The Opening of Some Wine....and a Winery

Sounds like the wine country picnic was a big success…everyone well fed, plenty of wine to sample, gorgeous vineyards in sight and, most important, friends in attendance. Meg had solicited my thoughts on a “parting gift” for the guests and we talked about several ideas...when I remembered something funny I’d seen at the liquor store; it looked like a giant Q-tip that was bent at the end. It was a wine decantor brush. Aha! Add a fun tag (downloaded a corkscrew image off the internet) with a “thanks for joining us”, a festive bow, and you’re in business.Back to the picnic…I ended up contributing a salad to the mix and decided that Ina Garten’s Greek Salad* is one of our favorites and just perfect to add with the Curried Rice & Artichoke Salad (previous blog) and other picnic fare.

Greek Salad

1 English

cucumber, unpeeled and sliced ¼” thick

1 red pepper, large-dice

1 yellow pepper, large-dice

1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

½ red onion, sliced in half-rounds

½ lb. feta cheese, ½” diced

½ cup calamata olives, pitted

for the vinaigrette:

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp. dried oregano

½ tsp. Dijon mustard

¼ cup good red wine vinegar

1 tsp. kosher salt

½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper

½ cup good olive oil

Place cucumber, peppers, tomatoes and red onion in a large bowl.

For the vinaigrette, whisk together the garlic, oregano, mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper in a

small bowl. Still whisking, slowly add the olive oil to make an emulsion. Pour the vinaigrette over the vegetables. Add the feta and olives and toss lightly. Set aside for 30 min. to allow the flavors to blend (it lastest quite nicely for several hours in the cooler). Serve at room temperature.

*2009 Ina Garten

Something Meg and I particularly like about Ina’s version of Greek Salad is that she uses halved cherry or grape tomatoes instead of cutting a larger tomato in pieces (which tends to make the salad a little “sloppy”) and she doesn’t use crumbled feta but suggests buying a brick of it and then cubing it so it’s a real bite in the salad. We also find it’s not overly dressed so the taste of the veggies comes through. Nothing worse than being over-dressed, particularly at a picnic.

I bought a couple of light-weight acrylic containers with snap-lock lids to carry the salads. It looked pretty in the jars and made transport easy to the table at Scribe (a brand new to the scene--and yet very old with incredible history-- Sonoma winery). The group was privileged to have enjoyed the ambiance and beautiful surroundings of this winery, officially opening this coming weekend. Check out Food & Wine Magazine's March 16 edition. Maybe the wild time had by all had something to do with the "wild yeast" the winery uses! They were most hospitable to accommodate the group. Highly recommended place to enjoy.

Day done and many happy memories.

--The Mom