Its probably a bad idea to blog whilst hungry. Hopefully this dark chocolate Toblerone will tide me over until dear P gets home and we can go out for our weekly sushi date. I think its finally Fall in Florida. I never thought I'd miss cold weather, but I'm beginning to think that I am. This weekend we went to the 'Return to France' tasting part...I've lost count. This was a fun one. All of the essentials were in place -- wine, French winemakers with poor English, paté, and little bits of cheese. What more does anyone need really? Oddly enough, we tried 1 pinot and the rest were chards from Burgandy.

The first were from the Voarick Family of Aloxe-Corton near Beaune. The pinot was a Parnand-Vergelesses and there was a chard as well each being a 100% blend. The pinot was boring and overly chalky. The chard was super mineral and super delicious. Then we tried a Corton-charlemagne (Grand Cru) that was the most expensive I've ever tasted at $70, but not nearly as good as the Pernand.

Then we tried a chard that for some reason tasted like bacon to me. No one else got it so don't take my word for it. This chard was a Domaine A&P De Villaine Les Saint-Jacques 2004 with 100% chard and a hint of muscat which was very interesting.

The rest were Robert-Denogent's
'Clos des Bertillones' -- smelled of scotch
'Les Pommards' -- very citrus-y
'Les Reiss' -- juicy pear
'Les Taches' -- true flavor of the grape

Afterward, Diana and I made a pre-thanksgiving/clean out the fridge dinner. I marinated/basted some turkey tenderloins with apple jelly some chicken broth and loads of rosemary. I cooked them nice an slow on top of the stove until they got a nice carmalized crust despite being skinless. The flavors went nicely on a bed of fennel. Then we experimented with spaghetti squash and came up with a puttanesca type deal with tomatoes artichoke hearts, capers, and red pepper flake. This is my new favorite thing. I will definitely be making it for thanksgiving but maybe altering it slightly to better fit with the other side dishes. We had a nice pinot with all this wonderfulness -- a 2005 Laetitia Estate from the Arroyo Grande Valley in CA.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I'm so excited to finally be doing all the cooking. Stay tuned.