Kitchen Chick

Pecan Pie

Thanksgiving Dinner is a holiday day layered with traditions. A ritualistic holiday celebrating family and food. We have foods on our Thankgiving Day menu that simply don't change. I've looked at the themed-dinners in various food magazines, but I'll never cook them. You see, we do a multi-family pot-luck style dinner, with each family contributing to the meal. The inlaws must bring their amazing dressing, and mother brings fresh cranberry relish, and friends bring the soup course and sweet potatoes and other sides and desserts, and I always cook the turkey and the mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and more desserts. And then we have wine. And we dine. And we groan. And then we eat dessert and groan some more. And then we talk until we can contemplate moving again.

Dessert.

Probably the one area where I do experiment is with the desserts. Last year I introduced this amazing cranberry 'mince meat' style pie. (I've even had someone say it's better than Zingerman's cranberry pie. Now that's a compliment.) This year I slipped in a new pecan pie recipe.

I was pretty nervous about the pecan pie. It's a tradition. A dessert ritual. We must have a pecan pie. And the recipe we've traditionally used is one of Joe's family recipes. Except that this year I couldn't find it. It should be in my "dessert recipe" binder, but I paged through it twice and didn't see it. Rather than admit this embarrassing loss (and I bet I get a copy in email), I turned to this cookbook because I've had such good experiences with it and found a very promising recipe.

So I knew I was quietly committing a heresy, and if it didn't turn out I would be banned from experimenting on pecan pies for Thanksgiving. (Experimenting other times of the year would be okay.) But I really, really want to try this recipe largely because it doesn't use corn syrup.

"How was the pecan pie?" I asked anxiously, over and over again.

WB #27: a gaffe! No, two!

I missed two (ow!) entries for WBW #27 Ice Wines. (Mea culpa!) I've updated the Round Up, but if you've already read through it do also check out the entries from An Obsession with Food and Doktor Weingolb.

WBW #27 ROUNDUP: Ice Ice Baby!

It's been a pleasure to host this edition of Wine Blogging Wednesdays, founded by Lenndevours. A big thank you to all WBW #27: Icy Desserts participants who ponied up for a bottle of ice wine and shared your thoughts and stories. You all blogged from Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the USA. I learned a lot for this. For starters, I never knew there were so many wine blogs out there in the wide world of the Internet sharing their knowledge and experiences with wine. Oenology is an intimidating field to "wine newbies", you all help make it more approachable and fun.

I originally thought about organizing the entries by country of origin for the wines, but some of us couldn't help tasting more than one ice wine, which would have made it hard to decide where to list each entry. So I've gone back to the standby of listing entries as they came into my mailbox. (I'll double-check my mailbox. If I missed someone or got a detail wrong please don't hesitate to contact me at [email protected] and I'll add you in.)

With that we kick off this round up with "snekse" from Gastronomic Fight Club, who is no stranger to ice wine, but rather than pull out a familiar bottle decided to shop for something new and discovered the 2003 Covey Run Semillon Reserve Ice Wine from Washington, USA.

On the East Coast Neil of Brooklynguy's Wine and Food Blog, a fellow alum of my own great alma mater (Go Blue!), samples a trio of ice wines from the Finger Lake Region of New York. (2005 Hunt Country Vidal Ice Wine, 2005 Casa Larga Fiori Delle Stelle Vidal Ice Wine, and 2004 Standing Stone Vidal Ice Wine)

Down in the Southern Hemisphere, Haalo from Cook (almost) Anything at least once in Melbourne trekked out to the cellar door of Long Gully winery to bring back a bottle of Long Gully 2004 Reserve Ice Riesling, Yarra Valley, Australia.

Marcus of Doktor Weingolb, who hails from Niagara, reaches out of his region and gets the side-benefit of an German language lesson while exploring an Old World eiswine, the Graf Hardegg Riesling Eiswein Steinbugel Seefeld Weinviertel 2002 from Austria. (And gets a headache in the process. Ow!)

We all know how expensive ice wines can be, and finding a good one that doesn't break the bank can be a challenge. Dr Debs at Good Wine Under $20 in Los Angeles, CA, tracked down a budget-friendly ice wine that is readily available and presents to us the 2004 Jackson-Triggs Vidal Icewine Proprietors' Reserve from Ontario, Canada.

Just "a bit" up the coast in San Francisco, Sam of Becks and Posh couldn't resist combining a chocolate tasting with wine tasting, and discovered that a sichuan-flavored chocolate pairs well with 2004 Inniskillin Cabernet Franc Icewine, Ontario, Canada.

