I had a blast this weekend hosting my wine group for a champagne tasting. We tasted blind in four flights: NV champagne vs NV sparklers of the world; single-varietals vs blends; vintage/tete de cuvee; and rose. It's instructive to taste blind, because it trains you to use your senses, divorced as much as possible from expectation. When the labels are revealed, I'm always surprised.
The Scharffenberger NV was one of these surprises, outpowering the NV champagne, cava, and (surprisingly awful) prosecco di Valdobbiadene against which we tasted it. The other great bargain we found was the Graham Beck NV Rose from South Africa, like the Scharffenberger a pinot noir-dominated blend, with a lovely strawberry bouquet. Both retail for about $16.
On the ludicrously pricy end was the spicy, authoritative Krug NV (on my tasting sheet, the only thing I wrote about it was "I LOVE THIS" and Ethan said that when he tried it, he thought, "This is what money tastes like"), although it was edged out for me by the more feminine 1996 Henriot, full of honeyed pear, marzipan, and flowers. This was probably the wine of the night for me: Thanks to Blanc & Rouge in DUMBO for surrendering one of their last remaining bottles. Other stars were the Lallement NV Grand Cru, which had a really delicious and interesting seawater finish, and the fabulous, brambly Camille Saves NV Grand Cru Rose, both available at Chambers Street Wines, which is committed to naturally farmed wines by small grower-producers.
With the NVs, I served a smoked fish course, using a tip I got from the Bargain Biatch about the fabulous Friday morning open factory at Acme Fish in Williamsburg. I served the haul of wholesale salmon on blini from Diane Forley's excellent recipe. With the next two flights, we had lobster bisque and lobster rolls, which I've already blogged here. With the last flight of rosé, I got advice from my buddy Sascha at Murray's, who recommended Nettle Meadow Kunik, a sublime bloomy-rind cheese made from Jersey cow cream and goat milk, and the meaty and gooey Langres. We spread them on my mom's brown bread, which is probably the best thing I know how to cook. Here's a loaf, modelled by a cute boy.
RUTHIE'S BREAD
This is the taste of my childhood. It's not a recipe, more like a method. Makes two large loaves.
Into 4 cups warm water, dissolve two packets active dry yeast. The water should be warm but not hot, so as not to kill the yeast. Add a big pinch of sugar and let sit ten minutes, until foamy. (If it doesn't foam, your yeast is too old and you need to start over.)
Add 1/4 cup honey, 1/2 cup molasses, 2 Tbs caraway seeds, 3/4 Tbs salt, 1 cup oats, and 1 cup rye flour. Stir well.
Now here's the part where it's not really a recipe, because I never measure. Add whole wheat flour by the cupful, stirring after each addition, until it gets so stiff that you can no longer stir it with your wooden spoon. (I have no idea how much flour this amounts to. Maybe 6 to 8 cups? UPDATE: just made this again and i think it's at least 12 cups ) Once it gets too stiff to stir, turn it out onto a board that has been coated with white flour. The bread will still absorb a ton (2-ish cups?) of flour as you knead it. Switch to white flour for the kneading, which will take about 20 minutes and will be complete when the bread is warm, elastic, and only mildly sticky. When you poke it with a finger, the hole should close up. When you pinch it, it should feel sort of like an earlobe. It's really impossible to over-knead when you do it by hand, though you can over-knead with a mixer.
Clean your mixing bowl a little (some stuck-on flour won't hurt), and then put in a big glug of olive oil or walnut oil. Put the dough in the oil and smear it around so the oil gets all over the sides, then flip the bread over so the top of it has oil on it, too. Cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place till doubled in size. Punch down and let rise again.
Pinch off half the dough and knead it for a few minutes, then shape it into a tight round. Repeat with the other half. Place them on oiled baking sheets and let them "proof" in a warm place for 30 minutes or so. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 50 minutes to an hour, rotating the loaves so they cook evenly. Make sure your sheets are thick or else double them up, so the bottom doesn't burn. The bread is done when a tap on the bottom makes a hollow sound. Overdone is better than underdone, because you can always cut off a burnt crust but you can't fix it if it's tigey (a word in my family's idiosncratic Yiddish for moist and sticky and underdone bread). Never cut bread while hot, as that will let the heat escape and make it tigey.
**
After our party disbursed - they were professionals, so they left at a reasonable hour, unlike jazz musicians, who never leave your house until the sun rises or all the bottles are gone or there is a bitter, party-ending argument about Wynton Marsalis - Ethan read me this passage from At Lady Molloy's, which is the fourth volume in our favorite series of novels ever, A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell.
The characters, assembled in the country mansion of Erridge in the mid-30's:
Our narrator, Nick Jenkins, a writer
Quiggin - Nick's schoolmate, a Marxist writer who's been cozying up to...
Erridge (AKA Alf) - an elderly, miserly, Marxist Earl
Smith - the alcoholic butler
Susan Tolland - Erridge's sister, who has just announced her engagement
Isobel - another sister
Mona - Erridge's girlfriend
"I grant it may not be my place to say so," Quiggin went on, switching at the same time to a somewhat rougher delivery. "But you know, Alf, you really ought to celebrate rightly in a bottle of champagne. Now, don't you think there is some bubbly left in that cellar of yours?"
