cvwine.com Blog

By Lesley Lopez

Not being an avid football watcher, there isn’t much I know about the anticipated game this Sunday. I have discovered this year it’s a match up between the Colts and the Saints, though even after some research on the teams themselves I still don’t really know which is favored to win. Aside from that I know that football is better experienced on a larger television and in groups, or so is the reasoning behind throwing a Super Bowl party.

When it comes to the party, I’m the quarterback of planners. Walking into any supermarket, I’m faced with the traditions and staples of all Super Bowl Sundays. Tortilla Chips, salsas, crackers, soda and beer in stalks around any market send the clear message: this is all you need for a successful party.

Not that I don’t agree, you could have a great party with just the essentials of what is right next to all the cash registers at your Vons. Not to mention the key selling point of no preparation time needed, just pull open the bags and set out the cans and you’re done. But this year, I want to stray off the beaten path and try a few things differently.

So veering away from the stalks of sodas, I headed towards the fruit section of the market. This year, I was thinking punch bowls of sangria for drinks. I picked up some pineapple, peaches, granny smith green apples, lemons and some ginger ale. Also on my way back towards the check out stands.

I caved and picked up some bean dip and chips because who can really have a Super Bowl party without tortilla chips? A new snack idea occurred to me. Recently I discovered a smoked mozzarella cheese from Boss Hog a part of the Swine and Wine Club featured through Coastal Vineyards and Bacon Freak. The gourmet cheese would be a perfect addition to either bean dip or a new twist on a platter of nachos.

Using a great bottle of wine from Vina Robles, featured as one of the Coastal Vineyards Wine Club selections I would be making chardonnay sangria. Now it might take some time to cut up all the fruit but not only can the pieces be used for the sangria itself but also for a selection of slightly healthier finger foods! Dumping all the chopped pieces into a bowl, I can pour in the wine and some of the ginger ale and presto like magic the sangria is finished.

I might even venture to make another bowl with a Merlot wine also featured in the Coastal Vineyard Wine Club. But maybe throw in some berries, club soda and triple sec into that one.

The possibilities are endless when making sangria, which means that my new Super Bowl tradition can be trying something different every year. Though, tasting the sangria with my new nachos I might not wait until next year’s Super Bowl maybe I’ll have a Oscars party too!

By Lesley Lopez

Signing Off and Pigging Out,
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock
Visit our Swine and Wine Club by clicking here!

Is your college student unpopular?

Let’s say your son has been away to college for a year or two. He’s out of the dorms and on to apartment living, sharing space with other eager students, staying up late cramming for tests, and foraging for food. If there’s one thing I remember about my college days, it’s that I was hungry. ALWAYS hungry. Giving up the cafeteria meal plan was hard, and led to many late night calls to the pizza delivery guy. My friends and I practically drained our bank accounts on crummy fast food. That’s why giving the gift of bacon may just make you a hero to your kid and his roommates!

The picture of a popular college student

Outlets like BaconFreak.com make giving a smoky, delicious gift basket both easy and fun. You can give anything from two pounds of bacon to a basket crammed with meats, pancakes, seasonings and even apparel! But if you really want to go for the win, try a bacon-of-the-month club. That scholar of yours will wait with baited breath to see which unique bacon flavor awaits him in his mailbox each month. Not only does everyone love getting a package, but come on! It’s bacon! And, if he didn’t call regularly before, this gift will guarantee your phone rings at least once a month…he’ll be thanking you all year long.

If by some odd chance your kid isn’t a bacon fanatic, don’t worry. BaconFreak has everything from sausage to ribs to lobster for your gift giving pleasure. Even BBQ sauces and salsas! He’ll be the king of the grill, a skill he’ll use far more often in life than those Calculus formulas.

This year, enjoy the gift-giving season as you shop from the comfort of your living room. Go to www.BaconFreak.com and check out their full line of food and wine clubs for all your family and friends. Good taste has never been easier!

Marianne

In Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, there is one restaurant to which the foodies flock; Nage. Now, tucked away among the embassies of Scott Circle is the new Nage of Washington, DC. A quaint neighborhood eatery with exposed brick, a stunning crimson façade and infinite energy, Nage (French for “swimming”) is a charming bistro with a welcoming and passionate staff.

Complimented by warm surroundings, smart wines and cocktails, and an energetic bistro ambience; Nage offers an approachable dining experience, with attention to the details and a desire to impress. Presenting a menu based in French cooking, with a palette of global flavors, the East Coast eatery boasts intimately chic surroundings complete with exposed brick and crimson hues.

