This week’s wine, André et Michel Quenard 2005 Chignin, comes from the Savoie region of France. Savoie is located on the western flanks of the Alps in eastern France; it borders Switzerland to the north and Italy to the east. Though this area is known primarily for its skiing and awe-inspiring scenery, it is also home to a successful wine industry. The appellation is Vin de Savoie, and the wines are typically named after the village in which the grapes are grown. My wine of the week is from Chignin, a tiny town whose vineyards are planted on the side of a mountain at around 1000 feet elevation. Wines from Savoie can be difficult to find outside of France; most of it is consumed locally, particularly at the nearby ski resorts (what I wouldn’t give to be sitting in a chalet in the French Alps sipping wine right now!)

Savoie’s climate is distinctly alpine; it receives plenty of sunshine, however, so wine grapes thrive there. Some rather unusual grape varieties are grown in Savoie including whites such as Jacquère, Roussanne, and Altesse (also known as Roussette) and a red varietal called Mondeuse. White wine predominates, and most of it is made from Jacquère, a grape that is extremely productive despite the cooler climate. Jacquère is a low sugar grape that produces delicate, crisp, tingling white wines. These wines are often lightly scented, even neutral, in aroma. They are typically high in acidity and display citrus fruit flavors. They are meant to be consumed young. Savoie wines pair well with shellfish and seafood as well as raclette and fondue cheese dishes.

Ahem, did somebody say raclette? Melted cheese for dinner - that sounds like a perfect choice for this winesday! The term raclette refers both to a semi-firm, creamy cow’s milk cheese of Swiss origin as well as a popular wintertime dish featuring the cheese. Raclette is made by slowly heating a round of the cheese, either over an open fire or in a special machine, then scraping it as it melts onto diners’ plates (the term raclette derives from the French racler which means “to scrape”.) Raclette is traditionally served over boiled small potatoes, accompanied by pickled onions, gherkins, and a dry-cured meat such as prosciutto. The dish originated with Swiss cow herders who would make a meal out of potatoes, pickles and cheese which they melted by campfire when they were out in the pasture. Today you can buy machines specifically designed for making raclette. They make it easy, but they aren’t nearly as romantic as an open fire! I predict that raclette will be the next big food trend here in Seattle. They are currently serving it at Bohemian, a brand new restaurant in West Seattle, and Café Presse offered a similar dish on their menu last winter. Move over pork belly and poutine!

I wasn’t about to buy my own raclette machine for this meal so I just put the cheese in an au gratin dish and melted it in the oven. It didn’t stay completely melted the whole time, but it worked well enough. I served the raclette with roasted fingerling potatoes, prosciutto and a quick pickled salad of onions and thinly sliced summer squash. The raclette was delicious (of course it was, it’s melted cheese!) The wine smelled exactly like apple juice, but it tasted more of lemons and grapefruit. It matched well with the creamy, nutty cheese. It was a fine meal for a rainy Wednesday night in Seattle (although I would have preferred the French Alps!)

It’s officially fall, and the weather in Seattle the past few days has really driven that point home. This weekend’s gray skies and cool weather put me in the mood to turn on the oven and bake! Lucky for me, I had plenty of opportunities to do so.

On Saturday, my knitting group hosted a bake sale to raise money for the Obama campaign. This definitely wasn’t your typical bake sale. The knitters’ plan was to target the late night bar crowd on Pike Street in the center of Capitol Hill’s clubs and bars. Pitching baked goods to hipsters and drunks? Genius! I helped out by making Heidi Swanson’s peanut butter cookies. I’m not really into vegan baked goods, but these looked so yummy that I couldn’t resist. They turned out a bit softer than I normally like but had plenty of delicious peanut butter flavor. I finished my cookies with a light dusting of gray sea salt (I wasn’t trying to be fancy or anything; I just know that drunks are drawn to salty foods.) I couldn’t participate in the sale itself, but we stopped by for a quick visit and got to witness plenty of zany late night action and a number of sales too (some people even asked for vegan treats – woo hoo!) It was surely a lot of work (the bake sale ran until 2:00 AM) but the team raked in a whopping $400. Good job knitters!

Cookies are easy to make, but bread is another story and my bread-making skills have proven to be pretty mediocre so far. My sister, on the other hand, is slowly becoming an expert so we decided to get together on Sunday for a bread-making day. Our first bread of the day was a ciabatta. This can be a tricky bread; mixing, shaping and baking the bread is actually very easy, but ciabatta has a tendency to form one huge air pocket inside rather than a bunch of small ones. Three out of our four loaves were plagued with this giant pocket problem, but the bread tasted so good we didn’t care. In addition to the ciabatta, we made sourdough rounds using my sister’s homemade starter as the base. We mixed the dough and shaped the loaves but didn’t bake them; in order to develop that signature sour flavor, the loaves need to sit overnight in the refrigerator. It was a great day – I learned quite a bit (especially about the benefits of folding and stretching the dough vs. punching it down) and I came home with two loaves of ciabatta, two uncooked loaves of sourdough and a little jar of starter. I baked the sourdough tonight and served it with a hearty soup – delicious!

