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Chef’s Best: The Brady Experience

Chef Brady (far right) along with his culinary team at Sonoma (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).

Let me jump to the third course of our third Chef’s Best event featuring Chef Bill Brady’s five-course extravaganza at his restaurant Sonoma, located in Princeton, Mass.

Coffee-rubbed Wagyu beef with local porter molasses, poached egg in hollandaise sauce on top of a griddled crumpet (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).
Coffee-rubbed Wagyu beef with local porter molasses, poached egg in hollandaise sauce on top of a griddled crumpet (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).

Hartley-Ostini Hitching Post Hometown Pinot Noir was paired with our third course—the Grilled Steak and Egg. The coffee-rubbed Wagyu beef with local porter molasses next to a poached egg in hollandaise sauce on top of a griddled crumpet was a piece of art on the plate. While the meat was the star, we were in the midst of pairing legend.

Chef Bill Brady, who opened Sonoma 20 years ago, informed us that this wasn’t just any Pinot. Hartley-Ostini, the little winery “started as a lark,” according to one of its founders Gray Hartley, was Hollywood famous. Chef Brady told us he put the Pinot Noir on the menu because it’s a great wine and because it’s featured in Alexander Payne’s Academy Award winner, Sideways. The 2004 film is about two friends traveling through Santa Barbara wine country. It’s hard to imagine that only 12 years have passed since we all learned how to, and why we should, appreciate Pinot Noir. And, it’s even harder to imagine a world without the film’s classic mantra, “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot.”

The movie’s success propelled the winery to stardom, Chef Brady explained. Then he added that he discovered Hartley-Ostini long before Paul Giamatti ever savored a glass. He told us the story like he knew what it meant to wait for your vision to take off and grant you the privilege to do what you love.

When you walk into Sonoma accolades like Open Table’s Diners’ Choice Award 2015 and Top 100 Restaurants in the USA 2015 greet you and lead you to the bar where the event reception was held. A glass of Champy, a sparkling wine from California’s north coast, welcomed us to the party. As we sipped, servers passed first-course treats, which included a foie gras torchon served in push pops, chicken and Andouille beignets, wok-seared bay scallops in wakame and wasabi crème fraiche, and steak tartare crostini.

Rack of Colorado Lamb coated in Dijon, rosemary, garlic, and parsley then rolled in fresh panko in a roasted demi-glace accompanied a side of mashed potato and a few stalks of asparagus and carrot (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).
Rack of Colorado Lamb coated in Dijon, rosemary, garlic, and parsley then rolled in fresh panko in a roasted demi-glace accompanied a side of mashed potato and a few stalks of asparagus and carrot (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).

With Chef’s Best, chefs are given creative license to present an out-of-the-ordinary culinary experience to a limited number of guests. It’s an event. Since it’s an event, there’s a palpable sense of anticipation as each course is served and glass is poured. Chef Bill Brady concocted a vision that seemed to highlight his years of expertise, his dedication to quality farm-to-table dining, and his appreciation for the diner.

While he presented a broad range of courses to enjoy, the subtext of each course was that he wanted us to have a phenomenal, and indulgent, feast.

As soon as we sat down, they presented us with the second course, Togarashi Tuna—seared ahi tuna with shishito peppers, pickled carrot salad, and Gochujang, which is a savory, spicy, and pungent fermented Korean condiment made from red chili, glutinous rice, fermented soybeans, and salt. The dish was paired with Ferrari-Carano Bella Luce. Bella Luce, meaning beautiful light in Italian, is a white wine blend with sweet notes of honeydew, pineapple, and vanilla, which helped balance out this spicy dish.

From the tuna we went to the Steak and Eggs (and famous Pinot). And finally we were served the bright spot of the night, the Roast Rack of Lamb Persillade. The two-bone rack of Colorado Lamb coated in Dijon, rosemary, garlic, and parsley then rolled in fresh panko in a roasted demi-glace accompanied a side of mashed potato and a few stalks of asparagus and carrot. Chef Bill Brady explained that there is an excess layer of fat in between the meat and the skin of the lamb. He took that fat, which was then chopped and sautéed, and added it to the mashed potato.

