As you walk through farmers markets, carrots are stacked several feet high. Although you see carrots year-round, catching them in the spring, at the peak of their season, gives this soup the fresh flavor and rich color you want. Served as a first course or light lunch, this soup pairs well with a lighter-style, crisp Chardonnay. In about 35 minutes you can have this bowl of seasonal warmth on the table — and with so few ingredients you will be amazed at the flavor!

Ingredients: (serves 4)

• 1 1/2 pounds fresh local carrots (these are from Origins Farm)
• 1 medium or 1/2 large yellow onion, diced
• 1T olive oil
• 2T unsalted butter
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth (vegetable broth may be used for a vegetarian/vegan version)
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 1/2T ground curry
• 1t salt and fresh ground pepper

Slice your carrots thinly and evenly, reserving a few of the carrot tops for garnish when you are ready to plate. Heat the olive oil and butter in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the carrots and celery, stirring until coated and slightly tender, about 5 minutes. Add the chicken stock, coconut milk, curry, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 15 minutes. At this point your house will start to smell amazing!

Once the carrots and onion are softened, remove them with a ladle to a blender. Pulse the blender to make thick-textured, creamy soup. Transfer the soup to a separate pot, reserving as you finish the rest in batches. Reserve the soup to be heated later, or continue by reheating.

Note: All of the broth does not need to be transferred to the blender — just make sure you do get all of the vegetables. Any broth that is left over can be used to cut the soup if it is too thick.

Soup should be served in individual bowls drizzled with 1/2 teaspoon of coconut milk, dotted with your favorite hot sauce, and garnished with the bright green carrot tops.

“I’d never even heard of South African wine before!” said the woman sitting in front of me. “What is Pinotage?”

The woman untouched by Pinotage and I were the first two attendees at Taste the World – South Africa, a seminar presented by Dr. Anita Oberholster of UC Davis’ Department of Viticulture and Enology. This was the third and last in a series of wine seminars benefiting Broadening Horizons, a new initiative by the Departments of Viticulture and Enology and Food Science and Technology to increase enrollment of historically underserved student populations. Davis’s Dr. Andrew Waterhouse, a renowned wine chemist, explained that the program gives enology faculty the chance to convince potential Andy Ericksons that winemaking is the perfect intersection between creativity and chemistry. (Exhibit A: Pinotage is “native” to South Africa in that a professor at the University of Stellenbosch created it by crossing the varieties Pinot Noir and Cinsaut.)

Seated in a classroom at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Food and Wine Science, I was feeling nostalgic – the Western Cape of South Africa is the place where I fell in love with wine 10 years ago.

The tasting sheet before me was a time machine. Hamilton Russell was a vineyard I’d visited on that fateful trip. I wrote about it in my first published article about wine. When I worked at Sherry-Lehmann, my first job in wine, Buitenverwachting was a label I sold to customers charmed by the producer’s name, Dutch for “beyond expectation.” Klein Constantia was the wine I could only imagine the taste of when I read that it could cure a broken heart in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.

Nearly every other recognizable South African producer’s wine was also poured at this event, where Dr. Oberholster did a fabulous job of explaining the country’s geography and history as related to wine production. Although South Africa is lumped into the New World, I was surprised to hear that grapes had been grown in the country since the 1600s.

“We think that Chenin Blanc reached South Africa during the era of Jan Van Riebeeck, the first governor of the Cape of Good Hope. Now, the Dutch aren’t known for grape growing. But Chenin flourished because of its versatility and adaptability to different conditions, as well as good resistance to disease,” Dr. Oberholster later wrote to me. Chenin is as crowd-pleasing as a grape gets, as it can be made into a variety of wine styles. If you’re new to South African wine, I’d certainly start there. The example we tasted was from Graham Beck and would please lovers of zesty Sauvignon Blanc and fuller renditions of Chardonnay alike.

