Oenophilia and Pimento Cheese

"Rolling down the street, smoking indo, sippin' on gin and juice"
Gin And Juice - The Gourds

We celebrated our 13th anniversary last week with a trip to wine country. Drove up to the Napa Valley by way of Paso Robles, and took a side trip to the Alexander and Dry Creek Valleys, over in Sonoma, while we were there. It was harvest time and the grapes were heavy on the vine, as were the CHP on the highway.

Did you ever really stop to think about the absolute idiocy of wine touring? You get into your car and cruise winding two lane blacktops for the better part of a day, stopping to sip a bit of the grape here, there, everywhere. Everyone on the road is at least as tipsy as you are. Many of them are, in fact, greatly inebriated, some of them are talking on cell phones as they drive, and quite a few of them aren’t even competent behind the wheel stone sober. Of course the designated driver idea is a good one, but most of the time on the wine trail, let's face it, that’s all it is. Wine limos? We tried that once, and they’re great if you don’t mind a total stranger throwing up on your shoes.

In the interest of semi-sobriety, we share tastings, (unless it’s free), so by the end of the day, (our record is 8 wineries per, although this trip our best was 7), we’re only slightly snookered rather than drooling drunk. Still, it does give one pause when you exit the tasting room and spy the black and white lurking behind some bushes just down the road. I mean it's not like they don't know you've been drinking. (Whatever you do don’t look drunk. Deep breath. Stand up straight. Sit up straight. Pull out straight. Slowly, slowly. But not too slowly. Oops, did I signal? Did I need to signal? Is he coming? Lights on or off? Whew. What you want to try next, reds or whites?) I’m serious, stop any car after 4 PM and it’s a DUI for sure. I really don’t understand why everybody doesn’t get busted. Best I can figure the boys in blue have an “understanding” with the vintners, which is something you really don’t want to think about too much.

And how about those folks who take their kids wine tasting with them? They’re my favorite (aside from the limo barfers). Loading up the younguns’ in the SUV and going drinking doesn’t exactly sound like my idea of responsible parenting, unless one of them is between 16 and 21 and has a driver’s license. (Quite frankly I once fantasized about using the stepson as a designated driver, but that was before he was arrested for underage drinking in Burbank City Park.)

So why do we do it? We live in California. We love wine. The countryside is beautiful. It’s cheaper than a trip to Europe. Wine is less fattening than barbecue. Marijuana is illegal. (Try to imagine for a moment an alternative universe with tasting trips to barbecue country and cannabis country. Scary, huh?) And that’s just for starters. It’s a lot of fun. You should try it. And if you do, for your reference, here are a few of our “hits” and “misses,” (a 5 goblet rating being best), and a dynamite recipe for pimento cheese sandwiches.

LAETITIA WINERY: If you head straight up the 101, just outside of Arroyo Grande you’ll see a sharp right hand turn up to Laetitia, the first winery of any note since Buellton (home of Anderson’s Split Pea Soup). If you’re coming from LA, you’ve been on the road for about four hours, and you’re ready for a drink. Nice hilltop property with a killer view of the interstate, mellow calico cat. Their non-vintage bubbly is excellent and affordable, and you can almost always find a bargain. This trip we scored a tasty $10 Pinot Blanc and an almost awesome cheapo Merlot. RATING: 3 goblets and 1 champagne flute

DOMAINE ALFRED: On Orcutt Road near San Luis Obispo. A little hard to find but worth it. We get lost coming or going every time, but keep coming back for the Califa Chardonnay, a real, rich California Chard that’ll set you back about $35. They have an excellent Pinot Noir too. But be warned, we think they might be Republicans. RATING: 4 goblets (break 1 if they do indeed turn out to be Bushies)

GREY WOLF CELLARS: In Paso Robles, about 2 miles off the 101 on Highway 46 West. Mom and Pop family operation. They like dogs, big, slobbering, friendly dogs. The Golden is a crotch sniffer. They almost always have a great well priced Syrah, and their wolf’s paw logo is pretty cool too. Left with an ’05 Predator Syrah. Will let it age until at least '10. Sure we will. RATING: 3 1/2 goblets (would’ve been 4 but for the dog)

CHATEAU POTELLE: The only must stop on our trip. High on Mt. Veeder, midway between the Napa and Sonoma Valleys. We discovered this little jewel when we met the wine maker in a hot tub at the Paso Robles Inn a few years back. (So California, I blush.) High-end boutique wines in the French style. We like everything. You can't go wrong with their VGS (stands for Very Good Shit) wines and we highly recommend the Cougar Pass blend for a moderately priced, smooth drinking red . Great place to picnic. The yellow jackets think so too. They really liked my pimento cheese. Also the tender flesh between my right ring finger and pinky. Ouch. FIRST AID TIP: The VERY best home remedy for a bee/wasp sting is TOOTHPASTE. Put it on the sting immediately and allow it to dry. Reapply if necessary. Magic. Luckily we hadn’t checked into out hotel yet and I had some in the car. Still hurt like a bitch. Adding insult to injury, I find out that yellow jackets, unlike bees, don’t die after they sting you, but rather go on to sting again. Kinda sucks, doesn’t it? RATING: 5 goblets, 1 tube Colgate Total Plus

