I have to admit, I am more than partial to Croatians (full disclosure: I am dating one), even though I have yet to visit its famed shores. So I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sit down for a meal with three Croatian winemakers at Gramercy Tavern.
Possibly one of my favorite New Year’s Eve memories is a house party in Brooklyn with dear friends, fancy outfits, even fancier food, and Champagne — in fact, a bottle of Champagne, not Prosecco or Cava or any other sparkler, was your ticket in. What started as a tasting exercise (and way to obliterate the memory of the lobster that just would not die) turned into a raucous good time in the early hours of 2010. Continue reading
Sweet wines have a bad reputation in the United States as cheap, watered-down alternatives to the more refined, dry styles. Keep your sticky white zins to yourself, I thought when I began getting interested in wine. I’ll drink my zippy sauvignon blancs and tannic cabernets. Continue reading
Putting together a pairing for this menu, which features “rich Mediterranean-inspired flavors,” I wanted to focus on the best ways to highlight its risotto centerpiece:
The citrusy creaminess of the lemon risotto needs a comparable wine in both weight and flavor. We recommend a heftier white like a Fumé Blanc from California, a richer style of Sauvignon Blanc that’s aged in oak. For something a little more festive, try a sparkling wine from Italy’s Franciacorta region in Lombardy, where risotto is a traditional dish; the bubbles will provide a lighter complement to the dish, refreshing the palate between bites.
A sparkling wine made by the méthode traditionelle in the Loire Valley, this 100% Chenin Blanc has a pleasant, musty nose with a hint of lemon from its extended lees contact during the aging process.
The wine is medium-bodied (13% alcohol) – weighty, but the bubbles offer a delicious, refreshing bite. Rich hints of chamomile honey are cut off by its sharp, acidic finish.
An excellent pairing for creamier dishes like risotto alla milanese.
4 out of 5 stars
Imported by Louis/Dressner
In the aftermath of our epic move (the last few items, sofa included, were schlepped during the only snowstorm before Halloween in recent memory), I wanted nothing more than some easy, delicious, and hearty. I had plenty of lentils and rice, a little bit of duck stock, and with Fairway down the street to pick up a little Italian sausage, we ate healthily and heartily for days.
Hearty Lentil and Sausage Soup
Remove sausage from its casings. Heat oil in a 5-quart pot over medium-high heat; add sausage and cook, stirring and breaking it up into small pieces, until browned, about 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to a plate.
Add carrots and onions, along with spices. Cook, stirring, until lightly browned, 10–15 minutes. Add reserved sausage, chicken broth, rice, and lentils and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium-low, and cook, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until rice and lentils are soft, about 45 minutes. Stir in spinach and cook about 1 minute.
Recipe adapted from SAVEUR.com
November flew by in a hurry, with our apartment coming together bit by bit. Last weekend, we finally bought a dresser so that I could put my clothes away (previously, they’d been stacked throughout, since Toni literally took over all of the shelf space in the closet. He’s European, ’nuff said), but the night before Thanksgiving, we were still frantically shoving things away to assume the semblance of neatness for our guests the next day, all the while prepping a series of serious Thanksgiving dishes (I’d gone to Fairway before work so that I could have everything ready when I got home on Wednesday… Thanksgiving is very serious business to me).
To be frank, I’d been a bit bummed about my favorite holiday this year. It was to be my third year in New York. Unlike years past, however, I had wanted to go home; tickets were just too expensive by the time I got around to planning. On top of that, none of the usual suspects were around for me to cook or eat with. That didn’t keep me from putting a little something together with a few friends and my Croatian family. It ended up being such a lovely day, full of good food, great company, hours at the dining table, a few more on the couch, and then finally tucking in for an early night… all in our lovely new home.
