Taste of Summer: Rosé Sangria

I recorded a radio interview earlier this week, chatting about great foods and beverages to enjoy during the summer. When it comes to “summer” and “drinks” I get fixated on one thing: rosé sangria. I’ll admit to not usually being a sangria fan. Random fruit and sweetened red wine, just not my cup of tea. Which I’m sure is doing a disservice to great traditional sangria, but that’s been my general impression most times I’ve ordered it. Maybe I’ll have to run off to Spain and give some authentic sangria a try one of these days.

But when you swap out that red wine for a brisk, beautiful pink wine of summer and choose some great seasonal fruit — now you’re talking! That’s a sangria I can get enthusiastic about. Pretty, bright, and delicious. An ideal partner for whatever you may be cooking up this summer.

You know about the glories of rosé wine, right? Just because it’s pink doesn’t mean it’s sweet and adorable and girly. And if your only image of “pink” wine is white zinfandel, snap out of it!! Rosé is an incredibly engaging style of wine that serves up quite a lot of personality. Colors can go from just a subtle blush of pink to nearly raspberry, some verging on salmon-orange tones. Flavors range from light, crisp and quite dry to lush and somewhat fruity (my preference leans toward the former rather than the latter). While it’s possible some folks out there are in fact tinging white wine with red to get to pink, quality rosés are made with red wine grapes that are crushed, the juice left in contact with those red skins just long enough to influence the juice with a bit of their color.

So after I’d talked about some great grilling ideas and entertaining suggestions, the subject turned to beverages. And I piped up about my love of rosé sangria, about to rattle off description of the Watermelon-Rosé Sangria that’s in my new book, Gourmet Game Night, when I remembered that I’d also developed a rosé sangria recipe for my Stone Fruit cookbook that came out a few years ago. Kind of obsessed with the subject, you can see. My pal Braiden Rex-Johnson just did a wonderful write-up of Gourmet Game Night, which includes the watermelon version recipe here.

But here below is the original recipe I came up with. It was inspired in large part by the bottles of rosé from Washington’s own Chinook that populate our wine rack each summer. Winemaker Kay Simon makes her rosé with Cabernet Franc grapes, giving the wine some of that cherry-plum-berry character the varietal exhibits. If you’re unable to get your hands on the lighter-fleshed Rainier cherries, you can use dark cherries instead, knowing that their juices will deepen the color of the sangria from the natural hue of the wine.

Here’s to a wonderful summer ahead, with lots of delicious rosé sangria to enjoy! I think I’ll make it a new summertime tradition to come up with a new rosé sangria combo each year. A tasty challenge indeed.

Rosé Sangria with Rainier Cherries and Nectarines
from Stone Fruit

1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
2 bottles (750 ml each) dry rosé wine
1/2 pound Rainier cherries
1 nectarine or peach
1/2 lime, thinly sliced
1/4 cup brandy or kirsch
1 cup club soda

In a small saucepan, combine the water and sugar and warm over medium heat, stirring occasionally to help the sugar dissolve, 3 to 5 minutes. Increase the heat to high and bring just to a boil, then set the sugar syrup aside to cool.

Pour the rosé into a large pitcher, preferably glass. Pit and halve the cherries (Rainiers will discolor if pitted too far in advance) and add them to the wine. Pit and thinly slice the nectarine and add it to the pitcher with the lime slices. Stir in the brandy and sugar syrup, then chill the sangria until ready to serve, ideally at least a few hours to allow the flavors of the fruit to meld with the wine

Just before serving, stir in the club soda. Pour the chilled sangria into large wine glasses, spooning some of the fruit into each serving.

Makes 10 to 12 servings

A Feast of Shrimp, South Carolina Style

I think a new tactic I’ll employ whenever travelling to a new place for the first time will be getting a pedicure on the first day there. That’s how we found out about the secret location for getting our shrimp fix while in South Carolina last month. Warm weather, beaches, sandals, sunshine meant a prime time for getting our toes all primped up. So Sunday morning we were hanging out at the local mani/pedi destination, in one of the fancy outdoor mall areas of Mt Pleasant just outside Charleston. Piggly Wiggly in the same complex became a frequent stop, this mall quickly became part of our routine during our brief stint as locals.

