Bom dia! as they say in Portugal.  A beautiful country filled with ancient architecture that sing with thousands of years of history as we walked along the cobbled streets.  We were on a river cruise with a group from the Mount Eden Vineyard.   It was an abbreviated river cruise because the Douro River was flooded and the dams were releasing so much water that the ship could not navigate the swift currents safely nor go through the locks so we only cruised about 10 miles (up and back one section of the river).   A small group of us also visited Salamanca, Spain and missed a short cruise down the river and a 115 ft lock.   Salamanca was worth the 4.5 hr bus ride and an absolutely beautiful university city.  If you are ever in northern Spain, it is a MUST stop!   The cathedrals, University and Plaza Mayor is breathtaking, even at night!  But, back to Portugal . . .

We ate our way through Portugal starting with a Michelin 2-star restaurant in Lisbon, Belcanto.    We were told that we should try for lunch since they were booked a month in advance.   We were staying at the Intercontinental Hotel and the concierge, Orlando (he is the reason to stay there too!), called them for us and found that the minute before we called, someone cancelled their dinner reservations!!  What great luck!!  Because I have so many restaurants to share with you, I will not show every single photo of the 15 course dinner but as you can imagine, the dinner was sublime. 

José Avillez was a protégé of Ferran Adría of Barcelona. You may remember in a post from last year I wrote about his liquid olive?   José upped the invention to include a liquid carrot, garlic and olive all presented artfully on rocks or pieces of wood.  The sashimi was nestled in a floral arrangement.  The signature dessert was a frozen version, using tangerine juice; a very light and fabulous ending to our meal.

 We were invited to tour the kitchen and meet Jose Avillez and his kitchen crew.  It reminded me of Manresa’s kitchen.  José was very young, friendly and even took a photo with the other couple we were with.  It’s a small restaurant with only 10 tables so you can imagine how delighted we were to get our “surprise” reservation.  

Orlando also made a reservation for us at  1-star Fortaleza Do Guincho (Fort Guincho), an isolated restaurant about 30 miles outside of Lisbon on the Atlantic coast.  We sat a table with a view of the coastline and enjoyed a late lunch of another 14 courses. . . I’m not sure what makes a 1-star vs a 2-star but it may be that I don’t have the level of sophistication to discern the difference between the star levels.   We enjoyed another feast for both our eyes as well as our palates as you can see from the few photos of this sumptuous lunch.  The theme of the lunch melded with the oceanic views out side our window.  Various courses using octopus, scallops, monkfish, seaweed, kelp  make beautiful presentations.  The photo on the left was monkfish and the one on the right was dessert, arranged to look like a wave.

As you may guess by now, Orlando has become our “go to” guy for dining.  We ate at two other restaurants that had no stars but were just as delicious in comfortable, café environments.  The Tágide Wine & Tapas Bar served small plate of seafoods, wonderful cured meats, bread---I must mention that throughout Portugal, the bread was unforgettable: white, pumpkin, squash, cornbread, mini-baguettes, whole wheat, on and on!   Orlando recommended that we eat at the tapas bar rather than the restaurant if we also wanted a great view and he was correct.  The Lisbon vista to be enjoyed while munching our way through the menu was a panoramic gastronomic adventure not to be missed.

Orlando lastly recommended a place popular among the local Portuguese, Cervesaria Ramiro.  This restaurant only serves shellfish and doesn’t take reservations; thus explaining the long waiting line to get in.  No tourists here!  But Orlando picks up his magical phone,  makes a call and I am told to ignore the line and ask for Ramiro, who shows us to table for 4, all set and waiting for us!  Oh my, if you love shellfish, this is truly the place to devour all kinds of shellfish, including octopus, and prawns so large that they should be called lobsters!   Served with warmed bread, slathered with butter.  OMG, died and gone to heaven.  Sorry, we were
so excited we forgot to take photos. . .

SO, if you ever go to Lisbon, stay at the Intercontinental so you can get the services of Orlando!!

If you are now wondering if we’ve now gained 20 lbs, EACH, I must share that because most of the dishes are seafood oriented, I returned home the same weight as when I left California.  Yes, we ate desserts and tried to keep the bread intake down.  Their desserts tended to be fruit, melons, ices and light.    This example is from the tapas restaurant and used honeydew and fresh ricotta with a snip of thyme.