Kevin Reading is a Co-Owner & Executive Chef of Nage. He is a graduate of the Philadelphia Restaurant School, Kevin Reading is a passionate restaurateur with 25 years of experience and several opened restaurants under his belt. Chef Reading opened his first restaurant, the Fox Point Grill in Wilmington, Delaware after holding culinary and front-of-the-house positions at famed restaurants up and down the East Coast including Taboo in Palm Beach, Florida. Chef has fun in the kitchen, and presents innovative twists on classic comfort foods and modern “mood-reflecting” dishes at Nage, DC.

Josh Grapski is his partner and Co-Owner. Grapski’s pleasant and laid-back personality epitomizes the ambiance at Nage, DC. A tenured restaurateur with ownership experiences in Rehoboth Beach, Palm Springs and New Orleans, Josh graduated from Cornell University’s Hotel School and began his restaurant career under the toque in the kitchen. Josh’s keen business sense and desire to regularly interact with customers led him to the front-of-the-house where works to provide impressive dining experiences.

Kevin has agreed to share with us his Lobster Pot Pie Recipe

LOBSTER POT PIE

Pot Pie Base
¼ lb of bacon
1 tbl minced garlic
1 cup onion-small diced
1 cup of celery –small diced
1 cup of carrots-medium diced
1 cup of celery root-medium diced
1 cup of parsnips-medium diced
1 cup of acorn squash-medium diced
2 cups flour
2 gal lobster stock
3oz sherry
2oz sherry vinegar
2bay leaf
½ cup parsley
10 shakes Tabasco sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown bacon in pan. Once browned, remove bacon, leaving fat. Sweat onion and garlic in bacon fat for several minutes. Add remaining root vegetables. Sweat mixture at a low heat for 20 minutes. Add flour and stir until you have a blonde roux. Deglaze with sherry and add lobster stock, Tabasco and herbs. Cook until thick and delicious.

Pot Pie Filling
½ cup of lobster meat
1 pinch of shallots
1 pinch of leeks
½ cup sweet peas
1 piece of puff pastry dough rolled

TO PLATE
In a sauce pan—heat 1 tbl spoon of blended oil—add a pinch of shallots and leeks to sweat. Deglaze with 1 oz of sherry and add diced lobster meat and sweet peas and 8oz of pot pie base. Season to taste.
Place in an oven ready bowl and top with puff pastry that has been rolled and flattened to top the pot pie. Press the pastry into the sides to seal and cut 2 slits in the center.
Brush with an egg wash.
Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes until crust is golden brown.

Nage Restaurant is located in Washington DC’s Scott Circle at 1600 Rhode Island Avenue, NW. Open Monday - Friday for breakfast, lunch and dinner; Saturday for dinner and brunch on Sunday, Nage is a relaxed East Coast Eatery featuring innovative twists on classic comforts, specialty cocktails and an original beer menu. Reservations are available online at opentable.com or by calling 202. 448-8005.

Signing Off and Pigging Out,
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock
www.baconfreak.com

These days a lobster dinner is far more affordable than ever. There’s simply no reason to ever again reserve the luxury of a delicious lobster dinner for only those very rare and special occasions. Kim Honey, the illustrious “Food Editor” of the Toronto Star has recently written a great column on how to regularly enjoy a meal made for royalty with this very simple ands easy to follow recipe.

Dig in and enjoy!

The price of lobster has fallen dramatically, which is bad for the fishermen but good for us, since it now costs less than, say, a prime rib roast (between $7 and $10 a pound for lobster at time of writing).

For six people I’d buy 10 beasts. Most can eat only one 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pound crustaceans, but there are always one or two in the crowd who go for a second. If you don’t have a pot big enough (a 20-litre pot can handle four lobsters), use two. Finally, be sure to snip off the elastics holding the claws shut. The rubber can subtly flavour the water and the lobster flesh if you add it to the cooking pot.

INGREDIENTS

Lobster:

4 gallons of water

1 cup rock or coarse salt

6 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 lb live lobsters

Lemon butter:

1/2 pound salted butter

Fresh lemon juice to taste

DIRECTIONS

For lobster, bring water and salt to boil in large stockpot, starting about an hour before you want to eat. Turn it off if you’re not ready; it will come quickly to boil next time heat is turned on.