So there we were soaking our toes and four women were just finishing up, sounded like prelude to wedding celebrations later in the week. We exchanged a couple quick hellos. I guess it was pretty clear we weren’t from around there (lily white skin a dead give-away I suppose), they asked where we were visiting from. Our new friend heard “Seattle” and immediately asked if we’d come to town for Bambi’s party. Or maybe it was Buffy, or Trixie? Whatever it was, it wasn’t a name I hear often attached to any Seattleites I know. We nodded ‘nope’ but secretly wondered about crashing a fellow native’s shin-dig down there in South Carolina….. But then down to business. “Where can we get some local shrimp in the area?” we asked. Shem Creek, she told us. She explained that’s the area where all the shrimp boats pull in and dock when they’re not out shrimping. “Get your shrimp at Wendy’s,” she said. “It’s right behind the Rack.” Shem. Wendy’s. Rack. Got it.

Kathy and I headed back to the house to dazzle our husbands with our twinkly fingers and toes, then we all head off for our first of two lunches at Poe’s Tavern. We’d be regulars in a heartbeat if we lived anywhere near here. And we will be every time we make a return visit. Then off in search of shrimp. Took a while, but we had nothing but time (ahhhhhhh, vacation!). Google maps messed us up a bit, sending us to a hospital complex just off the highway. Only off by about four miles…… We finally found Shem Creek Inn, which lead us to some shrimp boats, a quick chat with a cook at a tourist restaurant who was catching a smoke out back, and before long we were standing in front of a funky local restaurant called The Wreck (not the Rack), with Wando Shrimp (not Wendy’s) alongside.

Both The Wreck and Wando were closed, but still we’d struck pay dirt. Because to the other side of The Wreck was Magwood & Sons. Purveyors of shrimp. Though they were out that afternoon. We chatted with head honcho Jay, who promised to call when next the boat came in. Which he did on Tuesday, very early in the morning. A few hours later, we were standing in the shop and he was scooping up 5 pounds of just-landed shrimp from the bin. While we were standing there chatting with Jay, I realized we’d come in the back door and were standing in the business part of the business, while most customers come in the other door and order at the counter. I sheepishly apologized, he said “that’s okay, I know you guys,” like we were longtime friends. Gotta love that about the South! As he was filling the old-school scale hanging from the ceiling, I scanned the shop noticing not much else going one. Shining stainless steel tables for cleaning. Refrigeration. The big tub full of shrimp. “Do you sell anything besides shrimp?” I asked him. “You bet!” he said. “Ice.”

Back to the house with the shrimp. As good fortune would have it, Tuesday is also farmers market day in Mt. Pleasant, but not until later in the afternoon. First, we had an early afternoon date with Nathalie Dupree at her really charming historic home in downtown Charleston, talking about food and cooking and Charleston and her work telling the story of Southern cuisine for a number of years. Great fun. And it’s where we learned the wisdom of “you can’t catch a pig from a horse,” which came in the course of discussing barbecue. And why it’s pig barbecue in the Carolinas and beef barbecue in Texas. Cowboys like to be on horses, galloping around and whooping and roping things. Cows are much more amenable to that scenario than are pigs. Which I guess explains why they’re not called Pigboys. But I digress.

 

Back over the lovely Arthur Ravenel bridge spanning the Cooper River to Mount Pleasant (a quick 10-15 minute drive) and the farmers market. It’s run by the city of Mt. Pleasant in a lovely, new-looking permanent structure. Lively and dynamic, lots of lovely produce, great locally made products like pickles and cheese, peanuts fresh, boiled and deep-fried (you eat them shell and all!). It was a fun and delightful taste of the region, and a great way to stock up for dinner.

 

The kitchen was soon a-flurry with activity. Green beans being trimmed, garlic cloves peeled, tomatoes and sweet onions sliced, ears of corn being shucked, amazing little creamer potatoes being scrubbed. Cocktails being made. Pimiento cheese being snacked on. All we were missing was the soundtrack from Big Chill. It had already been a wonderful day, and we were in for a pretty spectacular evening.

