What I’m Drinking

In preparation for our trip to France, I’m attempting to educate myself about French wine. Most casual wine consumers are intimidated by French wine – the unfamiliar language, the difficult pronunciation, and the AOC (appellation d’origine consolee) system can be confusing. Prices tend to be higher as well, and who wants to drop $40-50 on a wine that’s just okay?

Here’s a secret someone taught me: when in doubt, go with a wine imported by Kermit Lynch. I have yet to be disappointed by a Kermit Lynch import. Also, 2009 was a great year for most European wines, so this was a double whammy – a 2009 Bordeaux from the sub-appellation of Lussac St-Emilion, located on the right bank of the Garonne and Dardogne rivers, imported by Kermit Lynch. This particular wine is 95% Merlot grapes and 5% Cabernet Franc. For around $35, you could drink it now (like we did with a lengthy decanting period) or cellar it for a while. I got some hints of balsamic vinegar and blackberry.

Normally Rieslings are wines that I’ll only drink when there’s nothing else available. It seems like most mass-produced Rieslings are cloyingly sweet with no acidity or structure. German Rieslings from the Mosel region have changed my mind. Now I find myself craving Riesling! It doesn’t hurt that we’ve had some nice patio weather lately, and at 8-9% alcohol, these wines don’t leave you feeling loopy.

My favorite so far is this 2012 Dr. Loosen Blue Slate Riesling Kabinett. It exhibts flavors of white peach, some floral characteristics, and a minerality that I’d never tasted before in a Riesling. It’s great as a porch-sipper or with spicy food, and I paid about $23 at our local wine store.

For around $10, you can pick up this Leonard Kreusch Riestling Kabinett, also from the Mosel Riesling. It wasn’t as multi-dimensional or complex as the Dr. Loosen wine, but it still satisfied.

On the beer front, Founders Brewing Company, out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, recently came to Middle Tennessee! I’ve been picking up Founders beers out of state for some time now, rationing their All Day IPA (a session IPA) and Dirty Old Bastard (a Scotch ale) until I could make another trip through Kentucky. No longer! And in celebration of their distribution here, there were several events last week that included a tapping of a keg of their Kentucky Breakfast Stout, an imperial stout brewed with coffee and chocolate and aged in bourbon barrels. Lately it seems like bourbon barreling has jumped the shark, but KBS gets it right. Smooth, rich, but without tasting overly boozy, even at 11.2%, it’s no wonder that Beer Advocate rates it a 100.

It’s pretty limited, so if you see it where you are, get it while you can!

Upcoming Nashville Food & Wine Events

I rarely do these types of posts, instead leaving them to the experts like Beth and the Nashville Scene Bites blog, but a few e-mails hit my inbox recently with events that I wanted to share.

First up, the wine tastings at Amerigo, one of which is happening tonight, July 18th, from 6-8 pm at the West End location. Joe and I are regulars at these wine tastings, in part because we love trying new wines and in part because the bar at Amerigo is our version of Cheers. Like, the waiters and bartenders know us. Tonight they’ll be pouring some Pinot Noir from around the world, including Oregon, where Joe and I were in April. It’s a great opportunity to taste the same grape made in different styles and from different terroir. It’ll cost you $15 for four wines paired with appetizers, and you can stay for dinner and get 20% off your bill.

On August 11th, our favorite Tennessee winery, Arrington Vineyards, will be hosting a harvest party. As wine club members, Joe and I try to make it out to Arrington every couple of months. On August 11th, there will be hot air balloons, live music, wine tastings, food for purchase, and a performance by Kix Brooks, formerly of Brooks & Dunn and co-founder of Arrington Vineyards. It will likely be a busy day, so get there early to stake out your spot and bring a picnic blanket in case the tables are all claimed. For more details, including a schedule, click here.

The best part of this harvest party to me is that, while the party is completely free, any proceeds from the fundraiser will benefit the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, which just happens to be where I’ve served as a chaplain resident for almost the past year. It’s a great hospital that wouldn’t be nearly as wonderful without all of the support that we get from the community at events like this.

So come on out and drink some wine!

Willamette Valley Vacation Part 1

I really like to travel, but when someone says “vacation,” I have particular requirements: relaxation, no agenda, sleeping in, and no pressure to see certain things. It’s why I haven’t been to Europe since I was 16. When Joe and I were planning our spring vacation, we struggled with location/price. Looking up random destinations on Southwest and Expedia just to cringe at ticket prices wasn’t very effective. Somehow we settled on Portland and the Willamette Valley. I’d never been further northwest than the Russian River Valley, and it seemed like a place where we could drink wine (check), eat good food (check), and enjoy beautiful scenery (check). Sounds like a good vacation to me!

