Everyone’s tastes change over time. Whether it is in clothes, movies, friends, or favorite activities. Your tastes also change in food and beverages. You go to a new restaurant and just love a dish they have. You go out with friends and they introduce you to a new beer or wine or mixed drink. That becomes your go-to beverage… for a while. The problem is there is just so many different beverages and producers of those beverages that something new always beckons us, like a siren call or a friend who just loves this new mocktail… you don’t even have a hangover the next day!
We have been exploring our wine world for a long time now. When we recently had a wine tasting party in our wine room, we decided on an Italian theme. One of the whites we selected was a Soave. Why did we include it? Because we wanted to give our guests an idea of what the range of whites from that country were like. The bottle sat open, but full, for the whole evening. Everyone had it a long time ago and wanted what is new. ORVIETO, Etna Bianco, Lugano, Vernaccia di San Gimignano, Prosecco, Falanghina, Malvasia are what our guests are drinking today. Even Pet-Nats. But Soave, Frascati or Asti? Those are so yesterday.
And that is the point. While the newer whites are all great wines and compliment dishes in amazing ways… every once in a while, a look back at what we used to drink can be instructive. What was it we liked about those earlier whites? What were we eating then that they were so good that we did not stop at a one-time try?
So, we decided to do retro nights in the wine room. To get into the mood, we went to our closets to see if we had any ‘old clothes’ we could wear that were representative of the time period we are recreating. Generally no. During COVID we donated a lot of our clothes to help those who were out of work in 2020 and 2021. We did the best we could… of course Dave had more older clothes than Karen, but still the clothes don’t quite match the time period. But at least we tried, and that helps us get into the proper frame of mind.
We used to make a spinach souffle, that would roll up like a jelly roll. That became one of the first we decided to try. It took a while to find the recipe, but it was in one of the binders Karen has made over the years. Light and airy… with a semi-crispy crust and creamy spinach filling, it brought us right back to many weekend meals when we had the time to try something that took longer than we wanted during the week. We paired this with a Soave, only because we could not find Frascati in the local stores, which is what we mostly drank with the souffle.
We also used to ‘concoct’ dishes, back in the day. Whatever was in the refrigerator, left over from something we had made would make its way into a one pot meal. These would generally be a grain, like Farro or couscous, which we both enjoy, or a pasta… experimenting with all different shapes. With the base ingredient, we would raid the refrigerator for anything that we could add. Often it was cut up chicken or left-over turkey from Thanksgiving. Sometimes it was a cheese… preferably a mozzarella, but somehow parmesan made it in to a lot of them. Cherry tomatoes, cut in half… pine nuts became a favorite once we could afford them. Sometimes raisins or dried cranberries would be found the pot and Karen would always ask why? Generally, we would drink a Montepulchiano d’ Abruzzo, again for affordability and because it was Italian. What other criteria did you need?
We highly recommend a return to your roots, if even just for one night, to see how far you have come.
