italian winestyle: food

Showing posts with label food. Show all posts

Monday, March 11, 2013

La petite école, Gargas, France

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This is an old schoolhouse turned into a gourmet restaurant.

The cook makes wonderful homemade dishes with all local, fresh, high quality ingredients. We started off with the Aperitif Maison-Frais et petillant

Crémant de Bourgogne with crème de Framboise

The food was simple yet full of flavor with a delicate touch you can only find from an experienced chef.

The pumpkin soup was velvety smooth and as fresh as can be.

The cheeses were all artisan and delicious.
L'assiette de Fromages, Brie de Meaux Fourme d'Ambert, fromage de chèvre from Apt

Save room for the homemade ice cream because it is a must!

L'escale, Palavas-les-Flots, France

aperitif-champagne

nice little 1/2 bottle of a Languedoc white

these were almost the best oysters of the trip

always nice to wash your fingers after shellfish

Very innovative take on a classic French dish-Pot au fel with seafood in meat broth!

delicious fresh seasonal scallops

grilled fruit

Friday, August 12, 2011

L'Oca Barocca

Great little place in the center of Foligno to have an aperitivo or tea

salumi di oca (goose), speck di oca & bresaola di tacchino

Pecorino or Passerina? I forget!

Aperitivo Oca Barocca Style!

Fiano di Avellino, Feudi di San Gregorio, 2010 from the region of Campania, in the area of l'Irpinia, 13% alc.
I would have to say that this is the Sauvignon of the south, definitely aromatic with sharp clean acidity.

I bought this bottle of wine from the locale supermarket to go with some fresh mozzarella di bufala, brought directly from a friend from Naples.Just finishing up the bottle as an aperitivo with some cashews (anacardi in Italian), which come from Vietnam of all places.

Sent from my iPhone

Friday, July 15, 2011

BBQ a casa

Soave Classico-corked

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the corked cork

InAma Vigneto Du Lot Soave Classico

15.07.2011

Oh there’s nothing better than a nice BBQ at home on a hot summer night.

Earlier in the day I was in Foligno, and wanted to pick up a bottle of my new favorite Umbrian white, Collecapretta, Vigna Vecchia at the new to me Enoteca Buonbere, but it was closed…

Vigna Vecchia is from an old vine vineyard of Trebbiano Spoletino grapes, near Spoleto. It’s a ViniVeri style wine, unfiltered, no oak, that I find to be absolutely wonderful. It has body, balance and brilliant gold color, with only 12,8% alcohol making it a nice summer sipper. So I didn’t get that wine, but will surely write about it in the future when I go to the winery.

Option #2, a bottle of my 2nd new favorite wine, InAma, Vigneto Du Lot Soave Classico from Verona. Popped into the Antico Caffè della Piazza, in
Piazza Della Repubblica, I love this place but I can’t stand the staff. Loredona is very nice and knowledgeable about wine, but I think everyone else there is on pissed off pills.

Anyway paid €25, for the bottle then headed back toward Spello. Made a brief stop at the supermarket to pick up some fish. Being Thursday in Italy, the day before Friday, when all good Catholics don’t eat meat, there is a great selection of fish. I wanted to grill, so I picked up a fresh swordfish steak.

marinated Swordfish

cucumber salad

I decided to marinate the fish in limejuice, olive oil, and chives, salt & pepper, a concoction I made up myself. It turned out great, but next time I’m going to add some lime zest too. Then I made a new recipe from my Cucina magazine, which was a cucumber salad. It called for fresh tarragon, but I didn’t have any, so I improvised with tarragon mustard that I got when I was in Burgundy. That was good too, and so easy.

Unfortunately, the food was great and the wine was corked. I hate that! I hate it the most when you spend a lot of money for the wine. I wonder if Mr. Personality at the Antico Caffè would take it back? Doubt it.