The meals on the ship were nice but not memorable.  We were on a Uniworld ship, Queen Isabel, supposedly cruising up the Douro River.   We visited and tasted ports from Sandeman, Churchill, Taylor and other port houses but TBH, none compared to the ports from Bill’s cellar.   What we did find surprising was the white and red wines of Portugal.  We thoroughly enjoyed their wines and if we find any in the USA, we’ll share a bottle at one of our dinners.  They have a lovely white wine called vino verde and Alvariñho plus others from grape varieties neither Bill or Jeffrey had heard of.  The red ranged from a cabernet type grape to more of a merlot type variety but again, from the grapes unfamiliar to us.   I can’t recall drinking a glass of wine that was undrinkable or had any “off” flavors.

At the end of our journey we stayed at The Yeatman hotel.  Yeatman is the parent company for Fonseca, Croft and Yeatman ports and they have now branched out and developed 5-star resorts in Portugal.  We had another 14-course dinner at their 1-star restaurant, The Yeatman.  Another wonderful feast artfully prepared and presented.   They used a wooden port shipping box to present the first of many amuse bouches.  I took a photo of their butter since we have all eaten David Kinch’s hand-churned butter at Manresa.  This butter was made from cow, goat and sheep cream and served on a Himalayan Pink Salt block.  You see how hard it is to resist eating bread in Portugal?  Each dish was a surprise and brought rave reviews!

We wandered about Porto for a day using the “hop-on, Hop-off” buses to explore.  A working city filled with familiar names like Fonseca, Taylor, Croft, Cockburns, Churchill, Quinta do Noval as well as beautiful cathedrals, tiled train stations,  and museums.

TBH, by now I was “done” with gourmet meals and longed for simple homemade meals at home.  Good thing because our trip was over and we journeyed home, 14 days after leaving Cupertino.

And now to get ready for our own 3-star dinner on June 4^th.  See you and your dishes soon!

Plenty!

We already cooked from Yotam Ottolenghi’s first cookbook, Jerusalem, (see Sept. 2014 ) and decided to try his vegetarian book, Plenty, for this dinner.  It seemed at first that it was going to be a very strange dinner with the recipes that everyone chose to prepare but as always, it turned out to be a fabulous dinner that was delicious, filling and a treat!

I have been writing this blog for our group for 10 years now and I think I’ve run out of new adjective to describe the dinner.  YUMMM sort of sums it up.

There were 9 of us in attendance at this dinner hosted by Sharon & Sukie, with 9 courses, since David and Annie brought 2 dishes each.  And, we had plenty of wine since 2 of the courses weren’t wine friendly; but I’ll get to that later.  If you click on the recipe title, there's a link to the actual recipe in case you are inspired to give it a try yourself.

We started off drinking Roederer NV Champagne while waiting for everyone to arrive.   It is the best of the California sparkling wines and was a festive way to begin the evening.   

Sharon prepared the appetizer for us; Pear Crostini.  A slice of sourdough smothered with an olive oil, pine nut and garlic spread and then baked until crispy.   She then grilled slices of marinated pears and layered them with soft goat cheese and popped them back into the oven before serving.  Another home run, Sharon!  It was a great combination of savory, sweet and crunchy!    Bill poured a 2009 Windmill Valley Vineyards Chardonnay from Sonoma. Some background on this winery.  Everyone was invited to do an overnight stay at the guesthouse in the vineyard 3 years ago.  Janis & Bill and Bill & I enjoyed the visit as well as the wines.  This Chardonnay was one of their wines we enjoyed.  To read about our field trip, click on Aug., 2013.

Our next course was prepared by Sandi W and reminded me of stuffed calamari because of it’s shape and tomato bread filling.  The Stuffed Onions were filled with breadcrumbs, feta, garlic, onions & tomatoes.  I really liked them and from the empty plates, so did everyone else.  What I noticed is that his recipes look deceptively simple but take time.  There are usually several "parts" to his recipes to prepare for the final assembly.   

We moved our wine pairings around and tried a bottle from Bill’s cellar, a 2009 Tour de Tanay Gamay Beaujolais  Morgon Christian Vergier and a bottle from David’s cellar, 2012 Les Heritieres du Comte Lafon Macon-Milly-Lamartine Clos du Four.  The two bottles were also tried with some of the other dishes as well.  This was a very difficult wine pairing for Bill so trying different wines with the different courses was very educational for us.

