Tag Archive: Wine and food


Yom Kippur

Filed Under: General by Kathryne — Leave a comment
September 25, 2012

A day that has always intrigued me. The idea of an entire day of contemplation and atonement seems amazing to me. A day where you literally ask those around you for forgiveness. I am not Jewish, but so many aspects of Judaism interest me if, for nothing else, their practicality. Like Yom Kippur. We all can do with a little forgiveness for our sins, I think. Sometimes we need forgiveness from ourselves. Often, in fact, we need forgiveness from that one  person who is usually our worst critic and most unforgiving – us.

Then there is the idea of contemplation. The notion of looking hard at ourselves, not to criticize but maybe to see where it is we are, how we got here and where it is we really want to go. There are days when I am amazed that I ended up in this corner of the world. Seriously and truly amazed. Had I contemplated this move I doubt I would have made it. I lucked into it more than anything else. Almost twenty years ago I was given five thousand dollars. A gift from my grandmother. On nothing more than that I packed up and moved to Seattle. No job, no prospects for a job, and a small apartment in Bellevue.

It was a bold move. Me, the cautious girl who rarely made a rash move. The one that took a month to make a decision on pretty much anything. I would never have contemplated this move. It was impossible;  nothing more than a nice dream – until the day I got into the car to make the drive. I feel lucky to still be here. I feel grateful to still be here.

Contemplation. At the moment I am contemplating my next move. What do I do next? I’m not sure, but I have a feeling it will be something else of my own creation rather than another 9-5 job.  I look around at so many friends who are shrugging off that traditional work paradigm to make their own way in the world. Independent contractors, consultants, mercenaries (which is the real meaning of freelance, you know); throwing ourselves out there into the world without much in the way of a safety net. A move that you don’t want to contemplate too closely lest it stop you in your tracks. Mercenary indeed; contemplating being tied to a desk again is almost as frightening as contemplating being my own boss.

And what about atonement? What do I atone for – maybe drinking a bit too much good wine, a bit too much good beer, eating a bit too much really good food. Do I need to atone for choosing a life that has brought me so much interesting…stuff? I think of forays into the Oregon wine country, of the somewhat decadent meals I have shared with Sharon and Mitch and Craig and Carol and Beth and Geoff and I feel grateful. I think of road trips to the beach, to the mountains, along the river, all the way to Walla Walla and back and I feel lucky. I think of friends like Kent and Erik and Bob who make me laugh and are the best band of male cheerleaders a girl could ask for and I feel good and truly blessed. I don’t regret a minute of the time I have spent in the last six years, since I really began this journey here anew. Not a single minute.

Maybe I should atone for worrying friends when I was laid off. For worrying my folks when I decided the best thing I could do was go to Europe for a month and a half. For being grumpy and cranky during those moments of growing pains. For being frustrated when things weren’t going the way I planned. For losing hope and worse – losing faith – more than once during this journey. For that I do offer atonement, because coming out the other side? Pretty darn wonderful. So I am contemplating the future, the one that started a while ago. I’m looking forward to what happens next. Can’t wait to see what it might be.

What are you contemplating?

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White is the New Red

Filed Under: Food, Wine by Kathryne — 1 Comment
July 13, 2011

That was the dinner theme for Saturday night at Casa Halverson.  Somehow that theme then morphed into a Spanish food extravaganza the likes of which left me looking for a warm rock to curl up on, just to digest the amazing food (and booze) that we consumed over the course of roughly five hours.

This was not an easy meal to plan.  First off, everything had to go with white wine; secondly, the aforementioned Spanish theme.  Oddly enough I found it difficult to find recipes for Spanish food that sounded good and would pair with white wine.  In the end, as mentioned before, I went with a charcuterie plate and attempted a cava sorbet.  Attempted.  But more on that later…

Clams in Madiera

For a dinner that was as frustrating to plan as this one was, I think it turned out pretty darn great.  We started with an astounding white sangria made from Albarino and overflowing with Rainier cherries and muddled white peaches; fruit never tasted so good.  There were a selection of cheeses including a rosemary manchego and a saffron infused goats milk cheese to go with the olives and cured meats.  Craig added to our tapas with chorizo cooked on a terracotta asador filled with Everclear.  Next up were shrimp in romesco sauce followed by clams steamed in and paired with Madeira.

The tapas savored and exclaimed over, it was Mitch and Sharon’s turn.  Mitch made a wonderful paella filled with clams, mussels, shrimp and chicken, all done over a paella ring on the patio.  Meanwhile, Sharon put the finishing touches on a fava bean and Serrano ham salad with fresh mint.  Sadly I do not recall the wine it was paired with, but it was perfect.

