Secrets.

Last weekend, a friend invited Mike and me to a secret wine club event. That's all I can say.

Just kidding. The "challenge" was to bring a wine you've had before and a small dish to pair with the wine. We had met the club leader earlier in March at a local winery in Berkeley, and she definitely knew her stuff about wine. For example, she mentioned that she loved Donkey and Goat's orange wine.

"What the heck is orange wine?" I asked, thinking that wine made from actual oranges might be interesting but a little bizarre. Fermented oranges? Hmm...

"Oh no, it's a white wine that's been fermented with the grape skins and seeds for a short period of time," she replied.

I thought that was called a rosé, but I was wrong (gasp!). Orange wines involve using white grapes that are allowed to sit with the skins. To make a rosé, red grapes are separated very quickly from their skins.   Learn something new every day!

So anyway, when we got our invitation to the wine club event, we figured we should really bring our a-game. After some discussion, Mike and I decided to make sliders, and not just any sliders, but special sliders of course! We went to the local Mexican store to buy a ribeye steak and short ribs to grind into our burgers. We cooked the burgers in the sous vide, a fancy word for a temperature controlled water bath, so that they remained nice and red, perfectly cooked, and then fried them to give them a nice, brown outside. Then Mike melted shredded cheese combined with a little sodium citrate (to make super smooth cheese) on a sheet pan and cut out round slices. And no burger would be complete without a bun - a homemade bun freckled with black sesame seeds. Then we added caramelized red onions and a little Dijon mustard to round out the flavors.

On Friday night, we did a test run of these burgers along with a French Malbec the sommelier at a local wine shop suggested. While a delicious red wine, it stained our mouths like no other! We decided the burgers needed tiny adjustments (more salt) but were quite pleased with the way they turned out.

We took our sliders over to our friend's friend's apartment for the main event on Saturday evening. Our sliders were a hit, and others brought amazing dishes and wines too. Some had emotional connections to their wines (i.e., they made it themselves) or knew the winemaker. And our friend and her boyfriend brought bacon jam. Bacon. Jam.

It was a great evening - good food, good wine, and new friends that also appreciate our cuisine snobbery. Once you've had bacon jam, you can't go back.

What's your favorite wine and food pairing?

The weekend and a little bit of spring.

Here's what we've been up to lately. First, spaghetti alla carbonara from The Kitchn:

A little bacon, a little egg, a squeeze of lemon, and sautéed arugula makes for a delicious comfort dinner after a long day in the lab. 

After dinner on Saturday, Mike pulled out three sticks of butter, a bunch of flour, chocolate and almond trail mix (seemed random), and a little bit of borrowed yeast from a friend. "What in the world could you be making?" I asked, shocked at the amount of butter softening on our kitchen table. 

"Guess."

"Is it for cinnamon rolls!?!" 

"Close...," Mike teased. After a while, I gave up and started reading my new book, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Great book so far. Have any of you read it?

Mike's "borrowed" timer kept going off throughout the evening, and he would get up, pull the dough out of the fridge, roll it out, and fold it over a couple times. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Finally, he asked me to help him. "Well, are you going to tell me what you're making?"

"Croissants!" That's right, chocolate and almond croissants. He separated the chocolate from the almonds because he didn't want to buy bags of each. He cut the rolled out dough into twelve rectangles, and we filled the middle with the chocolate or the almond spread. Then we rolled the dough over and let them rise overnight.

When I woke up in the morning, a little sleepy even though it was nine o'clock (stupid daylight savings time!), I could smell the croissants baking. It smelled like a French bakery, although I've never been in France or in a French bakery, but I imagine it would smell like croissants. 

I dragged myself (i.e., sprinted) out of bed and headed for the kitchen. And there they were, golden brown with chocolate or almond filling slightly flowing out of the ends. Which one did I choose to eat first? Chocolate, of course! Don't be silly. We paired our croissants with some delicious Tonx coffee and Rachel Martin on Weekend Edition Sunday in the background. Two croissants down, ten more to go...

Finally, a little bit of spring has popped up in our backyard. Last year I bought two ranunculus plants (what's the plural of ranunculus - ranunculi?), and I swiftly killed both of them. Or so I thought! One of the plants made a comeback when it rained this winter and now it's blooming again. Beautiful pink and white flowers. Have you started any seedlings for the coming gardening season? What do you normally plant or do you have a non-green thumb - would that be a red thumb or a black thumb?

Anyway...

Dinner and a movie.

The other day I got a gchat from the husband asking me to pick up some things from Trader Joe's. I clicked on the link from Serious Eats and was salivating as I read the ingredients: Israeli couscous, lemon, feta, fennel, and red onion. Mike had to give an exam that night and it dawned on me that he would not be cooking. Whoa, whoa, whoa, I have to make this? I've gotten so used to Mike cooking dinner and me washing dishes (well, most of the time...). No problem, I can figure this out.

I picked up everything we needed from Trader Joe's and set to work. I chopped up the fennel and red onion to roast while watching HGTV. Side note: We've become addicted to shows like Love It or List It and Property Brothers. Can you say nesting? I use the term nesting loosely because there are no announcements, Grandma! I coated the fennel and red onion in olive oil and tossed with pepper and salt. Into the oven it went to roast. I set the timer (a timer we "borrowed" from lab) so I wouldn't forget them in the oven. From there I started the couscous, which requires sautéing in butter and adding it to hot vegetable stock. The timer went off for the roasting vegetables and I pulled them out to turn. Put them back in the oven to cook a bit longer... and I didn't set the timer. I also didn't have a timer on the couscous. Oops! I started working on some other things (i.e., watching HGTV) until I realized I had left everything on the stove and in the oven. But you know what? It turned out just fine! I don't recommend this method of cooking, but I'm thankful it turned out great.

When Mike got home around 9:30, we decided to just make grilled cheese and soup and enjoy my creation as a date on Friday. To go with the couscous, we bought chicken breasts and roasted them covered in onions and lemon, a perfect compliment.

That night we watched a hilarious movie: Lars and the Real Girl with Ryan Gosling and Emily Mortimer. The movie is about a super awkward guy named Lars who lives in the garage of the family home, which is occupied by his brother and pregnant wife. Lars doesn't really have any friends, except for an obnoxious office mate and a cute girl with a crush on him. One day a very large package arrives at the garage for Lars, and later that day he informs his brother and sister-in-law that he has a visitor. They are so excited because Lars barely interacts with them so they invite Lars and his guest over for dinner. The problem is that the guest is a life-sized, anatomically correct sex doll that Lars ordered off the internet. Hilarity (and some sadness) ensues. I really really enjoyed the movie and if you have Netflix, you can stream it on demand.

What movies have you seen lately? What's on your Netflix queue?