OK. I'm back after a prolonged absence. Not that anyone particularly cares, but I would like to hold forth on a couple of recipes, and one activity in particular.

What has been the reason for my absence? Army duty. I've been confronted with a lack of cooking equipment, facilities, and opportunity...Hence my absence from the blogosphere.

Anyway...here goes. I've been in Texas for the last 5 months. And I have crossed into the redneck world (RR - you're close to being fired here...). Back in September, I went on my first hunting trip. The uninitiated would think that I was on some sort of appalling, sell-out expedition. Wrong. I thought this through, long and hard. I wanted to go hunting. With real Texans. And I did. And I wasted doves. Those doves fed my friends, with tasty, gamey meals.

It was one of the most beautiful days I spent outdoors in my life. The doves flew over, and we tried to get them as best we could. The more seasoned among us maxed out legally soon, but those neophytes there (myself prominently included among them) needed some more shots. So we spent the afternoon shooting at passing doves, got a few, and retired for steaks and drinks. One of the better days of my life....

Anyway. So there I was. Back in Virginia, that is. For a couple of weeks of leave. Turns out that Uncle Sam couldn't afford my salary for a couple of weeks, and I was only too happy to take some time off...

What was I to do with all of this free time? Well, I nailed three recipes that any of my intrepid readership could handle...

1. Jaime Oliver's Pike Perch on Beet Salad
2. Julia Child's Bouef a la Catalane
3. David Rocco's Wild Boar Stew

Let me tell you. If you have any of these dishes with proper ingredients and care, they will blow away any top restaurant you can imagine. Trust me. I've been to Per Se, and others, and wasted my money there.

By the way, I believe the Michelin starring system is screwed up. I went to Le Grand Vefour in Paris in   January, 2010, when it was rated at 2 stars. I went to Per Se in New York in the same year, when it was rated at 3 stars. I must honestly say, Le Grand Vefour, and Chef Guy Martin, blew away Per Se. In spite of the rating. In any case, give me Le Grand Vefour any day. And trust me, I am one true asshole of a critic. Per Se left me scratching my head...what was the big deal? Le Grand Vefour destroyed in a three course lunch what Per Se tried in a 9 course dinner.

Alors, Guy Martin, felicitations, et vous avez gagne....Vive Le Grand Vefour!!

Bonsoir, tout le monde...The Watchful Wino has returned to furnish the world with some relatively new and well ruminated-over musings. It's been a couple of weeks, so first of all, let me offer my apologies to the addicted readership that reads my blog. I got stuck on travel for a while and only recently returned to the swamps of Northern Virginia. But what welcoming swamps they are...

As usual, I digress. So, what would everyone like to hear about this evening? I've only got a couple of amazing travel stories, excluding my taxpayer funded year in Mesopotamia, to regal everyone with, so I thought that I would turn to a more practical topic tonight. What might that be, you ask?

Intimidation. My advice to budding foodies: ignore it. Give it the proverbial finger. Don't let it get you down.

So There I Was. In Chicago, that is, just a couple of days back this time, staring at a rack of elk that my dad had dropped quite a dime on. I was to prepare it according to the recipe in Jacques Pepin's recently released chef-d'oeuvre, which involved creating, from scratch, both the marinade and the sauce, and I could not overcook the elk. And not overdoing the elk was quite a task. It's really easy to overdo venison, as the meat is extremely lean (the same goes for other lean meats, like bison and kangaroo - really - I've also done kangaroo).

I was looking at a serious amount of cooking if I was to avoid abject failure; about 8-10 hours, by my calculation. And here comes that intimidation word. Just a year back I wouldn't have bothered. But this time, I tackled it head on. Why not? There was quite a bit of slicing and dicing of vegetables to create the marinade, the pain and anguish of pouring half a bottle of great vino (used a cotes-de-ventoux) into it, the addition of some red-wine vinegar, an assortment of spices, and finally the act of heating it all up. Done. In went the Elk (RR - was that courtesy of you :-)? I planned to marinate it for about 8 hours.

Time to kick it and quaff some high-quality grape-derived liquid, right? Wrong. I had to make the sauce from scratch. I actually had to buy some beef bones to make this. Brown them. Slice and dice a host of veggies once again. In it all went to heat up, along with some liquid. But still not time to kick it; there was still at least one side to consider.

If you ever serve venison, I suggest serving a celeriac and potato puree along with it. It is an excellent accompaniment, and it did not disappoint in this case. So I set about doing just that, which actually was relatively simple.

The result was pure heaven. The venison was perfect, flavored by the marinade and cooked to a crawling-off-your-plate temperature. A stellar Vacqueryas helped washed it down, and that celeriac-potato puree was just heavenly alongside. You can view a shot of the end result above.

