A Standby

Liz got accepted into grad-school yesterday so we celebrated with one of her favorite meals and one of my most often used from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian."

Pesto "Cheeseburger"

I actually serve this more like a steak than a cheeseburger topped with a balsamic tomato sauce. It's got walnuts, basil, fresh breadcrumbs, eggs, and parmesan making is a hearty and tasty dish. All that I added to the meal was some parmesean focaccia from the Depot Town Sourdough Bakery.

I've been on a real Rhone kick lately and I was pleased with this mostly Granache red from Chatau Pesquie. (And in a new decanter from Seth!)

It was nice and earthy with big luscious tannins. The decent amount of Syrah added a nice jammy mouthfeel with notes of pepper, dark cherry, tobacco, and a bit of black liquorish. It was a good food wine, but stood on it's own quite well.

In other news, I've been setting up some shows now to get myself back into playing Liz and I are playing on both June 6th in Ypsi and June 19th in Jackson. I've also been playing with the band Fields of Industry who have been one of my favorites for a while now. I am really exited to be playing music again.

Until next time.

Last Night's Dinner

Ok, so since James said it wouldn't be pretentious to make this a food and wine blog, here we go.

Last night I made an herbed risotto with a balsamic roasted eggplant/tomato topping.


I am getting more into risotto. It's so creamy and makes a great base or side to so many things like vegetables, fish, or poultry. I know the traditional gourmet herb is saffron, but let's be honest, I can't afford it. Here I used parsley, garlic, thyme, and anise. I also used anise in the eggplant and tomato topping. I've found anise works really well with eggplant. They both have really strong flavors but seem to cut each other when cooked together. And I garnished it with some basil from our new basil plant. It was a great entree.

The Wine was a Vidal Blanc from Sand Hill Crane Vineyards which is in Michigan, only about a half hour away. I was originally looking for a Sauvignon Blanc, but I was happy to see that this Michigan vineyard decided to use a lesser known and more suitible grape to the region rather than bank on a name that people recognize. I results were decent. I was expecting it to resemble Sauvignon Blanc, but tasted and went down much more like a Chardonnay. Smooth and almost buttery, not the crisp feel I expected. Definite American oak, and floral notes with a bit of vanilla. Overall the creamyness went well with the risotto. It was a fine table wine, but nothing too exiting going on.

I'm going to try and do this about once a week. Let me know if it gets annoying.

Let's give this one more try.

I am a terrible blogger.

So I got a new job a couple weeks ago. I'm now a "community integration coordinator" for homeless people in washtenaw county. It's going pretty well.

I really want to get back into music. It's been too long since I have played a show, and I'm really missing it. Lukcily I am starting to play with Fields of Industry who have been one of my favorite bands in the state for a long time. But I'm also trying to set up Segernomics again, maybe rename it, reorganize it, and reinvent it a bit, but I want to go back to acoustic. I think it's where I do my best stuff.

Would it be totally pretentious of me to turn this is into a food and wine blog? Because I have definitely thought about it. I think that would be pretentious.

btw, this is public now, so you can stick it in your rss/google reader if you feel so inclined.