Tricks and Treats

Ah yes, it's that time of year again. A time for ghosts and goblins and things that go bump in the night (like Pushkin's belly). Of course the scariest thing around Chez Grant lately is the husband's beard .... I don't know if he's planning to be Grizzly Adams for Halloween or what, but the effect sure is frightening.


:)


We did our pumpkin collecting a bit earlier this month. Though they've yet to be carved like last year's extravaganza .... they nevertheless bear a striking resemblance to certain members of the Grant family. Yes, a grey pumpkin, a red pumpkin, and an oddly long snouted gourd. Art imitates life, indeed.

Update: Just when I thought a Wednesday work-night could get no lovelier, the man cracks out an early birthday present for Yours Truly. (Am I starting to regret the Grizzly Adams jokes? Nah .... not really.) Without further ado, I present one of the finest wines I've ever had in my life (a long and storied existence with viniculture, to be sure.)

Meursault, Domaine des Comtes Lafon, 2000 (Clos de la Barre, FR): What the ^%$!#. This wine is ridiculous. An almost fluorescent yellow in color, opening it is like walking through a field of wildflowers. No really, I'm not being sentimental. It smells of hyacinth and lilac and honey. A taste of spring in the heart of autumn. The palate is astonishingly complex and yet light and fresh on the tongue. It tastes of honey and soft oak and wildflowers, without ever being cloying. Lemon peel on the finish — a finish that goes on and on and on. It's the Energizer Bunny of ridiculous wines. 

We had it with a mini cheese plate of exotic goats and sheep, and next up is a homemade Caesar from the master chef over in my kitchen. It smells tantalizing. I am digging this harvest time of year. If this is what aging feels like, bring it on. That, and another glass of this incredible wine. 

A Taste of
Saturdonnay
Our upcoming holiday season demands that we prepare our palates through rigorous tasting exercises for the journey ahead. Thanks to our friends at Wally's Wines and 20/20 Wines we easily armed ourselves to the teeth with a gauntlet of fine Chardonnay. 


2006 Mount Eden Chardonnay (Santa Cruz mountains)
We first tasted the Mount Eden a few months ago at a little restaurant in West Hollywood. It was a 2004, the label was torn and haggardly, though the wine was aged to perfection and simply unbelievable. The love affair begins. The 2006 Mount Eden Vineyards, if aged a couple more years, would be on par with the 2004, however, it was still a phenomenal wine. Wet straw on the nose, with green apple, stone fruit and toffee on the palate. It's a full bodied wine, very complex and incredible finish. Wine Spectator gives this one a whopping 96pts; G+G gives it 91pts (with room to grow into the higher score as it ages).
Bonus points, this winery is located in Saratoga in the midst of the Santa Cruz mountains, our old stomping ground.


2008 DuMol "Chloe" Chardonnay (Russian River Valley)
DuMol is another vintner that we first experienced a while ago, this time in the harried bowels of Las Vegas. It was the only redeeming part of an otherwise forsaken trip. This DuMol is even better, with an intense chalkiness on the nose and finish that has more stamina than Ron Jeremy, though it's more lightbodied than Ron. On the palate you can taste a touch of citrus rind and limestone, limestone, limestone. I don't know who Chloe is, but if this wine is any representation I'd bet she has great mouthfeel and a long finish. Robert Parker gives this one 95pts, we give it 92pts. An incredible wine that will only mature. 

2009 Walter Hansel "Cahill Lane Vineyard"

This wine is phenomenal. There's a strange briny minerality on the nose, smoky, oystery, curiously mysterious. On the palate there are orchard fruits, a slight nuttiness and like any good character — outstanding complexity. This is a deeply focused and refined wine. It's medium bodied, and with a half bottle left in the fridge, not going to last long. Out of the three wines this wine was the most surprising and drank the best. Robert Parker and Stephen Tanzer give it 92pts and we give it 93pts. And at a little more than half the price of the other two wines, this wine is a steal at $38.

The Dinner (Ravioli 2.0) 

Ravioli 1.0 was no disappointment, however, we definitely felt we could make some improvements. This time we followed the same basic recipe, though we used larger eggs and added an extra egg to boot. The result was dough that stuck together and held its form better, but it was a little harder to work with. I unwittingly dropped half an egg shell into the food processor while it was processing the dough. Doh!

For fillings this time we made one filling from an Acorn Squash that we bought last weekend at the Pumpkin Patch, adding a potato for its starch to help things stick together without adding an egg. Jen seasoned the mash with some Turkish nutmeg, Vietnamese cinnamon, salt, pepper, and her secret ingredient; ghost pepper. Most people think heat when they think of Ghost Pepper, but we rarely use it to make something "spicy"; rather, we use it to add a super nuanced and complex smokiness to our dishes.

I found some amazing Shiitake mushrooms at the store and used the food processor to chop these up with some shallots, a bit of fresh parsley, fresh thyme and a few springs of oregano, minced prosciutto, minced truffled salami, ground fresh hazelnuts, garlic, finally mixing in some goat milk white cheddar cheese to round things out and help everything stick together. 

