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Enoteca di Broadway

This Saturday we had another couple of friends over for dinner. We made the usual menu that we seem to always serve guests the first time we have them over: Artichokes, Strip Steak with Madeira Mushroom Sauce and Sundried Tomato Summer Squash & Zucchini Ragout. I couldn't get a picture of dinner, but you can marvel at what a beautiful table my wife can set -- and look at all those spoons! (Try to ignore the laser printer in the background). By the way, we're going with the Italian "enoteca" designation now rather than the French "bistro" or "chez" given the current political climate. I've heard "enoteca" means "wine bar" and denotes a casual restaurant, although if you ask Google you'll get a whole slew of different translations, and Bablefish says "wine cellar".

For a soup we went with the Creamy Mushroom Soup with Tarragon that I made a few nights ago. This batch came out a little too peppery. The recipe calls for cracked black pepper but last time I used fresh ground. This time I used the cracked, and it was too much, so next time I think I'll cut back on the pepper. I also stirred in a few tablespoons of Manzanilla sherry. Unfortunately, this was the worst Madeira Mushroom sauce yet, which was particularly disappointing given that the last time I thought was the best ever. I made a couple dumb mistakes that I caught right away having to do with the sequence of adding ingredients, but the damage was done. It was still edible and all -- it wasn't awful tasting -- it just wasn't very flavorful. Kind of blah. And of course, one of our guests is in cooking school. On the bright side of things, we had some great wine. Our guests brought a Ravenswood Teldeschi Vineyard Zinfandel 1998, which we followed with one of our favorites, Montes Reserve Malbec 2001. For dessert, we had ice cream with fresh raspberries and raspberry chocolate sauce, which went great with the Four Vines Zinfandel Port which we really love. This port just goes so well with chocolaty raspberry or cherry desserts. We actually followed that up with some other Australian dessert wine (Campbells Rutherglen Muscat) which I'm sorry to say we did not like at all -- syrupy sweet like medicine with a thick raisin flavor. Oh well, it was worth a try. Oh, and the fun fact of the night: Don't make fresh pesto and then leave it on your counter at room temperature or it could develop botulism and kill you. I forget the exact details but that's enough info for me... always refrigerate the pesto.