Here in northern California we are having one of the coldest summers on record. Instead of sun dresses and sandals I have been wearing hoodies and leggings. In addition to the change in apparel I have had to change up my usual summer fare of grilled anything to the more homey baking.

One of my all time favorite things to bake is soufflé. I had already perfected my Chocolate Soufflé years ago. It was always a great ending to a meal, usually by that time the richer wines were on the table and those tend to pair well with chocolate soufflé. The most recent wine pairing we had was with our new reasonably priced cab from the Napa valley, the Textbook 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon.  Kevin loves this wine and I felt the two together were a tough act to beat.

So, where I felt I really needed work, was my cheese soufflé. I practiced with two recipes, Gruyere and Parmesan Cheese Souffle and Herb and Goat Cheese Souffle. I served Cantina Montelliana Prosecco Extra Dry NV with the gruyere soufflé and Sileni Estates 2007 Sauvignon Blanc with the goat cheese soufflé. All though both were good, I generally preferred the Gruyere version, which was cheesier and a better match for the egg base. I have made it several times since and paired it with most of our sparklings and along with the prosecco were a good match to the soufflé.  The goat cheese version was a little dry, but the flavor was good, and the sauvignon blanc was a great pairing.

Recently we added quite a few new wines from our importer Grape Expectations. Good friends of Wines and Makers, Amanda Janik Lucey (owner of Sprout, here in Healdsburg) and her husband Aaron had just gotten back from the Loire Valley and were well suited to give us some feedback on the French portion of the porfolio.

Here are some of the tasting notes:

Chateau Vieille Tour 2009 Bordeaux Blanc

Nice color, shiny
Lemon, nectarine, pink grapefruit
hint of smoke
round soft ripe pink grapefruit close to rind (bitter finish)

Domaine Cordaillat 2008 Reuilly Blanc

Whiter fruit (grapefruit, stone)
hint of white pepper
huge, long finish

Ferraton Cotes Du Rhone 2008 Samorens White (one of Aaron’s favorites)

Wheat colored
saffron, floral, hint of spice, honeydew
citrus oil
spicy finish

Abel Clement 2009 Grenache Rose

Copper in color
Strawberry, gooseberry, hint of strawberry
White fruit
Hint of spice on finish

Chateau Moulin de Ferrand 2009 Bordeaux Rose

Fruity, strawberry
Round fruit
Cheese
Strawberry Liqueur

Chateau de Gaudou 2007 Cahors

Barnyard
Cassis
Long finish

Of all the wines my favorite was the Reuilly, Aaron and Amanda loved the Grenache Rose and they loved it even more when they found out it was $8.  They also really liked the Cahors and again were very impressed with the price, $12 on special right now for $10.

The school year has ended for us and with that comes all the parties and get togethers to celebrate a successful year. This year Vayle graduated from preschool, for her graduation she got ice cream sandwiches and the parents got Domaine Carneros 2006 Brut Vintage Cuvée. Not bad.

On to the end of the year party at Breggo Cellars in Anderson Valley. Breggo Cellars is a top notch winery that makes amazing Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, not to mention a pretty good Gewurztraminer. It is run by Doug and Ana Stewart, two of the most gracious hosts around. After my half hour recovery from the drive to Boonville I was overwhelmed with the great food and wine to be had. I brought a Kelley & Young 2008 Rose which I paired with Manchengo cheese and Quince paste (one of my all time favorite appetizers, simple & elegant). Later, when Doug gave us a tour of the winemaking facilities we got to see all the care that goes into their wines. I think the tour favorite was the ceramic egg that is used for fermenting. Not only is the shape fascinating but the concept is that they produce a soft, gentle fermentation, leaving the aromas intact. This explains, why they are always highly rated and well loved.

It really made me feel lucky to be in Sonoma County with such talented artisians making brilliant wine and putting together great food to serve along side it. It really kind of beats the Olympia beer and Doritos that I grew up with, all though that does has its place…

I love this time of year. The leaves are budding, it rains when it feels like it and hot days are just around the corner… Back in the days when I was working at a french restaurant, we had a strict no shellfish rule, which was, you do not eat them in months that don’t have an “r”. So we have one more month of mussels to go, and I plan on maximizing it. The other day, we had a load of people over and our in house gourmet, Julie Cyphers made mussels from her new Argentinian cookbook. The were cooked in cast iron as opposed to the steamed recipe I have at the end, and they were amazing!

The thing I love about a big bowl of mussels, is it becomes a gathering place, stories and chardonnay (and some very dark beer) are shared and in general there is a race to get your fill.

This time we opened a bottle of the Soda Rock 2007 Chardonnay Alexander Valley and Domaine Talmard 2008 Macon-Chardonnay. Both of these are great on the price point and have the minerality that I love with my Steamed Mussels.

