surround the city on every side, so it was very still, sunny, and warm, even vineyards were growing on steep terraces over the town. There is a trim embarcadero along the sea, and a gravelly beach right in the midst of the town, with restaurants and hotels clustered around, facing the small harbor. Through a cleft in the rocks, you can see out to the broader sea, a narrow alleyway which you would have to shoot through to get a boat to open ocean. There were sunbathers on the sand, and children scrambling over rocks near the cliffs, exploring the tidepools.

I sat at a restaurant across the street from the sea, and ordered the menu of the day - fried sardines and paella, with a carafe of rose. The sardines here are delicious - larger fish than what we are accustomed to calling sardines here, and they are fresh, simply slit along the belly to clean them, a scrape of the knife to take the larger scales away, and then dredged through a light flour and salt batter before being dropped in olive oil. They come out crispy, delicate, and delicious - you can pretty much scrape them lightly off the bone with the tip of your fork, flip them over and repeat. Delicious! The last time I had sardines this good was at Pilar, in Napa, and they were Santa Barbara caught sardines.

The Paella was just okay. It was oily, and seemed to be heated up rather than made to order - but then they have a restaurant to run.

I wish I would have had more time to enjoy the sun, sit on the beach, and sip rose, but I had to get on my train back to Barcelona.

More pics, click here

Convection oven, toaster oven, and hotplate

I really love our new kitchen. The convection oven, the range with a really high-powered burner and fine control at the low-end, especially the dishwasher, and the easy access to the refrigerator, with the freezer down below, and the refrigerated shelves up top, where you can see them easily. Now I know that kitchens get fancier than ours - but this is really good compared to what I am used to, and we do just fine with this setup.

In Avignon, I got a good reminder that it is not the quality or layout of the kitchen that matters - it is ingredients, understanding of these ingredients, and organization that makes for really good food. I ducked into a wine bar with a kitchen that was turning out really solid regional food - I sat at the bar which also was the kitchen, and watched as two waitresses and one cook turned out plate after plate of food for a packed room and patio - with only a small convection oven (like the kind they use at Starbucks to heat up your disgusting breakfast sandwich thing,) a basic toaster oven, and an electric hotplate. There was a commercial dishwasher as well, and a sink, but that was essentially it! They were making oxtail, toasted sandwiches, roasted marrow bones, soups, salads, plates of cheeses, escargot, beef tartare, and many other things at a breakneck pace while keeping the diners happily plied with glasses, tastes, or bottles of wine from a blackboard listing around 30 selections.

The people next to me turned out to be friendly and fun; Franck is in the cork business, selling to wineries all around France. Kris is a baker, and sells her breads out of Les Halles, nearby. They were really fun, and we ended up going out for drinks at a friend's restaurant with an American chef. It was a great last night in France before catching the morning train back towards Barcelona.

More pictures from Avignon here:

Green Mango

Just the other day, when trying to come up with some tasting notes for a wine that will be released soon, I was struggling with a taste/aroma that was hard to define in a white wine. An intense fruit character, very tropical, but not sweet, a little floral, and quite green - unusual and different from the more common peach / citrus / pear / white floral notes. Whatever it was seemed familiar, but just out of reach.

And then it hit me; green mango! When we were in El Salvador earlier this year, and though ill-advised were wandering through the shantytown market area of the center of the city, I saw a woman slicing up green fruit into bags. On close inspection, the fruit was a hard, green mango, which she peeled and pitted, then sliced like a potato or apple into hard, thin slices. I asked her if I could purchase a bag, and she added lime juice, powdered chillis, hot sauce, and pepper to the bag. The combination was cool, refreshing, crisper than an apple, and piquant from the spice. The underlying flavor of the mango was definitely floral and green in a positive way, tart, and pretty darned delicious! A terrific snack, and one I wish we could find here.

Say Cheese

One of my friends emailed me to ask if I encountered any good cheese in France / Spain.

Indeed I did! I think that in Spain I was so favorably overwhelmed with the Jamon Serrano / Iberico that the cheese took a backseat - but there were really good semi-hard and mountain cheeses there too.

