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Wine of the Week: A Delicious, Affordable Cava

December 10, 2014 in wine by traveleatlove | 3 comments

Merry and bright, that’s the way the season should be, and that is exactly how I want my holiday sparkling wine. It doesn’t hurt when that wine is also under $15. As we settle into our lives in Lower Mills and celebrated our year anniversary in our house this past weekend, we got a chance to toast with wine from Esprit du Vin, our favorite local wine shop. The store’s owner is so friendly, much like everyone else we have encountered in Dorchester/Milton Lower Mills. He always has suggestions on wines and excellent cheeses in the shop, as well as where to get pizza and other items in the village. And he knows everyone.

We discovered this Mas fi cava at Esprit du Vin over the summer when looking for a fun boat wine. I truly believe that good bubbly comes at all price points and from many regions, so it was easy to give this one a shot. It ended up being even easier to drink.

Mas fi cava is from Pendes, Spain (and I am dreaming of a cava tour of Spain someday soon) and is delightfully dry with crisp notes of citrus fruits and persistent bubbles. It is such a festive wine that pairs excellently with food or just with good times. We sipped ours while decorating the Christmas tree in front of a fire and counting our many blessings. This cava would be a great alternative to Champagne on New Year’s Eve and would be amazing with food like oysters and shrimp as well as with richer items like flatbread and your favorite truffle mac and cheese. I truly believe that bubbly goes with everything. No one has proven me wrong yet.

Happy Wine Wednesday! What’s your holiday wine go-to?

Tags: bubbles, bubbly, cava, Spanish wine, sparkling wine, wine of the week

Holiday Menu Planning

December 8, 2014 in events, Food, recipe, wine by traveleatlove | 3 comments

Because it’s Monday, and somehow Mondays during the holiday season are extra hard to get through, I’m sharing a few holiday wine and food ideas. Whether you’re entertaining for 10 or more or just having a quiet night for one or two, it’s worth treating yourself to something special this season.

And let’s face it, we’re all preoccupied with food, wine, and fun this time of year, and you’re already counting down to the weekend despite the fact that it’s only Monday (and I have to work 8:30 – 4:30 on Sunday; Saturday is still a day off!).

Greet your guests (or just sit back and relax with a special someone) with oysters and little glasses of your favorite dry bubbly or wine of the sea. The Martín Códax Albariño is really perfect for any seafood your serve but would work especially well with a chilled seafood platter of oysters, shrimp, and smoked salmon.

Serve your oysters with something a little different, perhaps a chipotle mignonette (my favorite!) or an apple ginger mignonette. Just because it’s cold doesn’t mean everything has to be heavy and overdone; the zip of a mignonette with some gorgeous briny oysters are a welcome brightness in the dead of winter.

While you’re mingling and listening to your favorite festive music (Harry Connick Jr.’s When my Heart Finds Christmas and Bing Crosby’s White Christmas are two great options.), have your main courses already on their way to perfection.

The below photo probably looks familiar, since I blogged about this red wine gravy roast not too long ago. Another way to make a rich, delicious roast is by first marinating it in espresso and spices, which I did this weekend. Gourmesso sent me lots of samples of their Nespresso machine friendly pods, and I have been loving their coffee in my cup as well as in recipes. I cooked my most recent roast in the slow cooker on low all day with some beef broth and three shots of espresso, along with spices like black pepper and garlic powder. Toward the end I added pearl onions and butternut squash and served with a sweet potato mash and a carrot salad (recipe coming later this week). A roast is an easy thing to set and forget, and it’s a fun place to play with bold flavors like strong coffee or a big Cabernet.

coffee marinated roast

Broccoli Cheddar Casserole is a must-make side dish, no matter what your main course is. For Thanksgiving, I used Tiffani Faison’s recipe, which was featured in Spirit Magazine. Here’s a similar recipe; I used fresh broccoli and didn’t have lemon juice in mine but otherwise this is pretty close. Everyone at Thanksgiving was raving about this dish, and I will be making it for Christmas. It would go perfectly with a roast prime rib, which is what we normally eat on Christmas Day. A casserole topped with Ritz crackers and butter might not be fancy, but it is good.

Brussels sprouts are a great side to a beef roast, and they are particularly delicious when mixed with some form of bacon. Roast your sprouts until soft with thick cut bacon, red onion, and a splash of cider vinegar for a salty, tangy treat.