The other grape that grows prolifically in South Africa is Pinotage. Created to have the flavors and aromas of a Pinot Noir with the color and body of Cinsaut. Despite a somewhat negative reputation, South African winemakers are doing their best to show Pinotage’s potential. Diemersfontein, one of the producers we tried, makes a very popular rendition known as the “coffee Pinotage.” The winery specially selects barrels and specifies toasting to make its Pinotage smell like coffee. Smart move, as the whims of the growing season don’t register in the final product. Other versions I’ve found can mimic characteristics of Northern Rhône reds with their feral aromas and undertones of dark chocolate. Not for everyone, but no wine should try to be.

Yet for the incredible breadth of wine it produces, the South African wine industry is struggling. Domestic wine consumption is tiny compared to beer and brandy, and international consumers have been slow to embrace South African labels.

“The problem is also that exports consist largely of wine in the basic price categories. This is partly due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to obtain a footing in an international market, especially in the mid-premium price range,” explained Dr. Oberholster. ”I think that the industry in South Africa can do more to advertise the wine industry overseas. Although individual wineries are attempting this by taking part in international wine events, I think if the government and the wine industry stand together to do this for the industry as a whole, it will benefit all.”

So do your part. Until you taste it, you never know which wine might change your life.

• The Châteauneuf is a baby right now – it needs a couple years in your cellar before you uncork it. But when you do…wow. You’ll feel like the guy in the Dos Equis commercials. Brilliant, good-looking, popular, fortunate, you name it. Holy cow, what a wine.

• The Paxton AAA is ripe and lush, but has plenty of complexity. You cannot go wrong with this one, any night of the week, whether you’re having a burger or a big ol’ steak. Or just sip it while you sit on the couch and watch Baseball Tonight.

• The Graves? Wow. Let’s repeat: Wow. First of all, it’s nearly eight years old, and from Paso Robles – yet it still tastes fresh as a daisy…covered in berries, meat and chocolate. If you ever wanted proof that a Paso red can stand shoulder to shoulder with a great Châteauneuf, this it it. Seriously, if you haven’t put yourself on the Graves mailing list, get to it already.

So…what wines did you open at your office this afternoon?

Lamb loin chops are an easy go-to meal during the week – or they can be an elegant weekend meal with friends (who’ll think you worked a lot harder on the dinner than you actually did). Plus, lamb is one of those meats that is a perfect pairing for red Bordeaux. But the best part is, you can put together this meal within 45 minutes — from start to table.

Ingredients for the lamb: (for two)

• 4 lamb loin chops
• 4 garlic cloves
• Sea salt and fresh ground pepper
• 3T each fresh rosemary and thyme
• 2T olive oil

Ingredients for tzatziki:

• 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup small diced cucumber
• 2t minced mint leaves
• Sprinkle of salt and pepper

Heat olive oil in a cast iron pan and add the garlic, blistering until browned 4-5 minutes. Sprinkle lamb with salt, pepper, and with the chopped rosemary and thyme, pressing the seasoning into the meat.

Place the seasoned lamb loins in the pan with the garlic and allow to sear and cook on each side until browned. This should take four minutes per side. While the lamb is cooking, mix yogurt with diced cucumber, mint leaves, salt and pepper. Transfer lamb from the pan to a plate. Serve the tzatziki on top of sliced cucumbers.

The cool cucumber-mint-tzatziki with the warm lamb might just make a monthly rotation on your menu once you see how easy – and delicious – this meal is.

Spring markets are starting back up again, loaded with the usual staples such as spinach, swiss chard, kale, spring onions – and chives! Chives are those wonderful bulb-forming perennials that, if you have ever planted at home, signal that spring is near when they begin to sprout up. Little snippets of chives are good sprinkled onto soups, sour cream or a baked potato – but fresh chive butter is absolutely incredible when it sits atop a freshly grilled filet.

Ingredients: (for butter)

• 1/4 cup fresh snipped chives
• 2 sticks unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1t sea salt
• Fresh pepper
• 1t cayenne pepper

Ingredients: 

• 2 filets 1-1/2″ thick
• Fresh crushed pepper
• Sea salt

Place room-temperature butter in a bowl and add salt and cayenne pepper, then snip the chives right on top. Stir the mixture together until well blended. This is where it gets messy — dive in with both hands and create one giant log of butter.

Roll the log into some clear plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to harden.

