Ramps!

Ramps! Wild garlic, plucked from the woods, perhaps in the wilds of Oregon, but hopefully on a sustainable ramp farm. They're only available a few weeks out of the year, and this was the first time I've seen them at Whole Foods (ditto for the cashier, apparently).

The cashier at Whole Foods apparently never heard of ramps. There was no listing in her book. She seemed not to even think I was sane when I repeated "ramps, wild garlic, ramps..." It wasn't in the book. Finally someone found the price, under "baby leeks/ramps".  I paid. I left. I cooked.

Ramps are wonderful, a blend of leek, garlic chives and maybe garlic flavors in tender bulbs and stems. These were sautéed in duck fat, with only a bit of salt and pepper, then simmered briefly in brown stock.

The steak is a New York, pan seared. The pan sauce is a mix of more duck fat, roux, butter and the excess liquid from the ramps. Monté au beurre, seasoned and finished with a bit of heavy cream, because you can never have too many kinds of fat.

We chose a Vigilance Petit Syrah 2009 from Lake County, California, a sustainably grown wine. The three main ingredients - rare steak, ramps, sauce - tangoed with the wine in a virtuoso dance gyrating on the palate. What sauce remained was sponged off the plate with some sourdough rosemary bread.

A salad followed the steak in good French tradition. The lettuce traveled about sixty feet from garden to sink to table. Sustainable indeed, and no way it could have been fresher.

Afterward, a decadent dessert: vanilla ice cream, fresh raspberries and strawberries drizzled with crunchy tempered chocolate.

Definitely fancy, and we'll see if ramps grow here in Sacramento - I planted three likely looking bulbs in case there's a chance of this vegetable taking off here.

So, I can credit my fundamentals class, professional cooking and advanced baking for this dinner. Sauté, sauces, tempered chocolate all were improved or inspired by these classes. The wine I already knew about, so we'll skip that class.

Bad cork. Good wine.

Our friends came over for a rainy day lunch, a surprise bottle of Bordeaux in hand. Not just any Bordeaux but an older bottle, before those idiots decided to write, "Grand Vin de Bordeaux" on each and every bottle (when every bottle is "great" none of them are). This wine really was better than the average "great" Bordeaux, noted by the "Grand Cru" part on the label. So, this bottle had a much better than average chance of truly being great.

Our friends received it as a gift, a long time ago. It sat in their cellar, sleeping, for over two decades. Most wines would fade, becoming mere wraiths of their former selves, their bold red color going brownish. Some, however are up to the challenge.

They said to throw the wine away, it probably wasn't good. But they were curious. The cork was rotten. "So, it must be spoiled! Look at that cork!" they said. "Probably not worth the effort of opening it," they added.

Well, if there's one thing corks on old bottles of French wine like to do, it's disintegrate. Slowly, I managed to thread a corkscrew into the rotted plug. I pulled, carefully, slowly, coaxing out the cork, feeling it start to slide. Was the piece coming out intact? I pulled, cautiously. The cork emerged from the bottle. Success!

This was definitely a wine to decant. Two decades leave a lot of sediment, and the decanter would have allowed us to trap a lot of it in the bottle. However, decanters don't live long here. They either fall and shatter or something hits them from above, spraying shards all over the dining room.

So, pour carefully, just a taste, into a glass with lots of surface for aeration. I sipped. Everyone looked on, expectantly. I made a face. "Well," I said, how about I tell you it's horrid rotten swill and disappear into the other room to finish the bottle?". This may have been unclear, for someone actually said, "Don't drink it if it's bad!". I was just giving them an out, but in the end everyone tasted. "It's not that great, is it? Not much flavor."No, not yet. The wine's too cold. Let it warm up and breathe and try it again. It's far from being faded, it's not oxidized, and it's too bad I don't have some nice duck, venison or aged beef lying around to eat with it.

As the wine warmed, people smiled. They drank. Sipped, actually, trying to make each drop count. The wine diminished inexorably despite our best efforts to make it last. In the end, only a thin sediment paste remained in the bottom of the last glass.

Nobody regretted opening the bottle. So, if people arrive at your door with a musty, dusty bottle of something they found in the depths of their closet, cellar or basement, cork looking more like soggy paste than something that came from a tree, don't be hasty. Give it a try. It could be vinegar. It could be brown, oxidized swill. Its flavor could have slowly ebbed over the years to leave a thin fluid with little resemblance to its former self. Or it could be the start of a wonderful memory and something to talk about for years when you gather again.