‘Most people think of cranberry sauce as a side for turkey, but I love a spiced ginger and orange cranberry relish with just about any protein. A cranberry cocktail is just as delicious; add a scoop of cranberry relish to the bottom of a glass and top with whisky or rum and soda water and ice. Instant sparkly, strong holiday cocktail!

If you’re like me, you’ll let your guests bring dessert. I am not one to care about or fuss with sweets, and it’s always good to have a dessert lover share his or her favorite!

For more holiday recipes and holiday food and wine ideas, here are a few older posts. Feel free to share your favorites in the comments!

Holiday Recipe Roundup

Holiday Treats

Tags: Christmas, cooking, entertaining, Food, holidays, lifestyle, oysters, recipes, wine

Food and Wine and Fall Roundup

November 18, 2014 in Cocktails, events, Food, Living, Restaurants, wine by traveleatlove | 3 comments

Do you ever have one of those weeks months where everything seems to fly by at lightning speed, when you rarely have a night free, and where you’re constantly going over plans for days and weeks in advance just to make sure you’re not missing something?

That’s how life has been lately. House stuff, work photo and TV shoots and events, travel planning, family, and more house stuff have made me feel like I am being spun around in a game of pin the tail on the donkey. During that time though, there were so many fun and delicious moments that I thought a rainy, dreary week could use a roundup of happy; that’s what today’s post is all about.

Slow cooked meals on weeknights – For some reason the kitchen is like therapy to me, and coming home after a busy day is made better by working on a comforting meal. This roast was absolutely incredible. It involved me searing the meat on all sides, then seasoning with garlic powder, pepper, and thyme and deglazing the pan with Travessia Jester red wine and beef stock. After that, the roast went into an oven at 400 with lots of vegetables and an entire head of crushed garlic. The end result was heavenly, the meat even better served cold with horseradish the next day. If you live in Massachusetts and haven’t tried Travessia wine, a visit to their tasting room is a perfect cold weather activity!

Visiting family and hanging out in pj’s on a cold and dreary Saturday with my mom’s French toast is just the best. I can’t wait until Christmas!

A yard full of cats – a stray mama cat and her kittens adopted us. While we try to catch them to bring them to a rescue, they have a little home to live in, along with two meals a day. I am constantly stressed about their wellbeing and hoping a rescue will get back to me soon!

The Massachusetts Governors Conference on Travel and Tourism – My work is so intertwined with Massachusetts travel, plus I love this state, so being at the JFK Library for the day with other tourism professionals was interesting and inspiring. The food at the library is delicious, and it happened to be National Boston Cream Pie Day, so the Parker House contributed the real deal.

The JFK Library has such an energy about it. It is also a great Boston day trip.

Speaking of energy and inspiration, the EF Education building opening was another beacon of light on a rainy day. They pulled out all the stops to celebrate their brand new building, and the event included fall cocktails, a flash mob, and the Landfillharmonic, a group of children from a Paraguayan slum who play instruments made from trash recovered from a landfill. The kids played “Imagine”, and there was not a dry eye in that tent. Beautiful.

We savored the outdoors while the weather was still fine, with beers on Atwoods’ patio and a day out at the Head of the Charles.

And we played tourist in Harvard Square, checking out beautiful architecture in the First Parish Church. In all of life’s chaos, I sometimes crave the peace that faith brings, and it was nice being in such a beautiful, faith-filled space.

Head of the Charles cocktails at Grafton Street have been a tradition since we went on one of our first dates, and it was a nice enough day to sit by windows open on to the street. Along with sipping drinks, we made friends with a handsome pitbull named Hudson. It was love at first sight.

I have to admit that our dining has been indulgent, and our exercise nonexistent. Lunches on-the-go have included a burger topped with lobster and guacamole at the Legal Sea Foods at Logan Airport. My goal is to join a gym the day we return from Ireland and to try to once and for all get back in shape and lose some of the weight I have gained this past year. It’s definitely been getting me down, and it’s been hard to turn around while so busy. Still, choices like this don’t help!

Finally, we’ve been loving the natural beauty of the season, including the changing leaves in the views from our home.

Chilly days are still fine for beach trips, and Duxbury Beach sparkled one windy Sunday.

And my garden is still hanging on! While the vegetable garden has been turned under and mixed with compost for the season, my little “cottage garden” as I call it, still has flowers and greens sprouting. It adds a little cheer to those dark mornings and evenings when we come and go. I don’t love that we almost never see daylight this time of year!