heaven on earth

my month of traveling continues this weekend with a magnificent trip up to sedona for a winemaker's event in the verde valley at argueably the most exciting and accessible vineyard in the state. we tasted some incredible wine and cheeses on a beautiful day right on oak creek.

wines: all stunners from page springs cellars, the most down-to-earth experience you'll ever have with a winemaker who is passionately creative with his blends and bottles.

1. vino del barrio blanco: the red-wine drinkers white wine
2. vino del barrio red: the red-wine drinkers staple
3. ECIPS: nicey spicey
4. 100% granache

cheeses: a great array that included simi fulvi unbriacone, mimolette, petite basque, l'edel de cleron and chaumes.

we also got to see the fermenting vats full of pungent fruit and foam - just fascinating! we tasted the early stages of a white wine (drawn from the bottom to avoid the thick yeasty foam layer at the top). this tasted like sweet pear-grapefruit juice with a mead-y bubbly consistency.

sedona magazine has an article this fall 2006 issue on wineries in the verde valley with lots of great info. check it out.

www.pagespringscellars.com

vegas, baby!

sorry for the long wait for new post... have been on working trip to las vegas. i was actually kind of dreading it, the slot machine noise drives me batty, the reeking smokey lounges... all pictures in my head of the three and a half days to come as I flew out of Sky Harbor.

boy was i pleasantly surprised at how much I actually enjoyed myself... here's our post-game replay:

*view from ghostbar patio @ top of palms tower

first night: cocktails, hardwood suite @ the palms casino; wine, aureole @ mandalay bay.

hardwood suite: off the hook!!! wow that place is a bachelor's dream (or bachelorette with the right attitude)

aureole: the wine bar at aureole was sooo impressive to look at but a little disappointing to partake at. granted we were there a little late (for des moines standards but not for vegas) but there was NO food whatsoever, the bartender/wine steward finally produced some stale bread for my starving companion who didn't hit the heavy apps at hardwood quite hard enough. he also recommended a pinot noir called ISC, (short for International Sommelier Conspiracy) which is actually produced solely for Charlie Palmer's restaurants. perhaps it wasn't my favorite because it was developed to be specifically paired with Palmer's food, and they didn't serve us any.

second night: dinner & drinks & late-night, ghostbar @ the palms.

*tuxedo strawberry & mousse @ ghostbar

ghostbar is dreamy, the view is exquisite, you are glad to be off the main strip so you can take it all in from the patio there.

dinner was a decent caesar salad "as it should be"; a lame pasta: spinach and pesto just fight each other to the bitter end...; a nice filet, and this dessert (above), a nice light fluffy mousse with typical wedding dessert fare tuxedo strawberry that is hard to mess up.

third night: dinner, okada sushi @ the wynn; late-night, palms lobby bar.

*sablefish @ okada

*beautiful blend @ okada

*tuna tartare tacos @ okada

this dinner was just gorgeous. the wynn is just a cut above in terms of least-gaudy-but-still-tacky vegas decor. had the best uni i've ever had, even though it was not one of anyone's favorite of the selections. the sablefish (above) was marinated in miso and wonderfully sweet, probably the highlight. I wasn't impressed with the satay meatballs, there was something missing, like... spice or flavor or something essential like that. most of the sashimi was divine, I love toro! this wine was lovely too: le mistral 2003. this place was our back up to nobu, and I think it filled in just fine.

stop that cheese!

sorry to keep loading this blog up with cheese stories but i wanted to update a previous post with some new information to explain why something i tasted at a local restaurant was not at its best... to be fair it's not the restaurant's fault, it's the FDA...

new food and dining site being launched called CHOW.com has shed some light on the problem of the epoisses cheese i tasted a few weeks ago... this little culinary item seems to be the world's most wanted...

finding this cheese in europe, it would only be aged about 30 days, and the american FDA has actually banned any sale of this stuff before it's aged 60 days.

"Young raw-milk cheeses are illegal in the United States because they are swimming with bacteria that—theoretically, anyway—can make you sick or even kill you. Listeria is the primary offender, but health officials also fret about E. coli and salmonella. Of course, it’s these very bacteria—and the gooey conditions in which they thrive—that constitute the soul of transcendent cheese. “Cheese is a natural, living animal,” says Joe Manacusso, the cheese buyer for Citarella in New York City. “It shouldn’t be treated with heat and plastic the way it is in this country. That compromises the product. Yes, there is a small factor of contamination from raw-milk cheeses, but the French have been eating this way for hundreds of years without much consequence.”

so this explains the umm, ewww's that emanated from our table that night at Cheuvront... given the extra long aging process to save us all from ourselves and our own palattes, the shipping time from wherever this variation had to come from, no wonder i said it must have been past its prime...

illegal cheese at CHOW.com