Boris_A

I have experienced a similar development, and I can almost track it down to a single event: when I opened my first bottle of Brunels Châteauneuf "Cuvée des Generation" 1995. There it was. A Burgundian style "southern"wine with (visibly) little extract and very smooth tannins, a rather light colour and tons of complex flavours. For me, it was like a sudden enlightment: to leave out everything what's not needed (much extraction, oak) and still have a great red wine of enomous proportions.

Zurichs most famous Chocolatiers are "Teuscher" and "Sprüngli". Spüngli has a shop in the Airport. Must be the one you remember (not). My recommendations are "truffles": (I'm a 30+year customer): 1) Daily-made "Truffe du jour", dark and brown (Note: they won't keep longer than 2-3 days in the fridge.) They are not on the online-shop page. The real stuff. 2) Truffes (the same, but storage fo 2-3 weeks admitted) 3) The new "Truffes GrandCru" serie. 4 different tastes from 4 different cocoa varieties. Three shops: Airport Shopping, Transit Gates B (Level 1 / Departure), Dock E (Level 2 / Departure East). Website: www.confiserie-spruengli.ch edited for practical info

Gnoccho is also reflected in Austria's famous "Salzburger Nocken", which litterally translates to "cam". [typo]

In my experience, "gnocchi di patate" require the right potatoes and need to be fresh to get truly convincing results. Of course, they are heavenly, but I've eaten them too many times in Italy, thus my consuming standards are higher than my cooking abilities. I think the suggestion of Samuel with gnocchi di semolino (or alla romana) are the best choice if you plan a gnocchi gratin. They offer an excellent ReturnOnInvestment and are a sort of convenience food. I usually pre-prepare them in the morning. I admire you courage, though.

Probably rightly so. There are some distinct fizzy reds out there (Lambrusco, some Barbera and similar from Italy coming to my mind), but fizzy greatly strengthens the effect of tannins. So a red fizzy wine should be vinified very carefully. Otherwise you end up with a very harsh wine with overpronounced tannins. Actually, I'v never heard of Californian fizzy cab, so I suspect it's a clear fault. But I'm no expert for Calif cabs.

I remember very well when I bought some years ago Châteauneuf Clos des Papes 1995 (shortly after release), for sure a traditional wine (not nebbiolo, of course). We tasted the wine in the beginning of the meal and it showed rather harsh tannins and I was a bit decepted. But together with meat and with the mouth coated (impregnated) with tannins, from sip to sip the underlying fruit evolved very pure and beautiful. In the end, we opened another bottle (for 3 persons) and liked it very much. Last time I opened a bottle (two yeras ago), I found it having closed down, but I have no doubt that today or in 5 years, it will reemerge nicely. Anyway, in my opinion a traditional (tannic, that is) young wine with enough underlying fruit can make a much better showing if consumed with a meal rather than tasted in a serie.

A bit of spritz is common for uqite a number of Swiss white wines ((chasselas) from the lake of geneva region. The locals appreciate this subtlety very much with wines intended for apéritif. It's going away with 2-3 years of bottle aging. The explanation Andre gave is absolutely correct, as far as I know.

Now I know what's really extravagant : using tap water bottled by Coca Cola: Coke's water comes straight from the tap with a cool mark-up of 3,000 per cent

Oh, at certain places, water quality in Italy is so bad the the use in fact .. Italian bottled water. Extravagancy there would be the use of ... American bottled water.

Hmmm. If you cook a wine for 5 minutes, it will have deteriorated badly for drinking. But there shouldn't be the slightest problem to still use this wine for ... cooking. A bottle open for several days turns the wine somewhat "tired" - a minor change compared to what's happening when you cook it. If I was concerned about, I'd vacumate the bottle - but freezing, reducing, forming cubicles would be a complete waste of time in my eyes.

I don't get it. What's the idea of freezing wine intended to be cooked? I mean there's acidity and alcohol inside, two excellent conservation aids. Within a week or two, wine can't turn bad. It may deteriorate for drinking, but for cooking? Dont' get me wrong here, I'm very meticulous about my cook wine, I spend around $14 per bottle.

My regular cook wine bottle is simply recorked and I even don't put it in the fridge. Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes two weeks to empty it. All what can happen in this short time is some oxydisation (not unlike Sherry), which I think is not bad at all for cooking. I guess one week in a recorked bottle ist a rather sensitive treatement to wine compared to cooking.

We choose a stainless steel covering for our new frigde. When we moved out magnetic stickers - and bum! on the floor they went. I tested several stainless in my household. We learned that some stainless is magnetic and others not. Depends on the composition, an engineer told me.

Correct. Be careful, just a tiny little bit to make the filling less compact.

