Homegrown Cholent

So many methods of making pot roast are disappointing. The meat too often comes out of the oven dry and tough. I've settled on traditional Jewish cholent as our preferred method of cooking a piece of beef shoulder for a long time, braising it in a heavy pot with beans and barley.

The result is something much more than pot roast, a gooey unctuous stew that goes straight to the soul and lifts the spirits on a cold winters night.

Traditionally, Jewish cholent was placed in a low oven just before sundown preceding the sabbath so there would be a warm, hearty lunch to serve the following day, when cooking was forbidden. I don't cook mine nearly as long--only five hours.

Last night we had friends over to help us eat a big pot of cholent made with chuck roast from our dairy--South Mountain Creamery--as well as cranberry beans from our own garden. On the side were roasted carrots and parsnips pulled in the morning from the soil where they are overwintering. They are even more sweet and delicious having been touched by the cold. For dessert, my wife served an intoxicating, flourless clementine cake.

Proof again that the simplest foods are the most satisfying.

Lunch

Hebrew National beef hot dog with homemade chili on a potato roll.

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Shopping: none

The dog and the chili are leftover from our inaugural catering event. Oh, I am hearing the howls out there, the cries of "Foul!" Because there is nothing very sustainable here. In fact, I think it's a pretty safe bet that the meat on this bun came from a feedlot somewhere. In fact, the parent company is the evil ConAgra that we all love to hate so much.

But this is a perfect illustration of how far the rest of the world has to go to catch up with the ethicureans. Tens of thousands of people were fed at events all over the District of Columbia beginning over the weekend. How many of the ingredients do you suppose were local or organic or sustainably raised? Believe me, even the most liberal people we know don't bother to ask where the food comes from at a party--even when they're the ones throwing the party. We are just starting to see the beginnings of food conscious hosts out there asking for politically correct menus. Most people would choke on the additional cost.

So as professionals we consider ourselves to have feet in both worlds. We eat out of our garden, pastured eggs, grass-fed meats and dairy. But when we're cooking for others, we feel compelled to give them what they want, though for small affairs we can often sneak our home-grown products onto the menu.

From a health standpoint also this dog has nothing to bark home about. These are the jumbo Hebrew Nationals--quarter-pounders with 30 grams of fat in each. I cut one-third off mine, which still leaves a considerable portion of soy- and corn-based fat. (I am apologizing to my arteries as we speak). What we'll probably do is freeze the rest and save them for another party another day. Meanwhile, close your eyes and enjoy this rare and sinful treat....

A Christmas Roast

Nothing says meat better than a beef rib roast. In our family, there's a tradition of serving one of these beasts for an early dinner on Christmas Day along with Yorkshire pudding and the mandatory mashed potatoes. It doesn't hurt that one of the sisters-in-law works for a meat distributor in Baltimore. Have you checked the price of beef lately?

You don't do much to a rib roast other than seasoning it aggressively with salt and pepper. Getting it to the table is really more about technique than anything else. Do you like your meat rare? Medium? Well done? It is critical that you know in advance what sort of meat you want to be serving. From there, it's all about timing.

Most of the advice you read about doneness in recipe books is all wrong. In fact, as we prepared our roast for the oven, we read in one book or another that to serve our beef rare, we would need to cook it to an internal temperature of 140. It advised 170 for well done. Either would have resulted in something like shoe leather.

One thing many cooks fail to take into account is that a large roast (even a smaller one) continues to cook even after you pull it out of the oven. A very large roast cooked at a high temperature will build up such a head of steam that it will "coast" for quite some distance. Just sitting on the cutting board, the internal temperature will continue to rise 10 degrees or more. We learned this the hard way at past Christmas dinners, wherein we pulled the roast from the oven at what we thought was an ideal temperature for juicy and rare, only to slice into something closer to well done because we had to wait so long for everyone to get to the table.

Consequently, I've learned to undershoot the temperature a little, and since temperature is so important--really, the only way to gauge a tender roast's doneness--it pays to have a highly accurate and reliable thermometer. If you can afford a roast like this, you can certainly afford the cost of a good digital thermometer, the kind with a probe that you can insert into the roast for the entire cooking time. An oven-safe cord connects the probe to a sensor with an alarm that will sound when your desired temperature has been reached. The sensor usually has a magnet on the back so you can hang it on the refrigerator door and walk away while your meat cooks.

