Simply Delicious!!!

While Carol and I enjoy going out to good restaurants, we also enjoy the opportunity to have a simple meal at home.  Carol is a great cook and everything she makes is wonderful. Her secret is to use quality ingredients and prepare them simply and with passion.  (A philosophy that is applicable in all that we do in life!).  One of her signature dishes is her Chicken Soup.  A staple in Italian and Jewish households, it is sure to make my last meal requests list.  We like it served piping hot over a generous scoop of Acini di Pepe pasta.

We like to follow a hearty bowl of the soup with either a BLT, Potato & Egg Sandwich, or an Eggplant Parm Sandwich.  Since it is the summer and our garden is producing lots of lovely white eggplants, Carol used them to make the parm.  After breading them she pops them into the oven as opposed to the frying pan, a healthier and less caloric procedure.  She finishes them with a homemade tomato sauce and a moderate sprinkling of small cuts of fresh mozzarella.  The key is that the mozzarella does not blanket the eggplant and thus compliments it, rather than dominating it.  The result is a tender, balanced and uncommonly good Eggplant Parmigiano.

Ah, what to drink with such a simple meal.  Easy, a great wine that embodies the same elements of quality ingredients and passion in its production and can work with both the soup and the eggplant.  Such a wine is 2000 Raveneau Chablis Grand Cru Blanchot.  In my opinion there is no better maker of Chablis than Raveneau.  His wines demonstrate what the Chardonnay grape is capable of producing when in the hands of a true craftsman.  The wines are fermented in stainless steel and see no new oak.  The result is a lush, round and delicious wine like this one was tonight.  It soared from the glass with each sip.  This is truly a wine with soul.  This vintage will be hard to find but 2009 is on the market and a bit pricey at $200+ for the Blanchot. However his regular Chablis is much less expensive and absolutely as delicious and available. Wine-Searcher.

Like I said, simple food cooked with quality ingredients & passion and a great bottle of wine yields a SIMPLY DELICIOUS MEAL.

I am a lucky guy!!!

Saluté