Good Reads and Feeds

If you like wine, chances are you like food -- at least I hope so because you need something to absorb that alcohol. I’m always interested in seeing new cookbooks and while I’m skimming them I think about what wines would match well with the dishes that strike me as worth cooking. I also love to give cookbooks as holiday gifts. Here is an eclectic group of recently published cookbooks that caught my attention:

A Tavola! Recipes and Reflections on Traditional Italian Home Cooking
This is an especially useful and enjoyable book for food-and-wine lovers because the authors are a chef and a sommelier who provide both mouth-watering Italian recipes and many wine suggestions to pair with the dishes. There are also tidbits of food culture here and there including interesting reading on the culinary regions of Italy, the history of culinary traditions and Italian holidays and food.
Gianni Scappin and Vincenzo Lauria, $29.95, The Culinary Institute of America Dining Series, Lebhar-Friedman Books, New York.


Pastry Queen Parties: Entertaining Family and Friends Texas Style
The Chamber of Commerce of Fredericksburg sent me this book as a gift after I visited in September -- as if the visit to this charming town in Texas hill country wasn’t enough! Rebecca Rather is a well-known chef and baker in Texas whose Rather Sweet Bakery I dropped by. An entire book on pastry would probably not hold much interest for me, but this book, though chock-full of recipes for both food and cocktails, is about entertaining. It’s divided into the different kinds of soirees Texans like to throw, such as “Gulf Coast Beach Bash” and “Tex-Mex Fiesta,” with anecdotes and party tips that give you a window into the local Texas culture. After skimming through the book, I instantly wanted to make "Beans a la Charra" and "Gangy’s Spoonbread," which I did. There are at least a dozen more I want to try soon.
Rebecca Rather; $32.50; Ten Speed Press, Berkeley.


Clara’s Kitchen: Wisdom, Memories and Recipes from the Great Depression.
Clara Cannucciari, is a 94-year-old Internet star. Telling stories, dishing out snippets of wisdom she gained from living through the Great Depression and whipping up classics like Pasta with Beef Scrap Ragu in her home kitchen, she was filmed by her grandson, and elevated to stardom when he posted them on YouTube. Not only are the Old World Italian recipes in this book intriguing in a back-to-basics way, but they are also accompanied by some disarming (and entertaining) comments such as this one that you’ll find with a recipe for Holiday Fig Cookies: “These cookies are sweet and really good for you when you’re constipated. They really work good. It’s all the figs, I guess.”
Clara Cannucciari, $21.99; St. Martin’s Press, New York.


The Veselka Cookbook
From the landmark Ukranian coffee shop in the East Village of New York, this cookbook introduces you to such exotic comfort food as sweet potato pierogi, borscht and veal goulash. Apparently, this place attracts many New York celebrities and the book sports a cover endorsement from comedian Jon Stewart. I never thought I would aspire to make homemade pierogi, but leafing through this book made me want to try.
Tom Birchard with Natalie Danford. $27.99 St. Martin’s Press. New York.

Oddities

I’m calling the following finds "oddities," but I don't mean the term in a pejorative way, as in “strange,” but rather in a positive way as in “unusual and intriguing.” We all know that the popular wines in America are Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, but that doesn’t mean you should only drink those fine wine varietals. Chicken is delicious, too, but does that mean you eat it every night for dinner? There are over 200 wine grape varieties, for instance, in Portugal alone and many more in Italy and Greece. There’s a whole world of wine out there and discovering new favorites is exciting.

White Flower Sparkling Riesling, It may exist, but I have not yet been exposed to an American Sparkling Riesling. Pacific Rim, the Riesling specialist, has just introduced White Flowers Sparkling Riesling from Washington State. Lovely and soft, with flower aromas and a clean, dry finish, this wine contains only 11.5% alcohol, a selling point in my book, and as a lovely alternative to more common bubblies, would be fun to introduce to your friends. And at $16, it's a bargain, too.