In Montpellier, I visited an affineur, or cheese seller - although here they do much more than simply sell cheeses wrapped up in cellophane - it might be more proper to say that they 'finish' the cheeses here, taking them from relatively young and immature, and bringing them to the glory of full maturity carefully over the course of weeks of time at careful temperature and humidity, delicately turning and washing the rinds, and finally choosing them at just the right moment to be offered to their customers, to be taken home and enjoyed.

The local cheeses of the area are mostly Chevre - small goat's milk cheeses which are semi-soft and range from fruity to pungent. As you can see in the photos, they can take on an almost ashen coat of fungal growth as they approach maturity - this is a beautiful thing, trust me! The aroma in the shop was nearly overwhelmingly delicious - a mix of truffle-like fungal and fresher dairy / goaty aromas.

Also of interest were the farm-cured sausages on offer at the outdoor market. Too bad that I was in a hurry and leaving for Avignon in the morning - these looked amazing too - I just had to snap a photo!

Montpellier – “Tamarillos”

On Monday, I had lunch at Philippe Chapon's "Tamarillos" restaurant, appropriately located at #2, Place du Marche aux Fleurs in Montpellier.

Pierre, though not much more than 40 years old, has had a strong career before starting his own restaurant in Montpellier. He trained as a patisserie chef, and was the French Champion chef in desserts twice, and worked in some amazing kitchens through his early career. His own restaurant is small in size, and nicely suited to turning out perfectionist cuisine that is inventive, delicious, and refreshingly lively in flavor.

I just had the lunch menu at this tasting – I am planning to go back Thursday evening for the full degustation menu.

Here are some notes from the menu – I will list them in order – photos are above, hopefully in the same order as the notes. Sorry, again just my iphone camera was on this jaunt, and it could be better as a camera.

Amuse Bouche: Foie Gras Vanille – This was a delicate slice of foie gras terrine, scented gently with vanilla, textured perfectly on toast points. Perfect!

Entrée: Scallops, seared and served with a warm spinach salad, pistachio, and fresh flowers. This had a balsamic reduction over the top – the flowers were impossible for me to identify, but they looked almost as if they could be arugula flowers, except that they were blue. This was delicious – the scallops were perfect. I had heard that all the French fisherman are on strike because of diesel prices, but Philippe knowingly said, "not ALL fishermen" so apparently he has a source that is happy to keep good clients well provided.

Plat: Veal Cutlet, Chestnut puree, sauce a l'Orange: This was incredible – delicate, fragrant, almost honeyed in aroma. There were tiny white flowers dusted over the surface of the veal, I would have sworn that they were Olive flowers – their nectar was beautiful and intense without being intrusive in the experience of the food. The orange sauce was light, zesty, just barely sweet, and delicious. Veal prepared just to rare – perfect.

Refreshment: Les eaux des Fleurs – (waters of flowers) – this was a light infusion of sorrel and hibiscus flowers, almost like a cold tea, slightly sweet and a perfect palate cleanser.

Desert: Tarte Vanille, dry Poires - this was great too. A classic, rich vanilla tarte, with crisps of pear as an accent. Light, delicious, perfect.

Café: a chocolate and hazelnut crisp served with the café. Sugars for the café are infused with various flowers. Perfect and delicious.

Notes on a few wines that I had with the meal:

Had a perfect rose to start with – not sure of the producer now…

2004 Chateau Puech-Haut, Saint Drezery – Deep color, dark chocolate character, aged tannin character, fruit receding towards dried fruits, plums, figs; very good wine.

2006 Chateau de Cazeneuve, "Les Calcaires", Pic St Loup – Deep color, fig & dust, great tannin, a bit of heat which this wine will certainly grow into. Fruit is secondary to herbal, chocolate, rich dried characters. Love the dusty, cocoa texture.

Mas Amiel "Cuvee Special" 10 Ans D'Age, Maury Appellation Controllee – This was a Banyuls-type dessert wine. It was served chilled. The label says that it is aged for 1 year outdoors in glass bottles, and then another 9 years in barriques prior to bottling. Simply GREAT. Chocolate / Tobacco / preserved cherries. Great residual tannins – this wine really held onto them throughout the slight sweetness and through the aging.

This is a must-visit for any serious foodie whom finds themselves near Montpellier.

