Salut!

I love wine. Italian wines are by far my favorite but that is probably due in large part to the fact that I am most familiar with them. My favorite part of visiting Italy is drinking their local wines. In many restaurants their house wines are far better than the bottled varieties and often cost the same or less than a large bottle of water. But I like wines from other countries as well. There are two American wineries that we are particularly fond of, one on the east coast and the other on the west, and we shipped cases of their wine to Albania and gave them out as gifts (and drank so ourselves too). In the United States Australian wines are quite popular and we always had a bottle or two in the house. Several years ago a friend introduced me to Argentinian wines and during a trip to Spain last year I discovered Spanish Rioja. When German friends came to visit they always brought us great Rieslings and Hungarian friends introduced us to their surprisingly good reds.  Living in Albania local wines were plentiful but not very good. Like the hot Mediterranean sun in which their grapes were grown, their wines were harsh and not at all pleasing. Neighboring Montenegro produces a great red wine while Croatian whites are particularly good and Greece's wines are hit or miss. (But I really think the misses are just my making the wrong selection). And much to my surprise Macedonia and Romania produce very good red wines. Now Belgium isn't known for their wines and the one we tried from neighboring Luxembourg left a lot to be desired. France, however, is world famous for their vineyards yet it is probably the wine region that I am the least familiar with. But all of that is changing........

One of the great things about being here at SHAPE is the variety of cultural events that are brought to base. With twenty eight member countries as well as a handful of others that are closely associated with NATO, if seems as though there is always a country specific cultural event being held on base. And last week's event was a wine festival sponsored by France. For anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to attend a wine festival go because they are great opportunities to try a variety of wines that you might not otherwise have the chance to experience. For the cost of two euros (for the tasting glass) we could sample wines from twelve wineries all across France. We moved from booth to booth talking to the representatives of each winery and sampling what they had to offer. Now many of the pours were quite generous so it wouldn't be soberly possible to taste all of the wines that were available. Rather I selected several vendors and focused on two or three of the wines they had to offer. I tried both reds and whites. Some were good while others were unremarkable or not to my liking at all. Now I am by no means an expert on wine but even to my uneducated palate I can taste the difference in wines from different regions (and countries). There really is a difference.

Overall the French wines tasted different in my mouth. It is probably a cliche but the ones I sampled tasted more refined and mellow than the bold Italian reds I adore. Because I tend to lean towards reds anyway I decided to focus on the whites. The first one I tried simply wasn't good; it was so dry it left a metallic taste in my mouth. The next one was a Muscat which was so sweet that it made my teeth hurt. I finally struck gold with the Francois Schmitt winery from the Alsace region. I tried two of their whites, a Gewurztraminer and a Riesling and really enjoyed them both. Their Pinot Noir was good too. So much so that I walked away with a bottle of each.

I can't say that at the moment I love French wines as much as those from other countries but I have now found a few that I like. And I want to find more so if anybody out there has any recommendations, please send them my way. In the meantime I'm going to enjoy the wines I bought and look forward to attending the next wine festival.

When In Chianti.....

......eat and drink like a Tuscan!  And that is exactly what we did during our recent trip.

All of Tuscany is beautiful but I am particularly partial to the town, or commune, of Greve in Chianti.  I first visited this beautiful place with my mom several years ago when we used Greve as our "home base" as we explored both Greve and the surrounding Tuscan towns.  Centrally located midway between Pisa, Florence, and Siena, amidst mile upon mile of rolling hillsides covered with vineyards, you can't ask for a more perfect location.  I had been wanting to go back and while we didn't spend the night in Greve during our recent trip, we did happen to visit on the most perfect of fall Sunday afternoons.  And it turns out that we were just in time for Greve's annual Cuochi e Beccai (Chefs and Butchers), a festival dedicated to typical Tuscan beef and beef dishes.

We weren't expecting to encounter a meat festival; rather we were hoping for a good meal, good wine, and perhaps the opportunity to fulfill Sidney's lunchtime request of "sausages."  (Yes, the boy who usually requests pizza or pasta for lunch wanted sausages while we were in Italy).  It turns out we were a week late for the festival, but due to inclement weather it had been rescheduled to the perfectly sunny October afternoon we just happened to be passing through.  Talk about luck!

Now in its seventh year, this food festival is a meat lovers dream.  Greve's small restaurant lined town square (which is actually shaped like a triangle) was filled with craft vendors and the largest outdoor grill I have ever seen.  The unmistakable aroma of grilling meat filled the air as we took in the sights around us.  Italian food is more diverse than many people realize with each region having their own specialties. Tuscany is known for their local produce, pure white Chianina cattle, cannellini beans, and of course Chianti wine.  And for 16 Euros a person, guests at the festival were treated to a heaping plateful of all of these delicacies accompanied by a commemorative glass of local wine.  Not only did Sidney get his sausages (four in all) but each plate also included a slab of ribs that were so tender they literally fell off of the bones and a thick piece of rare T-bone steak that could feed a small family for a week.  There was meat, meat, and more meat.