Blanc de Pinot Noir. I had also never heard of a white pinot noir still wine, and neither had two longtime Pinot Noir producers I know from the Russian River Valley of Sonoma. This was as intriguing to them as it was to me. This White Pinot Noir wine from Pinot Noir specialists Adam and Dianna Lee, came about as a result of a visit to Champagne 15 years ago. “One of our stops was Krug, where we got the opportunity to taste still, white Pinot Noir that had been resting in oak before going through the second fermentation to become champagne. Even though it was fairly acidic, you could taste the amazing quality of the grape. Ever since then, we’ve wanted to try it,” says Diana Lee. The Pinot Noir comes from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where the couple also sources fruit for its Siduri Pinot Noirs. This unique wine has a lovely fleshy color, with just the barest hint of pink, the weight and richness of Chardonnay but with firm acidity. Priced at $24, the Novy Blanc de Pinot Noir is available through the couple’s “warehouse winery” in Santa Rosa, California, and at some restaurants and wine shops nationally.

Samuel Adams Utopias. This “extreme beer,” the 2009 batch of Samuel Adams Utopias, is an effort to elevate American beer drinkers’ appreciation for full-flavored beer and change the context for beer. It’s 27% alcohol (an average beer is about 5%), rich, dark and uncarbonated, and meant to be served at room temperature in a snifter glass. The recommended pour is two-ounces as it is meant to be savored like vintage port or cognac. Utopias is brewed in small batches, blended, and aged at the Sam Adams Boston Brewery. Since its first release in 2002, it has held the title of ‘world’s strongest beer’ in the Guinness Book of World Records. Wine geeks take note: Samuel Adams Utopias is brewed with several different strains of yeast, including a variety typically reserved for Champagne. The limited-edition 2009 batch is bottled in numbered, ceramic brew kettle-shaped decanters and is $150. I told you it was extreme.

Some Sparkling Alternatives

I want to make it perfectly clear that I do not recommend saving sparkling wines for the end-of-the-year holidays or special occasions only. Breakfast is enough of an excuse for me to break out the bubbly. But with the holidays coming up  (when the vast majority of sparkling wine is sold) and the recent news that the Champagne region of France will produce 40% less of its scrumptious elixir, there’s even more reason to discover affordable alternatives such as Crémant and other sparkling wines from France, Prosecco from Italy, and Cava from Spain.

Prices for Champagne have always been relatively high and Champagne makers want to keep it that way; lowering production means they can ensure that champagne remains an expensive luxury. Bully for them and for anyone who can afford to pay upwards (sometimes way upwards) of $50 a bottle. But for the rest of us, there are attractive options. My debut post on this blog was about the lovely Crémant de Bourgogne I tasted on a trip to Burgundy in June and some Crémant d'Alsace that was sent to me. I was lucky enough to taste more mouth-watering Crémant de Loire last week in the Loire Valley as well as some wonderful sparkling Vouvray. Producers I will be looking for at home in the future include: Cave Louis de Grenelle, Les Caves Monmousseau, and Château Moncontour.

Recommended: Louis de Grenelle NV Saumur Rosé Brut “Corail" $19, and Langlois Chateau Crémant de Loire Brut Rosé $20.
Recommended: Zonin Prosecco ($14.99) from Italy. A fun wine that can be drunk with virtually anything including cheeses, fish, chicken and lighter dishes.
Recommended: Among Cavas, the reliable bubbly from northeastern Spain, I recommend Segura Viudas’ Reserva Heredad (in an ornate gift bottle for under $20) and Aria Brut Nature ($12), as well as Cristalino Brut Cava (under $10).