The next course was a combination of the Garlic Tart that David prepared and the Celeric & Lentils with Hazelnuts & Mint that Annie made.  We all swooned over the Garlic Tart David prepared, using commercial puff pastry dough.  It was savory, creamy and very rich.  The Garlic Tart was one recipe that four of us wanted to bring to the dinner and it did not disappoint.  The Celeric side to the tart was perfect!  The hazelnuts and mint combined with Annie’s new favorite vegetable, celeric, and lentils was a surprisingly great mixture of textures, tastes and flavors.  David brought a 2014 Domaine Chauveau “Le Merennaise” Pouilly-Fume that was one of the more popular wines poured this evening.  What wine went best with which dish seemed to be based on very individual tastes this evening.  Some liked the Pouilly-Fume and others even liked the Beaujoulais with the tart.

Moving on to the next combo . . . David couldn’t contain himself and brought a second dish Stuffed Portobello with Taleggio.  Since he couldn’t find taleggio he used Morbier instead and I thought it worked.  I love taleggio  especially the Pazzo Marco’s taleggio so our next trip to Sea Ranch will have to include a stop at the Surf Market!  The Portobello was served with Caramelized Fennel & Goat Cheese that Michelle made.  I’ve grown to love fennel and this was a great way to prepare it.  The sweetness of the fennel and the tartness of goat cheese was a wonderful pairing of two flavors and textures.  Bravo, Michelle!  David brought a third wine that wasn’t on the menu, a 2014 Moulin de Gassac Rosé.   It was fun to try this wine with several of the courses as well.   All the bottles were crossing the table, back and forth, as everyone wanted to taste different wines with each course.

The pace of this evening’s dinner was faster than previous dinners.  I assume it’s because the dishes didn’t require a lot of prepping and the wine pouring was more informal.  It may be why I and others were beginning to feel pretty full by now so we were ready for lighter fare.  Annie also brought 2 dishes this evening and her second one was a Date & Turkish Ewe’s Cheese Salad that was packed with dates, sheep cheese, and basil leaves.  It used pomegranate molasses and olive oil for the very refreshing dressing.  Sukie’s Cucumber Salad with Smashed Garlic & Ginger had sesame seeds, cilantro, and ginger to give it an Asian overtone.  I loved them both and plan to make them in the future.  

Ottolenghi's ingredients aren’t hard to find, especially in the ethnically rich Bay Area.  Finding Ewe’s Cheese was probably a challenge as was finding freshly made Halva for the dessert I prepared.  I think Annie and I both found what we were seeking at the International Food Bazaar in Campbell.  A fascinating market filled with take out food as well as grocery items.   I’d have to say that converting from the English measuring system over to cups, ounces, etc. was a bit cumbersome so I’m glad my kitchen scale does both grams and ounces, although there was still some conversions to do.

Sandi W. tried several recipes from this cookbook and while some were disappointing, she liked most of them.  I was originally planning to bring the Green Couscous and made it the next day since I had the ingredients.   I have to recommend it to you all.  It is delicious and one that I will make again and again as a side.  It has a fresh herb paste made of cilantro, parsley, dill, tarragon, jalapeño and mint that is mixed with couscous, arugula, cooked onions and toasted pistachios.  A big yum for me!

The Plenty cookbook had no dessert recipes in it but Sharon and I thought we needed to end this evening’s dinner with dessert so I found an Ottolenghi dessert online.  Halva Ice Cream with Chocolate Sauce and Salted Peanuts.  I doubled the recipe because his recipe doesn’t make a full quart…or I should say I made the recipe twice since doubling it wouldn’t fit in my ice cream maker.  My first try had a mistake and I added the halva & tahini paste to the custard while it was on the stove.   The second try followed the recipe and the ice cream had more of the halva texture since I added it during the ice cream maker process.  Both versions tasted the same but the texture was more authentic in the second try.   The chocolate sauce and peanuts really help make the ice cream extra special.   He said it was like eating a “Sneakers” candy bar and I Googled it but couldn’t find it so I am thinking he meant a “Snickers” candy bar?  Anyway, pretty yummy!  I served very small portions since everyone was saying they were feeling full but Willie told me that when it comes to dessert, people always find room and he was right.  Several people asked for seconds!
We did not pour any wine to go with this dessert because there wasn’t a wine that would go well with halva.   Nor did we pour a wine to go with the two salads since wines aren’t very compatible with salads.  And we still had wine left in the bottles we'd already opened so it wasn't as though we did't have enough.

And, a last note to congratulate Willie on fabulous photos!  I think you are ready for a second career at Bon Appétit!

Our next dinner will be June 4^th hosted by David & Michelle.   They haven’t decided which cookbook to use for their dinner so stay tuned!

Sharon is polling you all regarding our date in Sept since the 3rd is the Labor Day weekend.  Please get back to her with your choice.

Cook on!