Flashback to Italy: A delicious wine triggers memories of Montepulciano

In May 2016, we took a really wonderful trip to Italy. We were gone for almost a month. Our itinerary included Milan, Piedmont, Cinque Terra, Umbria, Amalfi Coast, and Rome. We were planning a return trip to Italy this June. That seems quite unlikely now with the coronavirus causing such devastation there.

GATTAVECCHI VERNACCIA

We, of course, are in the midst of social-distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders. So on Saturday night, we made a special meal and opened a bottle of wine that we had brought back from that remarkable trip four years ago.

Here's the story ...

We were staying at an agriturismo in the tiny little town of Civitella D'agliano outside of Orvietto. The weather wasn't so great. On the last day of our stay the forecast was for rain. We had planned to drive around the region and do some wine tasting. According to the forecast, the weather looked less threatening farther north. My wife suggested we go to Montepulciano. That was a little further than I had wanted to go. But we had time, we had a car, and the weather forecast seemed better. So off we went.

It took about 90 minutes to get there. We found parking on a street below the town square. Honestly, the weather still looked iffy, but we decided to leave the umbrellas in the car. We walked up to the square and started looking around. Then it started to rain. Actually, it was a downpour. We ducked into an "enoteca" along with some other tourists. We tasted a couple of the wines available there, but they weren't anything special.

On my iPhone, I checked TripAdviser to see what other wineries were available nearby. One, called Gattevecchi, had very high ratings. The rain shower passed, and we set out to find the winery. I relied on Google Maps on my phone for directions.

We found the address and went inside. There we encountered an elderly woman with a very stern countenance and who did not speak a word of English. I don't know a lot of Italian, but somehow I figured out that Google had lead us to the business office. The tasting room was on the other side of the town square.

Happy days in Montepulciano

By now, the clouds had started to disperse and the sun started to dry the streets. We found the Gattevecchi cantina, but the tasting room and retail shop seemed to be deserted. We were about to leave when a very friendly woman came rushing to greet us. It turns out that besides the tasting room there's also a restaurant and she had been busy getting guests seated for lunch.

She gave us a quick history of the winery and a tour. And then we started tasting. We liked the wine very much and ended up buying some to bring home. As we chatted with the proprietor, we learned that Total Wine & Spirits carries Gattevecchi wines. Out of curiosity, when we got home I checked the pricing at Total Wine and was surprised to learn that it was almost exactly the same as what we paid at the winery.

The bottles of red wine we drank relatively soon after returning from the trip. But somehow, the bottle of white got overlooked until Saturday when we wanted something special to go with our dinner at home. Our menu was shrimp seared on a grill pan and Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Mushrooms With Gremolata and Quinoa. We had a very pleasant evening savoring the wine with the meal and remembering our rainy-day adventure in Montepulciano.

Social Distancing addendum

In my last post, I wistfully anticipated spring weather when I could get outside to do yard work or gardening or biking. So naturally today is cold and rainy with slushy snow predicted overnight. According to the Farmer's Almanac, spring is supposed to arrive tonight. But it's still March in Minnesota.

The dismal weather today is distressing for two reasons. First, the weather adds to all the other bad news about the pandemic and the economy and just makes it worse. Second, no morning walk and no afternoon walk to get some fresh air. I spent the whole day reading and staring at my computer screen ... and I didn't see anything to cheer me up. In fact, mid-afternoon I began to feel dizzy and clammy and I worried that maybe I was coming down with the coronavirus. I took my temperature, and it's still normal. So I think it was just nerves.

As I wrote in my last post, cooking provides a creative outlet for the tension and is helping keep me from getting totally stir-crazy. Last night for dinner, I made quinoa cakes and roasted Brussels sprouts. It's a dish that I enjoyed in San Francisco last June at the Sparrow in San Francisco. I wrote about it last June. (Click here.)

The night before, I adapted a couple of recipes to use up some leftover rice noodles that we had in the fridge. It turned out so well that I'm going to make a regular part of my repertoire.

My main inspiration was a recipe from Epicurious: Sesame Rice Noodles with Shrimp. That original recipe called for Sriracha. I didn't have any and besides, my wife doesn't like hot spicy sauce like that, so I left it out. The recipe also called for julienne cucumbers. I didn't have cucs, so left them out. And it called for scallions; I substituted thin-sliced onions. But the biggest change I made was the preparation. The original recipe calls for marinating the vegetables and just adding them to the cooked shrimp and noodles. But we wanted a stir fry, so that's what I did.