Typically we take the meat out of the fridge and leave it on the counter for a few hours to come up to room temperature. That will speed up the cooking time. This year, our digital thermometer--with the probe inserted squarely in the middle--showed the roast to be 56 degrees cool before we put it in the oven. May aim was to bring it up to 115 degrees for a fairly rare result.

After seasoning the meat top and bottom, I preheat the oven to 500 degrees. A half hour at 500 degrees (meat up, bones down) develops some nice browning and crustiness on the roast. I then reduce the heat to 325. I've read that some beef houses like to cook their rib roasts at very low heat for several hours to achieve that perfectly rosy interior. Using my method, a 12-pound roast is done in about 1 1/2 hours.

If you are looking for something closer to medium rare, shoot for an internal temperature of 120. Once it comes out of the oven, let the roast sit on its cutting board for 15 or 20 minutes so the juices can redistribute themselves. Cut the roast too early and all the juices just run out of it. When it's finally ready and people are seating themselves, I like to cut the meat away from the rib bones all in one piece. This makes for much easier carving at table.

You can separate the rack into individual bones and pass these around the table on a platter. Some of your guests will enjoy gnawing on them as a sort of appetizer. I know I do.

Helluva Burger

South Mountain Creamery, where we subscribe for weekly dairy deliveries, also sells meat products from its own grass-fed cattle. We couldn't resist putting burgers on the menu for the 4th of July, especially my wife's special stuffed burgers.

The stuffing starts with creamed cheese--just the thing to add a little unctuousness to that lean, grass-fed beef, right? Season the creamed cheese with freshly minced garlic, chopped fresh thyme, salt and black pepper. For assembly, lay down a layer of ground beef on some waxed paper, add a big dollop of the cheese mix, then cover with more ground beef, pressing the patty together around the edges.

The burgers can even be made the day ahead and sealed in plastic wrap. Just remove from the fridge a couple of hours before cooking to bring the meat up to room temperature (or not, if you like your burgers especially rare).

We grilled the burgers over mesquite charcoal and served them with our famous sweet potato salad with toasted pecans and orange-maple vinaigrette, as well as a pot of Swiss chard from the garden braised with red onion and pomegranate molasses.

Needless to say, the burgers didn't last long....

Too Much Beef

Devora Kimelman-Block has a problem some of us might like to take on: more beef than she can handle.

Kimelman-Block operates a meat trade out of Takoma Park, MD, that specializes in grass-fed, kosher meats. Why kosher? Because "Jews should not have to choose between eating according to their values and keeping kosher," declares her website.

But in the process of gathering kosher beef and lamb for her business, Kol Foods, Kimelman-Block produces quite a lot of non-kosher meat that she is busy trying to market to non-kosher families and also for the Hilal trade. Thus, The Slow Cook received some e-mails recently.

"I live on the border of Takoma Park and Silver Spring. I don't have a store. About once a month I get an order of organic, grassfed, local beef or lamb," Kimelman-Block writes. "I know the family farmer well. I'd like to make it available to others since I know that it is hard to find at bulk prices and I know many people are concerned with their family's health and the health of the environment."

Then Kimelman-Block explains how a surplus of meat arises. "As a biproduct of making kosher meats available, I get even more (much more) non-kosher meat. And that is what I am really having trouble selling. I can't create enough kosher meats to meet the demand because I have to sell so much non-kosher meat to do so (which is very risky financially for me)."

Kimelman-Block does not raise the beef and lamb herself. This is done mostly on Content Farm in Rocky Ridge, Maryland, and similar local family farms in southern Pennsylvania. The animals are all grass-fed without hormones or antibiotics. They are taken George Ruppersberger and Sons in Baltimore to be slaughtered and USDA inspected. The kosher-bound meat is transported to Shaul's Kosher Place in Silver Spring to be Kashered and butchered under the supervision of the Va'ad Harabanim of Greater Washington/Rabbinical Council .

Kimelman-Block says a typical box of beef contains 23-25 pounds of frozen mixed cuts, individually labeled and wrapped for freezer storage. The next order of beef is scheduled to arrive May 29, with mixed cuts priced at $9 per pound and hamburger at $6.50/lb.

Check the Kol Foods website for details.

Beef Stock

I don't know that I have ever designed a trip to the grocery with the idea of making a beef stock. This seems to be one of those things that happens serendipitously around the kitchen, as when you make beef Bourgignone for a crowd and end up with a couple of pounds of trimmings from two large chuck roasts.