We boiled the raviolis in salted water a little longer this time and tossed them with garlic and sage in browned butter. It was a killer meal and definite improvement over last time. Though we later learned that Jen has an allergy to shiitake mushrooms. Oh, Shiitake!

Culinary Adventures: Home-Made Ravioli

After a appropriately seasonal afternoon spent at the Faulkner Farms Pumpkin Patch up in Santa Paula, we felt inspired to tackle a new culinary adventure .... homemade ravioli. 


We had the courage, the inspiration, and the appetite .... so all we needed was a few crucial supplies. Popped over to Williams & Sonoma in Beverly Hills to get an old school pasta hand crank. Made by Imperia, it's a masterpiece in red and steel. Or, one might even say, ginger and grey. Plus we got a ravioli tray with mini-rolling pin for making our little pillows of yum. We were set. 


Making ravioli at home is not for the faint of heart, or those who fear to get their hands (and kitchens) dirty. But, with some music playing and a fire crackling in the background -- and of course a good bottle of wine opened and at the ready -- it is indeed a labor of love. 


Begin with the dough. Ours was a half-and-half mix of regular flour and semolina flour. Whisk that together, then plop it in our food processor. Some folks have fancy mixers but our heroic, do-it-all Breville food processor (very wise kitchen investment, for the record) has a dough setting. In went some eggs and some olive oil, and out came something that looked like proper dough.   


But like with most good things, you have to work to get what you want. For ten solid minutes, we kneaded the dough. Adding flour and a spritz of olive oil (thanks Misto!) when needed to keep it from sticking, Brien and I took turns kneading the dough with our knuckles. It was good tactile fun, but hard work! After ten minutes, my knuckles felt like Rocky after a losing bout. Then our dough went into the fridge to, as Brien so eloquently put it, "relax the glutens" for a half-hour. My glutens were in need to relaxing too, but no rest for the chefs. 


While our dough was maxin' and relaxin' in the fridge, we made our fillings. We each made one, of course, in the spirit of household competition. Brien whipped up a lovely spinach pesto made with fresh spinach leaves, sheep's milk ricotta, nutmeg, and a grating of hard aged goat cheese. I made a blue cheese and walnut filling with balsamic. Both smelled divine. 


Next came the fun part — making the pasta sheets! It's a lot of trial and error, and at the beginning it felt like more error. But we persevered, and were handsomely rewarded. Making pasta is definitely a two person endeavor. Brien cranked the dough through the pasta press, and I pulled it out on the other side. Fold and repeat, until dough is at desired width and consistency. The challenge, we learned, was to make the dough thin enough that it wasn't gloopy in your mouth, but thick enough to hold the fillings in together. Our first batch used too thin of dough, and the resulting ravioli came out more like mutated dumplings. (No matter. They tasted just as good.)


So, lay one sheet of pasta on the ravioli tray, pat it down lightly into the divots, spoon in filling, lay another sheet of pasta over the filling, use mini rolling pin to flatten and seal, and gently wiggle the raviolis out of their tray, sealing the edges with your fingers so none of the good stuff leaks out. To make the dough stick, we used an "egg wash" (I kept calling it an egg dip, much to Brien's consternation). Brush on just a bit of egg yolk to help the dough bind to itself. How sad if your raviolis fall apart in the pot! 


We were ready for the moment of truth. We froze our extras and then selected the choicest morsels for dinner. A big pot of boiling water, and in they went. We both held our breath. But voila! They held together. We were rapturous with self-satisfaction. They boiled on high for about 4 minutes, then out of the water they went. Because our fillings were rich and flavorful, we kept the sauce simple: a bit of high quality olive oil, a bit of the water from the pot to help things stick, fresh grated Parmesan, and a shaved black Burgundy truffle to top it all off. Yes, it smelled every bit as divine as you'd expect. 


And tasted even better. We powered down our ravioli, fingers still white with flour (as was my face and hair, I later came to discover). Yes, the meal took about 4 hours to make, but it was so worth it. We accompanied our feast with a bottle of L'Avion, a great bottle of white from the Santa Ynez Valley just north of us on the Central Coast of CA. It was 90% Roussanne, 10% Viognier, and 100% delicious: silky in the mouth, with a nose of butter and minerals both, and a palate filled with stone fruit, graphite, and fig. We had a 2007 vintage and it was impeccable — a really sophisticated and surprising white. 


Afterwards there was the inevitable clean-up and even this morning I am finding flour in the strangest places. It's not a meal for every weekend and certainly not when you're in a hurry — but there is something deliciously satisfying about homemade ravioli, made together with love. A perfect autumn meal. 

Bora Bora Pics, Revisited

Wedding Pics, Part II

More pics from the great Grant wedding adventure. Brien hasn't worked his magic on these yet so these are a work-in-progress. Consider it a sneak peek. 

Beverly Hills:  

Big Sur: