Rhonda Bracey: At Random

On one of our trips to the US (2006) we visited family in Michigan. And as the weather was so nice, we drove up to the Mackinac Bridge and across it to the Upper Peninsula. However, despite the nice weather, pretty much everything in the little town on the other side of the bridge was still closed for winter.

On our drive north, we passed a tiny general store place with gas pumps and a sign that showed they sold Penfolds wines. Penfolds? In a little dot of a place in the middle of northern Lower Michigan? Penfolds is a HUGE wine brand in Australia and we’d previously brought over bottles of Bin 389 to give as gifts to friends only to find that Costco in Monterey, California sold them cheaper than we could buy them in Australia! Go figure.

So on the way back from the bridge trip, we stopped in at this little store to see what they had. And back in the liquor section, at the back of a shelf, we found two bottles of 2001 vintage Penfolds Bin 389! For $21.50 each (USD). Even with the exchange rate at the time, that was still MUCH cheaper than we could buy it in Australia (it was about $50 a bottle in Australia then). So we bought the two bottles. I checked first with the clerk that the price was correct and he said it was. After he’d completed the transaction, I told him that it was half the price we’d pay in Australia, which is where the wine was from. Unbelievable. (See https://rhondabracey.com/2006/04/16/pricing/ for the full story)

We bought these bottles back to Australia with us on our return. And put them away.

Last night, some eight years on we pulled one out to have with a lovely roast pork dinner I was cooking for my parents for Mothers Day. My husband filtered and decanted it in the afternoon so it had plenty of time to breathe.

And it was amazingly good. Not a lot of nose, but the taste. OMG. The taste! Smooth, with hints of black pepper (I’m not much into flowery wine language!). It went down an absolute treat.

Decanted and ready to pour

Still had the price sticker from the US on it!

And proof that this Australian wine was purchased in the US. Australians purchased it in the US for less than half the price Australians pay for the same wine in Australia. Go figure.

A friend and I had another dinner at Hula’s Island Grill in Monterey last night. We’d gone there last Saturday too and the food was so good we went back!

We shared a small bowl of their Poblano mac and cheese, and it was SOOOOO good!

I had the Kalbi (Korean style BBQ beef) for my main meal, which was also excellent, but I could’ve eaten that mac and cheese all night!

The owner shared with us what was in it when we asked, so here’s how I remember it: Jack, cream, and parmesan cheeses in the mixture, along with mashed up Poblano chili and elbow macaroni of course, topped with Jarlsberg cheese and popped under the griller for the cheese to melt and form a golden crust. It was SOOOOO yummy! And so simple.

There’s a steakhouse we go to every few months, and they have this strange policy — they don’t uncap your chosen bottle of wine at the table in front of you. Instead, they uncap it at the bar and bring you the opened bottle with no cap on the side.

How their system works: I choose the wine I want either from the minimal wine list or from a locked display cabinet and let the server know which one. Out of sight of the customer, the server unlocks the cabinet and gets the wine, or gets it from the bottleshop that is attached to the venue, or gets it from somewhere else. The server then opens the wine behind the bar and brings the opened bottle to the table with the wine glasses.

Why is this of concern to me, you might ask? Here are some potential issues with this:

• How do I know that the wine is from a new, full bottle and not a half empty bottle from behind the counter that they’ve topped up with another (cheaper?) wine? A wine that was potentially paid for by another person and now is being resold a second time,
• How do I know that no-one has ‘doctored’ the wine with a foreign substance?
• How do I know that no-one has dropped a sedative drug into the wine?

So when we were paying our bill at this restaurant last night, I asked why the wine was not uncapped at the table by the server. No-one could give me a logical, reasonable response. Instead I got ‘it’s policy’, ‘that’s how we do it’, ‘we don’t give you the cap because it might be put back on the bottle and then the bottle used as a weapon’, ‘it’s licensing regulations’ and the like.

I particularly liked the ‘used as a weapon’ response — this from a place that serves big juicy steaks and that has HUGE steak knives sitting on every table when you walk in. I’m talking 6″ plus steak knives with a 1″ wide blade and a decent serrated edge and a solid wooden handle. You want to prevent people from using a bottle as a weapon? Then reconsider the placement of massive steak knives at every place setting. And weapons? In a family restaurant in a country town frequented by your typical middle class couples and family groups? Highly unlikely.

If they had wines with a cork, would they also uncork the wine at the bar, or uncork it at the table? If they would uncork it at the table, then why not use the same procedure for Stelvin caps?

All their excuses are very lame. And I doubt licensing regulations have anything to do with this ‘policy’.

I’m still concerned that they won’t uncap a wine at the table in front of the customer who has paid for that wine.

