Text 33800, 100 rader
Skriven 2015-11-29 06:07:54 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Curemonte & jiggety jig 579
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When we'd driven by Curemonte on one of the first days of the
trip, when I'd planned on showing people this rather lovely town 
(where the author Colette had briefly made her headquarters), it
was raining cats and dogs, too bad. Well, we had another okay
day, so at least Swisher got to see it. Lovely little town, a
couple old castles, fairly nice church with several other 
interesting little ones within a few miles. There was a tourist
shop selling local stuff like dandelion liqueur, which I 
threatened to buy I&J for a house gift. but we decided the humor
would be lost (we got him a bottle of Glenlivet 18 from the
Mespoulet store instead at a fairly advantageous price).

Right outside town is the Brasserie Correzienne, for which we 
saw a sign indicating it would be open. So up the hill, where 
another sign said that it would be open at 3. Meanwhile, it was
nice out, and there was a big old tabby cat to play with for
half an hour, so I sat in the middle of the road and played
with her. Periodically the proprietress came out and looked at
me as if I were insane or something.

A little after 3 the brewmaster came out and informed us that 
the bar was in fact going to be closed that day, but he could
open a couple bottles for tasting. Okay, whatever. We got
tastes of the Noir, which I thought toward the top of the 
bitterness scale for the style but otherwise rich and cocoaed
and nice, and the Floreale, which true to its name was light,
floral, and hardly worth the effort; I thought Swisher might
think it was okay, but he objected to the off flavors. To
support local industry we bought a 750 of Noir, Blonde, and
the evocatively named Boris Goudenow, which is modelled after
the Rasputin Stout and the Lagunitas Imperial, i.e., in the
California style (why these highly hopped monsters are often
characterized as Russian, when by all contemporary descriptions 
there was little to no hop character in the 18th and 19th
century originals, I don't know).

-

Dinner with Jerry, a former test pilot and adventurer who has 
gone to seed out here in the hinterlands. Interesting character,
jolly and full of stories and quite deaf, which meant that
conversation was fun and rather noisy.

We started with canapes of those fritons, repurposed with 
sundried tomatoes that - unfortunately to my taste - had been
preserved in fine, flavorful olive oil, so that the oil's
aroma warred with and subdued that of the pork.

Then a light onion soup with Comte cheese with a 5-year-old 
dry Madeira, good combination.

Tarte aux trompettes again, perfect last time, perfect this
time. I think that in honor of it now being the end of the
mushrooms, there might have been a few extra in this one.

A Cotes du Jura Chardonnay vieilles vignes 2010 Cabelier
was bright enough in flavor and rich enough in body not to
fight with this dish. Thinking on the subject, I'd think a
wine with rancio - even a Sherry - might go well.

The main course was a parmentier de cuisses de canard -
sort of like a shepherd's pie made with duck legs and
those potatoes from the back garden - of which Ian is most 
proud. Not being a potatoist, I would have been happy with
plain old duck, but this was still I admit intriguing (i.e.
one step above interesting).

Ian, in an effort to show me what fava beans ought to be
like, had picked some (back garden again) and cooked them
until the inner skins were tender. In my view, that meant 
that the beans themselves were done way soft, and their 
freshness had given way to an English mushy-pea stodginess. 
I guess it all depends on what you grew up with. If I hadn't 
eaten so  much already, I'd have called for a bunch of 
butter but  instead contented myself with a small sample.

Broccolini, cooked bright green and tender but not mushy,
fared better in my opinion.

Clos de los Siete 2009 (Michel Rolland) is an excellent
Argentine Malbec blend in the French style. Malbec, a
filler grape in Bordeaux but more honored elsewhere in
France and abroad, has of course reached its zenith in
Argentina: here we had a pleasant mix of the robustness
that it is known for and the finesse that it lacks in
Bordeaux. This bottle had mellowed well and though still 
fruity enough had just enough tannin to enliven the potato 

Dessert - souffle glacee de citron, textbook, accompanied by
Kracher Chardonnay TBA #3 2001, a gift to Ian by Alois 
Kracher Jr. shortly before his death. The pairing brought
out the acid in the wine rather than the apricottiness that
I love about this wine, which was hugely rich; I have a hard
time imagining what an 8 or 9 would be like (the number is
assigned by the winery according to the unctuousness of the
product, and among normal folks 3 to 4 is considered about
all the palate can take).

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