Tamarillo's
2 Rue du Marche aux Fleurs
34000 Montpellier, FRANCE
04 67 600 600 phone
04 67 600 601 fax
www.tamarillos.biz

Montpellier 6-4-08

Montpellier
Originally uploaded by nrcarlson

This is from a party that I went to tonight - It was for the 1st Anniversary of a wine bar in the city. Several local vignerons were on hand to pour their wines, and needless to say - the food was darned good, as you can see!

Rode a rented bicycle to the Mediterranean and back this morning, did conferences (MacroWine) at the INRA / SupAgro all day long, and then went out to the gorgeous Pic St. Loup wine region about 20km inland from here - seriously great wines and beautiful, Edna Valley defying scenery, with escarpments towering over the vines. Just breathtaking.

Then this to cap the night!

Bienvenue a Montpellier, (or "Merci Beaucoup, Por Favor...")

Wow...

I just went out for what I had only hoped to be at most an uneventful but tasty dinner. Something good, but casual, hearty, but with a certain amount of style. I even wore the same clothes that I had been sitting on the train in; absolutely a cliche of bad American style - jeans, brightly modern plastic hiking boots, a company polo shirt, and a company logo ball cap, with a rain slicker layer to top it all off and fend off the cloudbursts.

Instead, I had a really interesting evening...

The place that I happened into (Chez Boris) was almost by accident - I really was looking for something quieter, but I was drawn to the warm, narrow room, and it was obvious that Vin was important here. I had to squeeze through the crush of people drinking at the front, and made my way back to the almost deserted rear of the restaurant, seeking a seat. Still totally insecure about communicating in French, I basically said something like, "...is possible, me to dinner??..."

I think that I asked this of the chef too, which only makes it worse... Fortunately, they only ridiculed me for a short time before welcoming me in and making me comfortable. With the menu in front of me, they asked "what do you like to eat??" They couldn't have known just what a loaded question that is for me... Under pressure, I scanned the menu, and lacking Cassoulet, or Bouillabaisse (which I was to learn later was a fortunate thing, as all the French fisherman have been on strike for the past 10 days, so the word on the street is; "don't order the fish!!") I quickly decided on Tartare de Boeuf, (raw chopped beef, served with garnish and a raw egg yolk atop the mound of delicious meat.) I asked also for a glass of a regional red wine, and was brought a very good glass of Syrah.

I enjoyed talking with the staff; the Garde Manger chef is from Senegal, and is studying Mathematics at the University. He is going to graduate next year, and is hoping to move to Canada or Great Brittan to pursue his career. The server did not speak English at all, but was patient with my French, and very attentive despite a very busy evening to be on her own.

Once I finished with my meal, I ordered a glass of Banyuls, since I had been through the appellation that very afternoon. The wine was interesting, almost a bit leathery or horehound candy-like, with a lot of tannin that even pierced through the sweetness to some degree. This is a really different animal than Port or Maderia after all, and the Grenache character really comes screaming through in the dried strawberry and grapefruit rind / positive cigarette butt kind of aromatics, (really, that is a positive descriptor for Grenache in my book; nearly like the aroma of a well-enjoyed brunch, appropriately ended with a single, savored smoke, stubbed out in the rind of the half-grapefruit... Guess you have to be there...)

Since the hub-bub had died down in the front of the bar, I moved up front to watch the rain and to order an espresso and cognac. I settled in with that, and was almost immediately interrupted with "Americans always want cognac. Why can't they enjoy white wine? It always has to be cognac or Jack Daniels or something...." I looked up, and was being menaced by the guy at the next table, sitting with several of his friends.

Before I could even begin to think of how to respond, he continued, "where are you from? Here have some white wine with us!" Before I knew it, I was having drinks with Eric and his friends, Carolina, Elise, Philippe, and Elizabeth (I THINK that I have those all correct...) They were great, and welcoming, and fun, and able to switch between French and English enough that I could follow the conversation, and yet left enough of it in French that I had to work a bit to understand.

