I have so meant to get back to blogging once we moved (now almost three weeks ago).  At least start up the wine reviews again.  But there is so much to do here and I still haven’t really figured out how to take good photos in this space (due to lack of time, and also because we keep either covering all the flat surfaces here with stuff or refinishing them so I can’t put anything on them) – I just haven’t gotten it together.

So I thought I’d throw out a few resources that we’ve been using to make extraordinarily good food as we’ve moved over to a “paleo” diet.  For the uninitiated, “paleo” is kind of an umbrella term for a variety of dietary restrictions (although I’m sure there are purists who would be hopping mad to read that).  For us, it means no grains (not just “gluten free” but no rice, quinoa, corn as well as wheat), no dairy, no legumes (lentils, beans, chick peas, etc.), no soy and no refined sugar.  Or at least we limit our intake of this stuff as much as possible.

We do still drink wine, which for a lot of paleo folks is a big no no.  But everyone chooses to eat this way for different reasons.  We did it because we have a variety of different minor health issues (that I will not detail here) that have disappeared since we changed our diet.  Many people eat this way because they have major health issues – like horrible stomach lining problems that gluten sends off to pain city or auto-immune disorders that eating any of this stuff makes a million times worse.  For us, we just feel better when we cut out most of this stuff, so it’s what we do.

There are so many websites and resources out there for people interested in eating this way which has been a lifesaver for making such a seemingly dramatic shift.  When I first thought of “giving up” bread and cheese, I wasn’t sure I could do it.  Turns out that there are so many amazing things you can eat without the stuff we’ve given up*.  And myriad recipes for exquisitely beautiful – and surprisingly simple – things to eat.

A few of our favorite super helpful resources -

Blogs:

Nom Nom Paleo – this blog is award-winning and it should be.  It provides recipes that have never failed us (rare no matter what you eat!).  Directions are easy to follow and the photography is gorgeous.  Michelle, the blogstress, provides just the right mix of her personal story and anecdotes about her life making the blog an enjoyable read and at the same time, practical and helpful.  Best combo ever!

 Paleo Pot – a fun blog with a million paleo recipes for the slow cooker.  We are addicted to the chicken wings, cooked for 4 hours in Frank’s Red Hot sauce.  These are “real” wings (they taste like the kind we’ve always enjoyed at Hooter’s for date night) and they fall apart on the fork.  We’ve also made pork shoulder recipes from this blog which were outstanding.

Everyday Paleo – this was one of the first blogs we found when we made the switch.  Every recipe we’ve tried has been a winner and there is a lot of good information here about paleo and about Cross Fit, which a lot of people who eat paleo are big advocates of.

The Clothes Make The Girl – a blog with a lot of personality and a fun read.  Another great combo of stories and recipes that make it compelling and helpful.

Books:

Well Fed- written by Mel from The Clothes Make The Girl.  This book gets mixed reviews on Amazon, but we love it.  Everything we’ve made so far has been delicious and the recipes are easy to follow and easy to adapt if you don’t happen to have something on hand or you don’t eat it.**

Paleo Comfort Foods – L just gave me this for my birthday (because he is the best like that!) and we’re both digging on it.  L has made the chicken breast with mushrooms and the coq au vin and we’re looking forward to many many more delicious meals from this book (shrimp and grits, fried chicken, turkey meatloaf…it goes on and on).  Easy to follow recipes and again, easy to swap out ingredients if needed.

Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal- this is not a paleo book, per se, but it is all about cooking the weird stuff from animals.  Feet, marrow, shanks, tongue…I actually bought this book for L for Christmas (because I’m the best like that!) before we decided to go all meat and vegetables, but it’s turned out to be a good book for us.  He recently made the lamb shanks from this cookbook and they were To. Die. For.  I can’t believe we had any left over.  Really looking forward to making some more adventurous stuff from this book.

It’s a short list, but it’s how we’ve gotten started.  If you’re interested in getting started eating this way, it might be helpful.  Sure hope it is!

Cheers.

*This is really only if you are a meat eater.  If you aren’t, choices are going to be a lot more limited.  I know there are some paleo vegetarian resources out there.  We are meat eaters, so I haven’t explored them but I’d love to hear other people’s experience with all-plant paleo.
**One of the joys of paleo is that it is extremely flexible.  If you don’t want to include something, or you don’t have it, you can generally work around it.  We love that!

Since we’ve moved on from zinfandels to other varietals, it’s sort of knee-jerk to compare the two, even if it is comparing apples to oranges.  This week we tried a pinot from Sebastopol HIlls, a winery we’ve tried before.

Some overall notes comparing pinot to zin: pinot noir has a lighter color than zinfandel.  It’s also lighter bodied and very smooth, without much of the peppery taste that seemed to be a signature trait of all our zinfandels.

