Sunday. A day of rest and relaxation. At least that’s what is should be.
We do try to have some kind of routine that differentiates the week from the weekend and in particular Sunday. I don’t know why. All days are the same at the moment so it makes no particular sense. Maybe it gives us something to look forward to.
We’ll tend to spend a bit more time planning what we’ll eat and maybe we’ll crack open a slightly better bottle of wine. We might even have a glass with lunch (something that we never do during the week).
Managed to get out for a good walk in the vineyards this morning and my timing was perfect. It started raining just as I got back home.
The leaves on the vines have fallen now and despite it being Sunday there seemed to be quite a bit of activity. Walking back through the village I spotted Florent Cosme working in the winery and Mathieu too. Michel Autran was also out today in his unmistakeable yellow van. He waved as he drove back for lunch.
Rosie and I spent all afternoon crunching the final translations for the Christmas case. Tasting notes, three easy Christmas recipes and a wine related quiz.
We lit the fire earlier than usual which is always a treat and Nigel made us a cocktail this evening before dinner. We have Kate Hawkings book Aperitif and decided upon a Wet Martini. A classic Martini has just 1 part vermouth to 10 parts gin and I find that a little on the strong side. The Wet Martini on the other hand has equal measures of gin and vermouth. Now that’s more like it. You can actually taste the vermouth. No way near as fiery and rather moreish. We stuck at one!
According to Kate “by the 1920’s, the Martini had become the cocktail du jour and it’s further associations with glamorous and celebrated drinkers – Dorothy Parker, Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Marlene Dietrich, and Humphrey Bogart, ensured its popularity continued to grow’.
In good company then. Apparently Noel Coward was another fan and his recipe was to ‘fill a glass with gin and wave it in the general direction of Italy.’ I can just see that image in my head.
Oh and as for shaking not stirring. The general opinion among bartenders is that James Bond was wrong. Shaking makes a Martini cloudy.
And before I move away from Martinis I love the quote from Dorothy Parker who apparently said ‘I love to drink Martinis, but two at the very most. After three I’m under the table and after four I’m under the host’.
Thanks to Kate Hawkings for those lovely anecdotes and stories. Look out for her on Instagram. She has a lovely drole, dry sense of humour that brightens up the day.
The brined turkey leg was a great success. It had absorbed some of the lemony, garlicky, rosemary flavours overnight was nicely seasoned and extremely moist. I partially boned out the leg before brining which made it easy to carve.
I roasted a couple of onions in their skins and threw the lemon slices, garlic and rosemary sprigs into the roasting tin. It took just under an hour to cook and I served it with a celeriac cream and steamed romaneso florets.
I love romanesco. The little florets look like Christmas trees don’t they.
Our wine partner for the evening was a Brachetto (that’s the grape), Maté 2018 Sottimano. Super light in weight with pronounced hints of rose petals on the nose we both love wines of this weight. More and more we lean towards freshness and delicacy rather than power and concentration.
I posted a photo of the Brachetto and the Malbec from yesterday on Instagram and very cheekily asked people to try and guess the grape varieties. Of course I knew it would be pratically impossible but when you look at the two wines, isn’t it just astonishing how different they are?
The pleasure of wine.
