Robert Young Estate - 2007 Alexander Valley Chardonnay

Robert Young Estate is quickly becoming one of my overall favorite wineries. I have enjoyed all of their wines that I have had the opportunity to taste. This weekend I shared one of my latest club shipments with the group to sample the 2007 Alexander Valley Chardonnay. I had enjoyed the 2005 Chardonnay the first time I tasted it, however, the last bottle I had seemed to have lost all its fruit and I was just getting too much oak. I didn’t think it held up very well over time. The 2007 had the ripe tropical fruit nose that I love, with nice body and toasty oak finish. Chelle opened up her 2006 Chardonnay and that still had the nice fruit, but I do think it had lost a little of the bright fruit that is in the 2007. I will make a note to enjoy the RYE Chardonnays earlier rather than later.
This coming weekend, RYE is having their Ranch Day celebration for club members and guests, where we get to try the 2006 bob’s Burn Pile, the 2006 Big Rock Block Cabernet and their new Area 27 Chardonnay. They have gondola rides and a BBQ. I am looking forward to the event.

Lunch at the Slanted Door

One of the bosses at work took me to lunch at the Slanted Door at the Ferry Building. I’ve been wanting to go there for a while, but just hadn’t made it there.
We didn’t have reservations, but were fortunate enough to get a couple of seats at the bar fairly quickly. My one complaint, they don’t have diet coke. What, no diet coke?! I managed to find a suitable substitute and enjoyed a glass of zinfandel instead, it was a 2008 Dashe, "l'enfant terrible", Mcfadden Farms, Potter Valley. (Hey if the boss is having a glass, its only good manners to do the same.) The wine was a slightly lighter style zin, with only a hint of spice and a touch of mineral in the nose with some bright red fruit on the front palate.
For our meal, we shared the Niman Ranch Shaking Beef, Grilled Range Brothers' Berkshire Pork Chop and Rice Noodle Stir-fry with chicken, shiitake mushrooms, broccoli, bean sprouts and egg. The pork chop was outstanding, it was served with crispy potatoes and the sauce was excellent. I was sorely tempted to gnaw on the bone. The shaking beef had an excellent flavor, but was not quite as tender as I would expect from filet mignon. The stir fried noodles we only okay. The noodles were fine, the flavor was mild which complemented our flavorful meat dishes, however there was very little broccoli or shiitake mushrooms in there. The zin went very nicely with the food selections, however a slightly bolder red might have faired better.
The service was quite satisfactory, everyone was attentive to our needs, our empty plates and glasses.

I would definitely return and would love to try other menu items, I would also love to return for the pork chops alone.

Out of 10 (10 being the best), my ratings are as follows:
Atmosphere: 7
Service: 7
Pork Chops: 10
Shaking Beef: 8
Rice Noodle Stir Fry: 6
Wine: 6
Overall: 8

Birthday Cakes and Waffles, What a Tasty Weekend!

This weekend we had a birthday party for Bill and Kat. In honor of their birthdays, I baked a cake for each of them. A chocolate cake for Bill and an orange ginger carrot cake with an orange cream cheese frosting for the ginger loving Kat.

Ever since I started baking this chocolate cake from The Barefoot Contessa at Home, it has been a frequently requested item. It is a moist, dark brown chocolate cake with a hint of coffee to enhance the chocolate flavor. I prefer Valhorna and Sharffen Berger cocoa powders for this recipe.

I made a couple of mistakes this time around, neither of which altered the flavor, however the look of the finished cake suffered. First, I was being lazy and didn’t sift the powder sugar in the chocolate frosting, which lead to little white specks of powder sugar lumps in the frosting. In an attempt to rid the frosting of the little lumps of powder sugar, I made my second mistake and whipped the frosting, which caused it to thicken to a stiff consistency. The stiff frosting made it difficult to spread on the cake and then if formed a kind of shell on the cake. Lesson learned, laziness didn't pay off in this cake. I need to work on my presentation of the cake. Fortunately, the room was dark and the audience raved about the cake, the mistakes will be my little secret.



The second cake was inspired by Kat and her love for ginger and also by my need to experiment. In perusing the various recipe resources, I found this recipe for an Orange Ginger Carrot Cake with and Orange Cream Cheese frosting on the Cooks Illustrated website. I am not always a huge fan of ginger, however I enjoyed it in this cake. The diced crystallized ginger added a nice testure to the cake and the ginger flavor really complimented the orange and the spices of the carrot cake. I also liked it because the spice were moderate and didn't overpower the cake. The orange accented cream cheese frosting really brought the flavors together nicely.



For dinner, Kat and Laurel prepared an awesome pork rib roast. They coated it in lemon olive oil, lemon juice, a seasoning rub that they really like and lemon pepper (?) and roasted on a bed of sliced lemons. It was juicy, tender and so flavorful. And Chelle prepared her sinful scalloped potatoes made with a béchamel and gruyere cheese. We garnished this fabulous meal with some steamed asparagus with an aoli.

Of course we had some nice wine over the course of the evening. We started with the 2005 Novy Syrah, Judge Family Vineyard. It had some very nice dark fruit notes, which came out nicely after we let it breathe a little. From there we had a 2006 Robert Young Red Winery Road Cabernet Franc blend. It has a really nice bright fruit and floral nose. It has a softer finish, which makes it enjoyable now. This was one of the bottles from my first wine club shipment from Robert Young Estate Winery. After that we had a Leal Lavanda. The nose on this is so full of fruit and it is such a well rounded wine.

One of my favorite things to do on a weekend morning is to sleep in with the kitties and then get up and enjoy a nice breakfast with my Peet’s Coffee. This weekend I made myself sourdough waffles with my sourdough starter. The King Arthur Flour website had an excellent suggestion of what to do with the cup of starter you throw away before feeding the remainder of your starter. I have made these before and really enjoy them. While I think they taste best immediately out of the waffle iron, heated up in the toaster oven works too.



Lots of good food and wine this weekend. I think I'll have to go back to eating lighter this week. Hopefully next weekend I will be able to find some time to continue my experimentation on bread baking.