One other note that I found on the internets – pinot noir supposedly has a lower alcohol content than other wines, making it an “ideal” table wine.*  I’m not sure that this is always true; this wine had an alcohol content of 14.5% which is pretty much the same as another table wine we recently tasted.  I have seen some pinots with a lower alcohol content though, which is nice for “drinking.”

Some notes particular to this bottle: it was rather light bodied, but not thin, which we liked.  We don’t tend to enjoy “flabby” wine (wine which we generally characterize here as “thick”).  It was definitely fruity, but I wasn’t able to identify strong flavors of any particular fruit, so not quite as agressively fruity as some of the zinfandels we’ve had.  L thought it had a slightly smoky flavor as well, which he liked.  The wine also didn’t have a lot of “heat” (which I assume is the alcohol being tasted) or that dry feeling associated with high tannins.

Overall, we enjoyed this wine greatly and I would recommend it.  It’s not dirt cheap – $9.99 at work and probably more elsewhere.  But it’s worth the $9.99 if you want to spend some money.**  We’ll be tasting a lot more pinots and I have a feeling we will find something in a lower price range that is comparably good, but this one is well worth a tenner.

Until next time!

Cheers.

*presumably because you can consume a truckload of the stuff without getting too toasty.
**I realize that this is not actually all that much for a bottle of wine.  I am extremely cheap when it comes to most things.  I also realize that you often get what you pay for – although this rule of thumb does not work categorically for wine.  There are lots of very good bottles for under $5 (thank goodness for me!).

Box Wine Rating Recap:

Sebastopol Hills Pinot Noir 2011

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

¡Hola Wednesday!

So we were going on last week about changing it up a bit and getting away from Zinfandels – which coincided nicely with the fact that the last couple of bottles we’ve tried haven’t been Zinfandels (a fluke of luck, not planned I assure you).  This week we have the Apothic Red Winemaker’s Blend, a basic red table wine.

And here are the results: the Apothic had both some chocolate and tobacco overtones (different from the Zinfandel varietal).  We also found it to have a sort of prune taste – almost like a rich old plum.  There was an absence of the dryness that indicates a high tannin level, so not a lot of tannins.  It was also pretty smooth drinking.

Overall, a nice, full-bodied table wine.  Give it a little room to breathe and enjoy.

Until next time!

Cheers.

Box Wine Rating Recap:

Apothic Red Winemakers Blend

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

A little errant aren’t we?

Well, we’ve been busy.  We’re building a house.  It’s a lot of work.

And I’ve started to rethink the “taste all the ‘varietal “x” in the store’ strategy of Wine Wednesday*.  It does work well in two helpful ways – we are able to compare which ones we like easily by comparing apples to apples (or Zins to Zins) and it also makes it very easy for me at work to be able to make a Zinfandel recommendation.  I have clear favorites and even if I don’t remember all our tasting notes (which I do not), I can point with confidence to a couple of bottles in any given price range and say “I like this one – it’s really (any given thing I can actually remember about the wine that I liked).”

But there is a downside to this strategy.

These are our notes on Black Mountain Zinfandel, which was a perfectly lovely economical bottle of wine.  There’s almost nothing written down.**

I think we are bored.  Not of drinking the Zinfandels – we love them.  But of trying to say much about them.  They are all, not surprisingly, very similar.  And tasting wine with the intention of writing about it is very different than just having a glass of wine.  How many different ways can you describe “peppery” and either “plummy” or “berry-ish?”

So it may be time to switch to a new varietal.  We were getting very close to the end of the Zinfandel section anyway so we’ll choose something new for next time.  The comparison of Zinfandel and some other varietal alone should be tons of material.

Until next week!

Cheers.

Box Wine Rating Recap:

Black Mountain 2010 Zinfandel

Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

*Which I know, we haven’t stuck to with zealous discipline.  But more or less.
**In case my chicken scratches are illegible on your smart phone, I’ve written “Very fruity – plum,” “Not as peppery as other Zins,” and “Not a standout but good for the price.”

Hey – Happy First Wednesday of 2013!

Today we get one step closer to our goal of drinking our way through all the Zinfandels in the store.*  Over the last holiday weekend** we tried The County Fair’s One Man Band Zinfandel from Sonoma, CA and…we’re not really that impressed.

Which is interesting because all the other reviews I’ve been skimming online really liked this bottle.  We thought it was unremarkable.  It’s not terrible, but it didn’t have any strong fruit, it was kind of “thin” and it wasn’t particularly spicy in the way that most Zinfandels we’ve tried have been (and we like that spice!).  It’s also a little “hot” – L said he could taste a distinct alcohol flavor.

It’s not dirt cheap at $8,99, so our general consensus is skip this one in favor of one of the $5.99 or less bottles that are better.  Unless you can’t get over the label.  The packaging is pretty cute!

Until next Wednesday!

Cheers.

Box Wine Rating Recap:

One Man Band Zinfandel

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

*Yes, the proverbial “dirty job” but somebody’s…well, you know.
**Is anyone else a little exhausted and ready to go back to work now?