The trimmings went into a storage bag and sat in the refrigerator while I planned my next move. Finally, inspiration struck, and I was off to Whole Foods for beef bones, a big slice of shank and enough aromatics to fill my stock pot.

A classic meat stock calls for veal bones, but you know what? I didn't have any veal bones. Fortunately, my reference in this venture, La Varenne Pratique, includes an all-beef stock option.

You will need to get a couple of sheet pans dirty. We have several of the commercial variety that just fit in our oven. On one sheet pan, spread out your meat trimmings. Don't worry about any fat that may be on the meat. It will render in the oven. On another sheet pan, distribute 3 pounds beef soup bones or, as in my case, marrow bones, plus a 1-pound slice of beef shank. Place the sheet pans in a 425-degree oven and bake until browned. Turn all the meat pieces and bones and return to the oven to brown some more.

The browned meat and bones can go directly into your stock pot. Drain the fat off your sheet pans.

On one of the sheet pans, place two onions, quartered, with the skins on, and four medium carrots, quartered. Place these in the oven until the vegetables begin to brown or even char a little. Now they can go into the stock pot as well. Ladle some water onto the two sheet pans and scrape up all the brown bits. This may take a few minutes, but eventually your water will look just like beef stock and the sheet pan with be almost clean. Pour this into the stock pot.

Now to the pot add 2 medium leeks, trimmed of the dark green parts, cleaned and quartered. (To clean leeks, I slice them in half lengthwise from a point near the root end so that the two lengths are still held together and run them under cold water to remove any sand and grit.) Also add several sprigs fresh thyme, a fistful of parsley sprigs, two bay leaves, a dozen black peppercorn and 2 cloves garlic, crushed but unpeeled.

Cover everything with cold water to a depth of one or two inches. Over everything place a heavy object such as a ceramic plate to hold the vegetables under the liquid. I use one of those folding, stainless steamer baskets, inverted over the vegetables.

Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer, so that bubbles occasionally break the surface. Be careful not to let the pot boil too fast: boiling results in a cloudy stock. You may need to skim the surface occasionally. Let the pot simmer for a good four hours, then remove it from the heat.

Once the stock has cooled enough to handle, you can use a slotted spoon to remove as much of the solids from the pot as possible. Strain the liquid at least twice through a fine-meshed strainer to remove any particles. Refrigerate the stock overnight. The fat will rise to the surface and form a crust that is easily removed with a slotted spoon. You may want to strain the stock again at this point to remove small particles of fat. Allow the stock to rest. Any remaining fat can be removed by carefully laying a paper towel on the surface to soak it up.

Taste your stock. Most likely, it will be so full of flavor you'll want to eat it on the spot. Although I was tempted to plunge my entire face into our stock--it was that good--I've managed some self control. The buzz around the kitchen is that we will be turning this into French onion soup. Stay tuned.

Cholent: Is Moist Pot Roast Possible?

A pot roast should be the easiest thing in the world to make. And yet, it so often is not.

Take the pot roast of my grandmother Arentz.
Grandma Arentz was a large woman who owed a sardonic disposition to a number of hard knocks. She had two favorite haunts when she visited our house outside Chicago. The first was at one end of the kitchen table, where she communed with a tumbler of bourbon and cackled at the antics of her five grandchildren. The second was in front of an upright piano in the living room, where she pounded out show tunes like a Liberace on steroids.

Every once in a great while, to our everlasting astonishment, Grandma Arentz was swept away by memories of housewifery. She would push her Jim Beam aside, rise up in her faded housedress, and heave herself into a cooking fury. The result was a giant Sunday pot roast that emerged from the oven surrounded by potatoes, carrots and onions, all slowly bubbling and browning in a deep baking pan wrapped with aluminum foil.

Lifting the aluminum foil unleashed waves of enticing steam and beefy aromas. We would watch anxiously as the great slab of chuck was carved into thick, tempting pieces, transferred to plates and drenched with pan juices. We lifted our forks, nearly levitating with anticipation: Where to poke first into those lovely long strands of braised meat?

Then into the mouth, where our eager taste buds shrieked, but not with joy.

No, not with joy, because the meat was dry.

I mean dry, as in, We-was-robbed dry.

Sad, but true: When it came to Grandma Arentz’s pot roast, the sensations we experienced in our mouths never lived up to those we saw with our eyes and smelled with our noses. For a long time, this haunted me: How could a piece of meat that looked and smelled so good coming out of the oven just plain fail on the tongue?

I never blamed Grandma Arentz, whose pot roast obviously was a source of pride. I actually thought this must be in the nature of things: If it was pot roast, it must be dry.

People would boast about their cooking: “And I make a great pot roast,” they would say, as if this certified them as world-class chefs. I dismissed them as imposters. Nobody, I thought, could make a pot roast that isn’t dry. Can’t be done.

Years passed, yet I retained the image of Grandma Arentz’s pot roast as a sort of metaphor for the cruel twists this life can dish up. As far as pot roast goes, these were my years of wandering in the wilderness.

But then, as so often happens, things took a turn. My perspective shifted. I met cholent, the meaty braise Jews prepare for their Sabbath meal, and suddenly I had a new outlook on pot roast.

Apparently, cholent (also spelled chollent, or tscholent) is what Jews were making when my grandmother’s Norwegian ancestors were busy drying their cod. Cholent elevates shoulder of beef to the metaphysical: It is a triumph of man’s determination to eat well in the face of a religious conundrum.

While some cooks were merely puttering away at pot roast, the Jews grappled with a true dilemma. Strict interpretation of Jewish law forbids not only the lighting of fires on the Sabbath, but also the preparation of food. Yet rabbis consistently urged their flocks to serve a hot meal on the Sabbath as a kind of mitzvah, or good deed.

Determined Jewish homemaker’s found they could comply with Talmudic restrictions and still have their hot Shabbat supper: They put the meat in the oven the day before.

Since the Jewish Sabbath begins at sundown Friday, that meant assembling a one-pot meal and laying it over a slow fire shortly before nightfall. The pot—often a big bronze one emblazoned with Hebrew script-- stayed in the oven well into the next day.

Hence, some believe the word “cholent” derives from a French phrase meaning “slow heat.”

Across the Jewish world, cholent evolved around local cuisines. In Eastern Europe, the pot typically contained barley and a variety of beans. If there was meat, big pieces of beef chuck or brisket, sometimes tongue and marrow bones, went into the mix. In other words, foods that will stand up to a long cooking time. In France, the meat might be duck or goose. In North Africa and the Middle East, lamb and rice.

Often, cholent did not cook at home, but at the village baker’s. That presented other issues: Jewish law frowns on carrying heavy objects outside the home on the Sabbath. Too much like work. So the villagers would create an eruv, a way of designating the entire village, or shtetl, a private domain so that everyone could get their cholent home from the baker’s.

Over time, cholent—with its prodigious cooking requirement--acquired mythic status as the Diaspora’s reply to the eternal question, How long, oh Lord, how long? Meaning, whatever trials and tribulations, there was always a nice, warm cholent waiting at the end of the day.

Not being Jewish, this was news to me when, in my Midwestern goyishness, I discovered cholent years ago in a cookbook by Bert Greene.

It was one of those eureka moments: A pot roast that isn’t dry.

Of course, Bert’s was just one of millions of cholent recipes. Cholent is a dish that changes from one house to the next. But his had all the classic elements, with a sort of gypsy twist: a big, fatty piece of beef, beans, barley, onions, garlic and paprika. It did not call for potatoes or lima beans, as so many cholent recipes do. But it did offer one surprise: ground ginger. All this immersed in beef broth and slowly cooked until the meat is moist and tender and the beans and barley transform into a kind of juicy pilaf, utterly infused with beef essences.

Can you say, Ahhhh….

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether meat is dry or just flavorless. In red meat, the compounds that impart flavor as well as juiciness are in the fatty connective tissues. That’s why tough cuts with lots of fatty connective tissues, such as shoulder, shank, breast, ribs, tend to gain in flavor and succulence as those tissues are rendered gently, in a moist environment, over a low fire.

Thus, my early efforts at cholent using so-called “select” cuts of meat, or two grades below prime, failed. Too lean, too dry.

Likewise, various “choice” cuts of boneless chuck from a high-end grocer also fell short of the right stuff. Flavor missing.

Finally, having made this particular cholent countless times, I’ve settled on a thick, “choice” bone-in cut of shoulder, the so-called blade roast. I prefer the rustic texture of chuck, as opposed to the more finely grained and easily sliced brisket. I think the bones add flavor, and there is plenty of fat to keep the meat moist.
There is one important note on preparation: This recipe only requires four hours cooking.