It turns out that Eric seems to know everyone, and that Philippe is one of the most talented chefs in the region, with his own restaurant, Tamarillos nearby in the plaza down the street. From what I gather, his specialty is in creating elaborate presentations utilizing fruits & flowers - he has worked under several of the best chefs in the country, and has won the national desserts competitions twice. I am going to go to lunch there tomorrow at 1pm, I can't wait to be amazed, and later this week, we are going to visit some of his friends whom are among the best upcoming vintners in the region.

Myself, Philippe, and Carolina went out for another drink after we finished the evening - bidding farewell to the rest of the troupe. We ended up at a loud Irish bar, with a load of nice, but young, college kids from Dublin on our tail - they are in town to spend three weeks of immersion in the French language; (not sure how that is working out if they are hanging out in an English-speaking Irish pub on their time off...)

While we were there, one of Philippe's friends, Dominique, came by - he owns 2 bars in town; one is a small dance-club sort of place, with a DJ and lot of drinking dancing young people. The other is new, still under construction, and he is just going to have an initial soft opening on Thursday of this week. The new place is called Foch (2, Place Rebuffy, Montpellier 06 15 29 52 51,) for the avenue that it borders, and it will be a wine bar / restaurant with a quiet, sophisticated ambiance, and a sophisticated degustasion menu, and with a unique dining room that will open onto two separate terraces, one on a square, and one under a shady, tree-lined street. He pointed at the tree and told me that "...in Provance, this tree is magical..." Not sure what kind it was, but I took him at his word. He told us that he wanted this new place to be only wine and beer - he had had the other bar for 10 years, and having the alcohol and loud music always brought him troubles. I didn't know it then, but it wouldn't be long before I witnessed this first hand.

We left Foch, locking up and heading over to Dominique's other bar, less than 2 blocks away. It was busy, lots of dancing, drinking kids. I had a drink, danced a bit, and started to fade, as it was already 1 am. I started to say goodbye to Philippe and Carolina, and headed toward the door. Dominique was in the doorway, obviously having words with a kid who was in the entryway. As I approached, I saw that this guy was holding several purses in his hand, and another guy outside was holding a couple more. It looked like they helped themselves to the purses while people were dancing inside.

I don't know exactly what happened. I think that the one kid tried to walk off with the purses, and either Dominique threatened to call the police on the kid, or something. Anyway, the kid turned around and whipped the purses at Dominique with all his might, along with a bottle of some sort of booze that broke into shards. At this, several guys grabbed the two and a big melee broke out. Hard to tell who was getting the worst of it, but eventually one of the thieves was down on the ground and someone started to kick him hard. Someone pulled the kicker away from him, and then he got up and attacked Dominique again, knocking him to the ground and knocking his glasses off. Eventually people pulled the thieves up off him, and started punching them again. Someone handed Dominique a canister of something and in a second he had walked up to one of the kids and squirted him with mace straight in the face for a good second. As the other thief came to try to help, he got a solid dose as well.

The two thieves staggered down the street in pain; I could smell the pepper spray in the air and it was choking even at 20 yards. I made a decision; time to go straight home before the night got any more exciting, and I did just that.

Can I just take a moment to thank Eric, Philippe, Carolina, Dominique, and their friends for their hospitality? When you are totally a stranger to a region, to be taken under wing by such great people with insider knowledge is such a fantastic gift. I resolve to be that person in the future when I come across people from other areas. Merci Beaucoup!

Barcelona!

I have not posted for far too long. In the interim, I have taken a new job, as Director of Winemaking for the company which purchased EOS winery last year. It has been a challenging and exciting few weeks; I really like all the people whom I work with, and I can see that we all want to make a success of the project. And some other things have gone down, which I won't go into at this point, but which are equally complex...

Currently, I am writing from Barcelona. I know, I know, I should be out enjoying the amazing ambiance, food, music, nightlife, etc... instead of writing blog posts. Don't you worry - it is still early! And I already put in a full night last night, and a full day today.

I picked up some things for a snack at the market, so I am nibbling on fresh cherries and Jamon Serrano, the incredible Spanish delicacy. It is no secret that I adore the pig. And perhaps nowhere in the world does the pig achieve the gustatory heights that it does in Spain's Jamon Serrano and Jamon Iberico.