While our breads were rising, we snuck off to Bakery Nouveau for lunch. Bakery Nouveau is widely regarded as one of Seattle’s best bakeries. What a place to go for some baking inspiration! Their breads are all beautiful and their croissants are like none that I’ve ever seen before – super crispy and browned, not soft and squishy like most croissants. I had a delicious caprese sandwich made with some kind of chewy, hearty bread. While we were there, they were passing out free samples of recently-baked items including a peanut butter cookie that completely put mine to shame (sorry vegans, cookies just aren’t the same without butter.)

Sunday evening, we headed over to our friend Jason’s house for more baked goods, this time in the form of pizza. Jason has been making pizza from scratch every week and has a clever method for making the crust. He grills the crust on one side on an outdoor grill and then adds the toppings and finishes the pizza in a hot oven. The grill gives the crust a subtle smoky flavor, but finishing it in the oven allows you to get the cheese nice and browned. Because the crust is partially cooked before it goes in the oven, there is no fear of it sticking to the pizza paddle (the tool used to transfer the pizza to the oven.) With this method, you could easily make a bunch of crusts at once and freeze them. Simply do the first step of grilling and then transfer the grilled crusts to the freezer. Next time you are craving pizza, it can be ready in mere moments! The pizzas were delicious, and I even got to make one myself. Fall kicked off to a carb-heavy start, but I’m perfectly okay with that!

Atole is perhaps best known as a traditional Mexican beverage made from masa (cornmeal), water, brown sugar, sweet spices and sometimes chocolate or fruit. In New Mexico however, atole more commonly refers to a finely ground cornmeal made from blue corn or the porridge derived from it. Blue corn chips are pretty common these days, but since blue corn is native to the region, it finds its way into many traditional New Mexican dishes. Enchiladas made with blue corn tortillas are about as authentically New Mexican as you can get. Unlike regular cornmeal, blue corn atole is ground so fine that it resembles flour. In that respect, it can be used in place of flour in virtually any kind of bread or baked good except, ironically, for blue corn tortillas; for that coarser ground blue cornmeal is used (although, I suppose you could get creative and mix a little blue corn atole with some flour and make blue corn-flour tortillas!)

In New Mexico, blue corn atole is mixed with hot water to make a very austere beverage that is traditionally consumed by the elderly (for energy) and the sick (for its reputed healing qualities.) It is often served for breakfast much like cream of wheat. A plain, grayish porridge made from just water and atole doesn’t exactly sound like the most appetizing food in the world. In fact, Huntley Dent, author of The Feast of Santa Fe found it to be so awful that, although he writes about it for the sake of providing a comprehensive look at New Mexican cuisine, he makes a specific point of not providing a recipe. However, neither Robert nor his mom seems to think that this beverage is particularly bad. Perhaps it is a taste acquired only by those born in New Mexico. Perhaps the sentimental memory of being home sick on a cold day improves the taste. Or, maybe Robert and his mom are just pulling my leg. I’m dubious but curious. Next time I am sick, I’m going to try it (I’ll just keep a bottle of honey or cocoa powder nearby in case it needs a little something.)

For my first experiment with blue corn atole, I decided to go with a much less risky choice: pancakes! Inspired the blue corn atole & piñon pancakes that I had at Tecolote Café in Santa Fe, I set out to make my own version. Using a basic buttermilk pancake recipe as my base, I simply replaced half of the flour with blue corn atole and then threw in a handful of toasted pine nuts. I used plain yogurt thinned with a little milk in place of the buttermilk because that’s what I had on hand. Also, because I prefer my pancakes thin and crispy as opposed to fluffy and cakey, I added more liquid than the recipe called for. They were super easy and delicious! The pine nuts added a special texture and richness while the subtle earthy flavor of the blue corn atole proved to be the perfect foil for plenty of warm maple syrup. The atole also gave these pancakes a pretty lavender hue. What a fun twist on pancakes!

