It’s a grand title, but that’s the focus of our new wine tasting seminar at the Italian sommeliers association, and we’re already halfway through. This post is in case you thought I was no longer talking about wine, but I figure I need to expand my focus a little and mix wine with food with life.
In some ways I came back to Italy with my priorities a little out of whack. Number one, go to wine tasting seminar on “i grandi vini bianchi”, and number two, get married. Perhaps not quite but there was a reason to get back in February at least for the first evening of the wine tasting seminar.
It involved an evening of sauvignon blanc from the Loire, and nothing short of remarkable for me. I will go out on a limb and say the vast majority of New Zealand sauvignon blancs leave me unimpressed and many of Australia’s don’t quite make the grade either. To be sure, they are two very different creatures, the French and New Zealanders, but I was thrilled with the elegance and acidity of the Loire sauvignon blanc. What’s more, I finally got to understand what that overused English description of “cigar box” is all about. It might be overused but it’s certainly accurate.
Last night, we moved locations and tasted the world’s greatest chardonnays from the Cote de Beaune in France. Unfortunately the example from 1989 didn’t have much success among the punters, but for the rest it was truly a great experience. More on the Italian chardonnay ring-in later.
Coming up for the next two evenings in the seminar are rieslings from Alsace and bringing it home in May is Chablis. We won’t have strayed from France, but then with the wines on offer, we really don’t need to. An example of some of the wines tasted so far:
Dider Dagueneau Poully Fumé Buisson Renard 2002
Nicolas Joly Coulèe de Serrant 2004
Louis Jadot Batard Montrachet Grand Cru 1997
Baron Thenard Montrachet Grand Cru 2006
Friday, March 19, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The walnut cake and the mother-in-law
Call me naive, but I had thought that baking a walnut cake, mostly for my fiancé but with a quarter going to the future in-laws, would be a nice gesture as a kind of thanks for all the Sunday lunches and mid-week dinners so far enjoyed by myself at the effort of my future mother-in-law. I was wrong.
The baking of the walnut cake was a rare time when my fiancé was not in the role of guinea pig but was in fact, the beneficiary of a successful attempt already made at this recipe back in Australia. As I’m soon to embark on my journey of an Italian married life, I have figured that I should get my culinary skills up to speed; although I should already be assured of the affections of my fiancé without having to re-conquer him via the kitchen. As it is though, we’re still not married yet and he has often been subjected to various culinary experiments resulting in various degrees of success.
There was no way, however, that I would ever consider passing on a piece of cake to the in-laws that was not already a stalwart in my paltry recipe book (which has a heavy emphasis on cakes and sweets and not much on savoury main courses. This is something to be remedied in the future). I bought an electric cake mixer on purpose for my walnut cake, being equipped with only a wooden spoon and wonky egg whisk.
The cake was a roaring success with my fiancé and over at the in-laws I only got a hint of how it was received. I understand my future sister-in-law was the first to try it, because being “so dark” in colour my mother-in-law seemed loath to jump in first. On discovering that it was, in fact, a very good cake, I’ll never know if the piece set aside for my father-in-law ever actually got to him. The reaction from the mother-in-law was a mix of surprise, suspicion, pleasure and envy and I’m not sure which won out in the end.
I will admit that the choice of the walnut cake was a calculated one. It should always prove a crowd pleaser for the Italians with nothing too Anglo to confuse them. Whether the next cake on the list – a carrot cake – will have as much success is anyone’s guess. At least I now actually have a set of scales and a cake mixer to do this, although I don’t recommend splurging before a wedding to anyone else. Use it to your advantage – we can’t because we don’t have anywhere to put the stuff from a gift register at this stage.
In the meantime, any cake offers to the mother-in-law will have to be carefully considered in the future because I’m not sure that it’s done us any favours in not inviting certain aunts to the wedding, saving on elaborate bomboniere, and getting married at the local council and not in the church. In fact, I suspect all I did was prove that I could make a cake that she can’t, although the real virtue here is not in my culinary skills, but in following a recipe (the cake mixer helps, too). Never steal a son and offer a quarter of a cake in return....
The baking of the walnut cake was a rare time when my fiancé was not in the role of guinea pig but was in fact, the beneficiary of a successful attempt already made at this recipe back in Australia. As I’m soon to embark on my journey of an Italian married life, I have figured that I should get my culinary skills up to speed; although I should already be assured of the affections of my fiancé without having to re-conquer him via the kitchen. As it is though, we’re still not married yet and he has often been subjected to various culinary experiments resulting in various degrees of success.
There was no way, however, that I would ever consider passing on a piece of cake to the in-laws that was not already a stalwart in my paltry recipe book (which has a heavy emphasis on cakes and sweets and not much on savoury main courses. This is something to be remedied in the future). I bought an electric cake mixer on purpose for my walnut cake, being equipped with only a wooden spoon and wonky egg whisk.
The cake was a roaring success with my fiancé and over at the in-laws I only got a hint of how it was received. I understand my future sister-in-law was the first to try it, because being “so dark” in colour my mother-in-law seemed loath to jump in first. On discovering that it was, in fact, a very good cake, I’ll never know if the piece set aside for my father-in-law ever actually got to him. The reaction from the mother-in-law was a mix of surprise, suspicion, pleasure and envy and I’m not sure which won out in the end.
I will admit that the choice of the walnut cake was a calculated one. It should always prove a crowd pleaser for the Italians with nothing too Anglo to confuse them. Whether the next cake on the list – a carrot cake – will have as much success is anyone’s guess. At least I now actually have a set of scales and a cake mixer to do this, although I don’t recommend splurging before a wedding to anyone else. Use it to your advantage – we can’t because we don’t have anywhere to put the stuff from a gift register at this stage.
In the meantime, any cake offers to the mother-in-law will have to be carefully considered in the future because I’m not sure that it’s done us any favours in not inviting certain aunts to the wedding, saving on elaborate bomboniere, and getting married at the local council and not in the church. In fact, I suspect all I did was prove that I could make a cake that she can’t, although the real virtue here is not in my culinary skills, but in following a recipe (the cake mixer helps, too). Never steal a son and offer a quarter of a cake in return....
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