Had a LOVELY 2005 not-very-expensive red Bordeaux with it.
The pasta was good; however, it is hard to mess this up, unless you overcook it, use margarine instead of butter, ground pepper out of a can, and Parmesan out of a box, none of which I EVER do.
The wine was VERY GOOD. 2005 was an exceptional year; we weren't in SouthWest France that year, but have heard about it. The temperature was up to 50 degrees centigrade for quite awhile, late summer, and the wine as a consequence is supposed to be very good. This is indeed very good.
The cod was okay. The sauce, endives, etc., were pretty lousy. And I spent most of the late afternoon and evening messing with it. Drat.
Lillie
50 C is 122 F. That's impressive.
ReplyDeleteOK. I grind pepper. And I much prefer parmesan cut from a block, but for $-savings I use the stuff in a green can. But I only use butter for cookies. For health reasons and because, oddly, C doesn't like butter. You are making me want to go cook pasta and put pepper I ground, parmesan I grated, and real butter (in freezer, left from cookie baking) on it.
You can put olive oil on the pasta instead of butter. Sometimes I use both. The green, extra virgin kind. You can buy a 3 liter jug at Sam's for about half the price of one of those lovely tiny skinny bottles at Abbondanza (Oliva Bella). Those should be drunk straight, not put on pasta (just kidding). I also get this great fettuccini at Liquor Barn in a brown bag for $5/pound, more than in the grocery store, but less than that stuff is at other places (it's rough). Gretchen, DO NOT buy any more Parmesan in one of those green cans. Actually, I'd go without before I'd use that stuff. You can get blocks of decent stuff at L-B and also Sam's. It's not as good as what's at Fresh Market, but it actually has flavor unlike the stuff in the green cans.
ReplyDeleteI sort of never use honest, freshly ground pepper; it hurts my wrists too much to grind it. I grind it in my spice grinder (actually a $20 coffee grinder I use only for spices--I know that they are still only $20 because the old one died about a month ago, after about 25 years of use, and I had to get a new one), don't do much at a time, and put it in a spice jar.
Just as I don't think of a canned mushroom as the same vegetable as a fresh mushroom, I don't think of Parmesan in a green can as parmesan....to me it's less-guilt salt. It tastes like salt, not cheese. 2 teaspoons of green can parmesan has 100 mg of sodium and 25 calories. 1/4 teaspoon of salt has 590 mg of sodium and (admittedly) no calories. OK, so I use more than 2 teaspoons....well, I didn't say guilt-free, just less-guilt!
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