A Cult Above

Bryant Family Vineyard makes one of Napa’s -- and the world’s -- truly top tier Cabernet Sauvignons; it’s one of Napa’s cult wines. It’s the only wine Bryant makes and they do it with the utmost care and skill. Barbara Bryant, co-founder and former owner of the winery, has fused her love of wine, food, vineyards and people to produce the new and beautiful Bryant Family Vineyard Cookbook, the proceeds of which go to one of her beloved charities, the Bowery Mission in New York. You’ll see my name in the book, but only because I assisted Barbara with her introduction. The book belongs to Barbara, her co-author Betsy Fentress, and the nation’s top chefs who admire the wine and gave their recipes for Barbara’s cause. This is a truly wonderful gift book, because it is all about giving.

The Bryant Family Vineyard Cookbook, $50, Andrews McNeel Publishing.

Six Beers Over Texas

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Texas Hill Country, about 1 hour from both San Antonio and Austin. I went there in search of Texas wine (more about that later) but want to write here about a unique B&B in the lovely German-inflected town of Fredericksburg, named recently by Money magazine as one of the 25 best places to retire in the United States.


Maybe the magazine meant retiring for the night because I learned there are 300 B&B’s in this town of only 11,000 people. There may be more B&B’s per square foot there than anywhere for the more than 1 million tourists it attracts each year. But what I like about this B&B is its novelty: When you stay at the Fredericksburg Brewing Company, you get a queen bed upstairs and a four-beer sampler each night downstairs in the brew pub. This Bed & Brew offers a nice way to unwind after a day of antique or art shopping, visiting museums like the National Museum of the Pacific War, taking a Texas cooking class at Fredericksburg Culinary Arts or even a day of wine tasting. The beers all come in at about 5% alcohol so it is a winding down.

The beer menu at the Fredericksburg Brewing Company is ever-changing but there are usually a range of six types on hand and the menu features many German dishes and some down-home Southern items like deep-fried pickles (surprisingly good).

Sublime Sauvignon

I don’t expect to win any popularity contests by recommending pricey wines right now, but I’m going to do it anyway. Economic times are hard and there’s been a flood of endorsements for “value” wines for everyday drinking. But we are all still living our lives, aren’t we? Still honoring loved ones at such special occasions as anniversaries, birthdays and other milestones?

Coveted $350 bottles from tiny Napa producers may well be anachronisms, I don’t know, but sometimes even in hard economic times you still want – maybe even need – to treat yourself or someone else. Two Napa Valley wines I tasted recently really impressed me with their high-quality and distinction. They also surprised me because they were both Sauvignon Blanc, a wine that’s not normally costly. While I don’t recommend drinking these wines everyday (for me personally they would be too rich and weighty), if Sauvignon Blanc is a favorite of yours (as it is of mine), or fits into a celebratory menu you are planning, these two not-so-value-oriented wines are real treats:

Recommended: 2006 Gamble Heart Block Sauvignon Blanc $50. This wine is rich and intense, not nearly as tart as many SB’s out there. So if you normally like Chardonnay and think Sauvignon Blanc is too zesty and sharp for you, this may be one to try. Alcohol is moderate at 13.7%. It has a rich weightiness in the mouth and you’re still tasting it long after you’ve swallowed it.
Highly Recommended: 2007 Rudd Sauvignon Blanc $45. More like a French Sauvignon Blanc than a California model. Again, a richer Sauvignon Blanc than normal. Wonderful floral aromas and many juicy, fruit flavors.

Good Read: Bordeaux

If you are a Bordeaux fanatic, you will want to check out the latest book on France’s illustrious wine region, What Price Bordeaux? By Benjamin Lewin. Bordeaux is steeped in history and tradition, and Lewin presents the salient facts of its past and present in a straight-forward yet interesting way. He also poses and answers many provocative questions about the area. One of these: Are the huge price increases of the last decade for Bordeaux’s first growths the boom before the bust? With climate change, tougher worldwide competition and the long-lasting reduced spending habits that may result from our current economic setback, it’s a good question, one with significant implications for Bordeaux’s future.

Recommended: What Price Bordeaux? By Benjamin Lewin. $34.95. Vendage Press, Dover, 2009. Available through the Wine Appreciation Guild, www.wineappreciation.com