WHITEHALL LANE WINERY: New find on the main drag through the Napa Valley, Highway 29, in St. Helena (a gag me precious little town if ever there was one). They’ve forsaken that pesky cork for screw caps (whites) and glass stoppers (red), and this just may be the place that finally wins over the cork snobs. We were impressed. Bought something red, just to try out that glass stopper. Tasting fee applied to purchase, nice touch. RATING: 4 goblets

STERLING VINEYARDS: Napa, just outside Calistoga. Once owned by the Coco-Cola Company and now the property of world's largest beer, wine and spirits consortium, the same folks who used to own Burger King, (go figure). Accessible only by sky tram. Arguably the best location in the valley. Breathtaking view. Very decent, but undistinguished, wines, many of which you can buy off the shelf at Pavilions. However, at $20 a ticket each, I think we’d have rather used the money for another bottle of Merryvale Cabernet. (If you must do one of the big boys, we recommend Beringer Winery in St. Helena. Great reserve tasting, beautiful property, makes you realize big isn't necessarily bad.) Sterling Vineyards RATING: 2 goblets

STAG’S LEAP WINE CELLARS: Napa, on the Silverado Trail. A $30 tasting fee for wines I can buy at World Market, (albeit in the locked case), and no food pairings with that? I don’t think so. We went for the $15 non-reserve tasting. The wines were standard issue Napa and uniformly good, but we were already in a bad mood. Stuffy and unnecessarily pretentious. We’ll probably skip it next time. If you want to pay a premium for a reserve tasting go to Duckhorn Vineyards, also in Napa, or J Winery, over in Sonoma in the Russian River Valley. Pricey but you won’t feel ripped off. RATING: 1 cracked goblet and a stale water cracker

BALLENTINE VINEYARDS: This one was a trip. Little Mom and Pop shop, Betty and Van, probably pushing 80, cute as a couple of brass buttons, photos all over the place of them cooing over grapes and tractors and each other. It was the end of the day. The tasting room pourer had apparently left without telling the rest of the staff. We were greeted, eventually, by a gregarious young hippie-dippy dude who drifted out from the cellar, (a recent graduate of sommelier school weighing his career options between Napa and Humboldt), who poured generously and waived the tasting fee. The wines were surprisingly good, and inexpensive. When we left the young man tucked an extra bottle of ’01 Zinfandel into our bag. Yes! RATING: 3 goblets and a bong

SAUSAL WINERY: Pretty little family winery on Highway 128, just outside of Healdsburg in the Alexander Valley. Met a local lounge lizard who gave us a couple of his CDs. (He turns out to be a very good guitarist.) Suspecting that if we didn't buy any wine the two adorable, in-your-face black cats, Sophie and Gypsy, were likely programmed to claw our eyes out, we ransomed our vision with two bottles of ‘05 Fat Cat Petite Sirah, a steal at $10 each, and a very nice reserve Zinfandel. RATING: 3 goblets and two catnip mice


EVERETT RIDGE WINERY: West Dry Creek Road. Nice, friendly little place, consistently good moderately priced wines, no tasting fee. Plenty reasons enough for the trip over there. Pourer’s daughter won “Big Brother, Season 6,” so the hubby being employed by CBS got us cachet and a couple of off list tastings. Capped the day with a bottle of their swell '04 reserve Syrah. RATING: 4 goblets

PASSALACQUA WINERY: Dry Creek Valley, just across the one lane bridge (think about crossing it with a bunch of drunks) on Lambert Bridge Road. Particularly nice whites. Best picnic area in the valley. Unfortunately the yellow jackets found us there too. I guess, there’s something about the smell of fermenting grapes and my pimento cheese sandwiches. RATING: 3 goblets and a can of Raid with DDT

The best thing about wine country, other than the wine, is the opportunity to picnic in some of the prettiest spots in California. And, for us southerners, it isn’t a picnic without pimento cheese sandwiches. There are as many pimento cheese recipes as there are southern cooks. My mother used to mix hers up by putting it through a big iron meat grinder that clamped on the end of the kitchen table, but that was before God gave us the Cuisinart. Hers was really good. I think mine is better.

DYNAMITE PIMENTO CHEESE SANDWICHES

2 cups shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
2 cups shredded sharp white cheddar cheese
1/2 cup roasted pimento peppers (canned is fine)
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 teaspoon red pepper (scant)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Dash of salt to taste
White sandwich bread

Shred cheeses using shredder disc of food processor.

Put cheeses in bowl of food processor with blade attachment and process until pulverized. Add pimento a bit at a time, processing until well mixed.

Add mayonnaise, process until smooth.

Add red pepper, sugar and salt, process until well mixed.

Transfer to lidded container and refrigerate.

