Not much is better than a lot to eat and drink… Well preparing the food can be quite fun as well, and often more satisfying than eating it, for some strange reason. One being a lot of expectations has to be met during the meal, and that can take focus away from the pure joy of eating a good meal. Though the more wine accompanying the food, the more relaxing it becomes.
Yesterday I prepared a meal for some friends, I took care of the food and one of the others took care of the wine. The final output was quite satisfying if I have to say so, both regarding food and wine.
During the afternoon, in between insane amounts of coffee (well, I was the only one engorging that, though I was also working) we started out with a German Riesling spätlese, a quite good drink. Then for the appetizer (I will go through the menu a bit later) we got a grand cru Riesling from Domaine Bott Geyl in Alsace, vintage 1999 if I remember correctly. Then for the starter, a nice Moury Saint Denis from Nicolas Potel (I do not remember the vintage to be honest), a good burgundy. Then for the main course we had two wonderful burgundy’s a Gevry-Chambertin premier cru Clos St. Jacques (I can’t remember the producer here for fucks sake!) from 1996 and a Nuits St. Georges 2001 from Nicolas Potel, 2 really grand wines, hard to find wine a lot better than those. For dessert we had a German ice-wine from 1986, it wasn’t as fresh as it could have been, but quite fun to taste.
After the meal for the fun of it, we had a Gewürztraminer Vendange Tardive (late harvested) from Alsace and a late-bottled vintage port wine from 1994.
Now let’s take a look at the food. For the appetizer I had prepared a cold cucumber soup garnished with julienne of fresh cucumber, small balls of cantaloupe melon, shrimps and dill. The starter was steamed plaice (covered with chopped celery leaves), a sauté of fennel and red bell-pepper seasoned with a wee bit of vinegar, a sweet red wine sauce and a sauce mousseline, that dish turned out really well!!! The main course was pork tenderloin roasted with thyme and baked garlic. The sauce was a thick chicken broth with shallots, bacon and slow fried “rose” mushrooms. For the garnish I had made caramelized shallots and fried celery root with pistachios and of course slow baked potatoes with thyme and dill.
The dessert deserves a paragraph for itself; it was a variation of raspberry, how poetic… I had a biscuit cake with raspberry filled with a white chocolate mousse, a raspberry coulis, a raspberry parfait (which I forgot when decorating the dessert, so we had to eat it later) a raspberry crème, a sauce anglaise and finally a grape fruit jelly to bring some bitterness and freshness to the dish, the dish was decorated with melted dark chocolate.
All in all a quite good evening with great wine and food, cosy and relaxed, for my part the last half of the meal at least, I don’t think I started to relax before that point, haha.
Against all predictions all the surreal stuff happened on my walk home last night (if 4:30 am can be called night). On the harbour a ship was being loaded with logs, not a normal sight that early and on the other site of the fjord a young couple was diving into water, off a tugboat for some reason, not that I disapproved as the girl didn’t have much clothes on, though not that interesting that I could be arsed to stop and look at it. I was more eager to get home in bed, before too many rays from the sun would hit me…
(Why have I only linked to Wikipedia...??? Simply because I am lazy... and it is a good start... you can always go on from there ;)... and if there are any questions regarding anything, feel free to give me a shout...!)
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