Sept. 27, 2014 Tomato Talk with Michele Anna Jordan
We all LOVE Tomato season in Sonoma County! So many friends grow them and share them. It's wonderful to be the receiver of a box of these colorful treats.
The local menu's flourish with tomato talk in September and why not, we have an abundance of them and chef's to prove their worth.
Tomato Talk for our Sept. Foodie Seminar was perfect in many ways. Michele Anna Jordan, our local Food Writer was available to share her stories, her recipes and prepare samples.
We had four different plates: Golden Gazpacho, Tomato and Burrata, BLT on a skewer and Warm Tomato Vinaigrette on pasta.
Our usual set up, multiple glassware for each person to taste every course with a selection of wines. And then we share our results.
(coated Crostini with a wonderful greek paste)
We focused on Rose' of Pinot, Chardonnay and Valdiguie. There was a great response to the Rose' and chardonnay as expected. It seems that people who like a certain wines will always like it with food.
Rose' has acquired a huge fan base, old and young. Never liked it, never tried it, use to hate, now LOVE it, it's great. As a long time lover of Rose, I find it pleasantly humorous when people are surprised how much they like our Rose'.
The actual pairing with the gazpacho was across the board equal, everyone enjoyed the Rose' , Chardonnay and Valdiguie with it. Personally I liked the chardonnay hands down and I was surprised, I expected to be Rose' all the way.
Next up, Tomato / Burrata. A favorite dish of simplicity, authenticity and purity.
The pairing continued:
#1 - 90% Chardonnay
#2 - Rose' with Tomatoes ONLY
Valdiguie was the favorite by 2 guests
The pleasant smell of bacon arrives and the quote of the evening "every dish gets better with bacon".
or " Add bacon to any dish and then it goes with Pinot ". Bacon has become cult status! Where and who you get it from is a common discussion ( as I await a pork belly dish ), Yes, the BLT done every which way tonite is grilled on a skewer. In reality there is no "L" lettuce, one of my favorite components. But, there is bacon, tomato and bread.
This dish is interesting, nobody commented on what I thought: each bite is limited to each bite, there is not a blend of components. I like this idea of BLT for social situations but not to discuss wine pairing. The group never commented on this so, I kept it to myself. They voted and I listened. Here is what they said...
#1 - Pinot Noir / Cab Franc 50% / 50%
The last course was a fresh pasta served with Warm Tomato Vinaigrette recipe link below. This was an excellent example of beautiful simplicity of Tomatoes ( there is no photo). The flavor pairing had less components to influence but yet the group was successfully divided.
#1 - Cab Franc 70%
#2 - Pinot Noir 20%
#3 - Valdiguie 10%
Although there is no conclusion of the evening, other than we all love tomatoes and wine and Michele Anna Jordan is the prefect advocate of both, we had another wonderful night of food and wine.
