A gift of young butter lettuce from our friend Dave Couch's garden inspired this evening's special family supper. During the pandemic we have said farewell to buffets and salad bars, so I decided to create a salad bar experience for everyone.

It took a full hour of prep, as I chopped and matchsticked and spun all of the crisp fresh veggies I could find, emptying a whole refrigerator drawer of produce in the process. The four of us have widely divergent tastes in salad, so the array allowed for creative customization. Carl and I basically ended up with bowls overflowing with everything, including greens, veggies, pickles and olives, cheeses, pasta salad, boiled eggs...while our eighteen-year-old dumped a pile of crumbled bacon onto a mound of cold iceberg lettuce and declared it the best salad ever.

In a green mood, I paired my own supper salad with a bright refreshing cocktail of tequila blanco and lime.

Cheers to variety, the bounty of spring gardens, and the spice of variety in our salad days! May there be many more to come.

Hooray for a new season! The CSA we're members of (Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op) began sharing the bounty of the spring season with its shareholders today. Our share included many varieties of fresh spring greens, and the item I was most excited about were these juicy red carrots. While I like to buy "rainbow carrots" at the grocery, this was a new shade for me. The color is sweet, and so is their taste--the orange insides are incredibly tender. I decided to use them in a fresh shaved carrot salad, along with parsley, almonds, and a lemon vinaigrette.

Officially beginning last month, we have also now begun sharing the wines from our new wine label, Pinnacle Ridge. It has been exciting revisiting Pinnacle Ridge's wine styles, which enhance and complement the Allegro and Cadenza lists. For this spring meal, we chilled two Pinnacle Ridge wines to put on our table: the crisp Sparkling Cider and Dry Riesling. 

Cheers to a refreshing new season of fresh-grown foods and light refreshing wines!

It's Snickerdoodle week! This week I baked a bunch of these pillowy cinnamony treats to share with Allegro folks. While I had to borrow cinnamon from our neighbor Brenda halfway through the project, there was one ingredient which I never have in short supply, thanks to our proximity to the winery: cream of tartar. Since cream of tartar is a byproduct of winemaking, I always have on hand way more than I'd ever need.

Cream of tartar is potassium bitartrate, a powdered form of tartaric acid. When used in cooking, it can be added to whipped cream and egg whites to add structure to the whip (as in meringues). Since I don't tend to make meringues very often, the time when I most often use cream of tartar is in the Snickerdoodles. (I like the Bon Appétit recipe.) Cream of tartar contributes both to the tang in the cookie flavor and to the softer texture, keeping the cookies from getting too crispy while baking.

A winemaking byproduct which I use even more often than cream of tartar is grapeseed oil, made from pressed winegrape seeds. This oil is fairly new to my pantry; I first got it because it was suggested as a good stir-fry oil in a recipe with tofu. It has a very light flavor and a relatively high smoke point. (Here's a short article about the merits of different cooking oils, including grapeseed oil.) Since it's neutral tasting, I also sometimes like to use it in vinaigrettes, as a change from the usual extra virgin olive oil.

My other wine-related pantry staples are, of course, all of the vinegars related to wines: white and red wine vinegars made from fermented and oxidized wine stock, and my favorite balsamics, made in Italy from grape must. White wine vinegar is my go-to for light citrus vinaigrettes, and balsamic reductions make so many things, from vegetables to summer's glorious Caprese salads, simply sing.

So while cooking and dining with wine are wonderful experiences, I've also come to appreciate the little extra ways that wine's influence sneaks its way into the kitchen.

​Cheers!

Well, the winter kitchen has brought me another achievement. In my quest to try to create beloved comfort foods from different ethnic traditions, this week brought me to the noble task of trying to create my first phở. I've found this Vietnamese soup deeply satisfying when I've ordered it from restaurants, including a memorable one in Phoenix, where my family tried it for this first time, and Rice & Noodles in Lancaster.

The recipe I chose to follow was from Epicurious: this vegetarian version which read well and allows for lots of opportunity to be versatile with toppings. The process was actually really satisfying in and of itself. I turned it into a two-day task, making the vegetable stock on the first day, refrigerating it, and then using it in the full recipe two days later.

The stock gave me ample opportunity to clear out my vegetable larder a bit, and took about an hour and a half to complete. It felt kind of like distillation, taking vegetables, browning them, and then bubbling them into a kind of rich essence.

The second part of the recipe was also kind of fun. I basically made a second layer of broth based on the first part, this time adding great-smelling spices: star anise, cinnamon, peppercorns, bay leaves. I found that the resulting soup still needed quite a lot of salt added to come into balance, which I achieved through adding more soy sauce.