As is true of most regional/seasonal food, it’s usually time to stand back and apply the “less is more” principle. So the shrimp just got steamed very simply with sliced garlic, the green tops from the onions, herbs from Nathalie’s garden, lemon halves. Our salad was simple sliced cucumber, tomatoes, sweet onions with blue cheese scattered over and a balsamic vinaigrette. Corn, green beans and potatoes simply steamed. OOOOHHHH. And how could I forget?!?! Garlic bread! Old-school. Lots of butter with lots of minced garlic, some chives and other herbs. Slathered on big slabs of “French bread” (you know the kind, softer big loaves than any classic baguette). We were in HEAVEN.

 

Everything was ready. We piled onto the deck, had a good hour or so of sunlight left, glasses filled with chilled beverages of choice. All was right with our world! And it was an amazing dinner. Lots of moans and groans, more than a few comments akin to “a meal to remember.” A blessed highlight of vacation!

The leftovers were pretty remarkable too. Yes, we’d bought TOO MUCH shrimp. So it got peeled after dinner and tucked away for tomorrow. All the shrimp shells went into a pot and simmered for the rest of the evening. And it was a long evening of playing games and sipping cocktails (Kathy invented the Charleston 75 in honor of the experience!!! Ooooh those were good). So those shrimp shells had ample opportunity to exude all their wonderful flavor into the water. Which after being strained, we reduced even further to a thick near-glaze.

For Wednesday’s lunch I chopped up the remaining shrimp, diced some of the sweet onion and whipped the living daylights out of an egg yolk and some olive oil to make mayonnaise. A drizzle of that shrimp stock reduction, pinches of salt and pepper. I have to say that was one of the most delicious shrimp salads I’d ever had. Made only more delicious by spooning it on top of a piece of cold garlic bread. Much as I might like to think I could recreate that shrimp salad another day, it was truly a product of that moment in time. That combination of Mt Pleasant ingredients, that group of friends, that series of events and experiences that lead up to the simple lunch that was satisfying down to my jauntily-painted toes.

No-Fuss French Fries

I can’t tell you the last time I cooked French fries at home. Years ago, easily. If not a decade or more. Don’t get me wrong. I love a good French fry, but I’m just pretty loath to glug out a pan full of oil and go through the work of frying at home. Not the mention the clean-up.

So I’m not quite sure why I perked up as much as I did when I read Christopher Kimball’s tweet about the cold-start French fry method they’d perfected at Cooks Illustrated. But for whatever reason, I immediately made a shopping list and the next day was doing the unthinkable: adding freshly-cut Yukon Gold potato batons to a pot of cold, fresh-from-the-bottle peanut oil. So counter-intuitive, it did feel just wrong as I was doing so….. But in the hands of Cooks Illustrated, I at least knew that if I was being led astray, I was being led astray by the best!

This is the link to their synopsis of the procedure and why it works so well, along with the recipe itself. The article’s delightfully simple because, in fact, the method just IS delightfully simple. No rinsing of the cut potatoes, just a brief scrub whole and pat dry before cutting. No preheating of the oil or worrying about a thermometer to evaluate the heat level. Most importantly, no fiddling with the double-fry method, long-held to be the answer to perfect fries: frying first at a lower temperature to cook the potato, then removing from the oil, which gets heated to a slightly higher temp to then fry a second time for the crispy-brown finish. Nope, none of that. Instead just combine those potatoes and oil (peanut oil is recommended, that’s what I used, though others are good options), set it over high heat and monitor things a couple times for the next 20 to 25 minutes.

My only departure from the printed recipe was that the fried got pretty brown (as you can see) a few minutes earlier than the targeted time. Not too brown, but just browner than I’d intended. I might recommend you consider doing that gently stir-with-the-tongs step at 10 or 12 minutes instead of the 15 mentioned. Depends on the heat of your burner and random other influences I guess……

Oh, and the freaky thing?? They did both the cold-start method and the traditional double-fry method, sent the forensic evidence off to an independent lab and found out that there’s actually LESS fat retained in the cold-start fry than the traditional fry. Isn’t food science fun?!!

Couldn’t help myself. Homemade French fries had me immediately yearning for some luxuriant aïoli in which to bath them to celebrate their deliciousness (flowery enough for you?? good French fries are worthy of a little excessive adulation). Having whipped up a batch of mayo by hand in South Carolina for the day-after shrimp salad (more on that next post), I was thrilled to have my handy little mini chopper this time that makes the process so easy even a caveman could do it….