Across the continent in New Jersey, Serge of Serge the Concierge takes a unique twist on the theme and introduces us to an ice wine vinegar called Minus 8 Wine Vinegar from Canada. The grapes are picked frozen, just like an ice wine, but processed into vinegar instead of wine and allowed to age.

And back to Melbourne, Australia, where Ed at Tomato experiences divine intervention when pairing 2002 Inniskillin sparkling Vidal ice wine from Ontario Canada with a mango tarte tatin.

In San Francisco, Alder of Vinography introduces us to our first European ice wine of WBW #27, 2001 Weinrieder "Poysdorfer Schneiderberg" Riesling Eiswein, which is from Weinviertel, Austria, a region that has been producing wine since 1194.

Up in the Great White North of Winnipeg (hey, from where I live Winnipeg is part of the Great White North), Manitoba, Canada, Alec of Wine in the 'Peg gets in touch with his Canadian heritage with a bottle of 2004 Inniskillin Vidal Icewine from Ontario Canada.

Columbus Foodie's Becke happily discovers 2003 Frozin from Meeker Vineyards in Sonoma County, California, an icebox wine made — unusually — from zinfandel grapes.

At The Sour Dough, the "Breadchick" out in Massachusetts travels (metaphorically speaking) back to her childhood home of Northern Michigan to sample two Michigan-made ice wines Chateau Grand Traverse 2001 Johannisberg Riesling Ice Wine and the Black Star Farms 2002 A Capella Riesling Ice Wine.

If you've wondered what it's like to bundle up in the middle of the night and harvest grapes under a cold winter night sky, hop across the pond to Heidelberg, Germany, where Thomas of Winzerblog gives us a first hand account of what it is like to pick and press grapes for ice wine.

In what is WBW #27 most unexpected origins for an icebox wine, Ryan and Gabriella of Catavino discover in the 2003 Gramona Penedès Vi de Gel a wine to fall in love with from a Spainish winery.

Garry of Tales of a Sommalier over in the U.K. presents two wines with German ties: CanadaPelee Island Cab Franc Icewine 2001, made by a German winemaker in Ontario Canada, and Bassermann-Jordan Forster Ungeheuer Riesling Icewine 1996 from Germany.

Over in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" (Minnesota for the rest of us), Tim of Winecast uses the power of the Internet to hunt down an affordable ice wine worth giving a try and fnds 2004 Burgherrn Weinhandels, “Nachtgold”, Eiswein from Germany.

Up in the Finger Lake region of New York, an area I would very much like to visit, Jennifer of Cookin' in the 'Cruse samples this "fruit bomb" of an icewine, 2003 Select Late Harvest Riesling Ice Wine made by Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyards, Finger Lakes Region, New York.

Jack and Joanne of Fork & Bottle in sunny California shares with us 2001 Zeltinger Himmelreich "JUNIOR" Riesling Eiswein from Selbach-Oster Winery, one of their favorite wineries in all of Germany.

Also in California, Dave of Wine Avenue does an Old World/New World ice wine side-by-side comparison. From the Grans-Fassian winery, which was founded in 1624, he tries
2004 Grans-Fassian, Gold Cap Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Leiwener, Riesling Eiswein. And from a 20th century winey the 2004 Jackson-Triggs, Proprietors' Reserve, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Vidal Icewine

Bouncing back to the Down Under, Wino Sapien's Edward and friends give a bottle of 2002 Inniskillin Cabernet Franc Ice Wine a try. As someone who lives driving distance from Inniskillin, I found it interesting to read how much exporting wine to the other side of the world increases the cost, and now I want to see what Australian wines cost here in Michigan.

Catherine of Purple Liquid watched the November 8 election results in California while sipping 2004 Jackson-Triggs Proprietor's Reserve Vidal Icewine from Ontario, Canada.

Also in California, Derrick of An Obsession with Food takes us to one of Europe's newest nations in a region with a very old history in winemaking to taste the 2001 Laski Rizling Ice Wine from Zlati Gric in Slovenia!

Lenn of Lenndevours reviews the "ice-style" Wolffer Estate's 2005 Late Harvest Chardonna, which won "Best Dessert Wine" at the 2006 New York Wine and Food Classic.

Finally, you can read my own entry, which included sampling Lemon Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 from the Lake Michigan Shore Region from my own home state.

