Get her tipsy, feed her chocolate!

Get her tipsy, feed her chocolate.

Special Valentine's TCHO Chocolates J Bubble Room Wine & Food Pairing

February 11 - 20, 2011

J Vineyards & Winery, Bubble Room

 

by Proximal.Kitchen

February 8th, 2011 07:50am

I don’t know about you, but I’m not above whetting my wife’s more carnal appetites with enough wine and chocolate to impair her better judgment. I’m sure that’s all very un-PC and certainly, as the father of young daughters, I live in mortal fear of the effects of alcohol on sensibility; but my wife’s a big girl, and above all, she knows how I think, so I’m pretty sure our pending Valentine’s Date – a savory symphony of handcrafted chocolate and wine at J Winery – will be consensual.

As a rule, I view Valentine’s Day rather dimly. It’s not that I’m a Grinch, it’s just that I tire of the obligatory expense, the Weimar Republican inflation of menu prices and long-stemmed roses, the topsy-turvy calculus of a holiday on which profligate spending is simply expected and only an absence of gifts attracts attention. But I’m trying to be less crusty and more romantic with the accelerating rush of time, and anyway, the grandparents volunteered to babysit our litter – if the first rule of child rearing is never to wake a sleeping baby, then the second is surely never to decline free babysitting. Or any babysitting.

So, instead of bitching about Hallmark Holidays, I’m leaving my kids with the ‘rents and taking my wife to “TCHO and Pinot”, what promises to be an extravagant mouth-party of artisanal TCHO chocolate and J Winery Pinot Noir, welded seamlessly together in Chef Mark Caldwell’s kitchen, and – you heard it here first – an official Best Bet To Make Her Smile and You Lucky.

Photo credits: J Winery, TCHO Chocolate

The meal itself promises wonderful things: Beef braised in cocoa nib tea; a cocoa-crusted loin of lamb with a cocoa-infused reduction of Pinot Noir; and root vegetables and whatever else Mark can get his hands on that is best, seasonal, and local at the moment. All in all, a compelling excuse to spend an afternoon with my wife, in a pretty little room with lots of light and views of our valley, and just enough room to play footsie. Although I’m still not buying that velveteen heart-shaped box or schmaltzy card.

About This Blog

The Proximal Kitchen is the bastard lovechild of Scott Kerson, a recovering hedge fund addict, husband, father, and dedicated home cook with a passion for food, wine, and the natural affluence of Sonoma County soils. Since trading in the avenues of Manhattan for the vine rows of the Russian River Valley, Scott has hit upon a simple philosophy: Purchase the best ingredients you can directly from the people who farm them, prepare them with care, and you will eat better and learn something about life in the process. Scott puts this idea into practice with seasonal shopping tips, foodie factoids, classic and original recipes, and observations on everything from getting your kids to eat real food to the importance of sharpening your knives.

Lobster Bisque & Viognier @ J Winery: Two of a Perfect Pair

Lobster Bisque & Viognier @ J Winery: Two of a Perfect Pair

by Proximal.Kitchen

January 26th, 2011 08:48am

Forgive the hackneyed analog, but I’ve just eaten a Lennon-McCartney harmony of food and wine over at J Winery; OK, maybe that’s too much, but a solid Bee Gees, at least! Seriously, if we wore socks on our teeth, then Chef Mark Caldwell’s Lobster Bisque, together with winemaker George Bursick’s Hoot Owl Vineyard Viognier, would knock them clean off. And I don’t even like Viognier, as a rule.

Eight-Flavor Local Duck, Tamarind-Orange Glazed Pork Belly, and Yuzu Royale; a vertical of single-vineyard Pinot Noirs, a late-disgorged vintage sparkler. For breakfast, no less. Not that one necessarily needs a special occasion to have wine for breakfast when one lives in wine country, but it helps, especially if you’ve got school pick-up, or anything else marginally productive to do. Fortunately, I had neither, so I got to enjoy all of this at a “Chinese New Year”-inspired pairing of food and wine in J’s Bubble Room; the menu, and the wines, will be featured through February 6th, a great call if you’ve been looking for a something-special to do in Healdsburg.

As good as it all is – and it’s all very good – it’s that Lobster Bisque and Viognier that makes you forget about the door levy. To be sure, $65/head for a 7-course menu hardly qualifies for a budget-oriented visit to the tasting room, but to be fair, it’s a meal more than a tasting (7 substantial plates of very tasty vittles), and ends up as much a miniature course in wine education as it does a tasting (including 8 different glasses of J’s top-shelf offerings); really, my only gripe is that I had to write this review, instead of taking a nap. But back to that bisque: Chef Mark serves it as a “cappuccino”, the “foam” delicately laced with coconut, an intriguing note of lime adding just the right balance to the sweet-spicy decadence of the soup and coaxing a range of citrus flavors from the wine.

 

Now, I don’t know about you and Viognier – with the notable exception of a few of the better examples from the Condrieu region of France, I generally won’t touch the stuff – but I’ve just been converted. The honeyed texture, the white flowers and stone fruit, and, above all, that mysterious note of lime zest in the wine do a little tango with the soup, each getting more from its partner than either had alone, the ultimate goal of all wine-food pairings. I’m going to try to convince Mark to give me his recipe for that bisque, but in the meantime, I’m headed back to J for another bottle, and then to pick up some Thai food to-go, something with coconut and lemongrass, maybe…

About The Proximal Kitchen Blog

The Proximal Kitchen is the bastard lovechild of Scott Kerson, a recovering hedge fund addict, husband, father, and dedicated home cook with a passion for food, wine, and the natural affluence of Sonoma County soils. Since trading in the avenues of Manhattan for the vine rows of the Russian River Valley, Scott has hit upon a simple philosophy: Purchase the best ingredients you can directly from the people who farm them, prepare them with care, and you will eat better and learn something about life in the process. Scott puts this idea into practice with seasonal shopping tips, foodie factoids, classic and original recipes, and observations on everything from getting your kids to eat real food to the importance of sharpening your knives.