The trip that lead me to eat a salad.

Hello my loving public. It's been a little over a week since my last post. I was in Chile visiting Viu Manent. I got home from Chile early Saturday morning after a grueling 15 hours of travel. Needless to say I had no want to go grocery shopping Saturday. Sunday was Mother's Day and we went to visit with Noel's mom and grandmother. Well her uncle was there and he forced me to drink three bottles of wine and I was way to intoxicated to go grocery shopping Sunday. So this week we get to go to Whole Foods everyday and buy just enough food for dinner. Last night we were both way too tired to cook so we just got the pre-made food. It's not bad but it's not good. I should have taken Molner up on her offer and got sushi with her and Noel could have been on her own, but I'm a good husband. Today I thought all day of what I wanted to get. While I was in Chile I meet the wine buyer for Milton Market, Tim. Tim is a graduate of the CIA , just like my hero Anthony Bourdain. This guy loves his salad. The Chileans probably eat more cows than the Texans. After a week of nothing but beef, pork, lamb and fish, I needed something different so I came up with a Broiled Chicken Salad with Honey Mustard Dressing  in honor of my new friend. I wanted to do something special so I made the dressing myself. It changed it from a salad to A SALAD and was so easy to do.

First I took care of the chicken. I seasoned it with pink, green, white and black pepper corns and a little cumin seeds and put in the broiler for six minutes a side. I then made the salad, I cut up the red leaf lettuce, cut in half a few cherry tomatoes, cut up a carrot, green pepper, cucumber, zucchini and small sweet onions (I wish I could remember the name of these onions I find them at Russos over by the hot peppers all the time and I found them at Whole Foods today. I know the name starts with C and they are a small yellowish onion). As I finished this up the chicken was done cooking so I took the chicken and let it sit a side. Then I made my dressing. I found the receipt from one of my favorite sources, Alton Brown on Foodnetwork.com. He has receipts that are so easy to follow, come out tasting great and make you feel good about your cooking skills. Its real easy, five table spoons honey, three table spoons smooth Dijon mustard and two table spoons rice wine vinegar. Now I changed it a little, I used grained Dijon and I didn't have rice wine vinegar. I had white rice vinegar and white wine vinegar, I wasn't sure what to use so I text Chef Timmy. It's great to know people that went to CIA, he told to mix the two together half and half. Brilliantly!!! I did screw up and only used one table spoon and it asks for two but then again I didn't really measure out the honey or mustard all that well either, I made it more to taste. So as I have said in the past I am not much of a salad person, I am a self proclaimed meatatarian. This salad came out great! The chicken was perfectly cooked and spiced, the dressing was better than store bought stuff and the veggies were the so fresh they need to be spanked. I may eat more salads in the future as long as I make my own dressing.          

So what wine did I serve with this salad? NONE!! I drank water. As I said I was in Chile last week, while in Chile I helped drink some where between 36-48 bottles of  wine plus a dozen or so Pisco Sours. Pisco is a strong, colorless grape brandy that will KICK YOUR ASS all over Chile!!! The wines we had were good for the most part. The Chileans LOVE Sauvignon Blanc. In the kitchen they have a faucet for water and a faucet for Sauv Blanc. We started with a bottle at each meal, well not breakfast but lunch and dinner. After this trip I don't want to see another bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for the rest of my life or at least a week or two. Tim is a HUGE fan of bubbles and Rose. For some reason Chile does not produce a lot of sparkling wine. Chandon happens to make a sparkling wine in Argentina and we had a few bottles over the week, not bad, I even liked it better than the California stuff. We also had a half dozen maybe more bottles of rose. Mostly Cabernet, but we did have a Syrah and a Cabernet, Syrah and Sangiovese blend. I wish I could say they were all great but the Montes Cherub Rose Syrah was not fruity enough for my liking and was kind of expensive. The blend was an 07 from Casa Tamaya Pink Goat  and even though it was old it was still drinkable a little different tasting but good. We also drank a few bottles of Viognier. I love Viognier melon fruit with orange peel and nice body. We had one while at the Hotel Santa Cruz that was amazing. Viu Manent has just came out with a new wine that I few head over heels for El Incidente . This is a $60 bottle of single vineyard Carmenere. “El Incidente” is named after the now-legendary balloon flight I took with some friends over our Colchagua vineyards. The trip ended unexpectedly when we landed in the middle of an open air market in the town of Santa Cruz”,  José Miguel Viu. I can't wait to get my hands on another one of these bottles. We had a Cabernet Franc from Chocalan that I really liked but I do like most Cabernet Francs. There were some wines that we had that we didn't care so much for but for the most part the wines were priced right and brought a smile to my face. In Chile they don't really get a lot of wine from outside of Chile, so by the end of the week I did agree with Tim and Sean that I needed to drink something other than Chilean wine, but I did find a new respect for the Chilean wine industry. 