That's quite a compliment. There's a Donati wine shop in Basel with a very good range of Italian wines. Could answer the question about Donati jr. After 1960, Italian population in Switzerland reached around 400'000 people or 10%. In bigger towns like Zurich or Basel, there was a kind of Little Italy and a network of very good shops with true Italian offerings. The Italians were famous not only for saving every dollar to build a house after returning to Italy, but for visiting expensive food shops to satisfy their demanding culinary wishes at the same time. There were quite a few of Ristoranti with authentic Italian dishes, and some of them were attained by Italian celebreties visting Switzerland. In our familys favourite restaurant, I remember of signed pics of Sofia Loren, Carlo Ponti, Marcelllo Mastroianni and the likes pinned to the wall. Those shops and restaurants opened a new culinary window in Switzerland, and Italian food from a wider area than just Ticino/Lombardia got popular.

Too late, Victor. You're already busted. And even true, an advise by a passionate amateur can be exactly as valuable. I fully agree. And the names of those different Jerez producers ? To quote those famous three words: bring it on!

You are absolutely correct, Craig. I've confessed a certain subjective dislike for Gajas Oeuvre and only afterwards I read some of the honest and sincere Gaja discussions which made an interesting (though difficult) Italian reading on the Webpage of Franco Ziliani. I can clearly state that in all the informal wine talk I had with Piedmontesians (and not only wine people), no one ever had a bad mouthing about Gaja in the sense of he's being dishonest, unfair or similar. Nobody ever doubted of Angelo Gaja himself being a true gentleman. I clearly wouldn't state the same in the same clear manner about "I Vini del Gambero", whose bicchieri ratings are definitely among the more intransparent wine ratings around and where I have some limited background info about the procedure in not so known Italian wine regions (Garda). This sudden, offensive and personal attack (even by the standards of "la polemica") by a leading wine media editor, who heralded Gaja's achievements for so long, is really very dubious. I vaguely suspect that at the bottom of this clash, there is not only a newborn personal animosity, but also an influence by a recently changed economical situation regarding Italian luxury wines. Somehow, it reminds me of the stock market bubble: as long as prices went up, the critiques were rather unheard. As soon as the falling prices set in, critique got momentum and some opportunistic voices jumped ship. With his sudden attack, Cernili and Gambero Rosso lost credibilty. And as Ziliani states, limut test will be in november 2004 (new edition of Gambero).

Which is a part of sad story. I must think of delicate Bulgarian "Feta" once easily available in Switzerland. Now vanished in western Europe. I find it only in Vienna nowadays. Same sad story with Ostiepcki cheese from Slovakia. Unavailable even in Vienna! I think of yoghurt, an almost Bulgarian invention. I think of kind of sauerkraut my grandfather had in open barrel in his dark cellar. I was shocked by the idea of eating out of this barrel, but after the first bite, little Boris wanted more... We already mentioned banitsa and baklava. Shopska salata with Bulgarian vegetables .. .agneschka suppa ... tarator ...mussaka ... mish mash. My Swiss Italian mother had no problem to learn those recipes. zaelic, your descriptions just allude to an ever returning wish to travel there again. To hear the unique Bulgarian women chores. Back then, in a little chapel near Bojana, Sofia, there was a hidden chore behind the altar, it was like a sung duel between some high women voices and a male bass. Unforgetable. The incredibly beautitful monasteries. This so typical Slawish mix of sadness an joy at the same time. Something similar to Taraf Hajduk? Foodies, sorry! OTOH, it's not terribly overcrowded here ...

Another French paradox? I just speculated () and I must concede I've never heard of French roasted kid. I found the Swiss French expression "cabris" as translation for capretto or gitzi. I succesfully googled for recipes for "Cabris de Corse" and recipes from Reunion. But no "real" French recipe. OTOH, it's almost unthinkable that French Alpine peasants in regions with goats did overlook this delicacy. I'm perpelexed. EDIT: Just found a recipe by Alain Ducasse (Grande Livre): Chevreau de lait de l'arrière-pays niçois.

Even dry Vouvrays can age for many years because of high level acidity. As general rule I learned by a famous Vouvray producer: "Drink it early or drink it late - but never in between." In fact, many Vouvrays close down unforthcomingly after 3-4 years and reemerge after 10-15 years of cellaring.

Many years ago, during my first time trip to Barbaresco (I didn't know much about the Barbaresco wine) I tried to visit some wineries. Gajas closed jail entrance and the matching verbal rejection was so apalling, I never could get rid of exactly this image of Gaja being "cold and soulless". Please, this is a highly subjective impression and has nothing to do with his wines, which I tasted only two times in my life, because I never bought any. I understand that some famous wineries are closed for visitors, but the impolite way this was handled at Gaja back then was among the worst I ever experienced. I felt like in front of some industrial factory in a Milanese suburb. My next stops had been Roagna and Cigliuti and were only to firm my Gaja "prejudice". I have no idea about Cernillis true motivations to polemize, and I know about Gajas achievement for Barbresco wine, but with the adjectives "cold and soulless" I'm not terribly shocked. I never felt warm with this producer.

