As it turns out, I didn’t miss it at all.  Don’t get me wrong – I love Delancey’s pizza.  In fact, it’s my favorite in Seattle.  But that dinner was pretty darn amazing.  I don’t know which I liked more: the wood-fired mussels with crusty bread or the braised rabbit.  Mussels aren’t my favorite thing around, but wood-fired mussels from Delancey’s oven are a whole different story.  And that rabbit was the best I’ve ever eaten.  I wasn’t the only person that night who said so.

So I jumped at the opportunity to attend Delancey’s Seattle Beer Week event last week: a Chuckanut Brewery dinner.  And this time, there was even pizza!  It wasn’t hard to convince our friends Michael and Robin, ardent beer-lovers, to join in, despite their already-full week of planned beer events.  I will admit to being more of a wine than a beer person, so you’re better off jumping over to their recount of the dinner for info on the beers from the evening.

Chuckanut Brewery co-owner Mari Kemper (yes, the name behind Thomas Kemper sodas) and brewer Kevin Davey greeted us at the door handing out glasses of Kölsch, which we drank while slurping Kumomotos at the counter.  We sat down to family-style platters of burrata and prosciutto, along with braised fennel paired with a Pilsner, which was the favorite beer of the evening.  An entire platter of burrata?  Really?  It took all my willpower to take only one and pass the platter along.  I absolutely love the stuff.

A pile of glistening duck fat roasted potatoes arrived next, and I have to say, this was my favorite dish of the night.  And that’s saying something, coming from an avowed potato-phobe like me.  Finished with beer-vinegar, the potatoes were rich and a teeny bit tangy.

Asparagus soup followed.  This dish epitomizes the food served alongside the pizza each day at Delancey.  Local, seasonal, simple, and delicious.

We had the pleasure of sitting next to Ashley of Not Without Salt and her husband Gabe, along with Allecia and Seth, newly relocated to Seattle from Chicago (with a pause in San Francisco for a year).  Ashley told me what she was planning for her upcoming cooking classes, and left me wondering why I haven’t signed up for one yet.  Soon.

Allecia’s is a blog to watch.  As a former food writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, she already has the pulse on the Seattle food scene.  I’m definitely bookmarking her blog for my next Chicago and San Francisco trips.

After a long pause, the pizza (yes, pizza!) was up next.  The oven at Delancey can only handle a few pizzas at a time, so they trickle out slowly for dinners like these.  First, the cremini with house-made sausage, then the Brooklyn, a simple yet perfect three-cheese pizza, and finally the Pissaladiere, covered with beer-braised shallots plus salty anchovies and olives.  I devoured every slice and loved the Brooklyn the most.

I haven’t been to Delancey since Brandi Henderson, formerly of Tartine Bakery, started working as Delancey’s pastry chef.  This is regrettable because the chocolate stout cake for dessert this evening was memorable.  A year ago, you would not have found me espousing the merits of chocolate.  I’ve always been a fruit dessert kind of person, always passing over the token chocolate dessert on every menu.  I don’t understand why – after-baby hormones? too many samples of the quality stuff from Chocolopolis? – but something has converted me into a chocolate-lover.  And then there’s the whole thing about salt in desserts.  Lately, I’ve been buying chocolate bars with salt (LOVE the Fran’s Gray Salt Thins) and doubling the salt in my cookie recipes.  So Brandi’s cake, warm and gooey in the center, with a surprise sprinkling of salt hidden inside, all underneath a layer of stout anglaise, was just about perfect paired with a malty Alt beer.

Delancey
1415 NW 70th Street, Seattle
(206) 838-1960

I first tried Armagnac fifteen years ago at my friend Keith’s house, who himself had discovered it on a business trip to France years before that.  That first taste was a mixed experience – at 40% alcohol content, it burned my throat and made me cough like a neophyte, but the finish left a subtle mix of sweet and spicy flavors tingling on my tongue.  I was intrigued, and tried some sips on subsequent visits, and slowly I began to see that this spirit that many refer to as “an acquired taste” might indeed be worth the effort.

