An ode to apricots, and some Sauvignon Blanc

Okay enough of the self analysis, it's time to talk about food and in particular apricots.

I love apricots although I know many consider them to be the red headed bastard step child of the peach family, and in fact they are related to peaches, but I actually rank the two on a par as my favourite stone fruits. Apricots are also hella good for you with whacks of vitamin A, vitamin C, fiber and antioxidants, in fact if all the stuff on this page is true you better stock up before they are declared the next superfood. We are in the middle of Californian apricot season and as the harvest moves north through Washington and the Okanagan we will have fresh apricots available until August, and then that's it, there is no import market for fresh apricots that I know of.

Apricots are great on their own, made into jam, baked in tarts etc. but my two preferred uses are :

1) Grilled

2) Apricot Salsa

The first method is dead easy, and works great with peaches as well, but is best if you are old school as I am and use a wood/charcoal burning grill. Since the grill retains heat for 15-20 minutes after the protein has come off why not use that heat to make dessert. I will just halve ripe apricots, rub the cut side with some neutral oil and slap them on the still warm grill. If the grill gods are with you by the time dinner is over you will have warmed, juicy, slightly charred apricots that can go with some vanilla ice cream, or yoghurt if you want a buzzkill, with maybe a bit of berry coulis and dessert is served. It's not fool proof, sometimes they burn but if so you can cook them down on the stovetop with some sugar and water and have a nice "charred apricot puree" to bring to your next hipster foodie gathering.

The second method is my fave though and was the result of some overly aggressive apricot purchasing in the Okanagan 7-8 years ago. Home for a week I was faced with a decision of what to do with all the apricots, decided to make salsa, and was happy I did. Because apricots are not as sweet as peaches they balance better with a little heat so I just chopped up some red onion, a jalapeno, a couple of cloves of garlic, some coarse sea salt, Italian parsley and a bit of vegetable oil and pureed the whole thing. The result is a slightly sweet condiment that gets a back end heat from the onion and chile and is tremendous with pork, chicken or salmon.

For years I ate the stuff alone as wife was not a sweet and savory person at all and daughter thought it looked weird and, since "Mom doesn't have to eat it so why should I", passed on it. Two weeks ago I grabbed a couple of pounds of apricots at market and made up a batch of salsa to go with pork tenderloin the next night, the salsa is always better the second day as the flavours get comfortable with each other. As I was prepping the pork I put out some salsa on the table then continued cooking. When dinner hit the table daughter  immediately asked "what is the sauce", I told her it was apricot salsa and she heaped some on her plate. I reminded her that she hadn't liked it in the past but she replied that "I might have pinky tasted it while I was setting the table" and proceeded to ravage it con gusto . Since then I've had to make a second batch and last night we learned that it not only was great with the salmon but made the boiled new potatoes taste much better as well.

Here's the recipe, such as it is, for apricot salsa: (please note this isn't a professional cooking blog so my recipes aren't really that accurate on proportions sometimes, cooking is art ... baking is science)

5-6 apricots, stones removed, cut in quarters
1/4 medium red onion chopped
1 mid sized hot pepper, your choice, diced
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 tablespoons Italian parsley chopped (you can use cilantro if you want to ruin the dish)
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 tablespoon neutral oil

Toss it all into a processor, blender or use a hand blender and process until it's a coarse puree, you want some definable texture. Try it with white meats or rich fish, particularly off the grill or pulled pork. I suppose it will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks but that seems unlikely in my house, I'm almost sure I saw daughter put some on toast this morning.

A quick wine note as well, with the salmon last night I had a really nice, inexpensive, Sauvignon Blanc from Chiile.

Now in the past I've often found Chilean SB to be lacking in substance but last night's bottle was very good. The wine is from Carmen and is part of their Wave Series of wines that are supposed to be dedicated to the ocean .........whatever the hell that means, and while I haven't tried the Right Wave Pinot Noir I can certainly recommend the Left Wave Sauvignon Blanc. The wine is medium bodied and favours the citrus, gooseberry aspects of the grape, not as assertive as New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and more fruit forward than Loire Valley it has a crisp entry, good mouth feel and a nice long finish. It will be a solid addition to the summer bbq season wine rack, it's widely available and retails for $11.49, which after tax equals a million dollars .......... just kidding, all in with deposit a bottle will set you back $13.30.

Putting my toe back in the water

So I'm going to try and start blogging again. If you can endure this little explanatory post I promise to try and keep things lighter as we move forward after today.

My life has changed radically in the past 20 months, none of it for the better, but I think it's time to start writing again. The tone may change as I'm not going to limit myself to food, wine and sports, I may get a little political on occasion but I will continue to write about things that matter to me. Except for the occasions when I just write about things that just strike my whimsy .