We flew over snow-covered mountains on our descent into Salt Lake City where we drank some locally-brewed, extremely low-alcohol beer. The flavor was good, but it tasted weak. We arrived in Portland, picked up our car (upgraded due to a mistake!), and headed to Newberg where we were staying in a VRBO. Along the way, we picked up our Dundee Hills AVA Passports that I had ordered. For $15 each in the month of April, the passports provided us with discounts and extra tastings all around the Dundee Hills AVA. It was a great deal and helped us organize our tasting room visits.

After dropping off our luggage, we jumped back in the car to hit our first tasting room of the trip: Alexana Winery. The wine was good, and the tasting room was beautiful. The woman pouring sent us on our way to Black Walnut Inn & Vineyard to soak in some views and taste some more wine. They were incredibly hospitable, and the views were stunning. We headed back into town to get something to eat since our internal clocks were off. Red Hills Market came highly recommended, so we split a cheese plate, a margherita pizza, and a 375 ml bottle of, what else, Pinot Noir!

We took the opportunity the next day to really break in our passports starting with Archery Summit Vineyards. Archery Summit had some of the best wine we tasted all trip, but the prices were a little on the steep side for our budget. Next we headed to De Ponte Cellars where we tried a white, Melon de Bourgogne, that I’d never had before. As proof that I should’ve taken better notes, we hit a few other places that I can’t remember. Our least favorite place of the trip was Stoller vineyards. I was excited about their LEED certified building, but when I asked the woman working about it, she could hardly tell me anything. We ended our day at Four Graces, a cozy little place right outside of downtown Dundee. Several people had recommended it to us and with good reason.

Some friends of ours came down from Portland for dinner at Subterra in Newberg. It was wonderful to catch up with them, and the food was reasonably priced and quite good. However, the service was lacking. Both Joe’s and my soup could’ve stood to be warmer. Fortunately, our company was enjoyable because our dinner dragged on and on!

Based on a recommendation from our friends, we headed down the road a ways to the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. Personally, this was my favorite day of our trip. Cristom, St. Innocent, Bethel Heights, and Left Coast all welcomed us with relaxed atmospheres, incredible wines, and stunning scenery. Left Coast even has a little bistro with sandwiches and other food for sale along with wine by the glass. It didn’t hurt that the sun came out, so we enjoyed our hummus plate outside!

We closed our the wine portion of our day at Youngberg Hill Vineyards, which is also an inn. The person working there invited us to relax on their balcony and take our time with our wine, even pouring us a little extra of the one we enjoyed the most.

Joe caught me playing on my phone instead of enjoying the view.

Winding up the wine portion of our day, we headed back into McMinnville for dinner, though we both decided we weren’t hungry. Fortunately we stumbled onto a bar with good local beers and free pool where we played nine-ball until we got hungry and ate at McMenamins.

We woke up the next morning to nearly impenetrable fog, which made winding our way up the gravel roads to the wineries a little touch-and-go at times. Bergstrom and White Rose were the highlights of the day, both with finely crafted Pinot. We took the tour at Domaine Drouhin, where they grow and produce wine exactly as they do in Burgundy – the only difference being terroir.

Up next: Dinner at Joel Palmer House, Columbia River Gorge, and a night out in Portland

Trout with Sour Cream-Cucumber Sauce

I never finished up telling you about our Sonoma trip, but one of the highlights was spending the better part of one day wine-tasting with this lady:

That was obviously before Cate got pregnant. It’s always fun to meet “internet friends” in real life, and Cate and I got along just as well as I hoped we would. My next goal is to get Cate and Mike to come visit the Southeast!

In order to make the meet up as smooth as possible, we chose Kendall-Jackson since it was centrally located and right off the highway. I generally associate Kendall-Jackson with lowest common denominator wines: over-oaked Chardonnays and such that you can buy in a Walgreens or CVS (but not in Tennessee!). The faux-French chateau didn’t exactly help my impression. So imagine our surprise when we tasted some really solid wines!