It's a widespread known delicacy from Spain to Turkey, I guess. I know it as Piedmontese "Capretto" or Swiss "Gitzi". I remember my father (born in Bulgaria), back in the sixties, of driving his Chrysler Imperial to Swiss Alpine villages up to dwindling heights to get the best "Gitzi". It was a cult. Gitzi is still widely available in Sitzerland on farmer markets (especially around easter) and quite popular. No wonder: Pedro, reading your words I could cry Wrt. bakery: I know of tiny villages where the bakeries are outright communistic. They are small oven houses, belonging to everyone in the village. One person has to heat early in the morning, then baking of bread (first) and braising/simmering (later) is done collecitively. Must have functioned as some kind of lGullets (localGullet), when I imagine discussions among the locals about how, when and what to cook.

ludja, Yes, very similar. Here's my Stripped-Down-Like-a-Racing-Car-Banitsa: I use a 30x20 rectangle mould (alu or thin stainless for immediate heat transport). - two foils of thin (puff) pastry, one a bit larger - 4 eggs - 200g not too finely crumbled feta (acidity is important. At my supermarket, the cheapest is clearly the best!) - 1 cup of yoghurt (preferred greek with extra fat 5-10%) - 1,5 dl milk. - soda (a tip of a knife) Now: - mix 3 eggs, crumbled feta, yoghurt, soda. - place larger layer of pastry foil a the bottom of the mould, covering side walls too - fill with egg/feta mix - cover with upper foil - with a wooden spatula, I diagonally and crosswise cut lines (by stamping down to the bottom) forming large parallelograms - mix milk and 1 egg and pour over (to add liquidity) - 30-40 minutes at 180-200 degrees. Golden color, brown edges. Preparation time around 15 minutes, but I think once I came in with 12 min 27 sec. Adding some cut spinach leafs to the egg/feta is a great variant. I imagine my recipe has done to real banitsa what back in the sixties an American TV-cook could have done to Lasagne. I serve it hot out the oven, cold as aperitif (kind of quiche), rewarmed for dinner or the next day. I must have made north of 300 banitsas over the years, and I never had to throw away a crumb. I swear! edited for typos

I make a lot Banitsa. Can't forget since I visited Bulgaria in tender age of 6. The combination of egg, dough, and the slightlly sour cheese is just overwhelming. It's the easiest trick I know to get food attention at a party. Neophytes always come back and ask for the recipe. However, I make it with "millefeuille" (puff pastry?). Originally, it's with phylo I think. Banitsa with puff pastry is very easy to make. Eggs, pastry, milk, yoghurt, acceptable Feta - that's about all you need for a western-style Banitsa. And 15 minutes of work. And in this variant, it can be pretty good when rewarmed. I never experienced any problem to get rid of it. Now Baklava ist the other hot Bulgarian thing. Incredibly sweet and tasty. Nuts, butter, dough, maybe rosewater, sugar syrup. Orgiastic. I remember as well.

If you can find, try a white Arbois or "Côte-de Jura" (but not necessarily Vin Jaune, too concentrated and pretty expensive). It's a rather sour, with a lot oxydisation vinifyied white wine to be served at room temperature (!). It displays a non-fruit sensorical characteristic and is a great match with rather spicey food, what I consider always to be a difficult pairing with most wines. Just to quote some authiorities: Robert Parker Parker describes the "historic yet little-known Arbois appellation, a viticultural region with a climate similar to Cote de Beaune and heavy clay/stone soils reminiscent of Chassagne-Montrachet" and describes Vin Jaune as an intriguing rarity - rich, medium dry, with an exceptional perfume and made in a honeyed, nutty, slightly oxidised style.. Hugh Johnson "Connoisseurs of the French countryside each have their own favourite corner. I have a shortlist ready and Jura is on it". "Savagnin is a late ripener and a small cropper, but its wine is powerful in alcohol & flavour". Vin Juane is an impressive aperitif, intense in flavour, obvioulsly slightly oxidised but long & fine and altogether worthwhile". Raymond Blanc The Jura is an important winemeaking region in France - Lesser known, maybe, but as prestigious as any Burgundy, its red wine is made from a number of grapes, such as Pinot Noir, but mostly from the more typical Franc-Comptois grapes , the Poulsard and the Trousseau. The white wines are made from Chardonnay and the unique Savagnin grape. The vinification process is also unique. It uses oxidisation to encourage its maturation. It is this that lends its characteristic bouquet of walnuts and almonds. Its colour - deep gold, will completely enthuse you. Maybe it's worth an extendend search.