The event appeared to be popular with locals and tourists alike.  We took our overflowing plates and found seats at plank tables where our dining companions included a young Italian woman and her elderly father, a French couple who was roughly our age, and older British and American tourists.  The tables around us seated a similar hodge-podge of families, dogs, couples, and the ubiquitous groups of teenagers that we have come to expect in every city we visit.  Together we enjoyed the food and wine, discussed how good it all was in a variety of languages, and discovered that there really isn't a polite or easy way to eat meat with plastic forks and knives.  It turns out that fingers are universally acceptable utensils when eating ribs.

The meal was simple.  Chewy thick slices of bread, creamy white beans whose only seasoning was salt and pepper, and a variety of freshly grilled meat.  And it was because of this simplicity that this was one of the best meals I have eaten in a long time and the single best one we had during our Italian vacation.  We didn't plan on attending the festival but are sure glad that we happened upon it.  It was the perfect unexpected conclusion to our Tuscan adventure (while providing us with a week's worth of protein).

Meat grilling

A Little Whine and a Lot of Cheese

We entertain a lot and some weeks, it feels like we entertain a lot more than we really do.  Only ten months into our Albanian gig, I'm feeling like we are in a rut when it comes to hosting receptions. It seems like each one has the same menu and same guest list.  So, to kick things up a notch, we decided that for our first April event we would host a wine and cheese themed reception.

It sounded simple enough- or in Glenn's words, we just had to put a bunch of cheese on the table and open a few bottles of wine.  Um, sorry honey. Even the simplest of ideas takes a little more effort.  First, our little shin-dig for 40 was to be held the day after Glenn returned to Albania after being out of the country for a week.  This wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that my only prep time for this event was after Sidney the night owl went down to sleep well after 2100 each evening. 

If I was back in the U.S.- or in any other country in Europe for that matter- putting together a menu would have been a simple enough proposition.  As I should know by now, putting together any event here is a lot more work than it should be.  Albania is the land of "white cheese" - a.k.a. feta with various levels of pungency and two types of wine- vere e bardhe (white) and vere e kuqe (red). That's all folks- those are your local choices. 

People often tell me that I obsess about details but as I always do, I was determined to find just the right combination of food and drink to serve to our guests.  Some of you may have read my post from earlier this week bemoaning the difficulties I encountered when shopping in our local, not-so-friendly Carrefour.  Sticking to my boycott of the store I set about finding the perfect wines to go with the perfect cheeses for our event.  I struck silver- not gold because I couldn't find everything I needed- at Bote e Veres, a local wine warehouse where they know us by name-- or more like they know Sidney by name and recognize Glenn and I as Sidney's parents.  Most of their wines are imported from Italy with a smattering from Chile, the U.S. of A. and South Africa thrown.  With the exception of port  I was able to find everything I needed. (The port was later picked up by my globe trotting husband in a duty-free shop during his layover in Munich).

Part of the cheese spread

A variety of cheeses was harder to come by but in the end I think I did pretty well and didn't serve a single "Albanian white cheese."  I ended up pairing fresh mozzarella and tomato skewers with Chianti, a Gorgonzola and mascarpone torte with port, phyllo wrapped brie with a crisp chardonnay and a Swiss fondue with a Macedonian Riesling.  I paired green olives from Berat with a hard goat cheese Glenn brought back from Vienna and served it with a Sicilian Merlot.  I rounded out the table with a few more wines and simple fruit, crackers, and cheese presentations.  I even dipped into my precious stash of cheddar and pepper jack that had been "imported" from a Maryland Wegman's and the U.S. Embassy in Budapest.

I was a bit nervous going into the evening since after the difficulties I encountered in buying these items, everything suddenly seemed too easy.  I wasn't sure how a simple wine and cheese presentation would be received since this type of event is apparently unheard of in Eastern Europe.  To our surprise, once people got over the fact they could chose between several white and red wines, they really enjoyed themselves.  They enjoyed themselves so much that they ate me out of cheese.  Yes, that's right, for the first time ever there weren't any leftovers and the visions I had had of eating cheese and crackers this weekend was reduced to the cheese crumbles left on picked-clean platters.  That's OK though- within the next month both Glenn and I will be traveling through several countries and we'll be on the lookout for more cheese.