It turns out that Kendall-Jackson also makes some exceptional limited release wines that we really enjoyed. We purchased a bottle of their Highland Estate series Camelot Highlands Chardonnay, a chardonnay sourced from the Santa Maria valley in Santa Barbara County. According to the bottle, it’s the only East-West valley in the California coast so it gets a daily dose of fog and moderate temperatures to combine for a long growing season.

We busted out this bottle the other night in order to relive a little bit of that cool California November, and it was just as good as we remembered it. The wine is aged for 8 months in 57% new French Oak barrels so it has just enough of that buttery toastiness to create a lush palate. The bottle talks about the tropical fruit in the flavor profile, but I also got a little bit of a floral profile, not unlike some of our favorite Viogniers. With just over 3700 cases produced of this particular wine, I doubt we’ll be able to find it again unless we make another trip to the West Coast.

There was food as well! Joe and I play this game where we come up with extremely florid descriptions of the night’s menu. This time it was Steelhead Trout with a Sour Cream-Cucumber Sauce, Grilled Zucchini Coins, and a Fiery Asian Slaw. The creamy sauce was a good cooling complement to the slaw, and we used up some of our remaining CSA produce.

Trout with Sour Cream-Cucumber Sauce
source: Cooking Light
Yields 2 servings

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup chopped peeled cucumber
• 1/4 cup fat-free sour cream
• 1/4 cup plain fat-free yogurt
• 1/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
• 1 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon dried dill
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 2 (6-ounce) trout fillets
• Olive oil

Preparation

• Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl; stir well, and set cucumber mixture aside.
• Sprinkle salt and pepper over trout, and brush with olive oil. Heat a grill to medium heat. Grill trout, flipping once, until fish flakes easily with a fork. Spoon 1/4 cup sauce over each fillet and serve.

Sonoma County, Part 1: The Wineries

I am finally going to begin to attack our trip to California wine country, but it took me a while to decide how to do it. Because we visited 22 wineries over 4 days of tasting, a blog entry per day seemed overwhelming and not entirely helpful, so I’m going to divide it up a different way. Today’s post will be dedicated to our favorite wineries that we visited – one per day of wine tasting that we did. My evaluation of these wineries is not solely based on the wine but also on our experience at the winery and the tasting room, scenery, etc. There were previous few wineries where we had even mediocre, let alone bad, experiences, so this is not an easy list to compile.

Day 1: Michel-Schlumberger

(source)
Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures here, but this was, by far, our favorite wine tasting experience of the day. We were welcomed into a beautiful tasting room set up like a restaurant with individual tables. If it had been just slightly warmer, they also have outdoor areas available for tasting. Our pourer was extremely friendly and generous with the pours, and the wines were outstanding. We saw many wine club members come up to taste and pick up their wines, and they obviously had rapport with the staff at the winery. Michel-Schlumberger is an organic producer in Dry Creek Valley, close to Healdsburg. We just stopped in and did a basic tasting, but they also offer a variety of tours. We were all set to join their wine club, but they do not yet ship to Tennessee.

Day 2: Arista Winery

I suppose it was a good omen when we pulled into the parking lot at Arista and saw a beautiful rainbow. Fortunately for us, we found the pot of gold at the end of it when we walked into Arista. With a fire blazing in the fireplace and a dog sprawled out on the floor, the tasting room felt incredibly homey. After pouring us our first taste of pinot gris, our pourer, Gabriel, encouraged us to check out the Japanese gardens around the property. The landscaping was stunning with lots of benches and picnic tables spread out for enjoying your wine and food. Given the landscape, it was no surprise that they do a bustling wedding business. It was a little chilly to enjoy our wine outside, so we headed back in by the fire to taste the rest. Arista specializes in pinot noir, and we loved nearly everything we tasted. The atmosphere in the tasting room was convivial, and we talked to several of the other couples. They do not have a wine club but instead offer their wines for sale on a mailing list. The catch? There is a wait to even get on the mailing list! We did sign up for the wait though. Between the wines, the landscape, and the company, Arista was our favorite tasting experience of Day 2.

Day 3: Stryker Sonoma

For all of the planning that we had done and the friends we had consulted, sometimes you have to just point at a map and say, “Let’s try this one.” We were interested in hitting up some Alexander Valley wineries after sticking to mostly Dry Creek and Russian River appellations, so we looked at the map, and I picked out Stryker Sonoma based on the little blurb that their building had won accolades for its architecture. Sure enough, the building was beautifully designed with windows in the tasting room that opened right up onto the vineyards. Around this time, I decided it might be a good idea to check in to the wineries we were visiting on Foursquare. Stryker happened to have a deal for a free tasting if you tweeted your check-in. I appreciate social media-savvy companies and have since had further interactions with Stryker on Twitter. Our pourer was very involved and let us try far more than the tastings our free tasting allowed, pouring us wines based on what we had said we liked and didn’t like. Overall, we were very impressed with the wines, the setting, and the attention we were given at Stryker Sonoma.

Day 4: Paradise Ridge Winery

After doing some sleuthing online, I chose Paradise Ridge as our first winery of day 4. You can imagine that our palates were a little bit tired at this point, but Yelp reviews told me that Paradise Ridge had beautiful views, and they did not disappoint. Additionally, mentioning Yelp netted us more free tastings! We would drink much better wines later that day, but the overall experience at Paradise Ridge was the best. Like Arista, Paradise Ridge also does a lot of weddings. They were setting up their tasting room for their post-Thanksgiving holiday open house, but our pourer at the bar area was very friendly and knowledgeable, also pouring us additional wines that he thought we would enjoy. Even though it was a bit chilly, the day was clear, and the deck overlooked the vineyards and Santa Rosa, making for great photo ops. Its location, close to Santa Rosa, is also very convenient. Our favorite wines would come later in the day, but the views and service at Paradise Ridge made it worth the visit.

Our Anniversary Trip

Hello, yes, I realize it is now mid-late September, and our 2nd anniversary was in June, but I never shared our trip with y’all. Joe gets all the glory on this one since he did the planning, and I just went along for the ride. What made getting away a little more complicated than normal was that I was taking a class that went from 9 am – 2:30 pm on Saturdays, and Joe had to work on Monday. So we needed a quick getaway.

Fortunately, we heard about a few wineries down off the Natchez Trace and decided to give them a whirl. Amber Falls Winery is the only one open later on weekends, had live music, and encouraged you to bring a picnic, so that was our Saturday night destination. When I got home from class, Joe had picked up cheese, bread, hummus, and other delicious stuff to munch on from Costco, threw our suitcase in the car, and we were on our way down the Natchez Trace.

After a relatively lengthy drive down the Trace, we arrived at our charming accommodations at Ridgetop Bed & Breakfast in Hampshire, TN. Now, being from Texas, I am accustomed to scenic names that have absolutely nothing to do with their surroundings. For example, Hillcrest Rd has nothing to do with a hill or a crest of a hill. But Ridgetop B&B was, shockingly, located on the top of a ridge. In fact, we wound up a single-lane dirt road through a forest for quite a ways before arriving at the top of said ridge. To say that it was isolated would be an understatement. Above, you can see me standing in front of our one-room cabin. The bed was so tall that I had to use a step stool to get on it.

We freshened up a bit, unloaded our luggage, and headed out to Amber Falls. Going to Amber Falls Winery is pretty much the only thing to do in Hampshire, TN on a Saturday night, so we saw the other guests from the B&B there as well. We went down the stairs to the tasting room, which was very relaxed. They basically let us try whatever we wanted to. Since Tennesseans are partial to their sweet beverages, a lot of the wines were a bit sweet for our taste, but we bought a few bottles and headed out to one of the many gazebos scattered around and unpacked our picnic. The live music was a duo of guys who sang a lot of songs about Louisiana, which was fine by us. The sun set, and we headed back to our little cabin on the ridge.

Apparently, people wake up early in Hampshire, TN, so by about 8, we had a knock on our door asking when we might want our breakfast. We quickly dressed and went to the main house for breakfast. We were hoping to visit Keg Springs Winery, which didn’t open until noon. So after breakfast, we went on a hike around the property of the B&B in search of an alleged waterfall. We walked down into this creek bed…

And then around, but I’m not sure we ever found the waterfall. It was quite pretty though! By the time that adventure was finished, we were ready for some more wine.

Ahhh, that’s more like it. Keg Springs had the best wine of the three wineries we visited. They also had a very nice patio that we had all to ourselves. Unfortunately, it started raining, which we thought had scuttled our plans for a hike on our way back on the Trace, so we decided to hit the winery trifecta and make our way to Grinder’s Switch. On the way, we stopped by Fall Hollow because we hadn’t gotten our waterfall fix earlier.

 

Now THAT’S a waterfall. Due to the May flooding, getting to Grinder’s Switch turned out to be quite the adventure. Let’s just say that, for this city girl and her city husband driving around in a two-door Honda Civic, rural Tennessee can be a somewhat strange and frightening place.

