Drinking With Pete Hits The Road and the Slopes! Join the Hooch Hounds, Pete and Ash, as they taste their way through the 2009 Taste of Vail festival where the wine flows freely, there’s no shortage of great food and the people watching is some of the best this side of the Mason Dixon Line.
Drinking with Pete
Drinkin (and Spittin) With Pete – April is all about Spring, Easter, lamb, ham and the renewal of life. Join the Hooch Hounds; Pete and the Wine Chicks Ash and Krisana as they taste their way through some super value wines from Greece, Australia, South Africa and Italy that are not only delicious but also will work beautifully with ham, lamb and even bunny…
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“Yes, you’re probably going to pay top dollar for your meat at Marczyk Fine Foods. But trust us, it’s worth it. If you really care about the quality of your food, you should shop at a place where owner Pete Marczyk and his staff take pride in offering nothing but the best of the best. Just peeking through the glass at the cuts of meat displayed by the butchers is addicting — better than leafing through any high-gloss food mag out there. Marczyk’s stocks free-range chickens, makes its own sausage, and even puts some of that meat into sandwiches that you can grab for lunch.” ~Westword
2 Comments »Our customers here at Marczyk’s have been asking for GF foods more in the last 6 months than in the last 6 years. We wonder why—especially when one of our favorite customers can eat the bread in Europe, but not here?
Here’s some anecdotal thoughts:
We wonder if the recent spate of gluten intolerance comes from the now widespread use of GMO foodstuffs in the US. GMO stands for genetically modified organism—like Roundup™ (a non-selective herbicide) resistant corn (both Roundup™ and the seeds for corn which is Roundup™ resistant are manufactured by Monsanto). While hybrids are a form of genetic engineering, the essential genome of the plants are not changed as in genetic modification - like the insertion of a fish gene in tomatoes to keep them firmer longer (FLAVR SAVR? Christ, they can’t even use the real words!).
The real issue is unintended cross-pollination. Now this is serious. Currently there is no way for GM pollen and non-GM plants to prevent cross pollination, and GM traits are being found in plants which came from non-GMO seed stock. Really a big deal in soy and rapeseed.
Across the ocean, the EU does not allow GMO crops to be grown or sold. This is a real sticking point with the US, as we cannot export many of our products there. The EU also does not allow for the use of hormones in beef production—which is why we can’t export our beef there either. (The use of six growth-promoting hormones in beef production was prohibited across Europe in the 1980s on the grounds that they posed a significant risk to human health. Imports of meat treated with these hormones were also banned. Canada and the US successfully challenged the import embargo as not being based on an adequate risk assessment as required by the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures - SPS Agreement). Both countries subsequently imposed retaliatory tariffs on a range of European agricultural exports worth US $116.8 million for the US and C $11.3 million for Canada.
Anyway, I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who know more about Gluten free than I. Let us hear from you! Thanks, Pete.
We forgot this beauty in the last email…
Dominio de Eguren Protocolo Blanco 2007. Tierra Castilla, Spain. This is a great looking wine: brilliant yellow with dancing hints of soft green. The pretty nose if rich with aromas of tropical fruit, bananas, green apple and sun ripened peaches and the palate shows soft, silky notes of like fruit, balanced by lively acidity. What a lovely choice for a first day of spring dinner! Regular price: $13.99 - Sale price: $9.99 - Washed Up White case discount price: $8.50.
It’s time to drink with Pete!
March Wine Specials
Feel The Pig Love!
The word choucroute translates simply as fermented cabbage, or sauerkraut, as most of us know it. The earliest reference to sauerkraut in Alsace dates from the 15th century. For hundreds of years, until the early 1900s, Sürkrüt-schniders, or sour-cabbage cutters, toured the countryside, shredding cabbage to order. Today, choucroute has also come to mean a show-stopping dish of sauerkraut topped with copious portions of pork in myriad forms. No one at the Market loves pork more than D-Bomb, and no other dish shows off the love put into Marczyk Fine Foods’ meats, sausages, grocery items and wines like his two-pot adaptation of this definitive Alsatian classic.
“A great thing about choucroute is that you can make it your own without worry. All you need is plenty of pork, and plenty of love. The rest is in your hands. Don’t like kielbasa? Prefer Strasbourg sausages to brats? Have red potatoes in your pantry? Only need half the recipe? No problem! Be creative.”
