With the (truly excellent) Judy Rodgers recipe for Zuni Cafe's roast
chicken with bread salad, Wed we opened a half-bottle of the 2003 St.
Innocent Seven Springs Pinot Noir. Clean cherry fruit with a hint of
blackberry and the slightest hint of vanilla, with a little air this
became more earthy and mushroomy, and all notes of oak dissipated.Nice
PN that needs time, but still awfully pleasant right now. B+/A-

A note re the chicken - David said "oh good, chicken" when he sat down,
but as he chewed he went "wow!" There's an achievement- getting a
reaction from a 17yr old. A+ for recipe.

DaleW wrote:

> With the (truly excellent) Judy Rodgers recipe for Zuni Cafe's roast
> chicken with bread salad, Wed we opened a half-bottle of the 2003
> St. Innocent Seven Springs Pinot Noir. Clean cherry fruit with a
> hint of blackberry and the slightest hint of vanilla, with a little
> air this became more earthy and mushroomy, and all notes of oak
> dissipated.Nice PN that needs time, but still awfully pleasant right
> now. B+/A-
>
> A note re the chicken - David said "oh good, chicken" when he sat
> down, but as he chewed he went "wow!" There's an achievement-
> getting a reaction from a 17yr old. A+ for recipe.

Never mind the Pinot ;-) How about sharing the chicken recipe?

Godzilla

This is Zuni Cafe's signature dish, and I've seen a couple variants.
The one Betsy used is from the Zuni Cafe cookbook, and is 3 pages long.
I'm not typing all that, but a quick google found a short version:
http://www.usrg.com/recipe/zuni.asp

We just got this book. Very good and interesting cookbook, with
thought-provoking commentary. I have one objection. As is her habit,
Betsy handed me the cookbook with some mini-Post-It© notes to mark
recipes I'd like her to try. And I quickly found nice fish, pork chop,
rabbit, and other recipes I liked.

But what struck me were the specific wine references (by Gerald
Ascher). The salmon suggested the 1998 Atlas Peak Sangiovese, the sea
bass the '99 Sauzet Chassagne, the duck with prunes the '96 Cayrou
Cahors, the pot-au-feu the '97 Laurent Gevrey VV, the pork chops a '99
CdR, etc. This bothers me for several reasons:
1) I said to Betsy "this must be 3-4 years old", as most of the wines
were released then. You can certainly still find '99 Sauzet and '96
Cayrou, but the salt cod suggests the '00 Macon-Lugny Charmes (I assume
Cave de Lugny), which would probably be dead as a doornail (what a
strange expression) if you could find it.
2) I don't mind specific suggestions, but they should be in context of
suggestions, not one wine that someone should seek out. I like Ming
Tsai's Blue Ginger, where suggestions are along the lines of
"refreshing, bone-dry Chardonnay from Chablis (Domaine Moreau)" or
"Bordeaux Blend (Quintessa, Pichon-Lalande)" No vintage worries, and a
guide so a newbie could get a substitute easily. I can see someone
going to 15 shops looking for a '98 Altas Peak and then giving up on
the whole idea of pairing wines.
3) Some of the suggestions ('99 Quivira Dry Creek Cuvee, '99 St. Amant
Amador Roussanne,etc) would have been tough to find even 3 years ago,
what good is that kind of suggestion? Just a recipe for frustration.
4) Dominique Laurent- not with my pot-au-feu!
Ok, so last one is unfair, just my personal tastes. But still to me the
wine suggestions, done like this, subtract from the value of the book.

Hope you enjoy recipe. Now go kick Mothra's (and the Smog Monster's)
asses!

DaleW wrote:

> Hope you enjoy recipe. Now go kick Mothra's (and the Smog Monster's)
> asses!

Thanks for the link to the recipe. After I polish off Mothra and the
Smog Monster, I shall attempt to find a chicken (on sale) so that we
can try it out. Then, I can open up one of my cases of Petrus and see
how it goes together. ;-)

Godzilla