Barrel-tasting at Crew Wines

 

Gropius and I were really disappointed with RH Philips moved their tasting room and wine-making operations from the Dunnigan Hills area of Yolo County down to Lodi because we loved taking visitors to their tasting room.

So, we were really happy to read all about Matchbook Wines's Tempranillo from the Dunnigan Hills in last month's issue of Sunset Magazine talking about great wine.  And even happier to look at their website and recognize a friendly face--the older sister of a friend of ours!  (We met Darcey in our prenatal ed/childbirth class and have stayed in touch the past five years)

So in anticipation of Gropius's parents' upcoming visit, I asked Darcey if she knew if her sister's wine company had a tasting room.  Unfortunately not yet, but Lacey kindly offered to take us on a barrel-tasting instead!

So, we drove up to the northwest corner of Yolo County and got to see a real, working winery without any of the special sheen of Napa/Sonoma.  And it was heavenly!  As soon as we stepped out of the car, you could smell the yeasty smell of fermenting wine....

And that was before she started showing us what wines at various stages of development tasted like!  Did you know that those big storage containers have little spigots near the bottom that you can use to fill an individual wine glass?  Me neither!

We had a great time, as you can see from the photos and Lacey even gave us a parting gift of some of their (finished) wines to sample at home, now that we've tried them along the way.... 

Oktoberfest

Family Photo

We got all gussied up and went to the Sacramento Turnverein's annual Oktoberfest again this fall.  Lots of fun!  We went when the doors opened on Saturday afternoon at 3pm and met up with several friends of ours who also have children Lulu's age (and younger).  The STV also had a children's arts/crafts area set up upstairs, so we were able to have a LOT of fun before leaving at a decent hour to get Lulu into bed (and leaving before the crazy college kids came out of the woodwork to get their drink on).

Our friend's Paul and Sarah brought a store-bought cake with them to celebrate their younger son, Tommy's, birthday.  So, we have some random birthday cake photos in here as well.

Lulu going crafts upstairs
(the poor girl in the dirndl is from Hamberg!)

A little daddy-daughter time was had....

 

I tried out the holding a beer stein in one hand contest (but without actually being in the contest--I just held it off to the side).  I compared later and the weight of the half-full glass I was holding was pretty comparable to the empty ones they were holding with a weight in the bottom.  I think, if I practiced, I could take 'em next year!  

me and Paul (whose glass I was holding)

The band sang Happy Birthday and we cut into the cake...which had blue icing.

Tommy, the birthday boy

Gnocchi Parisienne

So, I tried out a new recipe, all by myself, tonight.  It was from Food & Wine and Jacques Pepín.  I knew it was ambitious to try out a new recipe and a new technique while simultaneously supervising Lulu alone, but I did it!  While putting this together, I was able to also feed dinner to Lulu, wash dishes, do an art project with Lulu, and run Lulu's bath.

I'd like to see Jacque Pepín do that!

So, Gnocchi Parisienne are basically a French variation on gnocchi without the potatoes, using a pate a choux recipe instead.  I've never made pate a choux before, so I was a bit nervous about that part, but it went together swimmingly.

I boiled water, salt, and butter together and then added the flour into it before transferring it to a mixing bowl and adding the eggs and parmesan cheese.

cooked dough having eggs and cheese beaten into it

Then, I had to transfer the dough into a zip-loc bag and squeeze it into boiling water while cutting off pieces with a sharp knife.  Um, yeah.

the ersatz pastry bag

But, I managed to do that without cutting myself and the gnocchi turned out pretty well!  They look just a bit like pretzels...

half-way finished product, post boiling pre-baking

And once they were boiled and submerged in an ice water bath, then I transferred them into a 9x13 baking pan to cook for 25 minutes in the oven to puff up.  Afterwards, they had to be put about 6" under the broiler until they were browned.

the finished product!

Once Gropius came home from teaching his night class, we enjoyed them with a nice 2009 Alsatian gewurztraminer along with sautéed chicken paillards and haricots vert.  Once Lulu went to bed, of course.

Random Recent Meals

We have enjoyed some really nice meals while Lulu has been gone including (but not limited to) the following:

Bacon potato pizza cooked outside on the grill

warm chicken salad from Food52.com

hey, what else you gonna do on a Monday afternoon?

Our friends, Tina and Karsten, are currently in Berlin visiting his family, so we pillaged their garden in their absence.  (In our defense, Tina encouraged us to do so!)  Our spoils enabled us to make a delicious Provençal tomato tart that has become a summer staple in this house.

plunder and spoils

tomatoes prepped and ready to go, next to corn Gropius harvested from the garden

Blue Hopi corn has interbred with a sweet corn variety to make this beauty

two pounds of tomatoes!

the finished product, enjoyed with a green salad and nice red wine

Garlic

braided and hanging to dry

We tried growing garlic in our garden for the first time this spring.  We bought a head of it from the local food co-op, broke it into individual cloves and planted them in the "new" bed this winter.  I can't remember which type we bought (or even why we thought of planting garlic!)--just regular ol' garlic.

But, we were pleasantly surprised when little shoots of green came popping up as the weather got warmer!  Gropius had to do some research online about when to tell that they were ready to harvest, but once the green leaves started browning out, we knew it was time to pull them.

So, from one head of garlic, we now have all of these!

Aren't they pretty?  We won't have to worry about vampires around here this year!

German Eintopf (One-Pot meal)

Eintopf with schupfnudeln, sauerkraut, onions, and bacon
green salad with carrot relish
pear cider

This was really tasty and quasi-vegetarian (by German standards--there's a sprinkling of bacon in the sauerkraut).  Of course, we can't just buy a package of Schupfnudeln at the grocery store like you can in Germany, so we made ours from potatoes we had lying around as extras from Mother's Day dinner.  Schupfnudeln with a couple of purple potatoes was kinda cool-looking.  They almost looked like bratwurst from the specks of purple that resembles the spices in a Nürnberger bratwurst.

If we could've bought schupfnudeln from the store, I could see this being a quick weeknight meal.

Eierlikör

Waiting for this to get out of the oven....subb'd eierlikör doctored up with a splash of bourbon leftover from making this last weekend....