Finally we arrived, did some tastings, and settled in with our bottle of their Sangiovese in some rocking chairs on the front porch. Though the original plan was to head back to Nashville via the Trace, there was no way that was going to happen, so we drove back by way of I-40, which was not nearly as pretty but was slightly faster. And there concluded our 2nd anniversary weekend of doing the Natchez Trace Wine Trail! Now, if only I could write about trips promptly…

Where is your favorite local or nearby getaway?

Our Kentuckiana Adventure

Last weekend, Joe and I made plans to travel up to the Louisville area to visit his good friend from med school, Angela, and her husband. When they matched at Louisville and we matched in Nashville, we were so excited that we were in the same region of the country and made plans to visit each other all the time. Well, reality set in, and a year passed without us visiting them, though they did make it down to Nashville once.

We arrived at their house (just across the bridge in Southern Indiana) by about 10:30 pm with a time change. We had to make a stop in Bowling Green, KY at Culver's for some Butterburgers and custard. Then we headed down to Bardstown to meet up with some of Angela's friends at a bar. The bar was loud and crowded, and I was a little tired and grumpy, but it was fun.

The next morning, we awoke to unseasonably cool weather around mid-morning. After breakfasting on blueberry muffins and sausage, we just sat around and sipped coffee on their lovely deck. We made plans to go to the Huber winery/orchard/petting farm/pick-your-own farm/restaurant in Starlight, Indiana. Before trying the wine, we thought picking peaches sounded like fun. I think we may have been the oldest people without children on the tractor that pulled us out to the orchard.

If you picked two boxes of peaches to the brim, they were $.79 a pound, so we decided it was a good idea for each couple to pick a box. We ate a few ripe ones in the orchard and marveled at the beauty and amount of peaches.

Joe may have gotten a little carried away. Our box weighed in at 27 pounds. We gave some to my parents, but mostly we've just been eating them! I have plans for some peach muffins this weekend. The peaches are really tasty. In their country store, we bought some wasabi soynuts, recommended by Angela, and some jalapeno cheese bread to have later and moved on to the wine tasting.

One of the things I enjoyed about the Huber property was that all of the vines were labeled so you could tell which grapes were the cabernet franc, etc. They also have a variety of tasting "packages". We decided to do the comparative package, where we would select either dry of sweet/semi-sweet and taste two wines side-by-side comparing for different qualities like minerality, skin contact, etc. It ended up being 12 pretty significant pours. The tasting occurred in the upstairs of a beautifully restored barn. It was busy but not crowded, and we met a few other transplanted Texans.

Without much food in my stomach, I was tipsy pretty quickly. We enjoyed several of the wines and came home with a bottle of their Chardonel and some Blueberry Port. Our server was a lot of fun and was very friendly and helpful. We needed a bit of food, and the jalapeno cheese bread coupled with some summer sausage and cheeses available for purchase did the trick as a complement to the bottle of Vignoles that we all shared.

There was live music out on the patio, and this was the absolute perfect day to enjoy it. The Huber property would make a great trip for a family as well since there are plenty of things for kids to enjoy. We saw many children enjoying picking blueberries and blackberries, as well as feeding llamas and other animals in the petting zoo.

That night we went back to Bardstown in Louisville and ate at Ramsi's Cafe On the World. The menu was so creative and different that I could hardly decide what to eat. I settled on the roasted vegetable masala. Joe got the East Meets South fajitas, fajita meat that you wrapped in Indiana paranatha bread. Cory ordered the Egyptian Kitchen, and then ate it so fast that none of us got to try it. Ramsi's offers many vegetarian and vegan friendly dishes. We returned to Cory and Angela's house and drank port and smoked cigars on their deck.

The next morning, we slept in again and ate some delicious strawberry breakfast bread from Huber's. After relaxing out on the deck, we took Cory and Angela's dog, Gracie, to a nearby monastery that had beautiful trails. Joe and I decided that we wanted to stop at the Maker's Mark distillery on our way home, so we said good-bye to Cory and Angela and hit the road. Joe has liked whisky for a while, but I have only recently began to enjoy it, thanks in large part to The Patterson House.