A Tale of Two Cabs

"What kind of wine would you like? We have two Cabernet Sauvignons - a reserve and another one that the Wine Spectator loves for the price."
"Which one is your favorite?"
"We've never had either. I know! We'll bring them both!"
"That works for me!"

Since the wines are both from California, and one is a reserve odds are they'll be big, bold monsters that would overwhelm a poor chicken or pork dish. Grilled beef, however is another story. Why not with a bold reduction sauce like moelle... yeah, that should work.

Let's use up the meager end of season tomatoes, throw in a variety of peppers from the garden, add some fresh mozzarella and extra-virgin olive oil for a starter. Top the thing with a basil chiffonade. No vinegar, so that things are ready for some wine right off the bat.

Luckily, tri-tip was on sale at the market. Prepped with a salt, tarragon and black pepper rub, it waited until the mesquite coals were sparking then off it went, seared over coals with direct heat, then moved to indirect heat to finish. Nothing like meat and potatoes, so some fried Russet potato cubes with a bit of truffle salt to round off the plate. I knew that truffle oil would be useful!

This week's quiz in cooking class will include brown stock, so might as well make some, reserve the bone marrow and use a bit of it with a reduction sauce, throw in some tarragon, add a splash of red wine to liven things up and drizzle it over the beef. Not bad. The sauce worked well to elevate the meat into something more haute cuisine than backyard BBQ, adding complexity and depth that enhanced the beef. It also tested how well the wines would cut through the fat to cleanse the palate and bring forth more flavor.

The reserve wine had lots of vanilla and oak. The other was more fruit-centric. Both were good, but didn't have much in common at the end, other than being grown in California and being mainly Cabernet Sauvignon. Both went well with the beef, but one brought out the char-grilled flavor while the other favored the meaty saucy notes.

Just to give those wines a chance to show their harmonizing skills, some cheese. We just went to Nicasio Valley and had some washed rind and some Swiss style cheeses, along with a piece of Roquefort to challenge things. Roquefort really isn't a red wine cheese - it's better with Port or sweeter wines like Montbazillac. Nobody seemed to mind, though.

To finish things off, celebrate summer's last hurrah of strawberries with a mousse. Cool and refreshing, and never mind the fat content. This is dessert, so not a good time to diet. Besides, rowing four kilometers should help us atone for our gustatory sins. Somewhat.

A birthday dinner under the stars

 

Now I know why restaurants have different chefs for different things. Although it sounds simple, this menu needed bread for the aigo bolido, pizza dough and pate sucrée for the pies. Plus prep on all the pizza ingredients - one of which was eggplant that had to be slow cooked in garlic and olive oil so it would melt into the other ingredients on the pizzas. Pastry cream for the pie... glaze... getting everything in advance either from our garden or the farmers' market. 

The aigo bolido is simple - fresh thyme, sage and bay leaves thrown into some chopped garlic and boiled with some salt and pepper. At the end, the herbs come out, the garlic is blended and the broth is thickened with an egg yolk. This is then poured over French bread that's been liberally doused in olive oil, salted and peppered. Normally this would be more of a soup, but it works great as an appetizer this way, with the broth soaking into the bread and the olive oil giving richness and depth.

There was no meat in anything - only eggs and dairy. This made the pizzas different since I couldn't just load on pepperoni or sausage for flavor. Everything had to be fresh and at its peak. Once you've had a pizza made with heirloom tomatoes,  you won't want to settle for that stuff out of a can. There was a quick sauce made with San Marzano tomatoes, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper with a bit of fresh grassy extra virgin olive oil poured over the top, then on went the toppings: braised eggplant, bell peppers, garlic (heirloom from Corti Brothers), sliced onions, fresh basil, pine nuts, mozzarella, goat cheese, and even some thinly sliced squash.

Funny, but nobody wanted to try tossing a pie - although one person was interested in the process.

The party started at 5:30. All the prep was done at 5:29, and the only thing left was plating and putting the pizzas together as needed. Why couldn't my timing be that good in Pro Cooking?