So if you ever need advice on a venison recipe, post a comment here and I'll be sure to get back to you. Stay tuned for more travel related culinary fun in a week or two. Until then.

Loose!

So, I feel that my readers have been deprived. The watchful wino is therefore back, with more material. As promised, today's post will cover the sojourn I made with a Marine buddy to the Tour de France, 2009.

It was Lance Armstrong's comeback year, and I was not about to miss it. The idea got started when I realized, what is stopping you from going? Nothing. Just get the plane ticket, drive to Mont Ventoux for the pen-ultimate stage of the race, where all would be decided, drink some good wine, and go from there :-)

So that's what we did. My friend had a travel agent acquaintance in California. She graciously got us a wicked price on Air France, and I just needed to send her a check, which I promptly did.

We showed up in Paris, my home away from home. Spent a day there, got a train to Marseille, rented a car (a Renault Picasso diesel), and we were on our way through the southern French countryside to a place called Vers (Pont-Du-Gard). We showed up there after getting a bit lost and taking in the amazing scenery.

Upon arrival, there was a group of brits, aussies, and new zealanders quaffing the local wine, and they invited us to partake. It just so happened that we had procured about 4 bottles ourselves at the local Carrefour, the french version of Walmart, and we pulled those out, along with the corks, and had at it.

I pontificated on international affairs for a while, convinced all concerned that the US was not as nefarious as they had been led to believe, and we parted ways for an early morning trek out to the Pont-Du-Gard (the famous, ancient roman aqueduct in the area - see above for a shot).

After exploring there, it was time to set out for Mont Ventoux (le Geant de Provence - above) for an overnight in the car, in preparation for the race the next day.

We showed up for the race. Without cooking facilities, we were left to munch on French saussicon sec and a few bottles of local vino. Both, along with my ability to speak French, contributed to the pandemonium of the evening (that and a about 1 million other people who showed up to watch the race).

The next morning, with not too much of the Irish flu abounding, we undertook the treck up the 18km mountain. Made it about 15k before the Gendarmerie coraled everyone to the side of the road; the race was approaching. And they wizzed by. We saw the eventual winner, Alberto Contador, Lance himself, and the Schleck brothers ride by the Chalet Reynard, where we were posted, and then it was over. An amazing experience.

After which we promptly got lost on the way down. No worries. I used my language skills to hitch a ride with the Gendarmes back to our car. So sirens blaring and light flashing, I ended up with a police escort, door-to-door service :-)

Spent the rest of the vacation on the beach at Juan-les-Pins, and headed reluctantly back to Charles de Gaulle airport. Again, an experience I highly recommend, if you ever get the chance.

More to follow. And in case you were wondering, the signature Loose! I typically close with is a reference to the English longbow men of old...

Loose!

Ok. I"m back, after a brief respite.

I've got a lot going on now, so it is tough to post. But I do have a commitment to my readership, so here goes.

I've got a lot of material forthcoming, so it was difficult decision to decide what I'd write about today.

Let's take it back to 1998. France, to be exact. So There I was... :-)

A hostel in Juan-Les-Pins, to be exact. I was freezing my rear end off on a bunk with no blanket, waiting for the next day's events to go down. And what were those, you ask? How about the Monaco Grand Prix, for starters...Really. No joke. The world's premier Formula 1 event. And I was going...

After a short train ride, me and my compadres detrained in Monaco, spent a little time walking around, and found this hill from where we could observe the race for a small pittance. So we dug in on that hillside. Created earthen benches for ourselves to sit and observe the action with the Italian rednecks in attendance (they're into Ferrari, after all...cool people :-)

So Mika Hakkinen of Finland won the race, which we saw go down from our great vantage point over the finish line. He was of the McClaren team, which was dominant at the time.

And how do my usual subjects of food and wine fit in here? Well I recall having some sausage and or/cheese, washed down by a couple of bottles of local vino, as well as some Pastis, perhaps... :-) Good stuff!!!

So we left after the race was over, and promptly almost got run over by Prince Albert (pretty sure it was him, due to the Rolls, police escort, hot blonde riding shotgun, and the fact that they were not stopping for anyone or anything...)

Like this post? Stay tuned for my next one, when I will regal you with tales of my trip to the Tour de France, Leg 20, Mont Ventoux, 2009, when Lance Armstrong rode past me at a pretty good clip during Comeback 2.0 :-)

Until next time...

Loose!

Up the Mekong

Well, it certainly has been a while! In light of that fact that just won't go away, the Watchful Wino is back. My prolonged absence can be explained by my recent efforts to track the Refined Redneck down using several methods that the man himself taught me, but it seems he cannot be outfoxed.