Over the next few years, armagnac fell off my radar while I moved cross-country and worked long hours during the heady dot-com days of the late ‘90s.  Then in the early part of this decade, a coworker and I were talking about some of the digestifs he had been collecting – cognac, calvados, armagnac – and suddenly I recalled my lost interest.  After trying a not-so-good bottle from the Washington state liquor store, I decided to do a little more digging online to see what my options were.  This led me to Charles Neal’s book on armagnac.  His book, appropriately subtitled “The Definitive Guide to France’s Premier Brandy,” clued me in to its history, and provided a wealth of detailed tasting notes for over 700 armagnacs.  Armed with my armagnac bible, I searched for a suitably interesting vintage for my next purchase, and read this tasting note:

Fruit on the nose nearly soars from the glass; honey, coffee, white chocolate, apricot, ginger.  Vanilla, coffee, prune, cinnamon, and a hint of smoke in the mouth.  A seamless texture and also very long.  Nearly perfect armagnac.

The bottle?  It was a 1973 from Domaine de St. Aubin, distributed by Francis Darroze, aged 24 years in oak before being bottled.  I managed to find a bottle for sale, and the first whiff alone was a revelation: this is what it’s all about.  I understood why someone would even want to aspire towards being an armagnac connoisseur.  I was hooked.

At this point, you might be wondering, “What exactly is armagnac?”  Charles Neal has lots of detail on his website, covering grapes, soil, distillation, aging, blending, labels, vintages, and even how to drink it.  The short version is this: if you grow one or more of four particular wine grapes in a small region of southwest France, distill it, age it in oak, and let it evaporate and reduce a bit along the way, you might find yourself with a barrel of armagnac.  So how is it different than cognac?  Cognac is double distilled, and almost always blended with cognacs from multiple years to smooth out inconsistencies and achieve the same taste.  Armagnac is commonly offered as a single vintage, though you can find blended armagnacs for sale.

I found myself fortunate enough to chat with Charles Neal here in Seattle in early October at a wine dinner at Licorous.  I must admit that I am quite envious of his lifestyle, traveling France for several months every year, meeting with wine, calvados, and armagnac producers to sample their products and import them into the States.  In fact, he’s currently working on a 500-page book on calvados, due to be released in late 2010, which I look forward to already.  I may find myself with another habit then!  But I digress.  I mentioned to him that the best Armagnac I’ve ever tried was a 1973 Domaine Boingnères, and was pleasantly surprised to hear Charles agree that Domaine Boingnères is one of the top producers.  He explained the sad reality that the current owner, Martine Laffite, will be retiring in a few years and has no one to pass the 200-year-old family business on to, and it’s unclear as to what will happen to her armagnac.  My outlandish daydream: uproot the family, move to Gascony, somehow convince Ms. Laffite to teach me the old family secrets, and carry on the banner of this preeminent chateau.  Who’s with me?

A glimpse of the wall of vintage armagnacs at Les Caves Augé, Paris.  This store is an excellent source, with bottles dating as far back as the 1940s.

But while I’m still in Seattle, finding good Armagnac in the state’s liquor stores is a challenge.  They typically only carry three or four ho-hum blends (XO or VSOP), and possibly a single vintage bottle at one or two stores in the entire state.  One option is a road trip to a good store in Portland.  But my favorite mail order source is D&M Wines and Liquors in San Francisco.  They typically have 70+ armagnacs in stock, with most of them being very high-quality vintage bottles.  Not surprising, since Charles Neal used to work for them and helps source their bottles.  These bottles aren’t cheap, but I can tell you that the good ones are worth it.  The spirit doesn’t age once it goes into bottle, so I’ve gotten my money’s worth by having little sips here and there, allowing me to keep bottles open for years.  Drop me a line if you’re interested in trying a glass!