Lucky Dog Ranch burger

Ciabatta bun, organic red leaf lettuce, Lucky Dog Ranch burger, orange tomato and scallion relish, fresh basil mayonnaise. Washed down with a Luc Pirlet Minervois, a great hamburger wine from Southern France.

These hamburgers come from cattle who roam around on pastures, living a tranquil life, munching on grass and finished on brewer's grain mix. They never even imagine those nightmare feed lots that you can smell miles before you pass them on the highway. Unstressed cattle taste better, apparently, and this meat gives weight to this claim.

Annette said, "This tastes like the beef we used to get in the market when I was little". That was a farmers' market in France, where the meat was fresh ground while you wait. The taste is complex, a bit gamy perhaps.  Rich and complex, with flavors going well beyond what you'd expect from a mere beef patty.

The goal with this burger was to let the meat shine. No Bordelaise sauce, no mushrooms. Only a light relish, a dab of freshly prepared basil mayonnaise and a thin ciabbata baked only hours earlier. Eschewing the umami-rich decadence of my last burgers, these tasted garden fresh, the grassy flavor of the lettuce mingling well with the complex, grass-fed note from the beef and the sweet-sour tang of the relish. If ever a burger could be deemed health food, this rendition should easily qualify.

Which Port in a Storm?

Since we had to write a paper for a class, and I needed an excuse to organize and type my notes from a recent trip to Porto, Portugal, this was a great way to kill two birds with one stone. I have no idea how well (or poorly) my papers have been received in this class, since I never got one back graded, marked up or commented on. Nor did I get confirmation via e-mail that they were even received. Ever. Talk about instructor apathy! So my other motive is insurance: it will be difficult to say I didn't finish on time if the paper is sitting right here on this server two full days before it's due.

This version was edited slightly because I can't post something without rewriting it at least a couple more times to correct, clarify and hopefully improve the text.

Port now comes in Pink. It’s new, it’s colorful and you can even make cocktails with it. Pink probably won't dethrone our favorite Ruby and Tawny Ports here in the United States, but it's probably more accessible for younger drinkers. White Port is also starting to make an appearance, and should do well here since it's lighter than the reds and is served chilled - a better option for summer.

All varieties start as wine, made from grapes grown on schist soils around the Douro Valley. Red grape varieties include Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Barroca, Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo) and Tinto Cão. Many of these are the same varietals as used to make Douro wines. There are also white varietals but they don’t seem to be considered important enough to list by the producers. Presumably they use the same varietals as for white Douro wine: Codega, Rabigato, Donzelinho, Viosinho, Cercial...

Fermentation is stopped after about two days by adding 77% alcohol spirits that kill the yeast and preserve the sugar in the beverage. The final result is Port, with an alcohol content of 20%.

Crushing, fermentation and blending with spirits takes place outside of Gaia, with much of it done in Regua about an hour’s train ride up the Douro from the coast. Most Port is blended, aged and bottled in Vila Nova de Gaia, after being trucked there from Regua or elsewhere up the Douro Valley. Those interesting boats loaded with barrels floating on the Douro are just for show; they can no longer compete with trucks for efficiency.

Port prices run the gamut from around $10-$15 for whites and rubies, $15-$40 for tawnies, $50 and up for Vintage. Select vintage Ports can run over $400 and even $500 on auction at Christie’s. The saying in Porto is “the older the better” and the price reflects this.

Sorting the types of Port can be a bit confusing, since prices do overlap and non-vintage (NV) tawnies can be priced by age, creating an overlap with true vintage and LBV Ports. Whites, Rubies and Tawnies can also be reserve selections.

White Port
As its name suggests, this is an amber colored liquid. It’s still somewhat sweet and at 20% alcohol it’s best as an apertif. Unlike red Port, it’s served chilled at 8°-10° C (46°-50° F). It can be extra-dry or extra sweet, and some wineries, such as Ramos Pinto, make a variety of styles. Many spend some time on oak.

Pink Port
The new kid on the block, Pink Port seems to be quite the rage among producers. At Croft, it never sees wood at any point in its production, being made exclusively in stainless steel. It’s served chilled like white port and is marketed as a component in cocktails like The Runaway or the Sunset. Croft suggests drizzling it over fruit sorbet with a mint garnish, mixing it with jasmine tea, or using it to make Sangria.