As a background, and a bit of catharsis, my wife and partner of over 30 years was diagnosed with inoperable stage IV colon cancer in November of 2012. The cancer was already metastatic, meaning it had spread to other organs and she was very sick but hope, stupid hope, springs eternal and when she responded so positively to the first chemo cocktail we began to believe that she might beat the odds.

She didn't.

The first chemo cocktail ran it's course, the second didn't really have any positive results and my wife passed away in April of 2014, leaving me a widower and a single parent of a fifteen year old daughter. The end came astonishingly fast as my wife was in great spirits, and seemingly decent health, in mid February and dead seven weeks later, so I didn't really have time to process . I ran hard on adrenaline for a few months, spending most of my energy trying to ensure our daughter was not going to fall apart . 

With the fall came a return to school and some semblance of normalcy for daughter and a new job for me. I made the decision to return to management, taking over running lunch at a very good bistro, the money wasn't as good but I would be able to be home by 6pm and be there for daughter, plus the restaurant was great and I enjoyed the change . There was another hitch in October when my mother passed away, but she had been suffering from full blown dementia for a number of years so in some ways it was a blessing. It certainly didn't help my frame of mind but I pushed through and settled into a solid routine, then just before the new year the great little bistro closed it's doors due to partnership disputes among other things.

I am still committed to working days but I have decided to abandon front line restaurant service/management and am currently searching for what I want to be when I grow up, all the while beginning to deal with the reality that I am suffering from depression. Counselling is helping but it's not easy, although at least it's not hard to identify the reason for my condition . The good thing is that I have plenty of time to write, the bad thing is that I have a great deal of difficulty getting motivated to do anything.

So there it is, some back story and a commitment to return to the blogosphere. I'm sure my followers are long gone, if not great but the blog has always been for myself anyway. I'm going to try and post a minimum of twice weekly so be prepared.

It's a big Fruitbomb but I like it - Kingston Estate Petit Verdot

This is definitely not my usual type of wine, this is a big fruit bomb from down under but this one I liked. Strolling the aisles at the Mothership the other day, and with flank steak on the menu, I was looking for something ripe and lush. My first gander was in Argentina and South Africa but there was nothing that lit my fire, at least nothing I hadn't tried before, so I headed over to the Australian section. I really wasn't counting on success, as my record with Oz reds in the $15 range is pretty poor, but since I was actually looking for something ripe and lush I thought maybe the Dingo's might get the job done. As I was checking out the myriad of Shiraz with silly names I got a text requesting my presence at the home office so I had to make a fast decision, I quickly grabbed an "on sale" bottle of Petit Verdot and headed for the checkout.

For those unaware of Petit Verdot, and I'm guessing that would be quite a few, it is originally from Bordeaux, one of those old wine producing regions in Europe that rarely names their wines after animals, and is one of the five varietals used in making red wine in the Bordeaux. The other four are all pretty well known and established on their own: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc but Petit Verdot doesn't get a lot of attention. Mostly Petit Verdot gets downplayed because it is very late to ripen and thus often is picked under ripe, resulting in nasty acidic little wines that are best blended with others. In Australia, and particularly in the vast sun baked tracts of the Murray Valley riverlands region of South Australia Petit Verdot can fully ripen and stand alone. Some further research indicates that Kingston Estate are the largest growers of Petit Verdot in Australia

The results are generally big, rich red wines, fruit bombs if you will, and while they are not generally my style they can, in proper hands have the heady fruit flavours tempered with some tannin and some of the left over natural acidity and produce wines of merit, and last week I got lucky. The wine in question was Kingston Estate Petit Verdot 2010 the bottle age of three years is important as a younger wine would not have had time to mesh the big fruit with the dusty tannins but this wine worked, and worked well. In the glass the wine is deep, deep purple in colour and the nose is quite floral, with a touch of sweet spice and a touch of lead pencil, in the mouth the wine is blackberry jam, with a spice palate rich in the sweet compote spices, cinnamon, clove and all spice and finishes very long. The beauty of this is that the fruit is not over powering, yes it could use a touch more acid but all in the all the balance is good and the wine is a hedonistic pleasure. I drank it with grilled flank steak, but it would be a great partner to the cheese course and I can't wait to try it out with some spicy sausage on the grill or even a cassoulet.

The wine regularly retails for $17.99, which is a tad high for a BBQ quaffer but it's on sale right now at $15.99, with limited distribution I might add. I will pick up a few bottles before the sale ends to have on hand for summer, assuming it arrives, BBQ and advise you to as well.