Year after year, Kim Crawford Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc ranks at the
top of my preference list.
The 2006 that I tried last night was no exception. It had the
characteristic Citrus and Tropical Fruit overtones, the pale
burnished gold color, the clean nose and long finish plus an
intangible element of good balance. According to Hugh Johnson, Kim
Crawford is now owned by a Canadian company.
It would appear that the new owners have wisely kept their sticky
fingers out of the area of wine making and concentrated upon
merchandising the product. That is not always the case with corporate
buyouts. More often, the bean counters manage to destroy fine things
with their meddling.

I made some crab cakes as the entree to set off the wine. There have
been problems in the past with keeping the crab cakes intact while
cooking, but this has been solved from an unexpected source.
Some Googling on the subject brought up the web page of Senator
Barbara Mikulski, hailing from the crab cake capital of the US,
Maryland. On it she had her favorite recipe for crab cakes, which
differed slightly from the one that I had been using. More important
than the recipe, I garnered a couple of important secrets about
methodology. The first was to chill the crab cakes in the
refrigerator for about an hour before cooking. The second was that it
was possible to broil them, as well as the traditional method of deep
frying.

We are constantly besieged by well intentioned souls telling us
of €œhealthful€� substitutions, that are certain to ward off all known
diseases and guarantee a longer lifespan than Methuselah.
The pitch invariably ends with €œand you'll never know the difference.€�
That phrase alone is enough to raise my hackles and make me do a one
hundred and eighty degree turn away. Yet, to all rules,
there are exceptions. Broiling the crab cakes proved to be one of
them. Before attempting this technique on the expensive material, I
made several trials using cheap Surimi (imitation crab.)
Once I had the timing and degree of heat established, it was time to
put the can opener to the pound of good Indonesian crab and let the
broiler roar. Three minutes on High heat on each side was ideal for
my stove, although other stoves must vary from my setting. The
result, - perfection. And, I didn't know the difference, except that
I did not experience grease running down to my armpits with each
byte. ;-)

I am certain that our Texas senators also have web sites. However, I
doubt that they would contain anything more than self praise for all
the damage that they have aided and abetted during their long terms
in office.

Godzilla