Primo Vino

Best white wines come from Spain?

Potato Gnocchi

I cooked potato gnocchi with a tomato-mascarpone sauce, and it was good. I used red cooking wine, tomatoes, romano cheese, and fresh basil in the sauce, plus some Cholula Hot Sauce and black pepper to give it a little kick.

I'd wanted to catch it in sunlight, but the sun had set before I'd plated it, so I was stuck with flash photography, which doesn't do it full justice. I served it with petite Brussels sprouts (themselves lightly buttered and peppered). Tasted very good, although I love gnocchi, anyway.

Pepsi Throwback

I saw that Pepsi was doing it's "Pepsi Throwback" thing, trotting out (for a limited time! Oooh!) it's made-with-sugar formula. Had to get some, even as I was piqued by the campaign, since, of course, it's what should be in the soda to begin with, versus the high-fructose corn syrup they use because, thanks to the corn subsidy/lobby, it's cheaper. I'm not a big soda drinker (yeah, I call it "soda," never "pop"), but the stuff IS definitely good, and makes me mournful that soda companies went the corn syrup way. Sugar is better, and, I think, is ultimately better for you than high fructose corn syrup. So, it was nice to have that, although it heightened just how sucky the usual stuff is. I know folks who get the Mexican versions of Coke or Pepsi, because they still use sugar instead of corn syrup (although these days they seem to be hedging their bets on the labels -- I've heard people say that they say "sugar or corn syrup" on the labels, now, so even Mexico's waffling on it). Anyway, good stuff, the Pepsi Throwback. Get it while you can, and savor the flavor.

Green Zebra Bruschetta

This evening, I got the fixins for Green Zebra Tomato Bruschetta. I always love bruschetta, and having those tomatoes handy, I had to try a variation on a theme -- some extra-virgin olive oil, some crusty bread, some fresh mozzarella (pre-sliced), some fresh basil. I'd already had a number of Green Zebra tomatoes, thanks to a coworker with a bountiful garden harvest this year.

I thin-sliced the tomatoes and the bread, set up a plate with the olive oil, some salt and pepper, and broke off the fresh basil. Having assembled the bruschetta, it was delicious. Of course, had some red wine with it. Yummers.

The tomatoes were great -- green, but edible fresh, with a light flavor that worked wonderfully in this capacity. Delicious. I saved some of the seeds so I can try growing them next season. Had to be done.

Well, they shouldn't

It went like this -- SHE made chocolate milk for one of the boys, the younger one, and he complained about it, said he wanted chocolate milk. And she said "I made it." and he said "No, like DADDY's chocolate milk." And his older brother agreed, and they said mine was the best, and I told her "Stoics shouldn't make chocolate milk; chocolate milk is an Epicurean thing." And she laughed, grudgingly agreeing. That made me think I needed to do an Epicurean blog. I'm sure there are zillions of foodieblogs out there, but I'm doing one, anyway.