As the evening was winding down and we rolled out of our chairs, I had the extra treat of being the first customer of Queso y Vino’s wine delivery service!  Catherine is set up to deliver wines around Seattle, and she brought the case that I had ordered on the day she got her liquor permit.  We often asked Catherine for Spanish and Portuguese wine recommendations when she was the wine manager at The Spanish Table, so it’s like old times again – we can all ask her for new and interesting wine recommendations, or to track down old favorites we’ve been missing.  For my first order, I went the omakase route and let Catherine put together a mixed case.  And what a tasty result!  I sampled a Valdespino Delicioso Manzanilla dry sherry after dinner a few nights ago, and have my eye on the Viña Ardanza Reserva wine from the Rioja Alta region next.  Give her a call or drop her a mail if you’d like to put together your own case.

Queso y Vino
Catherine Reynolds, Owner
(206) 518-1166
quesoyvino@gmail.com

Art of the Table
1054 N 39th St, Seattle
(206) 282-0942

I had no idea this beer was right there under my nose at my parents’ small-town grocery store.  Although, it’s not really that surprising, because the Wisconsinites I know love sweet wine, and many wines made in Wisconsin are not just made with grapes.  They’ve got raspberry wine, cherry wine, apple wine, and my grandfather even used to make his own dandelion wine.

Door County (the “thumb” of the hand-shaped state) is known for its cherries, and that’s what New Glarus Brewing Company puts into their Wisconsin Belgian Red.  In fact, there’s a whole pound of the Montmorency cherries in every bottle.  It’s not very hoppy, but more like a cherry sparkling wine that tastes like beer.  We managed to carry back a few bubble-wrapped bottles in our luggage.  They don’t make it easy nowadays with the luggage, weight, and liquid restrictions!

Eric’s f/1 photography group met for a weekend in San Francisco at the end of September.  The two of us flew down a few days early to do some eating, and then my friend Jacki and I toured around and shopped while the guys were doing their photography thing.  Here’s where we went:

• Jardiniere – This is a classy, upscale, expensive place near the symphony.  The food was good, but not out of this world.  We had an excellent pinot recommendation – George Vintage IV, which we really loved.  And when we reached the end of the meal, we regretted having had (awesome) cocktails and drinking most of that bottle of pinot, since we had to miss out on the dessert tasting flights of name-your-drink.  They had a good two dozen different flights: armagnacs, tawnies, scotches, everything.
• Boulette’s Larder – Eric and I went here for weekday brunch in the Ferry Building.  We sat outside on a brilliant beautiful day (as it was for our entire visit), overlooking the Bay Bridge.  They had a limited menu of impeccable simple ingredients.  We enjoyed poached eggs with beans and a beautiful slice of tomato, with a dusting of Parmigiano, along with a huge plate of toast from Acme Bread Company, a great bakery also in the building.

The Ferry Building; a farmer selling grapes; rotisserie chicken at the farmer’s market.

• Slanted Door – This is a modern Vietnamese place in the Ferry Building.  We went here for a light lunch.  It was good, but I doubt I’d go back, since nothing we ordered impressed me hugely.  The size of the place and type of food vaguely reminded me of Wild Ginger in Seattle.
• Chez Panisse – We hadn’t been here before, and were really impressed by the execution of a simple menu.  We went for a weeknight dinner and were offered one small tasting menu.  Just four courses seemed tiny compared to most restaurants’ lengthy tasting menus nowadays, but it was perfect – I hate the overstuffed feeling at the end of a huge meal, and this just made us feel satisfied and happy.  The food initially seemed like fairly standard local fare when reading the menu (tomato salad, lamb three ways), but the seasoning was spot on and little touches of simple things made the standard become inspired (such as tangy-salted handmade ricotta and warmed Nicoise with the tomato salad).
• La Taqueria – Great tacos in the Mission District.  They charge for extras like cheese and sour cream, which make it a little pricey, but worth it.  I couldn’t get over the fact that they would charge $1.20 to remove the beans from the tacos.

