food: colonial goose, a New Zealand dish
wine: 2004 Amisfield Pinot Noir
movie: Black Sheep
After months of delay, I am finally back to cooking my husband the themed dinners that I had promised him as part of his birthday present last summer. If I am lucky, I will conclude the 6th dinner before his birthday this year, but I’ll have to step up the pace to make that happen.
THIS MONTH: New Zealand
The main dish I made was Colonial Goose, which is not goose at all, but lamb. Early pioneers to New Zealand had a steady supply of sheep, but poultry was something of a luxury, even up until recently. To make them feel less homesick, they would stuff and roast a leg of lamb (bone removed) in a fashion similar to the way you would cook a goose. The lamb I made was roasted for several hours and stuffed with dried apricots, honey, and breadcrumbs. Delicious, and the earthiness of the food went perfect with the New Zealand Pinot Noir…
2004 Amisfield Pinot Noir
Smells like a dusty cellar, moldy, and a bit like chemicals. Faint aroma of cherries and unripe strawberries, tastes and smells very bright and clean. Almost carbonated, fresh sizzling cherry. Sooo good. mild oak. Very Pinot, both delicate and powerful. ($27)
While many know New Zealand only for their superb Sauvignon Blanc, they actually have some high altitude, cooler climate regions that are perfect terroir for Pinot Noir. The Central Otago wine region, where the Amisfield winery is located, is the most southern wine region in the entire world. The vineyards, residing at 400 meters above sea level, cling precariously to steep slopes and river gorges. It seems like Pinot is always better the more painful the growing conditions.
Finally, we had a chocolate mousse with kiwi sauce while watching our horror flick for the evening, Black Sheep. The choice was between that or The Piano, and I think we made the right choice. While kinda forgettable, the movie felt very reminiscent of early Peter Jackson horror films. It was heavy in the gore, completely over-the-top, good mindless fun. The special effects were even done by the Weta Workshop, how much more New Zealand can you get? If only we had finished off the night by snacking on some Marmite sandwiches and watching Flight of the Conchords.
wine: 2003 Couly-Dutheil Chinon La Baronnie Madeleine
I’m gonna make this a short, but sweet WBW. This month’s theme is Cabernet Franc from France. Gary Vaynerchuk (that is with a K, not a CK) of WineLibraryTV is hosting. His energetic entry is posted here. I had the pleasure of meeting Gary Vaynerchuk at Future of Web Apps in Miami this winter, and was inspired enough by his presentation to post an article on ThreeMinds about the “hi-res user experience” he is creating over at WineLibraryTV. So, I was glad to see him taking the time to join the Wine Blog Wednesday community.
Without further ado…
2003 Couly-Dutheil Chinon La Baronnie Madeleine
I broke the bottle trying to open this one… my rabbit didn’t like that lipped rim. Lots of sediment, dark purple color. Aroma of plump raisins and plum, but also lots of dust, grass, and green peppers. A burning dry mid-palate and finish that spread over your whole tongue. Veggies up front and light dried fruits on the long finish. Dirt for sure. It gets more complex as you taste it, and I start doubting what I’m sensing. Do I smell Cheez-its, taste vanilla? I don’t know, this wine is doing weird things. A slow drinker. $17
food: coq au vin with juniper, meatloaf with star anise
One of the reasons I love Top Chef so much is that aspect of “a twist”. So common the challenge is to do something like traditional family favorites, comfort food, but with “a twist”. Maybe it needs to be modernized, maybe it has to incorporate the chef’s signature style, maybe it needs to be low calorie, but there is always an interesting element that makes it something beyond the literal interpretation of the dish.
There is something special in that combination of tradition and mystery. Gordon Ramsay knows it. His whole philosophy has always been about doing away with pretentious dishes, fancy for fancy sake, and finding the heart of traditional cuisine. His recommendations on Kitchen Nightmares always boils down to returning to simpler food, but not simple as in boring, there always has to be something that makes it unique.
So I had fun this week creating various comfort foods with “a twist” based on some particularly delicious looking recipes from Food & Wine magazine. Coincidentally, I visited Town Tavern in Royal Oak this week, which is supposedly known for their comfort food, specifically a lobster mac and cheese. In the end, I was a lot more pleased with my own creations than the Town Tavern mac and cheese. Maybe I just had some really good successes, or maybe I just don’t think a dish can be called mac and cheese unless you can actually taste some major cheese. Whether it be cheddar or swiss or gruyere or parmesan, that doesn’t matter, but I just don’t buy little tubes in a cream sauce as “mac and cheese”.
Coq Au Vin with Juniper
Coq au vin is good French comfort food. Tom and I experienced a lot of rustic cuisine on our trip to France, delicious meats with full flavored sauces. I became especially interested in doing an updated version when I found an article in Food & Wine that listed 4 different takes on the traditional meal, each uniquely delicious. One was made with a Sauvignon Blanc and capers, another with Chardonnay and artichokes, and yet another Cotes du Rhone and carrots. The one I chose was the most unique… a sauce made from figs, juniper berries, cipollini onions, and Riesling.
Juniper berries are a strange substance in and of themselves, something I’ve be interested in playing with. It is the ingredient that gives the distinguising pine flavor to gin, and to see it being used in a coq au vin dish was certainly that “twist” I was looking for. The chicken came out perfectly cooked and juicy, and the sauce ingredients combine to create a rich, flavorful and sweet gravy that really felt like home-cooking. The juniper was not pungent, but was just enough to give you this holiday-esque feeling. Roast chicken, sweet figs, and pine trees… definitely a dish I’ll be trying again in the Christmas season.