Ruby Port
Typically, ruby Ports are not barrel aged, since the goal is to keep a bright ruby color. They stay in a cask for three to five years, and are blended across years. These wines are less complex than Tawnies, with more fruit and less woodsy tones, placing them between whites and Tawnies. This wine will keep for weeks or months once opened.

Tawny Port
This wine gets some barrel time. Most are non-vintage and blended across years. Tawnies are also sold by age, although since they’re a blend this is somewhat subjective. These Ports develop woody, caramel, honey notes and nice complexity that (hopefully) justify their higher price. These should be served lightly chilled at 16° C (60° F). Once open, the wine will keep for weeks or even months. Colheita Tawnies get six years in barrels.

Late Bottle Vintage (LBV)
Ruby Port from some years is judged of better quality than average by a single producer and is given the LBV designation, with all wine from a single year. It’s typically aged six years at Croft, four at Sandeman - so apparently there’s no hard and fast rule on aging time. Some, such as Quinta de Ventozelo, are unfiltered and should be decanted before drinking. These wines may mature somewhat in bottles.

Vintage
This is the high end stuff, with vintage years officially declared by the Port Wine Institute. These exceptional years happen on average but a couple of times per decade.
Many are foot crushed, apparently to smash out as much tannin from the skins as possible from the outset of the crushing process. Since this happens in a shallow area, there is probably also a lot of aeration going on to help the yeast.

These wines are typically unfiltered and need careful decanting prior to drinking. These wines mature in bottles, and like LBV, should be stored on their sides so that the cork remains wet. These wines are still good after 100 years, and 15 years aging is considered a minimum, with Sandeman’s tour guide saying that 25-30 years’ aging is preferred.

These wines have a ruby color during their first five years in the bottle, aging gradually to a more amber color.

Once you decide to open a vintage Port, you have two days to drink it before it degrades. Invite friends, since at 20% alcohol you’ll be doing your liver a favor by not drinking it all yourself.

Explorations
Nobody can visit the Porto region without stopping off for some tasting. Considering the number of producers offering their wares, we decided to limit our exploration to two wineries.

Sandeman
The Sandeman Don looms over the city of Porto. He’s everywhere, more ubiquitous than Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. He’s the mysterious figure dressed like the tour guide, holding a glass of Port that seems to float magically over his shoulder.

Like most ports, the Don is really English. Sandeman, Croft and many others are owned by British companies and have been since the 18th century.

You wander idly about the museum, gazing at the history of Port in general and Sandeman in particular. The dim lighting and rough wood finishes give the impression of being inside a cask,  or perhaps an ancient sailing ship transporting Port wine to England.

The tour will begin in twelve minutes, by consensus in English. You grasp your € 4.00 entry ticket, waiting for a short woman dressed in  black to lead you forward. Everything seems calculated to burn the house’s logo, the Don, into your brain: he’s plastered on all major axes of circulation, printed on your ticket, explained in the house museum. The guide, a very serious young woman, bears his costume, a wide-brimmed black hat and black cape that absorb the little light present in the cellar so that she almost disappears when she turns her back to the audience.

She beckons, and the group advances, speaking French, English and German in hushed tones as they walk across the wood pavers that line the floor. The pavers are for humidity control and to allow the barrels to be easily moved, the guide explains.

We move down a long corridor lined on both sides with barrels. Vertical cages packed with bottles rise behind the barrels on the right, marked with hanging signs indicating the year they were bottled. These are o meior, vintage Ports. A sign indicates 1957, and I wonder what manner of elixir their contents have become after sitting so long in this dark cave.

The corridor terminates in an array of towering casks, each holding over 20,000 liters of Port.
A wood cutout of the Don reminds everyone where they are, in case the memory dimmed during the three minute walk from the entrance.

The tour proceeds past a small, azulejo-lined pond complete with goldfish (why not cave fish, I wonder). The pond is functional, to maintain humidity.

Flexible pipes crawl across the ground, used to move the Port from the casks to wherever they see fit. In the distance, workers move about, but it’s not clear what they’re doing in this place where the chief asset to quality seems to be time. Time to age the Port, allow it to become imbued with the essences of wood and grape, to mature into something wonderful.

Eventually we pass out of the cellar into a small viewing room, where after a series of slides urging us to drink responsibly, we learn about the regions where the wine is grown, fermented and held prior to arriving in Gaia for aging.