Jamon Serrano is a dry-aged ham from a specific breed (the Landrace, which has been regarded as the tastiest even back to the time of the Romans,) of pig. It is trimmed and then packed in salt for about 2 weeks to draw out moisture and preserve the flesh, then hung to dry age at altitude for 14-20 months to cure. At any Jamon stall in the market, there are 10-15 different Jamons on offer, all hanging from the hoof on display. Upon ordering, the butcher slices tiny, paper-thin bits which almost melt in your mouth. Amazing. I have had Jamon Serrano served sliced thinly over the Pan con Tomato that is a common tapas offering here, a salty, fruity compliment to the bread. Jamon Serrano has an almost dried-fruit sweetness, and the texture is ever so slightly stringy. When layered on a plate, it has an almost jewel-like sheen.

Jamon Iberico is something completely different. It is only made from the Black Iberian Pig, which lives on the border of Spain and Portugal. These pigs are taken immediately after weaning and fattened on grains before being turned out to forage naturally on pasture under the cork-oak forests, eating herbs, grasses, wildflowers, nuts, and tubers. Prior to slaughter, their diet is restricted according to the level of Iberico - for the very best, the Iberico de Bellota, they must eat a diet entirely of acorns. These hams sell for upwards of 125 euro per kilogram!! I purchased some of each today - a packet of 100g or so - the Serrano was 4.95 euro, the Iberico was 21.45!!!!

Anyway, the market is incredible. It is my favorite thing here, and Sagrada Familia does not make that an easy race to win! Walking around, watching tourists snapping photos of the bizzare fish, flesh, fruit, and fromage on display, it just is so clear how differently we have our food presented to us in the US. There was an entire stall with a butcher devoted to selling offal - livers, tripe, intestines to use as sausage casings, even whole, skinned lamb's heads, with the eyes intact and vibrant staring back at everyone... The level of display is amazing - the fruit drinks that are on offer are brilliant, delicious, and refreshing (I had a Cheromoya drink, and a cactus-flower one, both delicious - who needs Coca-Cola!) Fish that are still flopping on the table, flowers, wine, gorgeous vegetables, dried fruits, preserved fruits, chocolates - almost every food imaginable with the curious exception of bread - I did not see any bakeries there.

We Americans have become so sadly separated from the glorious, noble, often violent, but always genuine origins of our food....

Alright, now it is time to get out and enjoy the evening!

Pancakes & Pinot Noir

Pancakes & Pinot Noir- (As served at our “Pinot & Pancackes” Work Day Party 4-20-08)

I adapted this from a recipe that I found online; I never seem to make it exactly the same, adding or subtracting spices to change the aroma a bit. It makes some of the best pancakes, fluffy, light and crispy, that I have had. It is not a batter to make ahead of time, as it depends on being mixed together immediately prior to going on the griddle. Use this as a general guide, and have fun! -NRC

Part #1: Separate 2 eggs carefully into 2 stainless steel bowls. Add a pinch of salt to the whites, and whisk them briskly until they form thick, firm peaks. (The firmer, the fluffier the pancakes!) Set aside.

Part #2: Grab the bowl with the two yolks. Add 1 cup of milk, and 3 tbsp of melted butter. Whisk together. (You could also add some spice like ground cardamom or vanilla if you like; orange zest is delicious as well.)

Part #3: In a third bowl, sift together 1 ½ cups of flour, 3 tsp baking powder, ¾ tsp salt, and 1 tbsp sugar (don’t make them too sweet, or they won’t pair well with Pinot Noir!) Sift it back slowly into the egg yolk / milk mixture, and mix. If the mixture is too thick, add a bit more milk to make it lighter – I usually have to use an additional 1/8 cup or so.

Assembly: Using a rubber spatula, move the yolk / batter mixture into the beaten egg whites (whisk them again if needed to make sure that they are really firm and fluffy.) Add 1 cup of fresh blueberries, and with the spatula LIGHTLY mix them together – almost like how you would toss a salad – you don’t want to break the blueberries, and the egg whites don’t need to be totally incorporated – they will make fluffier pancakes if there is still a lot of air trapped in the egg whites.