This speech astonished me, not because there was anything surprising in Quiggins' desire for champagne, but on account of a changed attitude towards his host. Erridge's essentially ascetic type of individualism, concerned with the mass rather than the individual, and reinforced by an aristocratic, quite legitimate desire to avoid vulgar displays, had no doubt moved into that particular sphere of parsimony defined by Lovell as "upper-class stinginess." To demand champagne was deliberately to inflame such responses in Erridge...
Erridge was undoubtedly taken aback, although not, I think, on the ground that the suggestion came from Quiggin. Erridge did not traffic in individual philosophy. It was an idea that was important to him, not its originator. The whole notion of drinking champagne because your sister was engaged was, in itself, obviously alien to him; alien both to his temperament and ideals. Champagne no doubt represented to his mind a world he had fled. Now the wine was presented as a form of rite or observance, almost, indeed, as a restorative or tonic after hearing dangerously exciting news, he seemed primarily concerned with the question whether or not any champagne remained in the house...
"I really cannot reply to that question offhand," Erridge said - and one caught a faint murmur of ancestral voices answering for the Government some awkward question raised by the Opposition - "As you know I hardly ever drink anything myself, except an occassional glass of beer - certainly never champagne. To tell the truth, I hate the stuff. We'd better ask Smith."
Smith, as it happened, appeared at that moment with coffee. Already he showed signs of being nervously disturbed by the arrival of the girls, his hands shaking visibly as he held the tray; so much so that some of the liquid spilled from the pot.
"Smith, is there any champagne left in the cellar?"
Erridge's voice admitted the exceptional nature of the inquiry. He asked almost apologetically. Even so, the shock was terrific. Smith started so violently that the coffee cups rattled on the tray. It was evident that we were now concerned with some far more serious matter than the earlier pursuit of sherry. Recovering himself with an effort, Smith directed a stare of hatred at Quiggin, at once revealed by some butler's instict as the ultimate cause of this unprecedented demand. The colorless, unhealthy skin of his querelous face, stretched like a pale rubber mask over the bones of his features, trembled a little.
"Champagne, m'lord?"
"Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle."
Smith's face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His bearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word "champagne" used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question - these ravings, almost - might mean. Nothing good could come of it. This was a disastrous way to talk. That was his unspoken message so far as champagne was concerned. After a long pause, he at last shook his head.
"I doubt if there is any champagne left, m'lord."
"Oh, I'm sure there is, Smith, if you go and look," said Susan. "You see it is to celebrate my engagement, Smith. I'm going to get married."
Another twitch passed quickly, almost like a flash of lightning, over Smith's face. I had by no means taken a fancy to him, either here or at the Jeavonses', but it was impossible not to feel some sympathy for his predicament...
Erridge might have no wish to drink champagne, but he had also clearly decided that things had gone too far for the idea to be abandoned without loss of face on his own part. Smith, too, must finally have realized that, for he now set down the coffee tray and abandoned the room in full retreat, moving like a man without either enthusiasm or hope...
(The assembled guests argue about various matters for a few pages)
This crossfire continued until the return of Smith. He brought with him a bottle, which he banged down quite fiercely on the table. It was Mumm, 1906: a magnum. Nothing could have bourne out more thoroughly Erridge's statement about his own lack of interest in wine. It was, indeed, a mystery that this relic of former high living should have survived. Some latent sense of its lofty descent must from time to time have dominated Smith's recurrent desire, and held him off. I could not help reflecting how different must have been the occassions when its fellows had been consumed; if, in truth, we were to consume this, which seemed not yet absolutely certain.
"Just the one left," said Smith.
He spoke in anguish, although not without resignation. Erridge hesitated. Almost as much as Smith, he seemed to dislike the idea of broaching the wine for the rest of us to drink. A moral struggle was raging within him.
"I don't know whether I really ought not to keep it," he said. "If there is only one. I mean, if someone or other turned up who-"
He found no individual worthy enough to name, because he stopped suddenly short.
"Oh, do let's, Alf," said Mona.
She had hardly spoken since the arrival of Susan and Isobel Tolland. Her voice sounded high and strained, as if she were suffering strong nervous tension.
"Oh yes," said Erridge. "You're right, Mona. We'll break its neck and celebrate your engagement, Sue."
He was undoubtedly proud of fetching from somewhere deeply embedded in memory this convivial phrase; also cheered by the immediate, and quite general, agreement that now was the moment to drink so mature - so patriarchal - a vintage. Smith disappeared again. After another long delay he returned with champagne glasses, which had received a perfunctory rub to dispell dust accumulated since at least the time of Erridge's succession. Then, with the peculiar deftness of the alcoholic, he opened the bottle. The explosion was scarcely audible. He poured the wine, a stream of deep dull gold, like wine in a fairy story, at the same time offering an almost inaudible, though certainly generous, appreciation of the occassion by muttering: "I'll be drinking your ladyship's health myself later this evening." Susan thanked him. Erridge, who had himself refused a glass, shifted his feet about uneasily. Traces of the Mumm's former excellence remained, like a few dimly remembered words of some noble poem sunk into oblivion, or a once famous statue of which only a chipped remnant still stands.