A picture for your enjoyment:

After tearing apart my memory banks to bring you remembrances of another blogworthy culinary experience, it seems that I have located just the one. We have to go back a long way for this one, 2001, June of that year I believe. This one is wicked, and bear in mind that all this seemed completely normal at the time...

So There I Was. Siagon, Vietnam at the aforementioned time, with a buddy of mine from my master's program at the London School of Economics and Political Science. We had decided to check out Asia during our break rather than heading back to the States.

That was a wild trip. We started out flying Air Qatar from London to Bangkok, via Doha, Qatar. To celebrate the fact that Air Qatar turned out not to be a dry airline, as we had expected for logical reasons, we ended up having a few and getting a bit tanked during the London-Doha leg of the flight. We spoke to one another in obnoxious German in order to avoid giving Americans a worse reputation than they already had at the time...that reputation was enhanced when my buddy ended up catching some Z's face-down on the floor of the Doha airport. Got a great pic of that, but not for this venue :-)

After spending some time in Ko Samui, Thailand (the highlight of which was a bungee-catapult that I did - interstellar experience), we made our way to Vietnam. We had a certain apprehension going there, which was based on the assumption that they would not like Americans too much. Something about a fairly large war we had participated in there in the not-too-distant past.

Well, it turns out we were wrong. They were very friendly. We therefore decided to see if we could arrange to do a one-night home stay with a Vietnamese family somewhere out in the sticks. And it was much easier to arrange than you might expect. A simple trip into the local travel agency, a few inquiries, and then a place and time to meet. We showed up at the appointed location at the appointed time, and sure enough, there was our transportation.

We proceeded by van outside of Saigon for about an hour or so, maybe more, where we transferred to a rickshaw. Our host was waiting for us on the rickshaw, complete with a growler of locally made beer that we promptly started to quaff. After trucking around on the rickshaw for a while, we came to a boat landing.

And then it hit us. The place we were going was not accessible by road. Well...it seemed to make sense, being that we were in the Mekong Delta by now. So without a moment's hesitation, me and my two LSE compadres hopped on the boat along with our host, and we proceeded up the river for about 45 minutes - one hour or so.

Then we pulled up to his place. Riverfront property. It had no plumbing, but it did seem to have electricity. And our host's family turned out to be really nice. They had a kid who was learning English who was eager to converse with us.

And then they rolled out the dinner. It must have been their annual best, prepared only for important holidays. We consumed what we could of it, along with some rice, all washed down by that locally made, completely fresh beer. And then we watched some Hong-Kong based TV with them for a couple of hours before turning in to sleep on some elevated, hardwood tables decked with bamboo mats. What a great time that was!

Then the local propaganda boat came cruising by with the Vietnamese government's version of the day's news (a US Navy plane had just made an emergency landing at a Chinese military base; no one in the area was too pleased about that...). After waking up to that news, we boarded our sampan and headed back up the river, into the rising sun. What an amazing sight that was. There We Were, having just had an other-worldly experience, and it became even more so with the sun glimmering off of the Mekong as we proceed back towards Saigon amid an armada of other sampans...I suggest you try it out if you ever get the chance... :-)

More soon.

Loose!

Hello everyone. I'm back again, up early and ready to head to the gym for one of my 4-5 weekly work outs. The Watchful Wino works out? Well, yes, I'm afraid so. I've found through laborious experience that if I am to consume the sacred beverage in the quantities I desire without inflating like a hot-air balloon, the calories have to go somewhere. In short, the old must move on to make room for the new...

I've been patrolling my memory banks to bring my valued readership something interesting to read, perhaps even motivational enough for the bolder among them to try their hands at the same sort of shenanigans. After all, the world of good wine and cuisine can be intimidating to the novice...I was once there myself. My advice to anyone on the fence about trying their hand at learning about wines and the preparation of great food is simply to dive right in. Your first couple of recipes will likely be disastrous, but you'll get the hang of it fairly quickly. As for wine, there are actually quite a few places to go where the staff is expert and eager to help out; people in the industry generally know that the snob factor is not likely to help them move many bottles...

Anyway, So There I Was. Chicago, IL, that is, to celebrate Christmas with my family this past year (2011). It turns out that I've gotten a reputation and was therefore on the hook to prepare the Christmas dinner for everyone. Great. Once again, a chance to shine, or alternatively a chance to fall flat on my face to the sound of my family's guffaws. Sure, they'd find amusement in my failure, as most were half-in-the-bag by the time dinner rolled around anyway.

So, what to do? Well, I'm not the type to shy away from a challenge. I put my helmet on and stepped off. Having acquired the 12 pound turkey from D'Artagnan, as well as chestnuts and fresh mushrooms, I was already in really good shape to prepare something great. Burgundian Turkey was the recipe, and all I needed to get into the zone of preparation was a little of my favorite grape-based product. It just so happens that my family has a tradition of uncorking the bubbly well before noon on Christmas, so that was taken care of, and I could get down to business.