I would have linked to this recipe from Kirsty Carre had I been able to find it on www.thewest.com.au, but it wasn’t there. It was published in ‘Eating In’ section of The West on Thursday 1 August, and I made it on Friday night. There was WAY more than the two of us could eat (I noticed it ‘Serves 6’ later…), so I packaged some up into takeaway containers and froze it for future ready-to-heat meals. As per usual, I adapted the recipe a bit 😉

I’d like to thank Kirsty for this recipe — it’s a winner and SO easy to make. And it tastes darned good too! And no fiddling about with lasagne sheets and layers 😉

Serves 6

• 1 x 250 g frozen spinach, thawed
• 2 cups ricotta, drained (you could get away with 1 cup)
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan
• 500 g spinach and ricotta ravioli (I substituted spinach and ricotta agnolotti and it was fine)
• 2 tbsp olive oil (I just used a tiny squirt)
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped (we don’t eat garlic, so I added 3 chopped dried chillis instead)
• 700 g bottle tomato passata
• 1/2 cup grated mozzarella

1. Squeeze out as much moisture as possible from the thawed spinach and set aside in a small bowl. In another bowl, mix the ricotta and parmesan together; if it’s too thick, add a splash of milk to thin it a little. It should be like a paste, NOT runny.
2. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and add the pasta and cook for the required time.
3. Gently heat the oil in a deep-sided frypan (one with a heatproof handle if you decide to put this under the grill). Add the garlic (and/or chilli), then the tomato passata. Stir.
4. Drain the pasta, scatter it over the sauce and lightly stir it through the sauce.
5. Top with the spinach, then the ricotta/parmesan mix, then the mozzarella.
6. EITHER: put the lid on the frypan, turn the heat down to low and cook until the cheese melts on top; OR place the frypan under the grill for a few minutes to melt and lightly brown the mozzarella.

Yummo! I made potato and leek soup last night — the first time in YEARS. I based my ‘recipe’ on this one from Jamie Oliver: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/leek-and-potato-soup, modifying it of course 😉

Before I forget — and so I have it for future creations — here’s my adaptation:

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 carrot, diced into small cubes
• 1 stick celery, chopped
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 mushrooms
• 3 leeks, white part washed, quartered, then sliced
• 3 dried chillis, chopped (optional; you may prefer garlic)
• 5 rashers of bacon, chopped (optional; in future, I’d use a little less — perhaps 2 or 3 rashers; add an extra rasher and cook it separately until crisp for garnish, if required)
• 8 small potatoes, washed then diced into small cubes
• 2 chicken or vegetable stock cubes, crumbled or chopped
• 1.8 litres boiling water (about 3 to 4 pints)
• salt (freshly cracked sea salt, if you have it)
• freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 small can evaporated milk or cream or sour cream or plain yoghurt or Greek yoghurt (optional)

Method

1. Heat a soup/stock pot (or any large pot) on the stove top, add the olive oil, then the chopped carrot, celery, mushrooms, chilli, leeks, and bacon. Saute for a few minutes, stirring every minute or so to stop anything sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.
2. Put the stock cubes in a heatproof jug and add the boiling water. Stir until the stock cubes are dissolved. Add the stock to the soup pot and stir in.
3. Add the chopped potatoes and stir in.
4. Put the lid on the soup pot, bring to the boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer and let simmer for at least 10 minutes, or until all the veges are soft.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste — a pinch of each to start — and stir through.
6. I usually let the soup cool a little before putting it (in small quantities at a time) into the blender and giving it a good zap to puree it. Once pureed, stir in the cream (or substitute). Reheat prior to serving, if needed.
7. Serve in hot bowls with a dollop of cream (or substitute) and fresh crusty bread. Garnish with crisp bacon and/or a green herb like chives or parsley (optional).
8. Enjoy!

It was a meal all by itself and was absolutely delicious. It doesn’t look particularly appetising in the photo below, but it was FULL of flavour.

You could substitute chicken or ham for bacon, or leave out the meat altogether. Likewise, if you don’t like chilli, cut down the quantity or use garlic (I don’t like garlic, so I used chilli instead)

Whenever I go to the US, I stock up on Tim Tams and hand them out to grateful friends in the US. Tim Tams aren’t readily available there and if you *can* find them in an Aussie shop, they are incredibly expensive and there’s a limited range of flavours.

As an Australian-made biscuit (cookie), we get the full range of flavours and they are readily available in our neighbourhood supermarkets. And they go on sale quite often.

So this picture is for my US friends — it’s my local supermarket’s many shelves of Tim Tams in all sorts of flavours, and all at half price ($1.50 per packet)! (Just as an aside, I don’t like Tim Tams — they are WAY too sweet for my taste!)

I buy Diet Coke when it’s on special, so I always have several cartons in the garage. I opened a new carton today and found that these cans were specially made for the 2012 Olympics. Some had ‘Aussie’; the others had ‘Oi’, so guess how I put them in the drinks fridge? 😉