William Hill Estate
Napa Valley Merlot
2005
This wine has a smoky, plummy nose with chocolate and sweet tobacco. On the palate it's earthy, with leather, brambles, and tea. It finishes with licorice. It makes a big impression.
Price: $15 (sale; regular price about $21)
Drinks like: $18
Bang for the buck: 120%
The other night I threw my favorite turkey burgers onto the grill. I gently kneaded together a pound of ground turkey, a handful of chopped cilantro and chives, and about a half a cup each of breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese. The results were moist and meaty, the cheese adding a little umami burst. Serves four.
If you try this at home, cook them to 165°F.
Kellermeister
Boots Barossa Grenache
2007
This wine is bright purple, with a heady, peppery nose, redolent of carnation and chocolate. On the palate it's simple but sexy, with lots of plum fruit and more pepper. It finishes smooth and even.
It's not super French. It's not funky. It's Australian. Pull on your boots and enjoy.
Price: $15
Drinks like: $16
Bang for the buck: 107%
I've been using an 8" chef's knife for years. "This is just feeling small to me," I told my husband one recent night as I reached for the steel. "I think I'm ready to graduate up." Without a word, he ordered me a new 10" knife. It arrived today.
It's a beautiful thing. Sleek and sharp, it glided sensually through tonight's herbs and vegetables and chicken. It's like it's been mine always.
I didn't know a knife could be sexy. Bring it on.
Angela Hall was born in Rome, though her family has deep roots in Sabina, an agricultural region just outside the city. Angela lives in the States now, but still imports her family's olive oil, grown on a farm called "La Cesarina" (above) that belonged to her grandparents, Giulio Luzzi and Elisabetta Cola Luzzi. The family picks the olives in mid-winter, last year harvesting well into January, climbing ladders and shaking the ancient trees to send a cascade of ripe fruit onto tarps below. These they transport to a nearby stone press, a frantoio, which is kind enough to press the farm's olives in an exclusive run. Last year the yield was about 12,000 litres.
I'm lucky enough to have some. It's bright gold-green, strongly fragrant and herbaceous. It offers the peppery catch on the back of the throat Italians call pizzicante, characteristic of younger oils. It's wonderful drizzled on fresh cheese, bread, or tomatoes. It's hard to bring myself to cook with it, because it seems so precious, but I often finish a dish with a swirl to bind the flavors.
I asked Angela what she tastes in the oil, and she said simply, "I taste the olives." Never having tasted ripe olives, this is as close as I can come.
If you'd like to try some of Angela's oil, contact me by posting below and I'll put you in touch.
Garlic scapes are garlic's flower buds. The scape emerges, curled and elastic, from the center of the garlic plant in late June. Each is a tiny, bursting, garlic miracle. They're great chopped in salads, or lightly sautéed in butter or fruity oil and tossed with pasta. I hear they make a great pesto, but I'm not sure I'll get there. They're so wonderful fresh, just as they are, that I may just eat all two hundred of them just like this.
Food is communication, a medium for connecting. Communications are most powerful when they arise from an articulated philosophy, when the communicator knows what she's trying to say, and why: when she knows what she believes.
I like to summarize my food philosophy this way: "Food as itself." It's meaningless without context, but to me there's a world in that statement, a diversity of ideas about growing and choosing beautiful ingredients, about trying deeply to understand their qualities, what they offer. About applying learned technique to perfect specimens to coax out their perfection. About esteeming food for what it is, and letting it be itself.
What falls out of this is, essentially, my cuisine: simple, unadorned, on the fresh side of cooked, on the raw side of done. Layers of flavor: bright against dark, tart against salt, fruit against earth. Plus one other element to knit them together. Food in conversation with itself, and with the diner. Simple cuisine can be harder than complex cuisine, in the same way that a poem's harder to write than an essay.
What's your food philosophy?
Markham Vineyards
Napa Valley Merlot
2005
This wine is deep purple, offering a nose of chocolate and earth. It's fulsome and not too tannic—just what we'd expect from Merlot—with lingering cherry and bramble fruits. A phenomenal mate for tonight's Hardwick steak (rare).
Price: $19 (sale; regular price about $23)
Drinks like: $23
Bang for the buck: 100%
Acorn
Alegría Rosato Russian River Valley
2007
This wine, made primarily of Sangiovese, is deep rosy pink with a lightly floral, slightly strawberry nose. Straight from the fridge it seemed closed and simple, but once it warmed to about 65ºF it started to open its petals. The winemakers have added Zinfandel, Alicante Bouschet, and—notably—Petite Sirah to the blend, in an attempt, perhaps, to counter the wine's crisp acidity. It needs a little more depth and heft, though; I can't help thinking it needs a bit of Viognier to round it out.
Still, it's pleasant enough on a spring evening, with turkey burgers on sourdough baguette.
Price: $20
Drinks like: $15
Bang for the buck: 75%
I've known David since kindergarten, but we'd lost touch. Somehow he found this food journal and we reconnected over—what else?—food. He's in Florida, I'm here in New Hampshire, but he's been in the food industry for years and sent me a care package. It arrived today: Monograno Farro Spaghetti, M'hamsa hand-rolled couscous, American Tuna (line caught), Peperoncini piccanti hand-stuffed with capers and anchovy, Blis9 sherry vinegar aged in maple barrels, Merula EVO from Spain.
I feel truly blessed, and that's before trying a single bite. Thank you, David.