I’d been cooking since about 4pm on Wednesday, and when we finally sat down to eat on Thursday (around 3pm), there was plenty to go around. A few of the highlights below:
I tried to cook most of the meal using recipes from SAVEUR.com, with a few adaptations and personal inflections. The cranberry apple crumble, however, has appeared on my Thanksgiving table for as long as I can remember. It’s the easiest thing to prepare and can be served either with the meal or as dessert, as I did here. It’s also great with yogurt the next day.
Cranberry Apple Crumble
Alternate cranberries and apples in a 13×9 pan. Sprinkle white sugar over the fruit. Melt butter in a medium bowl, add the rest of ingredients, and mix. Spread over apples and cranberries. Bake uncovered for 45-60 min at 350°F. Serve with vanilla ice cream for best results.
Here to a great day and many more. Cheers!
Even though I was born and raised in Atlanta, I’ve never tolerated hot weather very well. I kept my childhood room as cold as a meat locker, and now as an adult, I seek out more grown-up ways to stay cool. Nothing snaps me out of my heat-induced stupor like a cold, zippy wine late in the haze of the day. This summer, my perfect refreshing wine has been Txakolí, the effervescent, bone-dry Basque white that makes an ideal toast to the last days of the season.
I discovered Txakolí (pronounced cha-co-lee) a few years ago during a meal at Mercat, a Barcelona-inspired Spanish restaurant in downtown New York City, where the bartender suggested I try it when I asked for something crisp and dry. To enhance its natural effervescence (it’s not quite as bubbly as Champagne, but there’s definitely fizz in there), the wine is traditionally poured with one hand holding the bottle far above your head, and the other hand holding the glass far below. A T-shaped spout helps aerate the wine even more, and brings the bubbles to life. Sitting at the bar at Mercat, I was amazed while watching my bartender pour, impressed that she let not a single drop fall to the floor. Continue reading
To be honest, for a long time I never really thought about Lebanese wines. In the shop where I used to work, we carried a few nominal bottles, but they’d never piqued my interest, and generally when I thought of great wines with deep heritages, my mind didn’t jump to Lebanon. But as it turns out, the country’s vineyards and winemaking have one of the longest-stretching viticultural histories on the planet, through Biblical times, the Roman Empire, and even into the Middle Ages — which is about when historical records began chronicling the practice of winemaking in Burgundy.
The wines of Lebanon are often compared to those of Bordeaux and the Rhône, perhaps due to the country’s political and cultural relations with the French over the past century, but they are something uniquely their own. These so-called “Ancient World” wines are on the rise, and today, about 35 wineries are currently producing wine in and around Lebanon’s fertile Bekaa Valley, whose winter rain and hot, summer sunshine help the grapes ripen easily. Continue reading
Cold weather means soup. I eagerly await the onset of fall each year so that I can begin throwing things into a pot, testing new ideas that will last me throughout the week. Both soul-satisfying and easy on the wallet, my favorite soups tend to be little more than vegetable purees, flavored with just a touch of spice, oil, or something else special.
After a delicious, pizza-filled lunch, I decided to prepare something light and easy for my aunt and me on my last visit to East Hampton of the season. Although the day had been rather hot, it had cooled off by nightfall, so I had soup on the brain. I’d been inspired by a recipe in the most recent Bon Appétit, so I set to work making us a light and delicious dinner. Topped with a handful of chives and a splash of oil, this cauliflower soup was about as hands-off and easy as anything gets.
Cauliflower Soup
Preheat the oven to 450˚F. Rub 2 Tbsp of butter into the top of the cauliflower, place in the baking dish with about a half a cup of water. Bake in oven, lightly covering with tin foil once it begins to brown, for about an hour. Remove from heat and let cool, then coarsely chop.
In a soup pot, melt remaining 2 Tbsp of butter and add minced onion; sauté until translucent. Then add the cauliflower and about 4 cups of water, until almost covered. Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for about ten minutes, or until cauliflower is soft.
Purée the soup in batches in a blender (or entirely with an immersion blender), add a dash of light cream and salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with freshly chopped chives and a dash of olive oil; serve hot.