While the phở was bubbling away, I prepared a lot of different extra ingredients and toppings, including rice noodles, sautéed tofu, steamed cabbage and carrots, water chestnuts, and edamame. The green toppings included jalapeno, chives, fresh lime, and--of course--cilantro.

For a first effort, I'll have to say I was pretty satisfied with the end result. While it didn't transport me to those restaurant experiences, it definitely had a lot of interesting flavor, well grounded by the depth of the twice-made broth.

​We paired the soup with some fresh summer rolls, some of whose ingredients were doubled from the veggies for the soup. It was a nice crunchy companion.

In terms of wine pairing, knowing that any oak or sweetness would clash with the soup and all of the other flavors, including lots of green flavors, we went with one of our most versatile wines with food: the 2019 Dry Rosé.

So there we have it: one more experience to move the culinary horizon just a bit. Can't wait to find out how far we'll go!

Ah, winter. Here you are. Added to our COVID cabin fever, we now face, well, the usual cabin fever on TOP of the new/old one. We're all somehow together in our isolation, though, sharing survival tips for the cold and quiet days.

Here are a few of my favorite strategies:

1) Enjoying big goblets of bold red wines.

2) Comfort foods. Recently, I've become a serious student of comfort foods, revisiting some of my favorite recipes and seeking out new ones. What exactly makes a food a comfort food? Certainly we all seek out foods which take us to fond places in the past, favorite childhood suppers or winter dinners with friends. Food has such strong emotional elements, keeping us connected to other people and times.

Here are a few of the other elements and ingredients which I've noticed seem to be most prevalent among our family's favorite winter comfort foods:

     -Root vegetables. Just about every recipe seems to start with chopping onions, and many start with pans of lusciously sweet roasted root vegetables such as carrots, beets, potatoes, radishes. These underground wonders of energy storage are their own little lessons in hibernation, storing starch, fiber, and nutrients in vibrant and friendly packaging. Herbs such as rosemary and thyme make excellent root vegetable companions.

Our family has certain holiday food traditions which begin as soon as December does. (One certain family member is so opposed to what's called "holiday creep" that we are strictly forbidden from humming even one note of "Jingle Bells" before Thanksgiving, as well.) There's a snack mix we call "Scrabble" which we only enjoy at Christmastime, and this year I think it took six batches for us to make it through!

Another December treat is chocolate truffles. For the month, we fill goblets with these festively-wrapped chocolates and put the goblets strategically around our shared living space. They are so rich and decadent that eating one takes me on an actual short vacation. Most of the truffles are also combinations of flavors: dark chocolate and raspberry, white chocolate and cappuccino.

Pairing wine with chocolates is a favorite past-time, and through the years Allegro has enjoyed many opportunities to share various wine and chocolate combinations with friends and customers. There are many reasons why wine and chocolate can work so well together: both can bring elements of bitterness, of sweetness, of fruit, of decadence on the tongue. 

A few favorites from our current line-ups:

     -White chocolate/citrus with Viognier
     -Dark chocolate/raspberry with Merlot (a real classic!)
     -Dark chocolate/orange with Salsa
     -Pretty much any chocolate with Forté

Another sweet pairing has been Carl (and his wines) with our favorite regional chocolatier: Frederic Loraschi. Steeped in French chocolate-making traditions and based in Harrisburg, PA, Frederic makes exquisite chocolate collections which we enjoy sharing with employees and friends. The chocolates (sourced from single origins around the world) could not be more elegant, perfectly crafted. Opening the gold chocolate collection box feels like unwrapping eight presents, all at once.

Cheers to the tastes of this special season, and to pairings greater (and more delicious) than the sum of their parts!

Some wines make us gush. Some foods make us sing. And when the exact right combination of wine and foods comes along, it's not hard to go full-on operatic. When Carl and I tasted the just-released 2019 Cadenza Vineyards Albariño with dinner foods specially chosen to make its acquaintance, it was one of the best matches we'd tried in quite a while. Cue the aria...

In a blog post from late September, I recorded a couple of notes about the grape's history here in our Cadenza Vineyard. We also surmised that "It should pair wonderfully with light seafood dishes including shrimp and scallops." Well, now that the wine is ready for the dinner table, I decided to put that prognostication to the test.

For dinner, I made Fettuccini Alfredo, one of the easiest and most delightful pasta dishes in my repertoire. If I'm using fresh pasta, the entire preparation of the dish (including grating the Parmesan) takes only about a total of ten minutes.

To grace the bed of pasta, I also cooked shrimp and scallops in butter (laced with smashed garlic cloves) and finished them with a spritz of lemon and a bit of fresh dill.

All that remained to prepare was the spinach salad, with a fresh lemon-based vinaigrette, and a bottle of our lightly chilled Albariño. 