Sprinkle both sides of the steaks generously with salt and fresh pepper. Allow them to reach room temperature, then grill them to desired doneness. Remove from the heat and allow the steaks to rest for 5 minutes.

Place a thick pat of chive butter on each just steak just before serving. This added spring finish will turn that filet into an unforgettable meal. My absolute favorite wine to pair with this style of steak is a muscular Petite Sirah.

“It’s Berkeley” is a phrase I hear a lot. You made your bike out of kelp and plastic bottles? You’re on the Macro-Antarctic diet? Your kids love Tunisian Chemlali extra-virgin olive oil? I haven’t actually heard any of those questions, but I did experience the last one firsthand at Amphora Nueva, a mecca of oil and vinegar in Berkeley. A preteen and his mom were picking up the oil that he preferred, and just before paying, she asked him, “Are we OK on balsamic?” He nodded. I’d read about Amphora Nueva and was eager to taste their wares, so I made an appointment to chat with Nate Bradley, a third-generation olive oil merchant.

Photo courtesy of Amphora Nueva

“What we look for in the oils we carry are freshness and chemistry,” Nate said. “Think of olive oil like produce. It does go bad and you lose its health properties when it does.” Pointing to the center table, where 12 fustis of oil were lined up, Nate started talking about FFAs and polyphenols – I was already starting to feel lost. And I hadn’t even tasted any oil yet.

“Sorry – what are polyphenols?” I asked Nate.

Nate Bradley assisting a customer at Amphora Nueva’s tasting bar of the newest olive oils

“Think of them as tannins,” he explained. “The stronger the oil, the more peppery and bitter it is, the higher the polyphenols and the antioxidants. FFAs are ‘free fatty acids.’ The lower the FFA [percentage], the higher the smoke point.”

FFAs increase based on water and oil contact: that is, the longer pressed olive oil is in contact with the vegetal water that remains from the fruit, the higher the FFAs. Freshness in olive oil equates to pressing the fruit as soon as possible after picking, and also separating the oil out lickety-split from there. The burning sensation and peppery flavor you’ll notice in extra-virgin olive oils are signposts of freshness.

“The peppery note gets knocked down a lot with cooking,” Nate said. “We bake a lot with olive oil and recommend higher-count polyphenol oils for that.” After tasting through a number of oils, I honestly couldn’t say which one I preferred. I’d have to cook with one to know. But another way to discover what’s good is to find out what’s bad.

“We,” Nate said when nodding to Claire, his sister and Amphora Nueva’s general manager, “can taste when chefs use oil that’s gone bad. It has a putty-like, crayon, waxy flavor to it. Not good.” He poured me a taste of rancid oil and the only thing I could discern was that it didn’t taste like much at all. I did not get the feeling that I was back in preschool eating a Playdoh burger – thank goodness. But the lively notes I’d tasted in Amphora Nueva’s oils, ranging from grass to spice to even banana candy, weren’t present in this oil. It also had a different, unappealingly thin texture. Comparing this oil to the ones I’d tasted from the fustis reminded me of when I tasted a well-made wine for the first time in its ideal milieu – right glass, temperature and company. My appreciation of wine began from that moment on.

One day I hope to achieve Nate’s level of olive-oil tasting, culled from years of tasting and teaching and traveling the olive-oil-producing regions of the world. Amphora Nueva carries olive oil from the usual suspects such as Greece, Spain, Portugal, California and Italy, but also some countries you may not associate with olive oil: Australia, South Africa, Tunisia, Chile, Argentina and even Peru. For now, I’m more than content to experiment with new oils I bought, particularly a low-FFA one I picked up for deep-frying. Ever heard that you can’t do that with olive oil because the smoke point is too low? Yeah, that’s false. I’m off to look up some falafel recipes.

Before I get into the recipe portion of this post I must warn you — it calls for one bag of edamame, but you’ll want to buy two because you’ll have some chipotles left over and will be kicking yourself for not having more after you finish eating the first batch. You have been warned!

So, whether you are starting out the evening with a glass of Riesling in hand or you’re coming home from many glasses of spicy Syrah, this savory (yet healthy) snack is a perfect start or end to your evening!