Bi-Rite ice cream cone; choosing flavors at Bi-Rite; a Ritual Coffee Roasters cappuccino.

• Ritual Coffee Roasters – We stopped here for our caffeine fix in the Mission.  You can watch them roast the beans right there in the store.
• Tartine Bakery – The line was out the door and inching slowly at this popular bakery.  I rested my feet at an outdoor table while Eric stood in line to get a slice of lemon meringue cake.  It was moist, yummy, and super-rich (I could barely eat more than a few bites).
• Bi-Rite Creamery – Awesome ice cream.  Beats our Molly Moon, particularly the salted caramel ice cream, which is very close to my all-time favorite homemade ice cream (Bi-Rite’s is missing the yummy caramel praline bits).  I was really bummed when I found out that David Lebovitz would be visiting from Paris and signing cookbooks here only a week later.

Lemon meringue cake from Tartine; pop rocks dark chocolate bar enjoyed with peanut butter hot chocolate at Christopher Elbow; sole with corn chowder at Range.

• Range – A one-Michelin-star restaurant tucked into a corner of the Mission District.  We had a reservation but chose to sit at a table in the bar, which had a better vibe than the rooms in the back.  We were all guessing what Eric’s “sole with corn and potato chowder” would be – chowder with sole in it, or sole with some chowder on the side?  Turned out it was neither.  The sole was served in a bowl with a shallow pool of chowder at the bottom and lots of chunky vegetables.  Don’t miss the homemade butterscotch pudding for dessert!
• Ferry Building Farmer’s Market – The ferry building has lots of interesting food shops open every day of the week, but the place comes alive on Tuesdays and Saturdays when the farmers set up tables all around the building, and everyone in San Francisco comes out shopping.
• Yank Sing – I didn’t go here, but Eric did with the guys for dim sum and said it was great.

Peppers at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market; a mural in the Mission; the f/1 guys enjoying dim sum.

• Rye – On the recommendation of Michelle and Kelly at Licorous, Jacki and I stopped here for pre-dinner cocktails.  The space is really cool.  Dark, brick walls, high ceilings except a lowered wood ceiling over the bar, a pool table near the bar, and a lounge on the other side of the room.  It looks like it would be a fun place to go late at night.
• Zuni Café – This was my second time here and it was just as amazing as I remembered.  Last time, we could tell there were a number of nooks and crannies behind the main dining loft, but I had no idea just how many there are.  The second floor dining rooms are tucked away everywhere, each with railings overlooking the first floor.  Loved the Caesar salad, and had a nibble of Jacki’s starved tomato salad – those were the best, sweetest tomatoes I’ve ever eaten.  The roast guinea hen was super-flavorful and juicy.  Yum.

The wood stove at Zuni Café; a tea shop in Chinatown; the starved tomato salad at Zuni Café.

• Citizen Cake – We stopped here for brunch while shopping on Hayes Street.  I’m always a sucker for Dutch baby pancakes, and theirs was great.
• Christopher Elbow Chocolates – Lots of yummy gourmet truffles here (you can get some of them at Chocolopolis in Seattle), and interesting inclusion bars, too.  Jacki bought a dark chocolate bar with pop rocks, which fizzled on your tongue as you let it melt in your mouth.  They had a dozen different drinking chocolates – I liked drinking my peanut butter chocolate in the chocolate lounge.
• Blue Bottle Coffee Company – We stopped to pick up espresso beans from the Hayes Valley location.  It was mid-afternoon and there was still a long line crossing the alleyway in front.  We didn’t get any drinks since we had had Blue Bottle mochas (made with Recchiuti chocolate!) just that morning from one of the two Blue Bottle stands at the market.
• Canteen – We all went here for Sunday brunch.  It’s a tiny, tiny place, like a small diner, so we had to split into two tables.  Breakfast was satisfying and tasty – I’d go back, and would like to try dinner here.