The Maker's Mark distillery is one of the more difficult distilleries on the Bourbon Trail to get to, as it is located quite a ways outside of Bardstown and about 2 hours from Louisville. But it is a beautiful setting and very quiet. Just outside of Loretto, KY, we began to see big black barrel houses where all of the whisky is aged. We made the last tour of the day at 3:30 pm, and the tour took longer than anticipated because it was a fairly large group that seemingly kept growing. The tours are free, and you get a ticket for the tasting if you are 21 and up.

My favorite part of the tour was the fermenting vats. There were about 9 9600 gallon vats where the yeast was eating up all of the sugars. The mash ferments for 3 days, and our tourguide encouraged us to try the difference in taste between Day 2 and Day 3 (there were no Day 1 vats at the time). So now, if you ever buy Maker's Mark, just imagine all the people dipping their hands into the fermenting vats!

The tour ended with a tasting. One of the glasses contains White Dog, the pre-aging mixture. It's essentially moonshine, and I could feel the burn all the way into my chest. The actual Maker's Mark is on the right and is aged in charred oak barrels for 5-7 years. They bottle by taste rather than aging time. The sweetness in Maker's Mark is due to their use of soft red winter wheat. There are 7 other distilleries on the Bourbon Trail, and Joe and I hope to continue to fill out our "passports"!

Viognier and Spaghetti Carbonara

Last March, Joe and I took a weekend trip to Fredericksburg, TX where we stayed in a wonderful little B&B and spent most of Saturday going to nearby wineries on the Texas Wine Trail. Now, neither Joe nor I are big wine snobs, but I was prepared to be slightly underwhelmed and that was not the case at all. We had a wonderful time and fell in love with several wines, but none could compare to the Becker Vineyards Viognier. This is even more notable because both Joe and I prefer red wines. Above is a picture of the tasting room at Becker Vineyards. They also have a B&B on the property. We sat out on the porch with our glasses of wine, enjoyed the gorgeous weather, and listened to the live music they had.

When we returned to Houston after our trip, we were pleased to discover that the Viognier could be found in our grocery store, and so we took its presence for granted. Then we moved to Tennessee, where the Baptists have instituted arcane liquor laws and "sin taxes" (sign up at Red White and Food to lobby to change this), and discovered that, not only was our marvelous Viognier nowhere to be found, but we couldn't even have any shipped to us. So, when Joe's friend came to visit us last month from Houston, our sole request was to have her bring us some Becker Vineyards Viognier.

We've had it sitting in our hot little hands for over a month, and I wanted to drink it on a special night and make a dinner to go with it so we could really savor all of the flavors. I decided on spaghetti carbonara with steamed broccoli and focaccia. Sure enough, after blessing the food and clinking glasses, the first thing Joe and I did was stick our noses in our wineglasses and then take a big sip of the viognier. Oh, and the pasta was really good too. Joe said, "Why even bother to go out when we can eat like this at home and have wonderful wine?" I'm highly inclined to agree.

Spaghetti Carbonara
(source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks)

Ingredients
1 lb spaghetti or other thin pasta
4 eggs
1 lb bacon
1 1/2 cups parmesan cheese
8-12 cloves of garlic, sliced or chopped (Mine were enormous, so I only used 4.)
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup white wine (I didn't want to cook with our precious viognier, so I used 1/2 cup chicken stock and 1/2 cup dry vermouth.)
1/2 stick of butter
1 handful of parsley
1-2 tbsp fresh ground black pepper

Preparation

First, slice up the bacon in to pieces about an inch thick. Then toss them into a heated stainless steel pan (I used my cast iron pan since all the others are non-stick.) Cook until browned and crisp.

While the bacon cooks, put on water to boil for the pasta and add the pasta once the water has reached a rolling boil and cook to al dente. When the bacon is cooked, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon, leaving the renderings. Cook the chopped onion in the renderings for a few minutes and then add the garlic.

Once the onion and garlic have cooked for a few minutes, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon. Discard the leftover renderings. Place the pan back on high heat until it starts to smoke a little. Then pour in the white wine and deglaze the pan. Add one cup of chicken stock. Return bacon, onion, and garlic to the pan and let simmer over medium heat.

Crack four eggs into a large bowl. Chop up most of the parsley and add it to the bowl along with most of the parmesan cheese. Mix well with a fork.

Drain the water from the pasta and add the very hot pasta to the egg mixture. The heat from the pasta will partially cook the eggs. Then add the bacon mixture and toss to combine. Finally, throw a 1/2 stick of butter in. Pepper to taste. Garnish with parsley and parmesan cheese and serve immediately.