Nishla

I have an interesting one this time...at least I think it's interesting since I learned something. The wine: 2004 Falesco Est! Est! Est! di Montefiascone ($11). This is a light, crisp Italian white, with citrus and mineral flavors. I'd had it before with light fish dishes and salads with good success. The food: Attempt 1--Salad of arugula, red peppers, goat cheese, and a honey-lime dressing. This pairing was absolutely horrible...one of the worst mistakes I've made. The honey in the dressing made the wine taste sour instead of pleasantly acidic, and the wine made the arugula intensely bitter. Gak Attempt 2--A few days later, I had the rest of the bottle with a fennel salad simply dressed with salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and shaved parmesan. This time, the lemon and wine got along nicely, and worked together to bring out the sweetness of the fennel. The wine also tasted like it's supposed to, instead of like sour water. Yum

Yesterday's breakfast was salmon and potato hash, topped with a fried egg. The yolk kind of imploded and leaked through the bottom of the egg, but it tasted good!

Pinot grigio/chadonnay and shrimp bisque does sound interesting. We also had a new pairing last night at Marco, a small restaurant in Boston's North End: Isola dei Nuraghi Costera 2004, from Sardinia. 100% cannonau grape (which I had never heard of, and is apparently the local form of Grenache). The wine was pretty full-bodied, with dark berry fruit and some earthy/dried herb flavors. It went very well with a spicy sausage/broccoli rabe pasta, as well as a grilled meat plate (flank steak, sausage and balsamic chicken). It kind of overwhelmed our appetizer of arancini, fried mozzerella and fried salmon fritters.

Cool, thanks for all the suggestions. We've really gotten into cocktails in the last year, and have been fairly disappointed with many bars in the area. I haven't been to Green Street since it re-opened, but will definitely return soon since it's right in my neighborhood. I'll have to check out B-Side too.

So I just got back from Eastern Standard (in Kenmore Sq), and I'm trying to figure out if there's anywhere in Boston that has a cocktail menu that is even comparable. The regular menu here has an alaska, aviation, monkey gland, sazerac, jack rose, etc. We haven't even found another place that has a bartender who knows what to do with Chartreuse. Last week, I had a lemon/vodka/tarragon cocktail that was extremely good, so they make nice non-classic drinks too. Their food is solid bistro-style (won't blow you away, but well-made and reasonably priced). The service has also been fantastic every time we've gone, both at the bar and at tables. Is this THE place to go in Boston for drinks? Is there another well-kept secret that I should know about?

We had another nice pairing tonight: 2003 Seghesio Sonoma Zinfandel (on sale for $15) with short ribs. The ribs were cooked with spices like cinnamon, clove and star anise, which went great with the spiciness of the wine. The fruit and oak in the zinfandel also stood up really well to the fatty cut of meat.

Susan, I'm so sorry to hear you've been having such a rough time lately. I really look forward to your input here, hopefully sooner than later In the meantime, I had a nice pairing last night, made even better because it was a cheap, easy dinner and an inexpensive everyday wine: Dr. Loosen "L" Riesling 2005 (~$12, I think) with spicy sesame noodles. The wine is slightly sweet, with a lot of citrus acidity to back it up. It's great with asian flavors and spicy food. The sweetness tamed the spiciness a bit, but the wine is simple enough to not interfere with the other flavors in the noodles. The acid also helps the noodles not seem too oily.

I love this thread...breakfast food is so yummy This morning I tried an experiment. I made blueberry pancakes, but substituted ~1/2 the flour with finely ground almonds. The flavor was great, but I probably should have processed the almonds a bit longer (still a bit grainy). Also, I'm never buying buttermilk just for pancakes again--I've been substituting a mix of milk and yogurt and it works perfectly.

One of my favorite things about food is pairing it with wine (and other drinks). I've tried searching for a catch-all food/wine thread and haven't found anything. If there's interest, I'd like to get something going similar to the other mega-threads on the site. Hopefully if we get a good following, people can search this topic when they're planning meals, or just get some interesting ideas if they're trying new wines or foods. What I envision is that people will post their pairings--all of them. If you had a shiraz that went great with a pizza, let us know. If your fancy clam dish made a chardonnay taste horrible, warn me! Even if your post is as simple as "I had Wine A with Food B and it was good", please contribute. I'll get started: Tonight we had cranberry-orange pork sausage, pan seared then simmered in spicy marinara. There were a lot of flavors going on, so I had a hard time deciding on a wine. I picked d'Arenberg's Galvo Garage 2001, which is a blend of cabernet, merlot and cabernet franc that we got in the bin ends for ~$30. By itself, the wine has dark berry flavors, with decent earthy notes...ripe, but not jammy. The cranberry and orange flavors from the sausage really stood out, but I think the wine was a bit too earthy for a great pairing.

Speaking of Dogfish Head...I found this the other day: I'm not sure I really get the saffron flavor, but this was fairly complex. For the price, I prefer their other creations.