Smoky Meatloaf with Star Anise
Second attempt at some comfort food was the very American meatloaf and ketchup. My mom had gotten me some star anise pods for Christmas, and here I found a recipe that not only used them in the meatloaf itself but in the accompanying prune ketchup. Alone the meatloaf turned out good, not great… I’m always afraid to pump up the spices beyond the recipe and there wasn’t really any way for me to taste it before cooking. Going to France did not make me comfortable with raw ground beef consumption. Anyway, the meatloaf was good and I appreciated the strong smoky flavor that came from using bacon and some smoked salt I had picked up in Paris. But even better than the meatloaf alone was the way it tasted with the prune ketchup, a fantastic blend of sticky sweetness and tangy with that lovely liquorice bite.
Two great recipes I shall be making again. To anyone listening out there, feel free to post some of your favorite comfort foods with a twist. I’d love to get some more ideas.
idea: good design makes for good usability
I found myself getting into an interesting discussion the other day, after posting my plea to make CellarTracker “prettier”:
“The first thing a good interface designer learns is how to use design clues to help guide the user experience. Design can help tell a user what a site is, what’s important, where to go next. It isn’t just pretty for pretty sake.”
I thought it was worth reiterating in another blog posting, because I feel like we’ve come a long way in the world of web design in the past few years. With the launch of Web 2.0 came a need for new sorts of experts in the field. It is no longer purely information architects, designers, and engineers. There are information designers, experience designers, and interaction designers. There are experiential marketers, design thinkers, and experience strategists. As new technologies (AJAX, Flash) make the experience, on one hand, seemingly more holistic to users, but on the other hand, incredibly more complex to build, every person is having to become smarter about how design informs the user experience. And no matter what grumpy purists like Jakob Nielsen say, this has caused major improvement to the overall web experience.
How Web 2.0 Has Improved Design
1. A rich interface allows for a more natural web interaction
Drag and drop utilizes what cognitive psychologists would call an “affordance”, or a clue that communicates to users how to use an object. It’s natural. From the minute the users sees their cursor turn into an open hand, to when their mouse down causes that hand to grip an object, it feels more connected to real world behavior than endless amounts of up and down arrows.
Many people are making a case for the physics of the iPhone as being a revolutionary step in incorporating more lifelike gestures into the browsing experience. With other technologies, such as Microsoft Surface, taking the hint and offering similar experiences, the future of physical gestures and computing is truly gaining forward momentum. Web 2.0 AJAX and Flash interaction is moving users in a more intuitive direction, getting them away from the past of “point and click” and pushing them towards the future of touch, pinch, and grab.
2. Design clues can communicate purpose
With Web 2.0 sites launching daily, each offering their new twist on a perceived audience need, the marketplace is and has been overrun and overloaded. The only way to gain traction against the competition is to position your site as a simple, yet powerful idea backed by an intuitive web experience. Design clues can help users understand the flavor of your site and how they are supposed to interact with it. It should give them simple direction and set them of running.
3. Good design structure can organize and prioritize content
Successful social content sites (Yelp!, Travelocity, Flickr, etc) offer a wealth of valuable content. However, for a user the content is only as good as how it can be used. This is where good design and information architecture really pay off. By bucketing similar content under easy to understand headers, a user can skim the page, allowing them to understand the content landscape “at a glance” and decide what is important. Futhermore, by using color and icons, design can visually prioritize calls to action and common tasks.
Improving CellarTracker’s User Experience
Since this whole train of thought began with my wish for CellarTracker to take some clues from all those pretty faces in the Wine 2.0 world, I thought I would have a bit of fun and see if I couldn’t put together a slightly improved user experience. My point was not to try and create a gorgeous mock-up that uses AJAX technology and tons of graphics. Not only would that be hard for CellarTracker to implement, but I recognize that really isn’t the desire or need of their audience base. So, with my amateur design skills, I tried my hand at a very minor facelift.
Before / After (click for larger image)
I envision CellarTracker as becoming my portal into the wine web, much like NetVibes is my personal start page for all things web. To do this, the home page for logged in users would need to be more customizable. There should be an ability to turn on and off content. What is important to a wine newbie still learning and exploring is going to be very different than the wine auction aficionado who needs to keep tight tabs on his cellar. The main page should not try and make compromises between these audiences, and instead enable them to craft an experience that is optimized for their needs.
Similarly, I think that sort of philosophy should be applied to sidebar navigation. Certain tasks are more important than others, more frequently used. Right now, all the links carry the same weight and there doesn’t seem to be a logical organization scheme (although there probably is). Visual clues such as icons and more pronounced separation of tasks will empower users to browse more efficiently and more confidently. And as Kathy Sierra can attest, the faster users can get confident about what they are doing, the sooner they can “kick ass” and become passionate about the experience.
food: butternut squash soup from Les Papilles in Paris
The French know how to do winter soup. Lots of cream and lots of butter. At Les Papilles in Paris, they took the fun of eating a hearty soup even further, and thus created one of the most memorable singular dishes of our whole Europe trip. They filled the bottom of a large bowl with roasted chestnuts, cheese, fresh chives, and a large wad of freshly whipped butter. The soup came family style in a big tureen for your to pour over the butter and tasty treasures. Mix together and magic happens.
Since it is nearing the end of winter, I thought this would be the perfect time for me to test out recreating the memorable dish. And I have to say that for the most part, it was a real success. The soup was a bit thicker, like a puree, and next time I will go for some high quality whipped butter. But all in all I found it a delicious and fun way to serve a soup with endless possibilities for alterations. This time I tried roasted apples, toasted chestnuts, and smoked cheddar, but next time maybe it can be poured over yogurt and Indian spices.
RECENT WINES