Mitch's Paella

Dessert was not so much in the Spanish vein, but we did have a nice Moscatel with it.  My sad attempt at a cava sorbet was a failure, as after nearly an hour in the ice cream freezer the silly thing was still liquid.  I want to give it another try as the recipe is as easy as it comes, and I think I just need to let a bit more of the alcohol cook off before trying the ice cream freezer route again.  Sigh.  Not all of them will be gems, I suppose.

I have been wracking my brain for the names of all the wines we tried, but to be honest, by the end of the evening the names of wines and, frankly, the names of my friends, were getting a bit hazy!  We ended the evening with some of Craig’s wonderful coffee before stumbling off to our various beds.  Thank heavens Mitch was there to drive.  Seriously.

Another quick shout out goes to the lovely people at the Spanish Table in Seattle.  They were invaluable in helping all of us find the ingredients and various wines that were needed to make it a success.  It is an amazing place and well worth a visit if you have even a passing interest in cooking.

It was a wonderful evening not just for the food but as usual, for the outstanding company.  Great conversation and a lot of laughter are perhaps the best things to pair with a great meal.  Corny, yes; but true.  In fact, we are already planning the next gathering. This one will be a picnic, location to be determined, in August.  Now to come up with a theme….

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Dinner with Friends – Part 1

Filed Under: Food, Wine by Kathryne — Leave a comment
August 10, 2010

There is something so… so… so grown up, I suppose, about a dinner party.  Few things make me feel more adult than a dinner party – whether it is going out to a restaurant or at home.  I just love the idea of it as much as actually having dinner with friends.  Maybe it is because my parents made a big deal about having someone over for dinner.  Mom would always find some fabulous and unusual recipe (the afore mentioned Beef Wellington, curried chicken, and  infamous fritter feeds come to mind).  Dad would pull out the good china and the good crystal and I would be instructed to set the table with “the silver” – a beautiful set of sterling silver flatware my mother kept in a rosewood flatware case.  It was a big event when the good stuff was used!

So you can imagine just how tickled I was to have not one, but two dinner parties to attend last week.  This was being an adult on steroids, at least in my book.  Sure, I have been an adult for a couple of decades now, but still.  I got to drive to Seattle, stay with friends, eat with friends, talk with friends, and be all grown up.  It was heaven.

The first evening was at Casa Halverson; the gorgeous Victorian on Capitol Hill.  Craig and Carol are pretty wonderful people.  Craig used to be my boss, and now that I think about it, he is the reason I am back in the Northwest.  Thanks Craig!  Carol is a middle school teacher and she is the kind of person you know would make the list of your favorite teachers; the one we all trot out when we meet old schoolmates.  Someone says ‘hey remember Mrs. Halverson?” and everyone nods and smiles.  Though I swear that if Carol ever gets tired of teaching she should turn Casa Halverson into a B&B.  She is a great hostess.  Possibly the only draw back is that her guests would never want to leave.

Dinner that night included some other friends, Dale and Corrie, and it involved enough food to feed a small nation.  The hors d’oeuvres alone were a meal.  Lovely, perfect squares of watermelon topped with a small sprig of mint; an artichoke dip that was creamy decadence served with naan; shrimp boats fashioned out of endive leaves and filled with a mixture of shrimp, mango and onions; four types of cheese and various crackers… they seriously expected us to eat an entire other meal after that? And yet there was grilled corn and zucchini, and smashed potatoes; rib eyes, chicken, and sausages from the grill; even a peach and berry crumble for desert; it was the happiest overkill of food ever.  There was champagne before hand, three different  Willamette Valley Pinot Noir varieties to compare and contrast during the meal, and Asian Pear sake with the desert (my little addition to the meal).  Later there was 12 year old McCallan and Fran’s salt caramels under the stars on a perfect Seattle summer evening.

There is something deeply ingrained in us humans about sharing food, I believe.  We open up, we talk, we smile, we laugh; all more easily when there is a meal in front of us.  Hundreds of years of dating history can’t be wrong – yes?  I have used the making and eating of meals as a group in team building events twice now, both with great success; two of my favorite people on the planet are in my life as the direct result of those events.  But when you already know, already enjoy the people you are making and eating that meal with, it is nearly magical.  Even now, merely a week later, the memory of that evening has a wonderful rosy haze attached to it.  Sometimes I deeply love being an adult.