So, Enjoy them while you can, I always vote to pay a little extra to get them from a high quality fish counter because they throw out the unusable mussels and debeard them for you. But, if you like to put a little elbow grease in and save a few bucks, costco has great pricing on mussels, friday and saturday.

For Vayle’s fifth birthday, I set out on my most ambitious cake yet. Full sheet size cake pan, check. Four dozen eggs, check. Three pounds of butter, check. A quart of cream, check. You get the picture.

I decided to experiment with my caramel recipe, I have this lavender grey sea salt that is lovely in my shortbread. Somehow I got my measurements wrong and ended up with some really salty caramel. I kept tasting, and wondering if it was me or the caramel, with all the aforementioned butter and cream, I really wanted it to be me. In order to figure it out I opened the perfect thing that goes with salty, a sparkling brut. The only thing we had on hand was the Scharffenberger a really good value, at Wines and Makers for $20, but I have seen it elsewhere for $15-16.

The match saved the caramel, but unfortunately it deceived me into thinking a really salty caramel would be a good on a five year old’s birthday cake. There was a lot of birthday cake left on the table, I guess this is a good thing as any of you parents out there know.

Lesson learned. Next year, I promise to keep my adult tastes out of my daughters birthday cake and make something that gets entirely eaten up and all the kids will remember, Vayle’s mom makes the best birthday cake ever!

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We always talk about pairing wines with cheeses, meats, white sauces, chocolates, and even music

, but what about conversations or writing? What about matching a wine with one of those therapeutic rants at the end of a hard day? I just had one of those crazy days that I’ll probably be able to look back upon and laugh about, but right now it’s helping to try and forget it with a nice 2006 Syrah by Duxoup

Straw Dogs

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(pronounced “duck soup”) of the Dry Creek Valley. And…

The juiciness erases getting caught in the rain betweem the dentist office and the coffee shop.

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The smoothness dulls the sting of my hard drive kicking the bucket.

The silkiness smooths my ruffled feathers from a roofing debacle (during rainstorm).

The fruitiness sweetens my perspective on a writing project gone sour.

The warm prickle on my tongue leaves a good taste in my mouth.

The slight buzz after a glass gives me a newfound optimism for tomorrow.

Thanks to a two-person winemaking team who pride themselves on small production and gentle, gravity-flow methods, Duxoup has made my beaucoup bad day all better again.

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Here’s a nice quote to enjoy a glass of Syrah with too:

BEST EVER PROUDUCUTIVUITY TIPSES FROM TEH #1 BEST ONLINE PRODUCTIVIVITY EXPERT

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Ignore all those emails

Ignore all those phone calls

Stop surfing on the STUPID WEB

Make a list of important things to do and THEN DO THEM

Blow off all those STUPID MEETINGS

Sleep in late (till, like, noon!) if you feel like you need to!

Don’t do stuff that is a waste of time

Just do IMPORTANT stuff thats cool

buy First Sunday

Take the day off whenever you feel like it!

• download Mighty Joe Young movie

Stay home from the office and play video games if you feel like it (you need your “creative inspiration” after all!)

• Strange Days film

Don’t work in an office, it sucks! There are meetings and bureaucracy and stuff that SUCKS AND IS DUMB!

Don’t waste time doing STUPID “work” for a “client” or “boss”

Wha? Huh? Money? Wha? You need to what? “Make a living?” You have what? “Rent to pay?” “School loans?” “Groceries to buy so you can eat?” “A family to support?” So what’s the problem? Didn’t you sell your overvalued tech company / web service to some larger tech company / web service some time in the last 5 years? No?

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Oh.

Lifeforce OK.

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Disregard all my “productivity” tips, then.

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It is a conversational piece, it needs love, lots of stirring and is one of my favorite things to make. The other night we had the Pendletons over for dinner and decided to make a butternut squash risotto with chicken, mushrooms and swiss chard. They brought over some of their yummy red wines but I was a little unsure of the paring as I had a bottle of Balletto Pinot Gris open to go with the risotto, as white wine always seems to be the traditional pairing in my book. So I asked Michall which bottle of red he brought would pair the best with the meal, he said the cab would work great and to my pleasant surprise, he was right! I guess that catering background of his really comes in handy as a winemaker.

Okay, who doesn’t love cheesy bread, or more accurately, pastry? I am always looking for an excuse to bake something, as well as a reason to drink some sparkling. So what happens when I get a chance to combine the two? Heaven. This is a pretty easy recipe for Gougere and it looks fancy for when your friends come over for some Iron Horse Blanc de Blancs.

Today was one of those days that makes us feel lucky to live in sonoma county. We spent the day gleening the vines around Wines and Makers with good friends, the Turk and Cypher families. The girls stomped the grapes and my old friend Miles (along with his lovely gal Elizabeth) made this video to share with you all.