I set about roasting the turkey, braising the chestnuts in milk before roasting them, and preparing my fresh (i.e. not dried), just-off-the-boat mushrooms from France. The kicker was a red-wine gravy using the turkey's own giblet and pan juices, with a bit of creme-fraiche mixed in. Here's a shot of the end result:

As you might imagine, the dinner approached the interstellar. My dad had procured a Hermitage and a Cornas to go with the turkey, chestnuts, and mushrooms. I was literally shocked at how good it was, all from a recipe that I found on www.dartagnan.com.

At the end of the evening, there was a bit of a pickle. We had quite a bit of that oh-so-tasty red-wine/creme-fraiche gravy left over. It would have been a sin to let it go to waste. Someone needed to take one for the team. I'm usually that guy, so I volunteered, and quickly pounded the gravy, straight from the sauce boat. My was that good.

On that note, I'm beginning to hear the hum of the Refined Redneck's latest boomerang message. He's telling me to get my rear-end over to the gym. As he's not one who likes to have his orders disobeyed, I'd better comply. Have a great weekend everyone, and until next time.

Loose!

Hello again everyone. The Watchful Wino is back, up before the sun rises in his part of the world to bring all of you some fresh musings to have along with your morning joe. Apparently I did not have enough of my favorite grape-based product last night, which is why I'm up early...Got to work on that...

Actually, I was woken up by the sound of a courier pigeon landing on the couch where I happened to be sprawled for the evening. It was carrying a note from the Refined Redneck, explaining his recent absence. The note simply alerted me to await a long distance, Crocodile Dundee-esque boomerang message, which just came in. Apparently, RR is out tracking varmints to serve up at our next shin-dig, but he sends his regards. He can't wait to write his first post. The dude does have a lot of nature and cuisine-related material to get off of his chest...

Anyway, I was thinking about what I should talk about. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a seriously good dinner with friends over the weekend. I forgot to mention the wines that accompanied the meal. Upon realizing this, I was aghast at the oversight, and moved to rectify the situation as quickly as possible. So here they are:

• 2004 Fontaine-Gagnard Volnay Premier Cru
• 2009 Mauro Molino Nebbiolo

Both get a five furs rating, as far as RR and I are concerned, though a word of caution. Neither is a wine that goes without good food, so if you just try them au naturel, as it were, you will likely not like them. But with food, they clear the stratosphere, I assure you.

The recollection brought memories of another grape-related experience rushing back, and I thought that I'd tell you about it. So There I Was.

Dallas Fort-Worth International Airport that is. I was getting off the plane on the first day of my 2 weeks of environmental leave from my deployment to Iraq, and I had to negotiate a gauntlet of enthusiastic, cheering Americans and Veterans who were there to greet us. If you were one of those people, you can only guess at how good it made us feel to see you there, so thanks.

Fast forward a few days, and my Dad and I put on our helmets and headed to the local wine shop. We had some serious eating to do. I naturally gravitated to the section of the shop in which bottles were kept under lock and key. And there they were. A 1986 Chateau Margaux, and a 1986 Chateau Lafite, each just over 18 years old. The perfect age for such wine, according to at least some opinions.

We somehow convinced the proprietor to part with them and headed to the nearest Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. I was there with my Dad and two of his closest friends, one of whom is a Vietnam War Air Force Special Operations veteran...it was very cool to have all 3 of them there. The Air Force vet is actually not doing so hot now, and he's a real mensch, so I wanted to give him a big shout out here. I'm sure that Charlie's life was made quite a bit more difficult due to his efforts. Mr. P, we're all pulling for you...

But I digress. I ordered a rib-eye, cooked to a crawling-off-your-plate temperature. At which point we paid the corking fee and cracked open the two premier cru Bordeaux. And having them was like an out-of-body experience. The boldness, combined with the suppleness and subtlety brought about by the land, expert wine-making that is the product of hundreds of years of experience, and 18 years of care after birth made those wines mind-blowing, to say the least. My own preference was for the Margaux, but others at the table preferred the Lafite. Either way, it's hard to go wrong with those. So if you are looking for a transcendental experience and have a few bucks laying around, I'd suggest either one of those Chateaux.

Alas, the night came to an end, and only the memories remained. Except the corks from those two bottles, which went into my fleece pocket and back to Iraq with me, where they stayed until the legendary 1st Cavalry Division's first deployment there drew to a close. Every now and then, I'd reach into that pocket and rub those two corks together. And for a moment, everything was good. And as Willem Dafoe says in Platoon, "Feeling Good is Good Enough...".

Until next time.

Loose!