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Easter Dinner without the Ham

Filed Under: Food, General by Kathryne — 1 Comment
April 4, 2010

It has been rainy, windy, cold and basically yucky for the past few days, not the kind of weather I usually associate with Easter.  The day sort of snuck up on us, peeking around corners for the last week and then pouncing on us this morning.  Easter is one of those food holidays, the kind where you are supposed to have a big Norman Rockwell family gathering with tables groaning from the weight of the food heaped upon them.  There should be large hams and side dishes that range from the traditional to the odd (Really?  You mean you’ve neverhad Brussels sprouts in aspic?  We always had that at our house!), and species in between. 

Well, we weren’t up to it here at Casa Mujer de la Vid.  I did manage to gather the gumption to make hot cross buns on Friday.  They were more or less a success with both the human and canine inhabitants.  But hot cross buns do not an Easter meal make.  After a lot of thought on Saturday, we had still come to no definitive plan.  So when Easter morning dawned and all were awake, the angst began in earnest.

After much discussion it was decided that no one really wanted to put on a big do.  Better to have a quiet dinner (George would be at work, family and friends were already occupied), open a bottle of something, maybe watch a movie.  And so a plan was hatched.  The result was an impromptu antipasto dinner accompanied by a really nice Viognier called C’est la Viognier by Fausse Piste with Kenneth Branagh’s “Much Ado About Nothing” on DVD. 

We had an assortment of olives, grape tomatos (because seriously, aren’t grapes pretty much in every single aspect of my life by now?), little French cornichon pickles, two different kinds of salami, a rustic baguette from Grand Central Baking, and  Oregon olive oil and 8 year old Balsamic vinegar to dip the bread in.  The picture is obviously the before shot. 

We toasted the holiday, settled in on the couch with hot and cold running dogs looking longingly at our spread and had a truly wonderful evening.  All holidays should be like this.  All of them.  Good food, good wine, good friends, and a good movie.  What else do you need??

.

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Wine and Food

Filed Under: Food, Wine by Kathryne — Leave a comment
March 24, 2010

Wine tastes different with food.  This is a fundamental truth of life.  Right up there with F=MA in my book (Newton’s second law of motion).  Some wines are meant to be consumed with food, and really aren’t going to taste good on their own.  I know this is an unbelievably obvious thing, and so really, why mention it?

Because when most of us go wine tasting we aren’t having wine with food.  Okay, maybe those plain water crackers that they give you to ‘cleanse’ your palate.  So how do you know if that wine you really think is wonderful is actually going to go with the food you want to serve it with? Or worse yet, what about that wine you tasted that  you though ‘blech!’ and immediately poured out – would it taste different, taste better, if you had drunk it after eating something? 

This is one area that I think tasting rooms need to address more.  I am seeing more events where there is a food pairing.  The Four Graces had a great event last weekend – Crab and Pinot Gris.  It was for club members, and they had a number of different crab appetizers that went very nicely with their newly released 08 Pinot Gris (and Pinot Blanc).  Pinot Gris is usually a semi-dry to dry white, usually with balanced acidity and citrus overtones.  A good Pinot Gris is usually really good with somewhat spicy food, and is wonderful with buttery seafoods like crab.  It was a great event, you got to taste the wine, get a little taste of food, and then taste the wine again to see the difference.  It can literally be like tasting two different wines. 

Many of the tasting room notes I am seeing now will tell you what they think will go with the wine they are tasting.  A lot of these places have consulted local chefs who have provided a specific dish they think will go well.  Again, nice – but what if I have never been to the restaurant, had the dish listed?  I’m still in the dark, because let’s face it, some of these restaurants can get a little happy with the name of a dish.

In the absence of the actual food to try, give me a cuisine type – tell me that this sweet Riesling is going to be good with spicy foods, such as Thai.  That great red blend?  If you tell me that this is a great  hamburger wine, I am going to be there for you.  A red wine that goes great with burgers is pretty darn wonderful, not to mention a great way to make an everyday meal feel like a special one.  Don’t believe me?  Try Sokol Blosser’s Meditrina with a really good home made burger.  Or Laurel Ridge’s Davids Table Wine.  The spiced meatiness of the burger compliments the spice of the Syrah or Merlots that are often used in the blend.   These two wines, quite drinkable on their own, become even better with the right food.

When I run the world, one of the first things I am going to do is insist that tasting rooms serve the foods they know their wines work best with.  It is somewhat unreasonable, I know.  It is expensive, messy, and yet one more thing for staff to deal with (along with drunken bridal parties, large groups dropping in with no warning, and people like me who want to yak).  Until then, I will just have to be content with and vigilant in finding those special events that showcase wines with food.

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