~D-Bomb
Pork Rib Chops & French Sausages
Serves 8-10 easily (At D-Bomb’s house it serves 6)
Shopping List
1 28oz jar Gundelshein Barrel Sauerkraut
2 13.58oz cans Zuccato Crauti al Naturale
6-8 Frenched Pork Rib Chops
6-8 Market-Made French Sausages
2 Niman Ranch Ham Steaks or Petit Hams, sliced into chunks
1# Continental Veal Bratwurst or Stadium Brats
1# Continental Kielbasa
1# Continental Wieners or Frankfurters
1# Continental Avalanche Beer Brats
½# Applewood Smoked Bacon
2# Fingerling Potatoes, halved lengthwise
4-6 Apples, such as Braeburns, cored and sliced
1 Medium yellow onion, coarsely chopped
Fresh Italian parsley, finely chopped
Bouquet Garni of 1 smashed head of garlic, 3 whole cloves, 6 juniper berries, and 6 coriander seeds, in cheesecloth
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Bottle Riesling
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Clean and chop fruit and vegetables. Season pork chops with salt and pepper. Coarsely chop bacon.
2. Render bacon in a dutch oven, or a large roaster (mine is 12”x20”x9” - huge) with a lid, over medium heat. Just before it is crisp, pull bacon and reserve on paper towels. Sear pork chops and French sausages in bacon fat til lightly browned. Remove and reserve with bacon. Add onions and apples to pan, and cook until soft, 10-15 minutes, adding a bit more bacon fat or oil if needed. Add pork chops, sauerkraut, bouquet garni, ham, bacon, sausages and half the bottle of wine. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and cook in oven until meats are tender, about one hour. While you’re waiting, drink the other half bottle of Riesling.
3. About 35 minutes before serving, place potatoes in a pot of salted water over medium-high heat and cook until tender, 20-25 minutes. Drain and keep warm.
4. To serve, spoon sauerkraut onto a large platter, discarding bouquet garni. Slice kielbasa and large sausages, if desired, and arrange on platter with pork chops, potatoes, and small sausages. Garnish with fresh parsley. Smile as your guests’ minds are blown by pork love.
A Family Meal
Pete and the wine chicks bring you the February wines of the month.
Stump The Chump
Watch as Pete Marczyk and his Wine Chicks, Ash and Krisana, give you a taste by taste eval of their wicked awesome wines of the month. Pete has never tasted these wines before so be prepared for some off the wall tasting notes from that crazy fu*%er!
Marczyk Fine Wines – No points, no Parker, just people and their palates .
Niman Ranch is in trouble (nothing they haven’t seen before) and the state of affairs is sad. http://www.gourmet.com/foodpolitics/2009/01/politics-of-the-plate-niman-ranch-crisis
When B of A gets 35 BILLION dollars from TARP, of which 4 B was handed out to Merrill Execs as bonuses and another 550mm in dividends to MER common shareholders, and a company like Niman can’t get a loan, the state of affairs is sad.
Interesting conversations around here at Marczyk’s as we discuss our plans for the coming year and beyond; we talk about sustainability in agriculture, and indeed sustainability of our business model. Eating right does cost more, but in fairness, it represents the true, sustainable cost of eating. In this country we see it as a luxury to eat the way we promote eating. As you know, in Europe no hormones are allowed in beef production…no wonder that beef is more expensive and eaten much less often and in smaller quantities…no wonder that heart disease and obesity are much less prevalent too.
3 years ago we were interviewed about the business by a local business writer. We said then “Our nation would be better served when we care which veggies the Jones’ were growing, instead of what they were driving. That would be something worth keeping up with!” Culturally, it’s more important what brand of car we drive than with the provenance of what we put in our bodies; that’s fucked up. And we’ll continue to be fucked up as long as every Tom, Dick and Harry claims ALL NATURAL!!! Look around, proclamations like this: “Our fresh and aged meats are all-natural and free of additives. We prove it with independent chemical testing…” are everywhere, assaulting our reality. All Natural, as defined by USDA, is a meaningless set of guidelines and only refers to the product after slaughter. It isn’t all natural the way we think of all natural. It’s a happy-horse-shit idea of all natural. All natural allows for the use of hormones and antibiotics in the production of beef and the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in pork and chicken. There is a huge difference in meat which has been raised with antibiotics in terms of water retention, flavor and texture.
As a nation we really believe that .99 pork is OK. It’s not. It’s wrong. It is bad for the farmers, it’s bad for the consumers, it’s bad for the environment, and it’s bad for the animals. Not sometimes—always. Try to buy non-commodity (ie non-CAFO) pork at one of the big markets or even at your favorite white-tablecloth restaurant—BTW, White Marble Farms ain’t it. We owe it to ourselves, our children and our environment to do the right thing.
Let’s all riot for reality: We want truth in advertising! We want a national solution to bringing affordable, sustainably raised meat to the table, not just our table, but the world’s! We want companies like Niman, who are trying to do the right thing, encouraged to grow, not cut off at the knees. We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: vote for change with your wallet!
So, you know how when you try to pull Saran Wrap or tinfoil out of the box the whole roll comes out? Well no more! They both have a locking tab at the end of the box that you just push in and it keeps the roll from falling out!
Trying to bake something that calls for cake flour when all you have is regular? You can convert regular to cake: 1 cup of regular flour, take 2 tablespoons out and replace with 2 tablespoons of corn starch. Viola! Cake flour.