Hold lobster firmly by body behind the head; snip off elastics and quickly dunk head first into boiling water. Add another 3 lobsters in quick succession, taking care not to crowd the pot. Cover with lid.

Cook 12 minutes (don’t wait for water to return to boil). Remove with tongs; hang by tails from edge of sink to cool for 10 minutes. Repeat with remaining lobsters.

For butter, melt in small pot. Pour into ramekins, leaving solids behind. Add fresh lemon juice to taste.

Twist bodies at tail to separate; clean any roe or green stuff (the tomalley) out. Pull off legs. Twist off claws. Supply lobster shears or scissors along with picks to help remove meat from shell. Serve with butter for dipping.

Makes 6 servings.

Signing Off and Pigging Out,
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock
www.baconfreak.com

If you were one of those people who just never felt right about spending the money to enjoy one of the world’s most delightfully, delectably delicious dishes on Earth, then I’m happy to announce that RIGHT NOW is the perfect time to buy yourself, family, friends, and loved one’s some gourmet lobster while the picking and the pricing is out of this world!

Check out what the New York Times reported just this morning…

Luxury on Sale: The Lobster Glut

New York Times
By MELISSA CLARK
Published: December 9, 2008

I’M a sucker for a sale, the kind of shopper who tallies the amount “saved” rather than spent. My arithmetic goes like this: It makes more sense to buy the $125 cashmere sweater marked down to $95 than to pay full price for the $80 one.

Following this logic, when I heard on the radio that lobster prices were the cheapest they had been in 25 years, I decided that the sensible thing to do was to run over to the fish store and buy a couple for dinner.

So what if I spent nearly $30 on lobster for two on a weeknight when we weren’t celebrating anything? It cost a third less than it would have last year.

While fantasizing about ways to cook my bargain crustaceans, I asked Lewis Spada, the manager of Fish Tales in Brooklyn, why prices were so low.

“The economy,” he said. “People just aren’t buying, but in Maine their stocks are loaded. It’s all about supply and demand.”

At his shop, lobsters go for $10.99 a pound, about $3 less than last year — a trend seen all over town. Balducci’s is selling them for $14.99 to $16.99 a pound, $4 less than last year, and at Wild Edibles they are $2 to $3 less, or $13.99 to $15.99 a pound. The Lobster Place, with locations in Chelsea Market and Greenwich Village, is the cheapest of the markets I surveyed, at $7.95 a pound.

Act quickly, because, according to Trevor Corson, the author of “The Secret Life of Lobsters” (HarperCollins, 2004), this situation is probably not going to last much longer.

“The lobster fishermen are victims of their own success,” he said, explaining that because they have managed to make lobster fisheries so sustainable, they have recently had record catches.

Until now, the excess catch was funneled to Canadian processing plants, which sold them frozen to chain restaurants. But the bad economy hit the Canadian plants hard enough to shut down operations.

That means cheaper lobsters for you and me — at least temporarily.

“It’s gotten to the point where for the fishermen, it’s not worth their while to catch lobsters, so the supply will decrease,” Mr. Corson said.

My timing on my little lobster splurge was even better than I’d realized.

Generally, when serving lobster, I stick to the tried and true: steaming them, then serving with melted butter. I’ve been afraid to experiment; who wants to gamble with ruining such a pricey purchase?

With fire-sale-priced lobsters, I had no such inhibitions. Visions of more opulent lobster dishes swam across my mind. I saw rich bits of pink lobster meat coated in creamy sauce over soft egg pasta. I remembered how marvelous broiled lobster, mottled with charred bits, tasted when dipped in garlicky olive oil. And finally, I thought back to a sauté of lobster with lobster mushrooms I had at a friend’s house, the dense, meaty texture of the mushrooms echoing that of the shellfish.

But before I could cook my lobsters, I needed to end their watery lives as quickly and humanely as possible. In the past, I would always drop them into a pot of boiling water and clamp the lid on tight.

Trevor Corson had another suggestion.

“The best way to kill them, according to animal welfare agencies, is to put them in the freezer first for 15 minutes,” he said. “It slows their metabolism.”

After that, Mr. Corson suggested, put the lobster on its back and slice lengthwise through its soft underbelly.

“Lobsters have a decentralized nervous system,” he said. “The tail may still twitch, but the claws will go limp so you’ll know its dead.” Killing a lobster this way before boiling. steaming or broiling it, he added, makes for less rubbery meat.

So I tried it. After freezing and slicing up my lobsters, I ran them under the broiler. My plan was to serve them with garlic oil. But their scarlet hue reminded me of blackened redfish. Making a vibrant, spicy Cajun butter to souse the lobster seemed like a good idea.

As Mr. Corson promised, the lobster meat cooked up tender yet firm, and the spicy butter gave it a fiery kick without diminishing its sweetness.

The mushroom sauté was my next foray. My local market didn’t have lobster mushrooms, but it did have oyster mushrooms, which were at least thematically the same, and maitakes.

Seasoned with sesame oil, ginger root and soy sauce, this lobster variation was bright and boldly flavored, with the mushrooms adding a woodsy earthiness to what’s now my favorite version of surf and turf.

Last, I indulged in a luscious lobster pasta topped with a savory sherry sabayon. It was slightly more labor-intensive than the usual cream sauce, but more ethereal, too.

As an extravagant, final touch, I crowned the pasta with glowing beads of salmon caviar. True, this wasn’t on sale. But I couldn’t resist celebrating how much money I saved on the lobster.

Signing Off and Pigging Out,
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock
www.baconfreak.com

Broiled Lobster With Cajun Butter In Under 30 Minutes!

The New York Times presents a great new lobster recipe that will absolutely blow your mind and taste buds! You’ve got to check this out for yourself!

Broiled Lobster With Cajun Butter Time: 25 minutes
New York Times

Published: December 9, 2008

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons paprika

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3/4 teaspoon onion powder

3/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/8 teaspoon mustard powder

4 live lobsters, about 1 1/2 pounds each.

1. Preheat broiler. Arrange an oven rack 4 inches from heat source. To make Cajun butter, stir together all ingredients except lobsters in a small bowl.

2. Place lobsters in bag in freezer for 15 minutes to slow their metabolism. Place a lobster on its back. Using a sharp knife and quick movement, slice lobster in half lengthwise from head to tip of tail. Grab both sides of shell and split open body, cracking through its hard back. Scoop out its gray-green innards. Use back of a heavy knife to crack open both claws. Repeat with remaining lobsters. (You can have a fishmonger do this for you as long lobster meat is cooked within an hour.)

3. Arrange lobsters in a single layer in a large roasting pan (or use 4 large gratin dishes). Coat body and claw meat generously with Cajun butter. Broil, basting once halfway through with pan juices, until lobster meat is cooked through and slightly charred, about 12 minutes. Remove lobsters from oven. Spoon pan juices over lobsters and serve.

Yield: 4 servings.

Signing Off and Pigging Out,
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock
www.baconfreak.com

Since my last trip to Seattle and tasting for the first time a Mitch Morgan’s whiskey with Bacon Freak Bacon in it, I have been searching for restaurants and wine bars who make an adult drink with bacon in it. To my surprise I have been able to find several great places in which bacon is the star of a drink on their menu! The place we are currently spotlighting is here in California at an old saloon in the Mission District of San Francisco called Elixir. Elixir is owned by H. Joseph Ehrmann.

H has an impressive resume. Not only is he the proprietor of the Elixir, he a beverage/ drink mixologist, which means he works with restaurants and bars to come up with the perfect drink! I think H will be the perfect choice to create the ultimate Bacon Freak drink! H also has some impressive awards including winning an award from GQ Magazine by being selected for the top 20 best cocktails in America.

H has agreed to share his award wining drink with us called the Bloody Elixir:

Ingredients:
1.5 0z of Vodka of your choice
4 shakes each of Dill, White Pepper and Celery Salt
2 shakes each of Worcestershire Sauce and Tabasco Sauce
1 squeeze (approx. .5oz) of Elixir Juice (mixture of olive brine, dill pickle juice and various other pickling juices)
squeeze one piece of Fresh Lemon
2/3 bar spoon of Horseradish
Fill with Tomato Juice
Kosher Dill Pickle Spear
Thick-cut, cooked Bacon slice

Preparation:

Shake well and leave the Bloody in the large tin of a Boston shaker, allowing the last drops to drain. Then Rim the pint glass with Old Bay Seasoning and pour the drink back into the glass.
Garnish with a slice of Bacon and a Dill Pickle. No straw, always drink from the rim. And eat your bacon, damnit.

To visit H’s place visit www.elixirsf.com/

Signing Off and Pigging Out,
Rocco “Boss Hog” Loosbrock
www.baconfreak.com