Preparing: Get a large griddle or cast-iron skillet hot enough that butter starts to smoke, and then back it off a little bit to maintain a constant, even heat. Brush lightly with butter to grease the surface. Make a few tiny test pancakes the size of a quarter to make sure that the temperature is right. They should get crispy on the outside, but not burnt, and should fluff up nicely, with the inside moist, but cooked. If all looks good, you can start your pancake production line, making 3-4 at a time – the best size seems to be a little bigger around than a beer can, with 4-5 blueberries in each cake, and nice and thick.

Serving: These are best right off the griddle, as if you hold them they cook all the way through, and the outside gets soggy instead of crisp. Maple syrup is okay, but the sweetness clashes with Pinot Noir. Amoreena made some butter with Pixie tangerine zest, which was amazing, and Scott made a Pinot Noir reduction with blueberry-soaked Amaretto, which he wasn’t too sure about, but I loved. Whatever you do, make sure to serve it with a big pile of thick-cut bacon!

Convection Oven = GOOD!!

I am about as excited about our new convection oven as the first caveman undoubtedly was about discovering fire. This definitely goes into the 'splurge' catagory, but if you know how much I love to be in the kitchen, and if you think back to the past ranges / ovens that we have had, you will understand my state of culinary near-bliss.

To recap: our last house had a really cool-looking O'Keefe & Merritt, circa 1950 extra-wide range and oven - massive and splendid in all its enameled cast-iron glory. The only problem was that the burners had absolutely no fine control, the broiler half of the oven was broken, and the oven temperatures as marked on the knob had little to nothing to do with reality. Perhaps most vexing was the way that the entire house we were living in was slanted horrendously, making slow progress on its patient, decades-long slide down the hill. Every omelet that i have made over the past 3 years; every pancake has been heavy on the downslope side!

Our house in Oregon had an electric range, with those silly spiral elements. Maddening, especially since we actually had a natural gas fireplace plumbed in just 10 feet away, as well as a gas powered clothes dryer. Priorities, man! Apparently, people in that part of Oregon mostly have electric ranges and appliances, as electricity is cheap, subsidized by huge hydroelectric plants on the Colombia River. We could have gotten the gas line run and replaced the range, but we were only there for a year, and we really didn't have ANY extra money at the time.

Anyway, this range is a dream. I still haven't figured out all the buttons, but it has a great high-powered burner, as well as one that is designed to give absolute control for the most mild simmer imaginable. It is level! Yeah! And the oven itself is a technological marvel - it has both gas and electric elements at the top and bottom of the oven, so you can apply direct heat as needed. It can proof bread, has a thermal probe so you can get a roast exactly to med-rare, and the convection feature is amazing, allowing quick baking times, and ability to crust the exterior while leaving the inside perfectly done.

Kristin went on a trip to Napa, and it was the perfect opportunity to make some 'Lambsicles.' Simply let the rack warm to room temp over 30 minutes or so, trim any gristle, (but leave the thick layer of fat on the outside of the ribs, maybe score it with a knife to allow it to render off more completely.) I rubbed them with balsamic vinegar, sea salt, crushed corriander and fenugreek, then seared the fat side for a few minutes in a saute pan, before moving it to the oven, fat side up. I put a probe into the center of the rack, set the probe monitor to stop cooking when it hit 140F (probably could back that down to 135 next time,) and turned the convection oven to 400F. Once the interior temp hit 140, (~10-12 minutes later,) the oven beeped, the elements turned off, and I removed the rack to cool on a plate for ten minutes. I drained the juices from the lamb back into the saute pan, turned the heat to high, dropped in some chopped sage, and reduced about a cup of red wine into a sauce. I threw a handful of arugala on a plate, cut 3 lambsicles and arranged them, then strained my hot reduction sauce and drizzled it over the top, wilting the greens slightly. Delicious!

Playing with your Food?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7335351.stm

Wow - this story was on BBC today, a German inventor has designed a restaurant that completely eliminates the servers - all the food and drink is ordered via touch-screen, and delivered via a very cool gravity rail system to your seat. You swipe a card to pay for your order, and you can look up where the ingredients came from on the touch screen while you wait for your order!

Almost like the old-school 'Automat' restaurants, only the food is freshly prepared and delivered hot! Plus, the rail system is very nifty looking.