Prosecco Protection

The 30 second wine advisor brought this to my attention -- Italian makers of Prosecco are trying to protect their brand as the drink gains in popularity. The New York Times recently profiled Prosecco's growing popularity and those seeking to cash in on that popularity. The only problem is that, unlike Champagne, Prosecco refers to the grape varietal, which will make it harder to protect it. The Italian government and Prosecco producers are working on a plan to create a region which would define the growing area for Prosecco. This would be followed by protective status and seeking EU blessing of this status.

Here's my favorite quote from the piece:

One product, Rich Prosecco, is made by an Austrian company whose ads feature Paris Hilton. In some, she is naked and spray-painted gold. What’s worse to some producers, the product is sold in a 6.8-ounce can, in gas stations as well as stores, for around $3.
“It’s absolutely vulgar,” says Vittorio Zoppi, marketing manager for the prosecco consortium.

Well, I'll just say this: at least the US doesn't have the monopoly on vulgar. Those Austrians must like Carl's Jr Burgers.

River Horse Beer

If you live in the immediate vicinity of New Jersey (NY, NJ, MD, DE, and PA), then you must try River Horse Brewing Company's great beers. This is wonderful stuff, from the Belgian style to the Pale Ale.

Christmas Lamb from the Country Cooking of France

I ended up doing a wonderful seven hour lamb from one of my new cookbook's, the Country Cooking of France. Lots of root vegetables, easy to make, and delicious once it's on the table. The only thing is, you need literally seven hours to make it. Because it cooks at such a low temperature (275 degrees F), it takes that long, but turns out spoon tender. Yes, that's right, spoon-tender. You can take this apart with a spoon when you serve it.



The cookbook is excellent, by the way. I thought it might be one of those "pretty-but-no-good recipes" books. You know the kind -- all the recipes are too involved or too contrived from exotic ingredients that you know you'll never try them. There are a couple of those, but it is also full of really good recipes that anyone can make. A few minor critiques, though. I hated having to flip back and forth to the end of the book to look up the recipes for staple items (like sweet tart dough). I understand why they did it, but it is difficult to do when one's hands are all sticky or covered in dough. Second, the book is obsessed with veal stock. It would be nice to recognize that not everyone has an easy supply of veal bones around to make this and offered some suggestions of adequate replacements. Can I use beef stock, or will it be too strong? What about chicken stock?

These are really quibbles, though. Although the list price is $50, you can get this book from Amazon or Jessica's buscuit (link above) for about $30, and I think it is well worth it. I'm getting pretty tired of seeing celebrity chefs and others put out cookbooks with 75 or 100 recipes in them. For $25 or more, we should get more than that (I mean you, Ted Allen -- whom I don't trust to make toast anyway, Bobby Flay, and Mark Bittman, who respectively have put out books with 100, 100 and 75 recipes in them in recent years). Now, before I go off the deep end, I should say that both Bobby Flay (particularly Boy Meets Grill, despite its paltry 125 recipes) and Mark Bittman (his Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking is the only fish cookbook I need) have put out excellent cookbooks previously, but when I look at a cookbook, I know that at least half the recipes are going to hold no interest for me or seem too complex or not worth the effort to make. So that leaves 50 or fewer recipes in a cook book I would even consider making. For that money, I could subscribe to Gourmet, Food and Wine, or Bon Appetit (actually, the first and last I do get) together and get more recipes.

Congratulations, this Bud is for you!

I am not a beer snob. Really, I have drunk plenty of Bud Light, Miller Light, MGD, and so on in my life, but to call any of them great beers is stretching it. The craft beer rage of the last ten years has started to put the big beer producers on their back foot, so much so that they have decided to expand their product lines to include, well, beer with flavor (mind you, the big brewers still account for something on the order of 85% of beer sales in the US, so Sam Adams, Anchor Steam, and the rest are hardly storming the castle). And so, Michelob has launched a series of commericals touting the great people who make great "hand-crafted" brews. Good luck to them, because Michelob makes some pretty attrocious beers (one man's opinion).

More recently, Budweiser has launched its own foray into the world of beers with taste -- American ale. I was intrigued by this one, so I decided to try it. It is a very good beer. A beautiful red color with some spicy hoppiness. The ale has flavor without bringing a sledgehammer to the party. Congratulations Budweiser on making a great beer.

Rolls for Christmas Dinner

My first attempt to make "pain facon beaucair" from Richard Bertinet's book Dough, which has a great technique for kneeding dough that doesn't require as much flour and yields a much softer dough with more air incorporated. I don't think I got the technique down on folding and leaving a small hole (these are supposed to look a little like doughnuts with holes when they go in the oven), but they came out great. You can see the progression from dough before first rise, then after second rise, and then coming out of the oven.

White Bowmore

You can enter to win a bottle of White Bowmore (valued at more than $4000 a bottle) if you go to their website. No strings attached, except, I suppose, if you are an American and win. Then you have to figure out whether your particular municipality and state will let you receive the bottle in the post or if you have to go to Islay to pick it up in person. Living where I do, the latter is likely to be my course of action. Not a bad reason to go back to Scotland, mind you...

If you want to know what you could be in for, here's John Hansell's take on the newest in ultra-premium malt from Bowmore.

What's for dinner?

Next week is Christmas, of course, and the family will gather at chez nous for dinner. The past two years I have made a rib roast that is excellent (using the recipe the good folks at America's Test Kitchen recommend -- this recipe is premium content, so sign up for the two week preview to get it, or just pay the $20 for a full year). I want to continue to support local producers, but it looks like my vendor of choice won't have the beef hung in time for Christmas, so I may end up making a leg of lamb, which I know my dad loves. Now I just need a good recipe...

Marcel's **** (4 out of 5 stars)

We went to Marcel's for our anniversary dinner a little while ago, but I'm just getting around to writing about it. I haven't been to Marcel's in over ten years, and Leslie last went there with her parents just before September 11th, 2001, so this was our first time in the quieter, more intimate setting. The redesign makes for a less bistro-like experience. The food was excellent (we highly recommend doing the five course tasting menu) as one would expect, including wild scottish pheasant (no buck shot), rabbit, venison, and numerous other dishes. Dessert is not overwhelming, in a good way, because after four courses, one is slightly wary of a substantial dessert. And the service is wonderful -- we found the courses arrived with sufficient interval to allow us to enjoy ourselves without feeling rushed or forgotten. And all things considered, the price is quite reasonable for a top-flight DC restaurant.

So why only four stars? There were just a couple of off notes. First, the bread is dissapointing and pedestrian. Attempts at something unusual falls flat and some of the bread was dry and/or even burnt. Second, the wine pairings were not terribly inspired. One white wine smelled like rotten milk. Our server (who did take wonderful care of us) was happy to pour something else, but the second choice was a non-entity.

Take that Thomas!

They look a little different from what comes in the Thomas's English Muffin package, but these were delicious. From Peter Reinhart's recipe... (his blog is here). I think I didn't make the dough wet enough, so the muffins didn't spread on the griddle when I cooked them. Next time I will add more milk. Easy recipe to do, by the way.