Oh yeah. We did have some chicken and a green vegetable for dinner that night too. But far as I was concerned, it was a French fry dinner. Easy enough to recreate any night of the week, though I’ll resist that urge. But surely it won’t be another string of years before I next serve up some homemade French fries for friends and family. Hmmm. Now about those variations on aïoli that I can start playing around with. The delicious fun never ends.

A Taste of South Carolina

For a couple of months there, mid May couldn’t arrive soon enough. I’m truly thankful that this year’s been such a full and busy one work-wise, but the load was almost too much, lots of irons in the fire, lots of deadlines on my to-do list. Maybe I’d bitten off a bit more than I could chew. May 15 became the light at the end of the tunnel, the carrot toward 

Endless acres of Spanish moss hanging from trees; this at the Middleton Place plantation.

 which I was running so hard! So after turning in a huge amount of work in the weeks leading up to mid May–the last email of recipes for the 2010 volumes of Celebrated Chefs cookbooks going off late in the day of the 14th–off we went. To South Carolina. A state I and my five travel-mates had never stepped foot in before. With no expectations of that week beyond a change of scenery, a chance to clear the head and relax a bit, the pay-off was huge. We stayed up late playing games, slept in, curled up in chairs to read, explored Charleston, watched the Thin Man, got our toes in the sand, talked and laughed and ate very well together. It could not have been a more perfect vacation (well, aside from getting caught in a deluge of rain one afternoon, soaked to the bones; but hey, we’re from Seattle and at least we don’t melt). And I’ve got a list going of things yet to see and do, things to fuel another trip to the region.   

Ambling around Charleston on our horse-drawn carriage

We didn’t stay in Charleston proper, though visited the city a few different days that week. Our home base was the house of a friend who’d put a week’s rental up for an auction last year. (One of the best auction purchases we’ve been part of in recent years!). Having a house made all the difference, flake out on the couch, grab a snack any time of day or night, pull out the grill to cook up some steaks, a well-stocked kitchen for cooking dinner–and making cocktails, I might add! We were on the lovely and relaxing Isle of Palms a mere 20 minute drive from Charleston. Best of both worlds, if you ask me. Makes me long for more vacations that come with the kind of place you feel becomes “home” after a couple of days. You know, “your” chair for reading, rhythms of who’s up first to make the coffee and who’s likely to clean things up after dinner. It was awesome.   

One of the “must-dos” on our Charleston list was taking a horse-drawn carriage ride around town. And sure, it’s touristy. But like a trip up the Space Needle, it’s something everyone’s got to do! Just the kind of thing, in particular, on a first-time visit to a city. Gives you some great perspective, history, a little local color. I’d highly recommend that to anyone visiting Charleston. We had a great guide narrating the hour-long trip, but the carriage was drawn by a new-recruit of a horse who had a little trouble walking a straight line. Loved hearing stories about the houses (medallions on an outside wall indicated which fire company the house was insured with way back when; only that company would bother to try putting the fire out should your house have become victim to flames) and the city. Of course a little contemporary reference to their governor and his Appalachian exploits, that got a good laugh. As did reference to one of the city’s oldest trees and whether, in fact, Strom Thurmond himself had planted the seedling. They do have some colorful politicians in South Carolina!   

A stunning display by one of the denizens of Middleton Place plantation

Palm trees. Shrimp, often seen in the company of grits. Local Palmetto Ale. Pimiento cheese. Sweet onions and boiled peanuts. Miles and miles of sandy beaches. Zilch (the game; not the nothingness the name implies). These things consumed much of our attention that week. And a great week it was.   

I’ll be honest. We all agreed that the best meal we had was the Tuesday night dinner we cooked at home. Early that morning we’d gotten a call from our shrimp guy (it didn’t take long to cozy up to one of the local shrimp purveyors in Mt Pleasant) saying the boat had just come in and fresh shrimp were read for the sellin’. And it happened to be farmers market day as well, we hit the stalls that afternoon and did a pretty good job covering bases to ensure not only a great meal that night, but some mighty find snacking for a day or two. That dinner deserves its own post, which will follow soon-ish.   