One quick story before I have to go. Sunday we all got into Santiago around 1030 am. We all went and took time to ourselves. Since May 1 in Chile is Labor Day nothing was open. By about 3pm I found Sean at the bar having a glass of Sauvignon Blanc so I joined him. Soon Tim came down after his run and he joined us. After we finished the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc we took the next bottle out to the porch. By the time lunch was over we had gone through five bottles of wine and a little food. Before we went to dinner I said I needed to walk off some wine. So off we went out into the world of the great unknown. Soon it hit me, I needed to take a leak. We found a bar and I ran in and took care of business. When I came out we all three decided to have our first Pisco Sour. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready and have dinner. I beat both them back down so I stopped at the bar and had a second pisco sour, soon Tim meet me and we had another, as we finished Sean meet us and we a yet another. Then we get to the restaurant, Sean sees a mother and daughter (mother was in her 50s and the daughter was 24) out for a birthday dinner. He calls them over and asks if they would like to have dinner with us. Well we all end up having a blast. I asked for crab legs but got the whole crab. A few bottles more wine and pisco sour or two more later our new friends invite us back to their house to continue the fun. We bought more wine from the restaurant and headed to their house. She gave a tour of her house and it was beautiful. Our new friends weren't from Chile, the mother was born in Belgium and the daughter was born in Spain. They had lived in Santiago for the past 18 years. The mother showed us her wine collection and what a collection it was. She had bottles from the 60s to the 90s, Bordeaux, Rioja and some may others that I can't even remember. I was in love. She opened for us a 89 Rioja and a 90 Bordeaux, again I was in love. Around 2am Tim asked our hosts if they had anything to drink that was not alcohol. The mother made the two of them fresh fruit smoothies. Finally around 3am we called a cab and went back to our rooms. This was an evening for the ages.

Of yeah and in the next year or so be on the look out for a sparkling wine from Viu Manent, it was one of Tim and my "Million Dollar Ideas" we told to Jose Miguel Viu. This whole trip was a trip of a life time. In the words of Tim it was "Excellently"!!  

If you can't handle the heat...STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN

As winter ends, and what a winter it was, I look in the mirror and have noticed I have a few extra pounds I would like to shed. Noel came up with an idea...eat salads. There is a reason I married this woman, she's wicked smaht!! But how do I make a salad that I a self-proclaimed "meatatarian" would want to eat? So in the next two days I will make a salad and blog about them. That's right people you will get a back to back salad blog post.


PART 1 Taco Salad
Last night [Tuesday] Noel and I finally get to go grocery shopping, we usually make a morning out of it, but this week we were busy Sunday. First we go to Red Bone in Somerville for some "BBQ". My mom taught me if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all. The water came in a mason jar as did Noel's Coke. That's cool, right? The sausage we got was good but as soon as I get my Kitchen Aid Mixer I will be able to make the same thing. SIDE NOTE I GOT A KITCHEN AID MIXER, I GOT A KITCHEN AID MIXER. It is the the best of the best kitchen tools and I CAN NOT wait to get all the attachments!!! Back to our late week grocery trip. Since it was 8pm Tuesday night we decided we only had the energy to go to Shaws, even for our produce. Sorry Russo's I feel like I have cheated on you once again and I hang my head in shame. We wanted to make simple meals this week since Sunday is Easter Sunday and I will be cooking Easter dinner. I figured what is easier than Tacos from a Taco kit? Well Noel reminds me that I am look to lose some inches from the winter gut. Thanks Honey I love you too! So I figured it would be better to make a taco salad. Brilliant. Lettuce(which I bough a pre-mix, come on buy one get one, and hence the two salad post), green pepper, yellow pepper...This already sounds healthy...plus I get my MEAT. Again Homer Simpson "Mmmmmm MEAT". We checked out the spice mix package but it was more than a buck and we have every spice in the package, so I didn't buy one this time. I did pick up large tortilla chips.

Flash Forward to tonight. I get home from work, do some dishes and start cooking my dinner. In a frying pan I put swirl of oil, one large shallot and two minced garlic cloves. Cooked until it smelled good (about a minute or two), then I added the meat. As the meat was cooking I made the spice mixture and cut up a yellow and green pepper(wish I remembered there was a red pepper too. Would have looked better with more color.) and threw them in with the meat.I know wait a second what was in the spice, I wasn't going to leave this out I swear. I mixed pepper flakes, paprika, cayenne pepper, peppadew (what is peppadew? It is a sweet piquante pepper and garlic seasoning I got at Beacon Hill Wine and Gourmet in Melrose), sea salt, green pepper corns, black pepper corns and white pepper corn (thats right I uses the mortar and pestle) fresh herbs,basil, oregano, parsley, sage and thyme. As it finished I realized I was missing tomatoes. Oh the humanity, I didn't have tomatoes. Again my wicked smaht wife comes to the rescue, "Don't you have canned diced tomatoes?". Brilliant, I opened the can, drained some, not all of the juice,tossed it in the meat and cooked for another minute. As that was cooking I tossed the lettuces and chips together, should have cut up the lettuces a little more but cest la vie. I plated lettuces/chip mix, scooped the meat mixture and toped with cheese. Some where there has got to be a healthy meal here. I didn't make a dressing and I drank water. The salad was great a little spicy but good. Noel didn't like the heat but then again she's pretty picky!!

Wait isn't this the love of WINE and cooking. You got me. After the water I drank I got "thirsty" and opened Durnberg Gruner Veltliner Select. If you don't know Gruner it is a white wine from Austria. It's like Pinot Grigio had a baby with Sauvignon Blanc. Dry, crisp with granny smith apple and hints of lemon citrus.. This is a great summer wine, and a must try if you don't already know it!!! This bottle would have gone better with tomorrow nights dinner. This dinner with the meat and spice could have stood up to a red wine like carmenere, malbec or petite sirah or a rose.