Pat and David

In Lexington, Kentucky, no one eats alone

Posted on by Pat and David
Plutarch would have loved central Kentucky. In his first-century A.D. treatise on food in Moralia, he astutely observed, “We do not sit at the table only to eat, but to eat together.” In Bluegrass Country, mealtime is just a phase in the ongoing party that begins with drinks and appetizers and is followed up with after-dinner drinks, snacks, and definitely lots of conversation. We spent a week in Lexington and the surrounding countryside at the end of June, and never did we taste alone. Food and drink in this corner of America are the currency of social exchange. If a Lexingtonian has anything to say about it, no visitor ever goes hungry. Or lonely. The Lexington area is justly famed for thoroughbred horses and fine...Read More

Craggy Range shows original NZ wines

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Matt Stafford (above) isn't just any winemaker. He's a winemaker who came to the trade originally as a soil scientist. The post-grad diploma in viticulture and oenology came later, but the grounding (no pun intended) in soil might just make him the ideal person to make wine for Craggy Range (www.craggyrange.com) in New Zealand. Stafford was in Boston a few weeks ago to introduce some of his wines. New Zealand has become notorious for popular sauvignon blanc and pinot noir--even though the former often tastes medicinal and the latter like cherry cough syrup. It was a pleasure to taste elegant New Zealand wines that spoke first and foremost of terroir. It was clear that Stafford wanted to confound expectation when a few of us gathered...Read More

Mullan Road shows the grandeur of Walla Walla red

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Given that his family name is practically synonymous with Napa, it was a pretty good bet that when Dennis Cakebread started making wine near Walla Walla, Washington, he was going to call it something else. So he named his new winemaking venture for the historic wagon road across the Rockies from present-day Montana to present-day Walla Walla that was surveyed in 1854 and built 1859-60. We suspect that what appealed to Cakebread was that Lt. John Mullan was a pathfinder and a visionary. More than 150 years later, portions of I-15 and I-90 follow the same path that Mullan took over the Rockies. Cakebread is looking to pioneer a Washington red worth laying down in your cellar. His first Mullan Road Cellars red (2012) was...Read More
Bordeaux is just the beginning for Lafite

Bordeaux is just the beginning for Lafite

Posted on by Pat and David
Château Lafite Rothschild is legendary for its red Bordeaux, many of them too expensive for all but special occasion meals. Fortunately, the parent company, Domaine Barons de Rothschild (Lafite) (www.lafite.com), has been spreading Lafite's winemaking skills around the globe to create more affordable wines. And back home in Bordeaux, they've developed a series of soft, ready-to-drink red and white wines under the Réserve Spéciale line. We had the chance to try several of the different branches of Lafite at a wine dinner at The Palm Boston, and we're happy to say that the Lafite junior lines show that good wine can be made at a good price. We started by drinking the Lafite Réserve Spéciale Blanc 2013. White Bordeaux, especially from the Entre-deux-Mers district, doesn't...Read More
The Palm serves a mean shepherd’s pie

The Palm serves a mean shepherd’s pie

Posted on by Pat and David
The Palm Boston (www.thepalm.com/Boston) got a new lease on life when the iconic steakhouse moved from Copley Place in Back Bay to the swank One International Place Tower at the edge of the Financial District. Now that the weather has warmed, the restaurant can show off one of its greatest assets: the outdoor seating looking out on the new Seaport District just across Fort Point Channel. Over the winter, regulars gathered in the glittering interior for wine dinners. We enjoyed the Lafite Wine Dinner that paired a number of wines from the legendary Bordeaux house's farflung empire with some classic Palm cookery, including seared sea scallops with a pea and truffle purée, ancho- and espresso-rubbed lamb chops, and braised short ribs with a wild cherry...Read More

Carrot mac & cheese for grown-ups

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We encounter a lot of great food when we work on researching and updating our Food Lovers' books about the New England states. But a simple and delicious plate of carrot mac & cheese from Daily Planet in Burlington (15 Center St., 802-862-9647, www.dailyplanet15.com) stuck in our minds. We ate it one chilly night at the bar of this bohemian downtown favorite with a moderately priced contemporary locavore menu and wondered why we had never thought of it ourselves. A quick Google search revealed that a number of cooks had thought about such a dish. But most of the recipes we could find used either grated carrot or puréed cooked carrots and seemed designed to fool the kids into eating a vegetable. The Daily Planet...Read More

Irish whiskey tells the country’s tale

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Judging by the job posting at Teeling's Whiskey, the first new Dublin distillery in 125 years is finally getting ready to open its visitors center. The job? They're looking for fluent English speakers with at least one other language to give tours. The center, located on Newmarket Square in the Liberties section of Dublin (that's Dublin 8 for those who understand the city's postal codes), will be open daily 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Exactly when it first opens for business is still unannounced. Meantime, Dublin hardly lacks for whiskey attractions, some of which we outlined today in a story in the Boston Globe travel section, "Even its whiskey tells an Irish tale". The story includes the new Irish Whiskey Museum (inaugurated in January) at...Read More

One more rave for 1,000 Foods

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When Mimi Sheraton published 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (Workman, $24.95) late last year, she probably had much the same experience as Tom Sawyer did when he hid in the rafters at his own funeral. Not that she didn't deserve the praise, but she was variously lauded as the second coming of Brillat-Savarin, M.F.K. Fisher, and Julia Child, and every restaurateur to whom she ever gave a well-considered review hastened to return the favor. Mimi Sheraton earned all those accolades long before she wrote this book. 1,000 Foods really is something of a masterpiece, but we'd liken it more to Remembrance of Things Past than to any more analytical tome. It is a memoir of tastes enjoyed, repeatedly...Read More

Whiskey in a Jar from Dublin’s Quay 14

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The Morrison Hotel on the north bank of the Liffey in Dublin has a swanky, modernist feel, but the Quay 14 bar retains a nice clubby atmosphere enhanced by a crew of barmen who really know their craft. It's a good spot for a drink and quiet conversation. In fact, one evening we had a nice chat with Gary Campbell, who used to tend bar in Greater Boston before returning to Ireland and shaking drinks at some of the nicer Dublin hotel bars. Although we prefer our whiskey neat—the best way, we think, to appreciate Ireland's great contributions to the world of spirits—he persuaded us to try one of Quay 14's signature cocktails. It's a variant on the whiskey sour. Made with Bushmill's 10-year-old Irish...Read More

Le Drunch targets Dublin Sunday late-risers

Posted on by Pat and David
Coming from Cambridge, Massachusetts, we felt right at home when we spent our last few nights in Dublin at The Marker Hotel, which sits on Grand Canal next to the architectural landmark Bord Gais Energy Theatre. (That's the hotel on the right and the theater on the left in the above photo.) This corner of Dublin is known as the Silicon Docks, thanks to the presence of Google, Facebook, Yahoo, PayPal, Etsy, Eventbrite, and others. For those who know Cambridge, the Silicon Docks might as well be Kendall Square minus the robotics firms. It's a stunningly modern part of Dublin, as this night shot of the Samuel Beckett Bridge suggests. (Santiago Calatrava's design is often likened to an Irish harp, but we think it looks...Read More