The Strait of Gibraltar

I have three fundamental beliefs about marriage. The first is that the couple who cooks together stays together. Every once in a while we become so low on groceries that it becomes a challenge to see if we can actually make a meal with what we have. This was one of those weeks. We had culinary masterpieces such as tuna salad with dinner rolls (out of bread), waffles and scrambled eggs (out of meat), and a surprisingly good casserole made of potatoes, leftover cheese, a few slices of bacon, and some half & half. So, after this kind of week, we decided to step it up for Friday and make the Paella that we've been planning to make for about a week. It was really nice to redeem our faith in America's Test Kitchens after last weeks pesto failure, as they provided an excellent paella recipe. The only things we changed from the recipe was the omission of mussels (the process of debearding and scrubbing kinda freaks us out) and 1/4 teaspoon of saffron threads - because we have no idea what those are. Since we had spent some time cleaning up earlier, one of the best things about the paella was that it all cooks in one skillet so you can enjoy your dinner in a clean kitchen (to me this is an automatic plus for a dish - minimal dishes :). Needless to say, after a week of weak dishes, it was nice to put a win in the books.


The paella was delicious and actually made it into the book. We decided to pair it with a new Chianti, Villa Vitale. We usually don't drink Chianti, but I felt like this was a great introduction as it was not too dry and tart. It was a good pair for the spicy paella and overall was quite enjoyable. The fact that it was $7 at World Market is also notable.

The rest of the evening brings me to my second fundamental belief about marriage: you and your spouse should share several similar embarrassing interests. Ross and I record Jeopardy AND Wheel of Fortune every single day. This week we have been busy (I now officially have graduate hours), so we actually spent our Friday night watching two recorded hours of game shows. Our Jeopardy skills vary based on how many categories deal with War and history versus how many deal with medicine and pop culture. On the other hand, my Wheel skills are directly related to how many glasses of wine I've had -- so much so that Ross decided if I ever go on Wheel of Fortune, he will make certain that I have at least half a bottle of wine first. After my two large glasses of Chianti, I was able to guess "The Strait of Gibraltar" with only the r's and t's. Needless to say, I do not have these skills when I've been drinking diet coke. My third fundamental belief is that if you're in a happy marriage you can be happy not going out and doing something, and sometimes prefer to watch game shows in your jammies and go to bed before midnight.

The Lush Flush

Lush Flush (n.) - The glow one experiences when having one too many glasses of wine.

I am proud to report that we have overcome the meal we shall not mention and have made a few great dishes since then. This weekend, Ross' college roommate came to visit, so we ate out more than usual (seafood at Casey's, burgers at the Spot), but on Friday evening Ross prepared an excellent couscous stuffed chicken. The recipe was from the show "Guy's Big Bite". Admittedly, Guy is pretty annoying (you know him, he's on the TGIFriday's commercials), his shtick is self-described "man-food", he wears excessive jewelry, and he has a Nascar refrigerator. Somehow, Ross is able to overlook all of those flaws and watch the show, where, truthfully, I've never seen him make a dish I wouldn't eat.

After that, we really didn't cook much else other than baking a pan of enchiladas I had made earlier in the week, and whipping up some more raspberry cupcakes (I used strawberries on half of them- delicious!). Instead we spend many hours drinking and discovered two great wines: Cabulous (the way one feels after experiencing the perfect cab), and Rock Rabbit Shiraz. Because this is my first wine review, allow me to expound upon the Lynds Wine Scale. It should go without saying that we only drink red, except on my birthday, when we drink champagne. Wines in our place are judged over five basic categories:

1. Price. The wine preferably costs less than $8 (but we ARE willing to splurge on a $10 bottle for a special occasion or an especially neat bottle).
2. Neat bottle. We'd like to think that we've outgrown the typical college student theory that any bottle that once contained alcohol would make for quality decor (i.e. the "beer-amid"), but we do proudly display wine bottles above the cabinets in our kitchen, so interesting art is definitely a plus.
3. Cool name. Truthfully, I think this is why we can't drink Yellowtail or Beringer, it just sounds lame. We find that anything clever, foreign, or weird is great (thus our decision to buy such gems as "Veuve Cliquot", "Sweet Bitch", and "Bohemian Highway"). If you can drink wine with a sexy name, why wouldn't you?
4. Overall Drinkability. It's not like we're sommeliers or anything, so we just ask ourselves, "was it great or just good?" Let's face it, we're drinking wine, it can't be any worse than good!
5. Impressiveness Factor. We prefer a wine that lists some of the "elements" on the bottle, like cherries, chocolate, fruit, earthiness, etc. so that when we have someone over we can read the bottle ahead of time and, upon drinking, make really snobby comments like, "Oh wow, you can really taste the terra firma", or "I'm getting a soft hint of apples". We usually can't taste anything like that, so we like a wine that comes with a cheat sheet. The wine does get bonus points if we can have a glass and correctly guess things we're supposed to taste.

Both wines we sampled this weekend scored quite well and were a hit among our guests, but I would have to rate the Rock Rabbit as "best in show" for the weekend.

Unfortunately, this weekend totally depleted our wine supply, so an emergency trip to our supplier (World Market) was in order. Wines must first pass the first three elements in order to be considered for purchase at World Market. Typically, we go in with a predetermined number of wines we will buy (usually 4), split up and each pick up a few that meet the price requirement. We then share our choices, eliminating too many of the same varietal. We then make one final sweep together, which is usually where 4 turns into 8, as it did today. While I did feel like sort of a lush buying 8 bottles of wine, nothing pleases me more than looking at a fresh selection of new wines to choose from and knowing that very soon I will be reveling in the lush flush, except, perhaps, actually drinking some. Cheers!