---

"Culinary Fool" continues the celebratory fashion with her theme for Wine Blogging Wednesday #28: Sparklers Find a non-champagne sparkling wine, check out the "rules" for the event, and post your findings on December 13th.

Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

Some months ago I stumbled across a brownie recipe at "Raquel's Box of Chocolate" (a foodblog that seems to no longer exist). It promised greatness, and I've longed for greatness in a chocolate brownie from my own kitchen. Here in Ann Arbor, Zingerman's "magic brownies" are the pinacle of brownies. (Okay, I know some of you out there don't like them, but I adore them.) I wanted a rich, chocolate brownie that tasted of chocolate and not chocolate-flavored sugar. I hope this make sense because there is a difference. I find most box mixes and pre-made cookie doughs and just about any other pre-made dessert to be more like eating sugar with a little flavoring. And, unfortunately, a lot of not-so-great recipes focus on the sweet and not the flavor.

So I printed off the recipe and it sat around my printer for some months. Finally, in need of an easy dessert and tired of the usual, I dug around the mass of printouts piled around my desk and found the brownie recipe.

There was only one problem: the recipe was written for an 8 inch square pan, and I have a 9" square pan. (sigh) How did I end up with such non-standard size pans. It never seems to fail that I am one size off. Fortunately I didn't take some eight or so advance math courses during my college years to not be able to solve this one. A 9" pan is approximately 25% larger than an 8" pan. I provide the original recipe amounts and then at the end the 9" pan amounts

I think it's not quite perfect, but it's very very close. I think perfection exists in the imagination and the belief that there's always a better recipe out there somewhere. Well, and maybe at Zingerman's. (Okay, okay. Enough with that already.) But at brownie recipes go, this is a d@mn good one...

WBW #27: all iced up for the holidays

For Wine Blogging Wednesday #27, I pulled together some friends who were kind enough to share the heavy burden (oh, twist our arms!) of tasting ice wines. Between us and them we had a total of four (!) wines and a table loaded with cheese, fruits, and a fruit tart. Knowing how expensive ice wine can be, I feel rather greedy with all of it, rather like a child who has hit the mother-lode of holiday presents. I will touch on all of them briefly as it was interesting to taste and compare their differences.

The candidates listed in their tasting order:

Selaks Marlborough 2004 — Marlborough, New Zealand.
Inniskillin Vidal 2004 — Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, VQA
Pillitteri Estates Cabernet Franc 2002 — Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, VQA
Lemon Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 —  Berrien Springs, Michigan, USA, Lake Michigan Shore

Selaks Marlborough 2004
New Zealand. A mix of Gewurztraminer and Riesling grapes. Honey colored. This was our "supermarket" (affordable) ice wine. It technically isn't a true ice wine -- either the grapes or the grape juice were frozen after harvest. We thought this wine was best when just opened, crisp with some citrus notes and a sparkling edge (some carbonation?), but as it opened up it became "flabby". It didn't show well against the other ice wines, though maybe by itself it would have held up better.

Inniskillin Vidal 2004
Ontario, Canada. 100% Vidal grapes aged in oak. Yellow color. There were definite sighs of appreciation around the table with the first sips. It started all desserty-sweet with tropical fruits and finished with what one of our tasters described as an undertone of oak — a definite change in character. Very balanced with a long finish. As it opened up, we thought the grapes and the oak became more pronounced. A lovely ice wine. Perhaps the most unusual description was: "Soda-popish but in a positive way." This was the most complex and sophisticated ice wine of the bunch. I suspect this one has also been tasted by other WBW #27 participants, and I look forward to reading what they have to say about it.

Pillitteri Cabernet Franc 2002
Ontario, Canada. 100% Cabernet Franc. Around 2002 or so a few Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries had just started making red ice wines, and I had to try some. This was my second and last bottle from that year. I've had it sitting around waiting for that "special occasion," but not in ideal conditions, so I was somewhat concerned about how it aged. Fortunately, the wine was not corked. I can't really recall how it compared to the bottle I drank two years ago, but we enjoyed this one just fine. A lovely pale salmon-pink color, it had a mix of almond (one of us described it as "quinine-like") and fruit flavors and a slight crisp bite. Some dessert wines don't like to share the stage with food, but this one would go well with fruit and might even play well with some cheeses. (But don't ask me to recommend a cheese — I like cheese, but rarely eat it because of allergies.)

