Food, Wine & Friends Page 302
Ronan, Connie, Lois, Ken, Dr. Valery, Winnie and Mark
But that's not all!
Chewie joined the festivities, too!
Winnie helped stir the ice cream mix for our Vanilla Gelato to pair with the
Apple Pie...
Little Ronan said he was delighted to finally be invited to his Uncle Gerald's
for dinner.
"I've been waiting all my life." he told us.
He was so thrilled so be with us that he, naturally, wet his pants.
The two medical professionals then immediately began comparing notes.
Ken's patients, it seems, often had 4 legs.
Valery's usually have just two.
Grandma Lois took good care of Ronan.
We opened a nice bottle of Champagne, the fresh-off-the-boat bottling from
Ruelle-Pertois, a favorite little grower from the town of Moussy.
It was lightly toasty, mildly appley and dry, having crisp acidity (of course).
It's a Premier Cru bottling, made entirely of Chardonnay.
Winnie!
To pair with the Champagne, we had some Marcona Almonds, dry,
salt-cured olives, some sort of truffled crackers (but we did not find any
truffle character to those!), Castelvetrano olives and some wild-caught,
American prawns.
The O'Poon ladies each had a gift...
'
Connie needs her vitamins, so she received Kim Chi.
Winnie has expressed an interest in photography.
And there is a little camera for our budding photo artist.
Ronan, meanwhile, expressed an interest in sleeping.
Grandpa Ken took care of that!
We had thought to prepare a pasta with clams and calamari, but
Winnie's parents suggested a Meat Sauce Pasta might be a preferable choice.
And...Ecco ci qua!
Volpaia makes a "Super Tuscan" called Balifico.
I looked up my notes from April of 2019 in Italy and I was not thrilled by this
wine, but actually did like their Coltassala which is Sangiovese and 5% Mammolo.
On this occasion, I had a similar reaction to the Balifico 2016: well-made but
not thrilling.
The wine is 65% Sangiovese and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon. The winery website
claims it's been matured in new French oak, but I've not found the wood to be
part of this wine.
It was perfectly okay with the meat sauce ragu but not a stellar bottle.
Ken, meanwhile, was multi-tasking.
Ronan, as you can see, had the same reaction to the Volpaia wine as did I!
Winnie did like the pasta.
She is a Pasta-Eating machine!
We then had a "frozen soup" as a palate-cleanser.
Winnie said she liked the "frozen soup," too.
This little fellow told me he was ready for some Chicken.
It was then time for the main course and the accompanying side
dishes...
Garlic-Mashed Potatoes (Russets and Yukon Golds) topped with chives.
Fresh peas...
And the main course: Coq au Vin!
We cooked this using a nice little Oregon Pinot Noir.
There were two rather serious bottles of Burgundy on the table:
The Pierre Damoy was from the 2006 vintage. Gevrey Chambertin "Clos
Tamisot."
We had been big fans of this wine in the early 2000s and since then the price of
the wine has increased by something like 500%, so it's well out of range.
But this bottle was a fine example of this vineyard and it is truly special.
At 13+ years of age, this was still fairly young and might need a few more years
to hit its plateau.
The Méo-Camuzet was a 2009 Vosne-Romanée from the Les Chaumes vineyard
site. That, too, was a wonderful bottle.
Sweet cherry fruit notes and a nice woodsy character made for a delicious
Burgundy.
I might give the Damoy the nod between these two, but both were wonderful.
Oh yes...some grilled asparagus, too!
Things suddenly got quiet...
Ronan decided it was time to wake up and see what was
happening.
Winnie asked if it was time, yet, for dessert...
After all, she had taste-tested the Vanilla Gelato we were
making and said it was really good.
Mark and Connie brought an Apple Pie...from San Francisco's "Three
Babes Bakeshop."
We adorned the plates with two kinds of homemade ice cream:
"
Cinnamon and Vanilla.
Winnie says these are both good.
And now that she'd eaten everything, she set about to take a
few snapshots with her new camera.
'
Chewie was happy with his new Star Wars' shirt and was ready
to head home for a good snooze after all the excitement.
And with that everyone made their way out the door, ready for some sleep!
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