After the presentation, we taste. Today we have a white port and a ruby.  The glasses, already filled and counted, await us at rustic wood benches next to a store where we can purchase Port, T-shirts and all kinds of swag imprinted with the image of the Don.

The white port was a medium amber color and had a sweet note, followed by fresh-sawn oak. Maybe a bit of raisin for fruit. On the tongue, a bit of acidity to balance the sugar, and a caramel finish. A much lighter, perhaps more approachable drink than a red Port, probably with enough sweetness to appeal to younger drinkers. White Port is served chilled, so probably a better choice in summer, too.

The ruby had a better showing of fruit; cherry, maybe blackcurrant, some vanilla, and a bit of caramel. A sip confirmed this impression. This was a much more complicated wine, yet finished cleanly with lingering caramel.

Croft
After Sandeman, we decided to head well upslope from the Douro to Croft. They produce the same three kinds of Port as Sandeman, plus one other. They make the traditional wood-aged Tawny, the fruitier and less-aged Ruby, White and only recently, Pink. Think fortified White Zin or rose and you’ll get the picture. Something pretty, easy to drink and new.

Croft tour guides dress more like flight attendants crossed with matadors. Tours are in English only. It doesn’t matter if everyone on the tour is French. They’ll adapt. They’d better, since closing time is fast approaching and nobody wanted to remain any longer than necessary.

Croft grapes are hand picked, and grow on the same slopes with fast draining schist soil that gives such great flavor. The vines’ roots can reach down twenty meters looking for water, and this lack of moisture concentrates flavors in the grapes.

Their vintage Port, only made in truly exceptional years, are crushed by foot. Presumably more ordinary years have to settle for mechanical presses. It’s not clear why feet are better, nor what the cost differences are between the two methods.

The floor at Croft is covered with gravel, something like road base. No wood pavers here, but things seem to work just fine nonetheless. The system of casks and barrels is the same as Sandeman, too. The main difference here is that the visit is free and you receive a complimentary glass of white Port at the end. You can also purchase any other type of Port for tasting.

I found the two white Ports quite similar, since I wasn’t able to taste them side by side. We bought a glass of Pink. The first thing I noticed was a strong hit of alcohol, followed by some fruity notes. Other than that, I don’t have a great recollection of what it tasted like since I forgot to take notes and it was late afternoon.

Pairings

White Port
We did a bit of testing, and decided that blue cheese and even chocolate (to a lesser extent) do work. So do ripe apricots. Pistachios work well enough, but the apricots and cheese were better.

Ruby Port
Melon and Prosciutto works with the fruitiness of the Port. Cheese (notably blue) and chocolate are also suggested.

Tawny Port
The classic pairing, at least in France, of melon and prosciutto works with Tawny Port as well as Ruby. Sandeman suggested walnuts, blue cheeese (presumably Stilton), chocolate (and chocolate-dipped strawberries). We often serve pistachios with it, too.

One Port producer suggests almond tartes and cream pies to accompany their Tawny Port and dark chocolate for their aged Tawnies.

Recipes for these tapas feature on another producer's site. Note that many of them revolve around blue cheese, cured ham and melon. Blue Cheese Baby Burgers, bruschetta with dried meat, tomato brioche bread with Serrano ham, Four Seasons toast with Valencay goat cheese, melon balls and Prosciutto, and a creamy verrine with avocado, crème fraîche, salmon mousse and Ricotta cheese.
Another producer adds ice cream to the list, without specifying a flavor.

Vintage Port
Apparently, the consensus is that vintage Port is something you savor on its own. However, it pairs with chocolate, cheese or melon like other red Ports.

Oysters: If I can get them, how come...?

 There they are! Right there, not even 100 miles away

 I'd show you how tasty they look, but oops! They got eaten!

I'd show you the wonderful greenish-gold color of the wine, but it's gone too

Any person can just drive over to Tomales Bay or Point Reyes, walk into the store at an oyster farm, and buy as many as they want (if you want hundreds, calling first is a good idea). You can just put them in a cooler on ice, bring them back, and enjoy super fresh seafood. All in less than a day's time.

I suppose there might even be fishermen along the Northern California coast, not too far away, doing  sustainable harvesting. If they're going out in day boats, their fish should be cleaned and iced right after it's caught so when the boat arrives the fish is in prime condition ready to prepare.

California has Dungeness crabs, and there might even be tasty shrimp that could be trap caught too. We've bought live crab in Bodega Bay, and it was fresh and snapping.

