Inauguration Day

Like many people, my husband and I were in a celebratory mood yesterday as Barack Obama took the oath to become President. To mark the occasion, and since we had a cold bottle in the fridge, we popped open a bottle of the Maison Lenique from my birthday to go with the blueberry pancakes I made for dinner (we were craving American food, it was the best I could do!). We had thought it might be nice to have an American sparkling wine, but they're too difficult to find at short notice here in the UK. We'll have to plan a bit better for the next one...hopefully we'll feel like celebrating the next President, too!

Date Night - Jan 09

A while back, when my husband and I realised how little time we actually spend together, we decided to set aside one night each month just for us - Date Night. The rules of Date Night are pretty simple: it never gets cancelled, it's just the two of us, and we treat it like a date i.e. we do something fun and there's no talking about work or other heavy problems.

This month is the first time we didn't have Date Night on it's established night. One of my husband's colleagues is moving to New Zealand and his leaving drinks were booked that night. Ordinarily, one or the other of us would simply send regrets to the event, but this was different, him moving so far away. As an alternate, we decided to take the dog and drive out to the shore this weekend, have some lovely walks on the beach, and lunch at a gastropub, The Sportsman Seasalter, that some friends introduced us to.

We had a great time, especially since we had blue skies and sunshine yesterday, missing all of the heavy showers that came later in the day. The fresh air and beach were exactly what we needed to refresh ourselves from London. Lunch, as always, did not disappoint.

A nice surprise was that the pub had some sparkling wines by the glass, so we each started with a glass of Pol Roger White Label, a champagne I've often seen in shops, but one that is so 'name-brand' that I had never bought it before. Shame on me, as the champagne was a slightly sweet apple, with loads of bubbles. It was fantastic with the home-made foccacia and brown soda bread that quickly arrived on our table, as well as with my husband's starter of whisky-smoked salmon. It didn't hold up quite as well with the almost pure-cream broth of my mussel and bacon chowder, but the apple flavour was wonderful with the big chunks of bacon at the bottom of my bowl.

Part of the ensuing conversation we had was about how often we were reverse wine snobs. This champagne was very drinkable, but we had passed it by so often in pursuit of smaller champagne houses - less-well-known varieties and makers - because we never know when we're going to see them in the shops again. I'll have to make more of an effort to buy the name-brands even though I know I'll see them again and again, simply because they don't disappoint.

Supporting My Local Economy

There's a great deli in my neighborhood, Romeo Jones, that every now and again stocks pastries that I make. I try to be a good customer, too, although never as regular as I would like since I'm usually walking the dog with no cash in my pockets when I walk by the shop.

Yesterday, though, my husband was walking the dog with me and he had some cash, so we stopped in. Not with the intention of buying anything with bubbles - just to get some cheese for our lunch, a pandoro for dessert, and some of their wonderful seeds since it's warming up and I'm starting to plan my vegetable garden (I got yellow beans and green peas).

But a bottle caught my eye - a crisp, citrusy-lemon prosecco from Case Bianche (their Vigna del Cuc) we had tried once before and really enjoyed. How could we leave that behind when it would go so well with our Italian dessert? Not that there was much left by the time we got to dessert, since it also went so well with the blue cheese, hazelnut, and honey-covered bruschetta that we ate while our lunch was on the grill outside.

It was a nice indulgence (especially since we drank bubbly the day before!) that didn't break the bank at £13.45 for the bottle. What better way to support my local economy? And what better way to celebrate our first BBQ of the year??

Antiquing on a Saturday

The nice folks over at Puritan Values sent me tickets to an antique fair in London where they were exhibiting this weekend, so we did something we rarely do anymore - left the dog at home and headed into Central London on a Saturday. There were some very nice pieces at the fair, although most were out of our price range, so we only spent about an hour there. Since we had already left the dog on her own, we thought we might as well make the most of the rest of the afternoon, and headed to Ransome's Dock for a late lunch.

I noticed while perusing the menu that their 'champagne by the glass' has been updated in the New Year. When I was there last month, they were serving Henriot. This month, they're serving Billecart-Salmon's Brut Reserve by the glass, something that was most tempting to order. But, my husband went one better - instead ordering for us a half-bottle of Billecart-Salmon's Brut Rose.

This is one of my favourite champagnes. A lot of rose champagnes can be either sweet or insipid. This one is extremely dry, incredibly fruity, and has a long, smooth finish. The bubbles also don't disappoint - with a fine but voluminous stream of bubbles that lasts from the first sip to the last drops of the bottle. It went equally as well with my husband's cesaer salad as it did with my usual order of eggs benedict.

While we always like to try new things, this is a champagne that I can drink over and over again - and one that you should try if you haven't before!

Happy New Year 2009

While my husband was in Paris just before Christmas, he bought me a bottle of champagne as a Christmas gift. Not just any champagne, but one that was produced in an environmentally friendly manner - no pesticides, no synthetic chemicals - a 1999 grand cru from Andre Beaufort.

Like me, you may be thinking, "what sort of granola-cruncher would bother doing something like this with champagne?" Well, apparently the winemaker developed an allergy to the fertilisers he was using in his vineyard and started producing wines sans chemicals so that he could continue in his livelihood. And I have to say, well done to him, you don't miss them a bit, and his talent would have been wasted.

As is our tradition on New Year's Eve, we celebrated with a homemade apple pie and this wonderful bottle of champagne. It was the perfect compliment to the pie - slightly sweet because of all of the apple-fruit flavours in it, but dry at the same time. It was a big wine, with lots of flavour and an incredibly long-lasting finish. This is a wine-lover's champagne - without the bubbles, this would still have been incredibly drinkable.

I haven't seen this producer in the UK before, so I don't know how widely available the wines are outside of France. But I will look for it, as I'd like to try more. It was a great start to the New Year.