We made "grenadine" using watermelon puree today. I'm having a drink now made from the grenadine, old overholt rye, lime and maraschino, and it's quite good!

Hey Bryan, I believe that minibar quote was from my post...I'm pretty sure they said CaCl, but maybe ChefT can comment on this. I remember being surprised because I had been reading this thread, and noticed the comments about CaCl tasting bad. There was definitely no noticeable taste as far as I could tell.

I got the cheeses at Russo's in Watertown. If you haven't been there, it's fantastic (mostly produce, but tons of other goodies too). If you find out about the Iberico, keep me posted! I also have a general cheese question for all of you: regarding cheese rinds, are there types that are supposed to be eaten or not eaten? Do they ever put stuff on the outside of cheese that might make me sick? Are there cheeses where I would be missing out if I were to throw out the rind? I know a lot of it is personal preference, but with new cheeses I'm never sure...

We got a couple of new cheeses today... Here's our cheese plate (with serrano ham): On the left is the Dutch goat cheese I posted about previously. Center is a basque blue sheeps milk cheese. This was a good balance of stinky and tangy, and was on the firm side. Right is pecorino ginepero, which is an aged cheese rubbed with juniper berries. I didn't think the juniper flavor came through much, but it was still good.

I was hoping you would have suggested a Chablis or a Muscadet for the crab.. When asking the wine guy at a restaurant if there is a wine that beats a nice cold beer with shellfish, he told me these two would.. But now I am wondering how a Rose would go with the pasta.. That might be really interesting.. Thanks for your suggestions.. ← Ha ha...I actually meant to suggest Chablis or Muscadet for the crab but forgot to put it in my post! I thought the rose idea was definitely more interesting, and I do love rose with food.

I'd have to agree with most of the above suggestions. For the foie gras, you could also try one of those sweeter sparkling reds to go with the raspberries. As for the buffalo course, I've found australian shiraz to work pretty well with spicy meat dishes. I also really like tawny port with stinky cheese and dessert, and you can get some reasonably-priced ones. Sounds like a great dinner!

Thanks Chufi, I'm definitely going to try the biscuit recipe. I also wouldn't use a really great cheese in cooking, just like great olive oil or balsamic. However, my friend always brings me intact wheels of cheese (something about US customs regulations), and I'd hate to have this go moldy in my fridge before I can eat it all. The beans with cheese sounds tasty...I was also thinking this could work well in a salad with tomatoes, or over a simple pasta.

Lately I've been eating this Dutch goat milk cheese that my friend brought me: It's fairly firm, and I love the tangy flavor, but other than that I don't know much about it. I've mostly been eating it plain, but tonight I used it in a baked stuffed tomato and it melted really nicely.

My cousin made a ricotta, honey and lemon ice cream recently that was so good. I think something like that would go great with fruit, and maybe a macadamia cookie.

Ooh, very exciting! The fig stilton tart sounds delicious. I agree with eatrustic that a bit of acidity is probably good...especially if the tart is coming right after the cheese course, which can be very rich. I bet this would also be good with fresh goat cheese and a balsamic-thyme glaze. Good luck, and I'm sure whatever you decide on will be fantastic

I really like the chowder, and most of the other food, at Kingfish Hall in Fanueil Hall. Fanueil Hall area is extremely touristy, but I'm a local and this is one of my preferred places for (non-asian) seafood. The Kingfish Hall chowder isn't thick like Legal's clam chowder--it's a bit more brothy, but has great flavor and comes with clams in the shell. We've been there with many people, both local and visitors, and all of them have loved it. The chowder at Chart House, near the aquarium, is quite good too. They serve a more traditional chowder, and have simple but good preparations of steak and seafood. Chart House had to be retired from the annual Boston Chowderfest because they won too many years in a row. I'm sure many of the other notable Boston seafood restaurants (Neptune Oysters, Atlantic Fish, B&G Oysters, Mare, etc.) would be good bets, but I haven't had chowder or steamers at any of these places.

My husband made this today (told me to pick a liquor, and he'd make it up from there)... 1 part galliano 2-3 parts tequila 2 dashes of orange bitters It's quite good--a bit sweet but not syrupy, a nice vanilla scent, and the bitters give it a good finish.

I ate this for breakfast, but since it's a cake I'm posting here! I'm usually not much of a baker, but everyone's yummy-looking desserts have inspired me. Also, it's finally not painfully hot, so I could risk turning on the oven. I have a HUGE bag of somewhat stale almonds, so this is an almond-nectarine cake (based on an almond-cherry cake from the Williams-Sonoma Taste cookbook). It turned out pretty well, but I could have used more nectarines, and I overbaked it by a few minutes.

We had some leftover nachos, and topped it with an egg and and homemade pico de gallo. Yummy (but not too healthy) breakfast.

This is from yesterday...we never have time to make a real breakfast except on the weekends, so this is my first ever breakfast post! Omelette with confit mushrooms and cheese: