Hush, Hush, I Think I Heard You Drinking My Wine Now

With some old bread, leftover salmon, radishes, dill, and butter I made these toasts for lunch.

Tonight Jen didn't get home until after 10:00 PM so we had dinner quite late. The original intention was to use the grill but I've discovered that using the grill that long after sundown is a difficult and dangerous proposition. Luckily it has been unseasonably cool and a combination of stove burner and oven sufficed nicely. My butcher specially cut this piece of USDA Prime for me and it was fantastic.

(I'll spare you the detail about its marbling. You're welcome.)



Along with the ribeye I also steamed some corn from corn from Mitchell Farm; baked a potato with sour cream and dill; and made a salad with kale, roma tomatoes from Mountain View Farm, balsamic, olive oil, and shaved Manchego.



For wine I opened this bottle of Deep Purple Lodi Zinfandel. I most purchased this one because of the label. I think they're targeting aged hippies and fans of the musical group such as myself.



I mean, you'd have to be a fan of the group to really get anything about this bottle. First of all they use a font reminiscent of Deep Purple's. Not good Deep Purple, mind you, but rather The Book of Taliesyn era Deep Purple or Deep Purple Mark I for you fans out there. This is not a look that could at all be associated with the Deep Purple that anyone knows or remembers. This is a look that conjures up images of Rod Evans and Nick Simper. This wine doesn't even try to make you be fooled into a Mark III or Mark IV lineup which actually produced some fantastic music but, in the United States anyway, is largely unknown.



No, this is Shades of Deep Purple era, a time where British bands were still trying to figure it out as The Beatles years died down. It was a time when you could have a song on your album titled Why Didn't Rosemary? without a hint of shame.

Luckily the early Deep Purple had a lot of the attention from how terrible it was drawn away by the even more horrific early days of Pink Floyd. It was like both bands had to pay 2-3 years of crappy-song-and-album dues before finally reaching the critical year of 1970 and being able to release albums that anyone would actually want to listen to. Black Sabbath was wise to hold off

I'm sorry, I think I got off on a tangent there. As for the wine it is quite delicious but, sadly, does not really form any coherent message on the label other than generic 60's hippie terminology and reference. It took me about ten minutes to read the super-psychedelic font on the label. Here's what it says:

• Fruit Bomb - I think this was a song by Jefferson Airplane.
  
• Blackberry - What hippies from the 60's now use to communicate with each other on Facebook and post blurry scanned pictures they took at Monterey.
  
• Vanilla Fudge - Another band from the 60's. I think they were loosely implying that this is something you'll taste in this wine but that is clearly a lie. They just wanted to see if anyone would remember Vanilla Fudge. Answer: they still don't.
  
• Exploding - I thought hippies were supposed to be all about peace and love.
  
• Nice & Spicey - Probably the only accurate description of the wine in this list. They should have used a different font to illustrate this point. I suggest Verdana Bold.
  
• Monster Fruit - I have no evidence to support that this is a psychedelic band from the 60's who released albums with an 18 minute instrumental on side B. I also have no reason to believe this is not true.
  
• Black Pepper - Any wine worth its salt has to claim, somewhere, that there are hints of black pepper. Somehow they missed "cherry notes." I'm sure they were kicking themselves as this went to print.
  
• Hedonistic - Reminding hippies of their hayday.
  
• Cinnamon & Clover Over and Over - Something that wine snobs (some of whom are former hippies) will tell you they taste in a wine to seem superior to you. Don't worry, they're just lying. The art of being a wine snob is to learn as many of these stupid things as possible. Want to seem like you know about wine? Just tell people you taste tobacco and they'll cover their gaping mouth with the palm of their hand while silently holding you in reverence.
  
• Drink Me! With Pizza, Burgers, and Brownies - And this is where it all breaks down. In case anyone was curious what country this wine was made in they need look no further than this line.
  

To top it off, on the back of the bottle the wine asks: "Are you experienced?" While keeping with the hippie theme this just distracts me as it is not a reference to Deep Purple at all. I think they should have saved this for their sereis of Jimi Hendrix themed wines. Here are some suggestions for names:

• Manic Grape-Pressin'
  
• Third Grape From The Sun
  
• The Wind Cries Riesling
  
• Red House
  
• Spanish Rioja Magic
  
• Castles Made of Sangiovese
  
• Little Zin
  
• Voodoo Chilean Malbec
  
• and, of course, Foxy Lady.
  

Deep Purple Wines, if you are reading . . . those are free! Get to work on this, please.

Coho Ho and a Bottle of . . . Radishes?

Okay, quite possibly the worst post title yet.

This is the part of summer that I love, the part where it forgets to be 100 degrees every day and settles down into the seventies and gives me a break, no need for air conditioning, and the ability to turn the oven on without wanting to die.



I started off by making these little baguette slices with butter, sliced radishes, and dill. I hear from most people that they hate radishes. I seem to remember really liking radishes as a kid when my parents planted them in the garden. This was probably the only thing from the garden that I would eat other than the corn and strawberries.

This is one of my favorite things to make in the summer though I usually get around to making it a little earlier in the season.



My fishmonger (the one who, it turns out, gives me facts about fish that are greatly misleading!) recommended this coho salmon. I smeared it with Dijon mustard, fresh dill, salt, pepper, and sprinkled some panko bread crumbs on it before searing it in a pan and finishing it in the oven.

I made a kale salad with Hepworth Farm tomatoes, dill, and lemon as an accompaniment. It was a fantastic dinner which was only to be topped by ice cream at Longford's. Jen got the same flavor that her father thought was "disgusting."

We really can't make heads or tails of that assessment as it is, quite empirically, delicious. It's ice cream! When's the last time you had "disgusting" ice cream?

Hake: Land Astronauts

Today I got some Hake which just came off the boat. What boat? I'm not sure. My fish guy just says they come off of boats. I'm not much of an outdoorsman. I just assume that hake are a species of super-advanced fish which have mastered sea travel aboard boats and wear masks filled with water so that they can breath on land.



So, in my mind, hake are kind of like Krang the Conqueror. I think most marine biologists would be shocked to see how accurate my estimate of hake is. And to think, I didn't even have to spend $160,000 to go to marine biology school or wherever it is that you learn about fish and oceans and stuff.

I should change my last name to be more reflective of my skills and knowledge. From now on I will be Nathan Bridger.



I seasoned up the hake with some chili, cumin, lime, tequila, cilantro, and cayenne, then seared it in a pan and roasted it until just done. I served it up on a tortilla with kale, the remaining corn from our scallops the other night, some avocado, salsa, cilantro, and manchego cheese.

Every time I combine tequila and lime (outside of a margarita) I feel a little guilty. Mostly because it seems like something that should be on an Applebee's menu specialty created by a celebrity chef like Tyler Florence or Guy Fieri. To think, if this blog gets about six or seven million more followers I may be able to have my own Applebee's menu items coming soon!

Be on the look out for Nathan Bridger's Ultimate Chili Cheese Jalapeno Tequila Piquillo Pepper Popper Sliders!

Captain Oxheart

That tomatoes of Mountain View Farm in Kent, Connecticut continue to be the best I've had this season. The latest variety of choice is the variety named (not for the squeamish) the oxheart.





While roughly the same size, shape, and meatiness an actual oxheart it is comes along with far less of the guilt and revulsion associated with eating organ meats. Hearts are not tops on my list but I far prefer them to brains. I have a strict rule against eating anything that anyone (or anything) has been thinking with. This is why my adventures with Indiana Jones have been decidedly kept to a minimum.



The oxheart tomato is a fantastic tomato for slicing and eating au naturale. I paired this one with some Gouda Parrano, tired of the typical mozzarella accompaniment.

Along with some fresh sourdough bread this was pretty much all we had for dinner. Actually we had something else but it was just some amalgamation of leftovers that followed a tough act.

Just hoping I can eat enough of these during their incredibly short season so that I am sick enough of them to get me through the remaining 48 weeks of the year. Wish me luck.

I Say Tomato

The window for tomatoes, actual delicious tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, is a small one. As we do every year we are taking advantage of sampling the tri-state area's finest tomatoes with every chance we get.

As a child I hated tomatoes. It wasn't really until my teenage years when my father decided to plant some tomato plants out in the yard that, I really developed a taste for them. I think it was because those tomatoes were delicious. They were red (instead of white), soft (instead of crunchy) and could be enjoyed with nothing other than salt and pepper.

I often find myself hating tomatoes as an adult whenever I'm greeted with a disgusting white and crunchy tomato on a sandwich. I'm much happier to just omit the tomato rather than slice up these abominations just for the sake of having something red on a sandwich.



I got some grate cherry tomateos from Hepworth Farms which may have been the finest cherry tomatoes I've ever had in my life. Along with some kale, feta, and olives I made this salad which was thoroughly enjoyable.

These tomatoes are grown on the Hudson river, about 90 miles from us by Amy Hepworth. She may enjoy eating maggots but she can grow one hell of a tomato.

You keep eating those maggots, soul sister!



I took yesterday's leftover heirloom tomatoes along with some corn from Mitchell Farm in Southbury, CT; bacon; sea scallops; and bacon. This is one of my favorite flavor combinations in the entire world.



We broke with the whole local theme by importing our wine from Chile but what is one to do?