Wow. The dinner foods and wine met each other so seamlessly that Carl called the pairing "ridiculous." When sipping the wine, the edge of bright citrus is first evident, but then it combines in tone and texture with the cream, pasta, and sweet seafoods. The wine and food integrated not just in flavor but also in a textual way, silky and delightful.

This new (to Cadenza Vineyards) style of white wine is a real joy for foodies. Both the big dash of Viognier and its treatment in neutral oak barrels in the cellar make it more than a one-note wine. It was certainly fun to welcome it onto our table, and I'll look forward to inviting it again soon.

Cheers! The 2019 Allegro Petit Verdot has arrived!

Back in mid-September I wrote a post about this grape's growing potential at our vineyards in The Brogue and Stewartstown. As the 2020 wines now sit, full of potential in their fine oak barrels, the 2019s are starting to appear in Allegro's tasting rooms. 

Our 2019 PV was grown in what was then called Martha Clara Vineyards (now RGNY), a beautiful site on Long Island's North Fork. The fruit was wonderfully ripe, and the wine is well balanced between bright fruit, acidity, and body.

Traditionally, recommended Petit Verdot food pairings include dishes which are quite bold and rich, including beef and lamb. With our first bottle of the 2019, I made a family favorite one-pot recipe in our instant pot: Pulled Pork with Biscuits. The rich and tangy barbecue flavor met up nicely with the acidity in the wine, and the flavors definitely complemented each other as well.

As colder weather eventually begins coming our way, there's not much I enjoy more than planning for lots of opportunities to enjoy bold red wines, alone and with all kinds of satisfying foods. A red wine night tends to be a good one.

Well, yes--sometimes I do have this. (Cue Tommy Shaw: "I've got too much...") As I  write this, the election results are still pending, ballots are still being counted, and we're being asked to go against our American nature and be, of all things, patient. What to do, when we're tired of waiting? Well, sometimes I just start chopping.

My huge boxes of fruits, veggies, and herbs from my CSA (Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative) have stopped coming, as of this week, now that the summer season has ended. Thanks to their generosity, however, the veggie drawers in my fridge have still been overflowing from the bounty of the past few weeks. Sometimes our meals focus on just one veggie or two, but on other days I just pile up a huge variety, turn on some loud tunes, and get out the big knife.

One of our favorite fall veggie feasts is a supper of roasted vegetables. Roasting is so easy and so rewarding. I just turn on the oven to 400 degrees, rub a variety of chopped vegetables with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper, and get everything (including sprigs of fresh herbs and smashed garlic cloves) roasting in shallow layers. I check on them every ten minutes or so, stirring things up, and usually everything is done within about 30-40 minutes. We eat the veggies in large bowls, piled on top of  buttered pasta.

This week, our roasted veggie night included an incredible array of colorful root vegetables, including Chioggia (candy cane-colored) beets, watermelon radishes, and sweet potatoes.

Our wine of choice with this roasted bounty was Allegro's 2019 Steel Chardonnay. This light and fruity wine (with no oak to clash with the veggies' natural roasted sweetness) was just right.

Tuesday night found me in the warm and welcoming home of my friend Tracie, social distancing but enjoying time together while the polls across the nation began to close. Part of what made being there so instantly wonderful was the smell of the stew on the stove: Bigos (Polish-style hunter's stew, complete with big hunks of carrot, potato, and bacon).

I was so inspired by Tracie's stew that yesterday afternoon, waiting, with--well, yeah--still too much thyme, etc., I decided to keep the stew train rolling, and I got to work making one of my own.

Chopping everything for my hearty Vegetable Stew took almost an hour, but I wasn't in any hurry. Round one of chopping included the onions, carrots, peppers, and celery. Round two was all the fresh herbs I could find, plus garlic. Then came the potatoes and cabbage. Once everything--including barley, red wine, and tomatoes--was together in the pot, there was still a good hour and a half until supper, plenty of time for the house to become scented with goodness and for me to make a fun batch of "Fluffy Cathead Biscuits" and get them in the oven.

We tried both Allegro's 2017 Merlot (some of which I had already stirred into the stew) and our 2019 Dry Rosé with dinner, and actually ended up preferring the Rosé. Again, the vegetables' inherent sweetness came through in the stew's flavor, and the fruity wine paired well.

While I undertook these culinary tasks, the world didn't change much. No presidents were announced; no world-views changed. But I did. Mindfulness of good food, of good work, is good for me, no matter how much I am asked to wait or worry. The warmth and scents of home cooking make our homes welcoming places. Food and wine bring us together, and will always bring us together, no matter what.

Cheers,
​Kris