The main course had the comfort of a home-cooked meal and the wine pairing of a Sonoma County vineyard. The Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon contributed nicely to the decadence of the lamb with its smooth supple notes of ripe cherry, rich blackberry, and just a hint of spice.

Banana Pain Perdue with a Salted Carmel Ice Cream (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).
Banana Pain Perdue with a Salted Carmel Ice Cream (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).

Our fifth and final act of the night brought us to the Banana Pain Perdue, or French toast, with a Salted Carmel Ice Cream and velvety whipped cream on top. Our Apfel Eis Wine came from down the road at Still River Winery in Harvard, Mass. The dessert wine brought our evening to a bittersweet close.

With the third installment of our quarterly Chef’s Best series behind us, patterns have emerged, like each chef is clearly passionate about cooking and dining. Chef Bill Brady stood out as a someone who takes food seriously but doesn’t take himself too seriously. While the dining room at Sonoma is romantic, cozy, and elegant (with incredible acoustics—the place was full but I could only hear murmurs and my conversation), he made everyone feel at home. He even agreed to send his recipes as well as directions to anyone who wanted to recreate our evening. He then joked, “I can’t tell you how much of each ingredient to add, but I’m happy to share my recipes!”

I hope to see you at the next event tentatively scheduled for July. Please considering joining our eNewsletter (in the footer) or follow us on Facebook to see when tickets go on sale.

Attendees at the Chef's Best Event in April (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).
Attendees at the Chef’s Best Event in April (Taken by Erb Photography for Mass Foodies).
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Merlot: A Call for Redemption

Citizen Merlots

Citizen Merlots

Merlot, meaning “little blackbird” in French, has been used to produce some of the most important wines in the world.  It offers notes of plum, blackberry, cassis, mocha and dark chocolate, and can be described as similar to Cabernet Sauvignon but with softer tannins and a more feminine structure.  It sounds like an enjoyable wine, so why has Merlot fallen out of favor with much of the wine consuming public?

To find the answer I think we have to look into the past. Merlot had long been a favorite in wine circles and because of its popularity, became the chosen varietal for mass-produced jug wines.  It is much easier to make an inexpensive Merlot palatable than an inexpensive Cabernet Sauvignon, since the Cab tends to be higher in harsh tannins. As production of cheap Merlot increased, so did the disdain for it.  However, writing off Merlot can cause as much self-deprivation as writing off Chablis and Burgundy – two varietals similarly associated with notoriously cheap jug wines.

The last nail in the coffin of Merlot’s reputation was the critically acclaimed movie from 2004, Sideways. The movie follows two middle-aged men as they take a week long trip through the California Wine Country with one of the men continually denigrating Merlot and speaking highly of Pinot Noir. As audiences were bad-mouthing Merlot, and swearing it off forever, they actually missed the final punch line of the movie, which was the main character, Miles, drinking his prized 1961 Château Cheval Blanc, a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc.

After the release of the movie, Pinot Noir’s popularity sky-rocketed and Merlot’s popularity plummeted, leaving Merlot producers with a lot of work ahead of them to fix the tarnished image. Ironically enough, the abundance of poorly made Merlot has now been replaced with an oversaturation of poorly made Pinot Noir.

Katie Kelly with one of her favorite Merlots, Seven Hills

The intention of this piece is not to bash the admittedly hilarious movie, Sideways, or to claim that Merlot is the greatest varietal ever to exist. Being somewhat a Merlot ambassador myself though, I am constantly trying to convert the staff at The Citizen and our guests into Merlot enthusiasts by asking them to give the wine a chance. To do this, we serve an array of some of the best and most affordable expressions of Merlot we can find, starting with Charles Smith’s Velvet Devil. This wine offers great depth and richness with notes of dark plum, mocha and coffee, proving to be a true crowd-pleaser, even for guests that “don’t usually like Merlot.”  Paired with the earthy cheeses, beef brisket or  dry-aged sirloins also found at The Citizen, Velvet Devil Merlot is the perfect complement.

After you try the Velvet Devil Merlot, we have other great options available by the glass or bottle from some of the great Merlot-producing regions of the world, such as Washington State, Sonoma Valley, and Bordeaux. It’s time to put down the Pinot Noir this one time, and participate in Merlot’s great redemption.