Christine bought wild salmon and a beautiful piece of chicken-of-the-woods today, and the colors were just gorgeous together, so I was inspired- especially since I spent all day drawing on a big sheet of MDF and needed some color. Plus, the greens beans have arrived, going from tiny to 6 inches long in about two days. I reheated brown rice with water to that magical twice-cooked creamy state, and cooked the fish skin side only so it was still raw on top. Mushrooms, then beans, then baby fennel followed in the same pan, refreshed with a tiny bit of butter to help give the mushrooms some moisture. Mash made from endive and herbs, ume plum, oil, and pine nuts and a pan sauce of a splash of wine and agave rounded out the meal.
A nasturtium flower finished the plate and a Pleiades XV, always an excellent salmon wine, astonished again with its insane nose and funky elegance. We were lucky to be able to compare it With the 2002 Novy Page-Nord syrah that we opened last night to go with pizza; after the yummy but kind of monolithic purple fruit and chocolate of the Novy, the Pleiades had some of the same toasty funk and layered quality that Sujit’s Echezeaux had at the party a while back.