So, this all seems obvious, doesn't it? Go to the coast, give someone money, bring back absolutely fresh seafood, prepare it, eat it. Simple. I can do it. You can probably do it. So why can't supermarkets do it?

The last time I was at our local supermarket, the fish looked like it was one step ahead of being made into fish sauce. It was limp, slimy looking and lay flopped over the ice like a beached jellyfish. The trout was bloody, with sunken eyes. The salmon was farmed, colorant added, yet looked mushy. The shellfish looked like it expired while frozen, gaping open.

Can't something be done to make the seafood counter an anticipated destination? Seafood is more expensive every day, yet the quality is dropping faster than you can say bathyscaphe.

I, an individual, can go to the coast and buy what I want. But I can't get it here in the supermarket. Huh? These are supposed to be professional food distributors and sellers, yet they can't manage to stock their cases with anything worthy of accompanying a simple Entre-deux-Mers?

What about an online ordering system, where people could pay in advance and the seafood would be shipped as fresh as possible for the delivery date? What about not stocking limp, flaccid stinking trout? If the fish is borderline, why even bother selling it? How about doing away with all that non-sustainable farmed salmon altogether and telling people to wait for the real stuff in to come into season?

Why have a seafood counter at all, when half of it is just thawed out sea protein. Might as well just leave the stuff in the freezer! Have people grown as flaccid as that half-melted tilapia fillet, that they can't even thaw their own shrimp? What if the seafood case really had only the best quality fish, and the rest of that crap they're selling were sold off as cat food (don't make a habit of it though - mercury isn't good for kitties, either).

Maybe you're reading this thinking that fish normally smells like someone forgot to clean the aquarium. Maybe you think it should rival California's famous Banana Slug in sliminess. Maybe dull, sunken eyes and brown (or missing) gills don't tell you anything. So, here is (another) quick review on how to select fresh fish. (If you're an expert fishmonger or piscivore you can stop reading here and get back to the mise en place for your beurre blanc.)

Is that fish fresh? Check this:

Fish

• Firm flesh, briny odor, not fishy
• Smooth, but not slimy. Your fingers should come away from the fillet with a light coating of fishiness, not coated with slime.
• whole fish should have bright, shiny eyes that bulge. Not dull, sunken pits with black holes in the center.
• The fish's gills should be light to medium pink. They should still be attached to the fish, not missing. If someone cut them off, was it because they were deep red and slimy?
• For fish with scales, the scales should lie flat on the fish and not have gaps.

Shellfish

• Clams closed, or will close when tapped. No, you can't check this by tapping the case, so it's not too practical. Same for mussels.
• Shrimp: buy them frozen (unless they're alive), from a sustainable source, preferably wild. Thaw them yourself.
• Oysters? Well, I've never been brave enough to buy these in a supermarket. Obviously, they should stay tightly closed. So tightly that you need a special knife and some skill to open them without exploding the shell and spewing particles of shell all over the meat.
• Squid: buy it frozen. It probably arrived at the store that way.

If you want to see really nice, fresh fish head for Sunh Fish in the Asian Foods Center on Broadway or Oto's Marketplace. When it comes to fish, those guys don't mess around. Be aware that both sell non-sustainable fish, so do your homework or arrive with your Seafood Watch card in hand. Or if you're geeky, there's an app for that, too.  Just click here.

Valentines Day - a (très romantique) dinner for 2 humans & 1 cat

First, there might be something to going out to a nice restaurant: no dishes. However, I doubt that we could have afforded this meal:

• Vol-au-vent avec crevettes, vent d'Asie: shrimp, snow peas, garlic chives, shrimp stock in bechamel inside puff pastry shell. Garnished with purple bok choy from our garden.
• Steamed Dungeness crab, Crabandaise sauce, baguettes à l'ancien.
•  Fourme d'Ambert blue cheese
• Meli-Melo de gourmandises: truffes au chocolate noir legerement orangés, fleurons de pâte feuillétée, Valentine's day candies.

___

Cremant d'Alsace rosé
Vin Blanc du Cotes de Gascogne

The cat got some steamed crab, no sauce.
Thanks Teresa for the Valentine candies!
Ripping apart recently deceased crustaceans with your (almost) bare hands and devouring them is sooo romantic!