I must confess I’ve got Spring fever. I just can’t wait to get to the Farmer’s Markets and the local produce gets up and rolling again. What’s the story on the West Frederick Farmer’s Market? Anybody know?
January 29, 2010
ChocoVine
Snagged a bottle of ChocoVine at a local wine store as a stocking stuffer for Mrs. F at Christmas. Billed as a silky smooth union of fine Cabernet and Dutch chocolate I thought for $13 it was worth a try. I was hoping for less expensive Bailey’s or maybe an alcoholic Yoohoo. Well we got around to trying it last week and in a word we both felt it was pretty gross. Had some wierd chemically flavors underneath the chocolate. Also looking at the ingredients on the bottle it only listed chocolate flavor and not chocolate which raised my suspicions. Anyway we have half a bottle left and I don’t think its going anywhere soon but down the sink.
January 21, 2010
Viniferous
I had a chance to stop by the new wine store, Vinferous, which is located on North Market Street across from Volt. Got to love a wine store (they also sell craft beers) that I can walk to from work. The store is beautiful but clearly still getting on its feet. Not a huge selection yet: they have about 3 dozen different wines on display. I saw all price ranges from $8.99 to $80+. A note about the display: they have the bottles in what appears to be photographer light box -type counters of the sort where the light is in the counter and projects up through an opaque piece of plastic. Very striking and unique, but I assume the owner has fully researched this and the light will not negatively affect the wine. Speaking of the owner (or co-owner actually)- he was very friendly and incredibly enthusiastic. He has a lot of great ideas and is already working with pairing with some of the local restaurants and getting Zoe’s Chocolate to make a chocolate to go with a specific wine for Valentine’s Day. I wish Viniferous all the best and shall certainly return.
Only minor FredFoodie gripe was that the owner tried to sell me an Italian Cava? WTF? As loyal readers will know Cava only comes from Spain. Anyway I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that it was just his enthusiasm getting carried away. But really!
January 14, 2010
My Favorite Grape
Well not really since that would be like picking my favorite child. I love them all in their own unique way. However I was on Cellar Tracker the other night running some reports and something interesting popped up. For those of you not familiar with Cellar Tracker it is an online program that started out as a wine cellar management application. I’ve been using it almost since its inception and it has grown to a lot more with community tasting notes, valuations and a host of other features. One of the things you can do is run reports on your data: how many bottles drunk, when, from what region etc. At the end of the year I like to run a report that lists all of the wines I’ve tasted in order of my ratings. For the past three years the top scoring whites all been from a different producer but all were chenin blancs from the Loire valley. All were of the dry style (chenin’s can be also made in a sweet style). Try some. I have found their combination of dry acidity and minerality along with the flavors of apple, honeysuckle, acacia and quince to be fantastic.
January 6, 2010
Washington Post Reviews Black Hog
And it wasn’t good. Tom Sietsema didn’t like it very much calling the food “mixed.” In fact he says the best thing is the service: “At Black Hog, a new barbecue joint in Frederick, the service is warm but the food is not.” I can’t confirm this as despite the name (of a heritage breed of pigs) the meat served there doesn’t meet my criteria. In fact I’ve always been a little pissed off at the place. If you look at their home page it seems to suggest that they serve heritage pork: “compared to other breeds, the flavors of the Black Hog’s meat is exceptional.” You have to really parse the text to learn that they just named the restaurant after the breed to “represent the fine quality of food and service that we offer…” One has to assume that they serve modern industrially produced meat then. Am I being too prickly? I don’t know. As always feel free to comment, good, bad or indifferent.
Full review is here, but you need to register to view it.
December 28, 2009
More Free Bubbly!
Now as you know this writer very much believes that sparkling wines are appropriate all year round but in the spirit of the season the Frederick Wine House is having a free New Years Eve Champagne tasting from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Some nice bubblies including Gosset Brut Grand Rose which goes for $78 a bottle. I’ve never had that particular wine but I have had some other Champagnes from Gosset and they were very very good.
December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to all. Posts have been light as life has overtaken blogging but stay tuned there is more to come. Best wishes to everyone and sincerest hopes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Some poached pear salad with goat cheese from our first course Christmas Eve Dinner.
December 14, 2009
Flying Dog Horn Dog Barley Wine
This beer* has me perplexed and I’m not sure how to rate it. I liked it, but I found the taste so distinctive and big that it really clashed with the food I was eating. It had a very complex set of flavors: bread and yeast, with fig and banana sweetness and a lot of floral notes. I think that with its big distinctive flavors it is really more of a beverage meant to be sipped on its own. I can’t imagine what food this would go well with. It’s also very noticably alcoholic (10%!). I think I’m going to have try this again. You can age this in the cellar (it is aged for three months before bottling) so I think I’m going to buy a few and try it. Overall rating: perplexed.
* Even though this is called a barley wine it is technically a barley wine style ale since it is made from grains not fruits. Read all about it here.
Other reviews in the Flying Dog series are: Old Scratch Amber Lager; Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale, Road Dog Porter , In Heat Wheat and Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA.
December 10, 2009
The Final Word
on Top Chef that is. Hopefully not Volt. I certainly called that one wrong. There was much disappointment and some disbelief last night. The let down was soothed by the fact that all of the final three were really top-notch chefs. As one of them said last night: on any given day anyone could beat the other two. Looking forward to more enjoyable meals at Volt. Not because he’s a celebrity but because the food is great.
PS saw in the Washington Post today that the brothers are working on a cookbook.
December 9, 2009
More Volt
At the risk of turning into the VNN (Voltaggio News Network) a source once removed from this writer confirms that brother Michael is in town for the viewing party. To me this indicates that Michael didn’t win and there is a high liklihood that Bryan did. We’ll see.