But we did eat out pretty well too! Fresh off the airplane, four of us drove into town for dinner at Hominy Grill. Classic. Much of the menu’s on the chalkboard posted on the wall, much of that listing the night’s side dishes, which range from grits and collard greens to macaroni & cheese and red field peas. We tried a number of them (LOVED those red field peas, cooked up with some stock and bacon of course), thumbs up all around for the crab and egg salad, shrimp & grits and pimento cheese with beet-boiled eggs. This is the only place we tried boiled peanuts all week and to be perfectly honest, it was not an enchanting introduction. Must be an acquired taste, or maybe one you just need to grow up with. The nuts were soft and starchy, 

Shrimp corndogs at Amen Street

not a whole lot of flavor; blind-folded I’d have likely never guessed “peanut.” I much prefer them roasted, even the fried-in-the-shell version we got at the farmers market a few days later (you eat them whole, shell and all, nice and crunchy!).   

We loved, too, Poe’s Tavern on Sullivan Island, enough that we went back twice!! Edgar Allen Poe was stationed at nearby Fort Moultrie around 1828 and based his story The Gold Bug on his time here. Great burgers, my favorite the Gold Bug Plus, with pimiento cheese, roasted garlic blue cheese, and jalapeno jack cheese. Hand-cut fries, great bacon-blue cheese coleslaw, tasty tacos too. Highly recommendable! And the women’s restroom is plastered floor to ceiling with pages from Poe stories, should you need any reading material while you’re in there…..   

Another favorite was Amen Street in downtown Charleston. Lunch there one day was great fun, fueling us for an afternoon to wandering King Street to check out antique shops. We’d read about their shrimp corn dogs, started with a couple orders of them, very fun. Nice hot mustard dip, lightly coated shrimp, tasty. I’d have liked a bit more corn dog-like coating, some cornmeal in the batter, but small quibble. So hard to choose lunch but I opted for the fried green tomato BLT. Just perfect! It was a great lunch spot in a bustling part of town. One of a great many tasty spots in Charleston. We opted to take dessert just a couple blocks away at Baked. Wonderful bakery, lots of delicious indulgences from old-fashioned layer cakes to great little Parisian macaroons.   

The “big” dinner out we chose McCrady’s, just a shrimp’s throw from Baked. Chef Sean Brock had just a couple of weeks

Entrance to McCrady's on a small side alley downtown.

 earlier won the James Beard award for Best Chef: Southeast. In fact he was the third Charleston chef in a row to earn that award, the last two honorees were Mike Lata from Fig (didn’t get there, next time!) and Robert Steling from  Hominy Grill (downhome fun, we’d go back for sure). Just to confirm the culinary chops of this South Carolina city! We opted for the night’s tasting menu, to get the full spectrum of a first-timer’s experience. I’d read a bit about chef Brock and the restaurant before leaving, but hadn’t picked up on his penchant for modern, rather high-tech cuisine! So the “scallop with rhubarb, celery and cilantro ice” that lead off the menu wasn’t a scallop as we’re familiar with them, instead a reformed scallop, puree of the shellfish having been cast in a thin square that was the base for the complementary ingredients. It was a fun and engaging presentation, though we all wished that the scallop part had retained a bit more of its sweet, rich scallop flavor. A bit of its character was lost in the modern interpretation. But the rest of the menu was a big hit: grouper with zucchini and bonito, pork belly with farro and green garlic, sweetbreads with lobster legs and artichokes, plus a few other courses. We sipped a bottle of Champagne with the early courses, one I’d never had before. And one that really caught my attention with complex layers of flavors that were perfectly balanced, lush and delicious! Chartogne-Taillet. If you see it anywhere, get it and have a sip for me! Then tell me where you found it…… 

Oh, I could go on and on and on about our trip. Tell you about our drive out to Middleton Place for a taste of antebellum plantation life. Or wax lyrical about the few hours spent on the beach one day. I just walked and walked and walked barefoot right at the water line, waves petering out just as they crested over my ankles.  Or the fun we had getting to know the local Piggly Wiggly where we stocked up on essentials for our shelves back at the house. Maybe more of that will come up in future discussions. Along with that chronicle of the amazing farmers-market shrimp feast we had one night!  

Until then, here’s capping this chronicle off with a snapshot of the closest we got to an alligator on the trip, at Middleton Place. Close enough!!!