Ingredients:   

• 1 bag of frozen edamame
• 1T olive oil
• 1 chipotle in adobe (toss the whole pepper in breaking it up with the back of a spatula)
• 1/2 t of cumin
• 1 clove of garlic (minced)
• Generous tosses of  sea salt

Boil edamame in water according to package directions while heating the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the chipotle, garlic and cumin, mixing until blended. Drain the edamame in a colander and add directly to the skillet, stirring to combine and heated through.

Sprinkle generously with sea salt and enjoy.

Adding the whole chipotle and sprinkling with generous amounts of sea salt adds an even spicier, saltier dimension to this recipe, which I adapted from Food and Wine.  Your empty shells will add up quickly, and just remember to heed the warning from the beginning of this post — go ahead and pick up that second bag!

Click here to view the embedded video.

At about 4:00 every morning, there is a bird that decides to prop up on a branch outside my bedroom window and try to swoon other birds into coming over for a little “spring fling.” This bird might just be the main ingredient in my next post if he keeps it up….

All jokes aside, no vegetable says “spring” more than the asparagus, and this quick and easy salad is bursting with many flavors that speak to the season. Plus, it pairs perfectly with a bright, lively Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of asparagus (shaven)
• 1 can of garbanzo beans (*chickpeas)
• 2T olive oil (divided)
• 1t cumin
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Drain and rinse chickpeas, drying them by rolling them between two paper towels with your hand. Spread onto a cookie sheet, drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with the 1 teaspoon of cumin. Place in the center of the oven for 25 minutes, rotating the pan half way through. Once your chickpeas are done they will be crunchy and golden brown.

While the chickpeas are roasting, shred your asparagus raw with a vegetable peeler.

When you remove your beans from the oven allow them to slightly cool before adding them to the asparagus ribbons.

Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle salt, pepper and a squeeze of half a lemon.

Toss well to combine ingredients.

Salad can be made 2-3 hours ahead or served immediately.

The nuttiness from the roasted chickpeas mixed with the lemon and fresh asparagus makes for a wonderful side dish or light lunch.

Today, my good friend Alex is receiving the Cartaví Internacional award for the Spanish selection of her wine list at Veritas, in New York. On many a night, Alex and I hosted impromptu dinner parties with amazing food and wine – the the most recent of which was a dinner she made of seafood paella paired with a magnum of 2003 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf du Pape. The Rhône might not be a place you think of for wines that pair seamlessly with Spanish fare. But considering that the Rhône and several Spanish wine regions grow vast amounts of Grenache and Mourvèdre (Garnacha and Monastrell, respectively, in Spain), certain Rhône wines can be fine stand-ins for robust Spanish reds. To honor Alex’s win and test another Spanish dish with Châteauneuf, I made duck with pears, a Catalan specialty, and paired it with the 2007 Domaine du Galets des Papes Châteauneuf.

Don’t dismiss duck as too complicated – I found an easy recipe on YouTube. Duck has a thick skin and lots of delicious fat underneath, so it takes a while for the browning to occur. But this means you don’t need to watch your pan like a hawk. (Also, while the recipe calls for “two boiling water pots” of water, I found that a mere cup will do; and the duck only needs about 1 hour and 40 minutes in the oven, not 2.5 hours.) What’s more, the beets, tomato and onion that I strained out of the stock were delicious after being braised in the dessert wine. We used the vegetables in a butternut squash soup the next day. (The only snag I hit was caramelizing the pears – really the only part of making the dish that you have to monitor closely.)

Half a large onion, one large chiogga beet and one large hothouse tomato

The duck before going into the oven

Kick back with a glass of Châteauneuf while the duck cooks – just be sure to save some for your meal. Interestingly, this 2007 tasted very much like a fine red from Bandol, a Provençal region known for Mourvèdre-driven wines. But the black fruit and chocolate notes – in lieu of earthiness – suited the duck just fine at the dinner table. And the gobs of plum and cherry melded well with the crispy duck skin and juicy pear.

It was an outstanding compliment to my talented friend – but also a reminder that a perfect pairing of food and wine is called for at any time.