The final adaptation was how I did the noodles. The original recipe called for adding the cooked shrimp and marinated vegetables to cooked noodles. But I was working with cold, leftover cooked noodles from the fridge. So I added the noodles and the sauce to the stir fry and then mixed them all together with the stir fried shrimp and vegetables.

I didn't try to come up with a creative name for my revised recipe. I settled for a simple descriptive name. Here it is:

Stir fried shrimp and vegetables with rice noodles

An improvised stir fry

INGREDIENTS

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup rice vinegar, divided
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 cup peeled, julienned carrots
• 1 cup julienned radishes
• 1/2 white onion, cut in half vertically and sliced thin
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 lb rice noodles
• 1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 teaspoon sesame seeds (black or regular)

PREPARATION

Prepare the rice noodles according to package directions. After the noodles have softened, drain and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together soy sauce, 1 tablespoon vinegar, oil, garlic, and honey. In a separate bowl, toss together carrots, radishes, onions, remaining 3 tablespoons vinegar and salt. Let stand 10 minutes, tossing occasionally.

In a wok or large saute pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the marinated vegetables. Stir fry briefly until crisp and tender. Push the veggies to the outside of the pan and add the shrimp. Stir fry until pink and just cooked through. Remove the shrimp and veggies from the pan.

Add the drained noodles to the pan and begin to stir fry. After just a minute, add the sauce. Continue to stir and fry until heated through and noodles are well-coated with sauce. Add the shrimp and veggies. Stir fry and toss until thoroughly combined. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve.

My kitchen has become my social distancing strategy

At first, I didn't think that "social distancing" would be difficult. After all, I'm retired. I don't really have any place I have to go. I've had a few meetings and events get cancelled. I thought it wouldn't be much different than daily life for me.

It's only been three days since the CDC recommended that Americans practice social distancing for eight weeks. The goal is to slow down (and perhaps reduce) the spread of the coronavirus, also called COVID-19. But I'm already sensing this isn't going to be as easy as it sounds. Maybe it's the psychology of it. Knowing that I can't or shouldn't get in the car and drive to a store or to a bar or to a restaurant makes me feel restless.

So far, my daily routine hasn't changed too much. Get up. Take a walk. Have breakfast and read the paper. Read some more. Have lunch. Read some more and/or work on my computer. Take an afternoon walk. Read some more. Make dinner. Watch TV.

I'm going to run out of things to read pretty soon.

Resuming my blog will be part of my strategy for resisting the urge to get out and mingle with the masses.

Fortunately, spring is approaching. And also fortunately, at least in Minnesota, outdoor activities are still allowed. I guess even under a "shelter in place" order (as has been issued in northern California and is contemplated for New York), outdoor recreation is permitted as long as social distancing guidelines are followed. So I'm looking forward to biking and gardening and yard work as soon as the weather permits.

Meanwhile, I've been cooking. On Monday, the first day of the CDC's social distancing recommendation, I made this soup recipe - Winter Vegetable and Barley Soup from the Washington Post. You can try the link, but the Post generally has a paywall and I'm not sure if the link will work after the coronavirus pandemic subsides. If that doesn't work, try this link to the recipe.

Making this soup was a little bit of a process. First of all, I needed to work with ingredients that I already had at home. My wife had gone to the grocery store, and she reported that many items on our weekly shopping list were gone off the shelves. I wasn't going to send her back looking for any specialty ingredients.

I always make my own stock, either a vegetable stock or a turkey stock. Whenever we make turkey, I grill it on my Weber grill. After it's carved, I break down the carcass and freeze it (usually in two batches) to use for making soup stock. So I took out a frozen turkey carcass from the freezer and made the stock. (I use this recipe for Turkey Broth from Epicurious.)

I had two turnips in my refrigerator, left from another recipe that I made this winter. So I was looking for ways to use them. I found the soup recipe from the Washington Post, which also calls for barley. I didn't have barley, but I substituted farro. The farro added a nice, chewy texture, but it doesn't thicken the soup like barley does. The recipe calls for a variety of root vegetables. All I had were the turnips and some carrots. So that's what I used. But some parsnips would have been a nice addition.

The soup really turned out very nicely. My wife and I have been eating it for lunches. The recipe calls for ham. We don't have ham in the house, and personally, I don't particularly like chunks of meat in my soup. But when the turkey broth is done, there's usually some scraps of meat left on the carcass. I pick that off before throwing away the bones. I usually use the turkey scraps for a sandwich or a salad. But my wife put some of the shredded turkey meat in her soup. Because the turkey had been roasted on a grill, the carcass and the turkey scraps had a smokey flavor, so it sort of was like ham.