May be used immediately, but is best when flavors are allowed to blend for at least 24 hours.

For sandwiches, stick with tradition. Use plain white loaf bread. Trim the crusts and cut in half on the diagonal. Delicious with lemonade or a bottle of chilled Alma Rosa Rose. (Also very good spread on slices of apple, but you didn’t hear it from me.)

White Pumps, Tomatoes and the Summertime Blues

"Sometimes I wonder
What I'm a gonna do
'Cause there ain't no cure
for the Summertime Blues"
Summertime Blues - Rockapella

I can’t believe it. Summer is almost over, and I haven’t written about two of the best things about it: tomatoes and white shoes. Worse yet, I’ve only worn those ridiculously expensive white pumps I bought back in April twice. I can’t decide which is worse.

I love white shoes, (well any shoe really), pumps in particular. Did you ever wonder who decided you can’t wear white shoes after Labor Day? And just why not? I’ve done a thorough Google and come up empty. Anybody? (My vote is somebody in the shoe business. You know, sales were lagging sometime way back in the day, and some cobbler, somewhere, wanted to goose the trade and started a smear campaign. White shoes after Labor Day, bad, get black plague, die. Things like that can catch on in the strangest ways.)

It was one of the basics the women in my family had drilled into their genes. Always wear clean underwear, (in case you’re in an accident), safety pins are for diapers, not bra straps, don’t wear open toed shoes to a funeral, only tramps wear red nail polish, and don’t wear white before Memorial Day or after Labor day. And it seemed to apply particularly to footwear. I promise you, my mother never wore a white shoe after Labor Day in her life, and I’d lay money she never knew why either.

More importantly, I'd like to know what happens if you do? (Provided you don’t believe in that black plague stuff.) Are the fashion police going to haul you off to bad taste prison or is it just going to be a stiff fine? (“It’s September 21st, m’am. You can wear those white shoes if you want, but it’s gonna cost you.”) Wearing white open toed shoes with red toenails to a funeral in October? Hang ‘em high.

As for the tomatoes, I decided to grow a few plants in my backyard this season. With a yield of about two dozen fruits (yes, the rumors are true, the tomato really is a fruit - a giant berry, actually), I figure, what with the cost of fertilizer and bug spray, broken fingernails and ruined manicures, each tomato cost me about $2.00. That’s not counting the initial investment of the plants, the shovel, the topsoil. I call them my caviar tomatoes, and from now on I’m sticking with the farmer’s market.

Still, it was nice having my own tomatoes for two of my favorite summer recipes, either of which goes beautifully with white shoes. And everybody knows, white shoes and tomatoes are the only sure cures for the summertime blues.


Insalata Caprese

We discovered Insalata Caprese in Italy last October, and it’s the reason I decided to grow tomatoes this year. It’s so easy it should be criminal, and so elegant it’ll class up any meal. The key is to buy the very best ingredients you can find -- fresh (preferably vine ripened) tomatoes, real fresh mozzarella (Italian Mozzarella Fresca preferred, although there are some very good American brands) and top quality extra virgin olive oil and aged balsamic vinegar. Skimp on the meat.
4 ripe tomatoes, sliced
8 ounces fresh mozzarella, (two 4 oz. balls, packed in water), sliced
1 bunch fresh basil
Salt & pepper to taste
Extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dress

Line salad plate with largest of basil leaves.

Layer sliced tomatoes, each topped with a basil leaf and a slice of the fresh mozzarella. Salt and pepper each layer to taste.

Top with reserved basil leaves. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Great with a medium rare Tuscan style steak, a glass of Brunello, and white Chanel Espadrilles.


Nancy's Tomato Pie

I can’t believe it took a nice southern girl like me so long to discover tomato pie! This recipe for comes from a friend in Mobile, and it is totally killer. Trust me, you’re gonna love this one.
1 deep-dish 9-inch pie shell (purchased or make your own)
4 medium sized ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large or 2 medium sweet onions, coarsely chopped
10 to 12 large leaves fresh basil (optional)
3 tablespoons sauce & gravy flour (or plain flour)
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
Salt & pepper to taste

Prebake pie shell in 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to cool.

Reduce oven to 350 degrees.

Meanwhile, slowly sauté chopped onion in olive oil over medium low heat for about 10 minutes, until caramelized, seasoning with salt and pepper. Let cool.

Peel tomatoes by dipping quickly into boiling water (the skins will slide right off) and slice.

Mix cheddar cheese with mayonnaise. Set aside.

Build pie in shell with two layers each of tomato slices, caramelized onion and 5 or 6 basil leaves. Sprinkle top of each layer with salt and pepper and half the flour.

Top pie with cheddar cheese/mayonnaise mixture. It should seal the pie and be about an inch thick.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Cool for about a 1/2 hour before serving.

Makes a great luncheon or light dinner served with a green salad, a crisp white wine (Viognier, Riesling or a dry Sauvignon Blanc), and white Bettye Mueller pumps.