Lemon Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 2004
Michigan, USA. 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. Joe and I picked this up in the Spring during a short vacation on Michigan's west coast. We visited several wineries in the Southwest Michigan wine region, and Lemon Creek was the one that I insisted we stop at because they make ice wine, and not just any ice wine but the only Cabernet Sauvignon ice wine in the States. So there. Michigan bragging rights.

This red ice wine was not as complex as the Pillitteri, and I was a bit disappointed with it at first. It had a honey taste right off and a nose that mixed strawberries with fish (fish? what's up with that?) When this one opened up, the strawberries really came forward. So strong a flavor was it, in fact, that it felt like I was drinking strawberry nectar. Kinda of odd as a wine experience, but really quite yummy once it opened up. I have a second bottle of this, and I look forward to seeing if the strawberry qualities assert themselves as strongly when tasted alone.

Hey, it's November!

And we're heading into a short spurt of near 60 degrees F temps here in Southern Michigan. The leaves have (mostly) fallen, and here in the States it's time to order the turkey for Turkey Day. Errr... I mean, Thanksgiving Day.

Speaking of things to be grateful for... Joe and I just spent the weekend in LA with glorious 70 degrees and sunny weather attending a friend's wedding. We got to visit and catch up with a lot of friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in years. In between wedding events, we managed to visit what is probably LA's most well known Americanized Szechuan restaurant in downtown Chinatown as well as a really authentic Szechuan restaurant out in San Gabriel. Those reviews will be coming down the pike, possibly before more likley after my next History of Photography paper is due (this week's topic: Jerry Ueslmann).

Tuseday is Election Day, so get out there and do that civic thing called "voting". And if you haven't done so already taste some ice wine because this Wednesday is Wine Blogging Wednesday #27. Do your wine taste preferablly after you vote, not before. If you know what I mean. :-)

Egg, Chorizo, and Tomato Tortilla

Egg, chorizo, and tomato tortilla just about done cooking.

I have three papers due this week. Short papers, but still three different topics to think and write about. Tonight's paper was on Jack Kerouac's Introduction to Robert Frank's The Americans. Tomorrow night it's Cartier-Bresson. But I'm still thinking about last night's dinner.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was looking to make something North African and Joe suggested using the chorizo we had as a substitute for merguez. Mmmmm.... merguez. I may have to learn how to make my own merguez because the mere thought of it makes me swoon. But not having merguez, I went with the chorizo, which is itself its own kind of wonderfulness. The resulting dish probably wouldn't be classified as North African, but this was inspired by a recipe in From the Lands of Figs and Olives.

I served it up with slices of toasted and buttered pumpernickel bread and the previously mentioned carrot and olive salad. I used a 12 inch skillet, which made for a rather thin tortilla. Next time I using my 10 inch skillet. Joe and I both agreed that this tortilla would make a fantastic breakfast dish. I'm thinking about making it again tomorrow because I still have a bit of chorizo that needs to be used before it goes bad and the dish was just that tasty. Unless a better idea comes to mind...

Eggs, Chorizo, and Tomato Tortilla adapted from From the Lands of Figs and Olives

1/4 C olive oil

1/2 lb. chorizo, cut into chunks

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1/4 tsp caraway seeds

2 large tomatoes, cut into eights

1/4 C. water

salt and pepper to taste

4 eggs

Heat oil in frying pan over high heat until shimmering hot. (Use a 12 inch skillet for a thin tortilla, and a smaller one for a thicker tortilla.) Add sausage, garlic, and caraway. Stir frequently until sausage is lightly browned.

Add tomatoes, water, salt and pepper. Lower heat to medium and cook until most of the liquid is absorbed. This can take 10 minutes or so. With chorizo, after the water is absorbed/cooked off, you'll have a fair amount of oil in the pan. I guess you could drain some of it off. I didn't. There's too much flavor in that oil!

Break eggs into a bowl and whisk briskly. Pour into sausage mixture. The original recipe says to stir gently over low heat until eggs are done. I prefer to stir very little at all and let the mixture set like an omelet or Spanish tortilla. To get the top of the eggs to cook, I put a lid on the pan to trap the heat.

The original recipe calls for:

- Polish, Italian, or similar sausage. I suspect this is a substitution for merguez.

- 2 sweet bell peppers with seeds removed and cut into 1/2 inch strips

- and uses only 3 eggs

The bell peppers are added after the tomatoes cook and the water is absorbed, and the mixture simmers for 10 minutes more. The eggs are stired gently, making a scrambled-egg dish instead of a tortilla-style dish.

Egg, chorizo, and tomato tortilla on pumpernickel toast