Drink
Nebbiolo with Duck Ragu
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
We enjoyed this ’07 Nebbiolo with Benedetta’s tagliatelle with duck ragu.
Wine with chicken liver crostini
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Wine with chicken liver crostini: My go-to wine guy and good friend, Chris Robles, suggested we drink a white wine from Campagnia - Romano Clelia. It was light, fresh and well priced!
Which wine to drink with spicy food?
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Drink with a dry Riesling from Austria. Although it’s a dry wine it has just a hint of sweetness which will marry well with this spicy soup. A great choice for any type of spicy food from Thai to Mexican.
New Year’s Eve Menu and Blood Orange Martinis
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
In an effort to keep things casual (and my desire not to spend the entire night in the kitchen), I am creating a menu that will facilitate our friends simply grazing throughout the evening. Starting with simple appetizers of radish halves smeared with Devonshire cream butter and sprinkled with grey salt; cured meats; and hard-boiled eggs topped with homemade aioli. Next will be a Romaine wedge salad with gorgonzola dressing; creamy potato salad; fried chicken and Andouille gumbo; and buttermilk biscuits. Lemon meringue pie will be served late night.
* The gumbo, potato salad and pie came directly from Donald Link’s Cookbook “Real Cajun: Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link’s Louisiana” http://www.herbsaint.com/
Blood Orange Martini
Citrus in Santa Barbara is unbelievably delicious. I am crazy about, and covet blood oranges and anxiously await the winter months so I can devour them. Blood oranges are a cross between a navel orange and a tangerine with their distinctive feature being the dark color flesh. I picked these oranges up at Tri Country Produce today and since they are in season, they were reasonably priced.
We will be drinking plenty of champagne tomorrow, so I thought it would be nice to start off the evening with Blood Orange Martinis.
Here is what you’ll need:
Juice of four blood oranges
Juice of two tangerines
1 tablespoon of Agave nectar
Grab your favorite vodka, fill a shaker with ice, add the juice and SHAKE !!
Garnish with candied blood orange peels.
Peartini
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
The Community Environmental Council held a benefit this fall entitled “Green Gala”. My good friend Merryl, of Merryl Brown Events www.merrylbrownevents.com and I collaborated in the styling of this event. My intention was to make a green-tini, but what I ended up with was a green fruit cocktail that lacked any green color. The cocktail had fall written all over it so we decided to forgo the necessity of the green color and left the dye in the box.
4 bartlet pears pealed, cored and sliced
½ cup sugar
5 cups water
2 star anise
2 cinnamon stick
Juice of 3 limes
Put pears, water, sugar, star anise, and cinnamon in a large pot and poach for 25 minutes or until the pears are very soft. Add lime juice, take out the anise and cinnamon. Process in a blender in batches until very smooth. Grab your favorite vodka, ice and shaker and enjoy! Garnish with floating star anise and lime circles.