Click here for my Blue Corn Atole-Piñon Pancakes recipe >>

Friday night, we found ourselves wandering around Capitol Hill without a particular dinner destination in mind. This is pretty unusual for us; normally, by about Wednesday or Thursday, I am so excited about the approaching weekend that I have already planned out all of the places where we will go to eat. We eventually decided to swing by Via Tribunali in the hopes that they might have a table free. We were doubtful since this section of Capitol Hill gets exceedingly busy on Friday nights (it’s no wonder when you consider the fact that Capitol Hill hotspots Pike Place Fish Fry, Neumo’s, Quinn’s, Bimbo’s and Via Tribunali are all located within the same two blocks.) We lucked out! Not only did Via Tribunali have a table available but it was a table right by the big open garage door, about as close as you can get to outdoor seating in Seattle!

Via Tribunali (or “the Trib” as it is affectionately called by people around these parts) specializes in authentic Neapolitan pizza. Authentic is not just a pretty word being bandied about here; Via Tribunali’s pizzas are made in accordance with the strict regulations of the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, a group founded in the mid-1990’s whose objective is to protect the tradition of Neapolitan pizza. In order to be certified by the VPN, you must follow all of their regulations which detail such things as how the dough is made, how the pizzas are cooked and what ingredients may be used (for example, only true San Marzano tomatoes, grown in the volcanic soil of Mt. Vesuvius, are allowed.) True Neapolitan pizza is made in a wood-fire brick oven which must be approved by the VPN. Via Tribunali’s oven was hand-crafted using supplies imported from Naples including bricks made from the ashes of Mt. Vesuvius. Even the guy who made the oven was brought in from Naples. Now that’s dedication!

The menu is, not surprisingly, primarily dedicated to pizza. There are a few salads and starters and a couple of calzones listed as well. The pizzas are all very simple in keeping with the tradition of Neapolitan pizza. If you like your pizza loaded up with tons of toppings, look elsewhere; these pizzas are all about good crust and good tomatoes (oh, and a little bit of cheese too!) I was really torn between the Margherita and the Napoletana which is topped with tomatoes, oregano, garlic and anchovies. I finally settled on the Margherita; you can’t go wrong with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil! Robert ordered the Toni Lupino which is topped with mozzarella, Italian sausage and coppa, a type of cured meat (pig collar, to be specific.) They were out of Italian sausage (crazy!) so he just got mozzarella and extra coppa.

Our pizzas arrived at the table hot and bubbly. They looked absolutely beautiful, and they tasted even better! The tomatoes were sweet and delicious and the mozzarella was creamy and comforting. I would have liked it if there were more than three leaves of basil on my pie but, again, that’s just part of the whole minimal ingredients thing. With all that luscious tomato sauce and olive oil, I thought for sure that my pizza would be soggy. Not at all! I guess this is where the stamp of authenticity comes in to play. The crust on this pizza was amazing! It was elastic and chewy, even in the center where the sauce had congregated. And, the bottom side of the pizza had just the perfect amount of char. A small word of warning: these pizzas are served unsliced so you’re going to have to do a little bit of work while you eat (I used a butter knife to cut into mine but you can also ask for a set of pizza shears.) Robert made fun of me throughout the meal for cutting my pizza into perfect, even wedges as I ate it. What can I say? I like a nice wedge of pizza. Besides, since I didn’t just tear right into it with my bare hands, I was able to slowly savor my pizza. And, this is pizza that should be savored. Delicious crust, silky tomatoes, creamy cheese and a big glass of Dolcetto d’Alba - I could eat like this every night!

Check out the orange eggplants I picked up at the farmer’s market last Sunday! Aren’t they cool? I’ve seen purple, green and white eggplants before but never orange! They look like tomatoes or miniature pumpkins but, I assure you, they really are eggplants. Unfortunately, I don’t know what variety they are. To me, they look a lot like Turkish Orange Eggplants, but I was told that they are actually a Thai variety. These eggplants are from one of my favorite stands at the farmer’s market, Alvarez Farms. They had eight or nine varieties of eggplants for sale (as well as enough peppers to rival what I saw in Santa Fe)! In addition to the wacky orange eggplants, I picked up some Thai green eggplants and a larger purple and white striped eggplant.

The man I spoke with at Alvarez Farms informed me that, compared to purple eggplants, the orange eggplants have a bit more “bite” to them. Eggplant can sometimes be bitter so I was hoping that “bite” wasn’t some sort of polite term for bitter. He suggested that I use them in curry so that’s exactly what I did. I made a simple Thai red curry with orange and green eggplants, tofu and basil. Even though I overcooked the eggplants slightly, they remaining relatively firm and didn’t get slimy at all (woo-hoo!) The flavor was nice and, well, eggplant-y. It may have been a tad on the bitter side, but I actually didn’t mind; it was well-matched to the spicy curry. Unlike the green and purple varieties, these eggplants didn’t lose their fiery orange color once cooked. It made my curry so pretty. If you see any orange eggplants at your market, be sure to pick them up!