Since there are still people in the world cooking their cholent overnight, I tried it. Result: After 17 hours at 190 degrees, the beef was a bit overcooked. The broth had separated from the cooked beans and barley. I adjusted by straining out the liquid, reducing it, and using it as a sauce. But an orthodox interpretation would disallow this on Shabbat: Too much like cooking. You’d have to serve it in a soup bowl.

Here’s an alternate treatment for orthodox cholent: Bring the cholent to boil in a large crockpot just before sundown. Then turn the setting to “low” and let the cholent simmer overnight until you are ready to eat it.

Beef Cholent
Serves 8

This is my adaptation of the recipe published by Bert Greene in “The Grains Cookbook.” According to Greene, he based the recipe “loosely” on one from Fanny Sylverstein in “My Mother’s Cookbook.”

If you insist on potatoes and lima beans in your cholent, you can add to this recipe two pounds boiling pototes, such as Yukon Gold, cut into bit-sized pieces, and 1 ½ cups frozen lima beans.

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 5-pound, bone-in beef blade roast, about 2 ½ inches thick
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons hot paprika
½ teaspoon ground ginger
2 quarts beef stock or broth
1 cup dried pink beans
1 cup pearl barley
1/3 cup chopped parsley for garnish

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

Over a moderately high flame, heat oil in a heavy Dutch oven. Brown the meat all over. Remove meat to a platter and reserve. Drain off all but 3 tablespoons of fat from the Dutch oven.

Lower heat to medium-low. Sweat the onion and garlic in the Dutch oven until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in salt, pepper, paprika and ginger. Add beef broth, raise heat and bring to a boil. Stir in beans and barley. Bring mixture to boil again and add the roast.

Cover the pot and place in the oven. Cook for 2 ½ hours. Stir the mixture. Cook another 1½ hours. If the mixture is too wet, remove the lid and cook some more in the oven.

There may be as much as a cup of fat on the surface of the cholent. To serve, spoon off the fat. (If you cook the cholent a day or two ahead, the fat is easily removed with a spoon once it has chilled in the fridge.) Spoon the bean and barley mixture onto plates or large, shallow bowls. Place slices of meat over the top and garnish with chopped parsley.


Note: You can make this with a smaller, boneless piece of meat. Since pastured meats are leaner, check for doneness after the first 2 1/2 hours cooking. If the meat is done, remove it and just continue cooking the rest of the dish in the oven. If, after 4 hours, the contents of the pot are still too liquidy, remove the lid and bake some more, or move the pot to the stovetop and continue cooking there over very low heat until the liquid has reduced.

Dark Days: Meal 3

I see no reason why "Dark Days" meals should not tilt toward the sublime. Truth be told, we are entering The Slow Cook's favorite time of year, when slow cooking yields great depths of flavor and big heavy pots left to their own devices perform transformative magic with the simplest ingredients.

Brother-in-law Tom, the oenophile, had laid down a challenge: make a meal with big, succulent flavors and he would bring some wines to match. Immediately I flashed on the recipe for braised beef short ribs from Second Helpings, the follow-up to The Union Square Cafe cookbook.

The short ribs are first marinated overnight with aromatic vegetables, thyme and a whole head of garlic, all drenched with two bottles of red wine (I used a Merlot). The following day, remove the spare ribs, pat dry with paper towels, season with salt and pepper and brown in extra virgin olive oil in a heavy pot or Dutch oven. Set the ribs aside. Drain the marinade and vegetables through a colander, then drop the vegetables into the pot, dust with w tablespoons all-purpose flour and brown for a few minutes. Add the ribs back to the pot, pour in the marinade (with vegetables), cover and place in a 250-degree oven for about 3 hours, or until the beef is fork-tender.

Now remove the beef and set aside. Strain the liquid, discarding the vegetables. Return the liquid to the pot, skimming away any fat, and reduce over high heat by one half. Add 2 cups of veal stock (I use half beef broth and half chicken stock) and reduce the liquid to about 2 cups. Add a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce and a teaspoon of garam marsala. Return the ribs to the liquid and simmer until the liquid has turned into a syrupy, shimmering sauce. Serve.

In a perfect world, you will be making these ribs a couple of days in advance. The flavors will only become more intense. And once the short ribs have been refrigerated it becomes an easy matter to remove the bones and trim the tough cartilage away from the tender meat. Then simply reheat them.

Anyone who eats these ribs is overtaken immediately by an urge to get horizontal. They are extremely rich.

Prior to the ribs, we served a butternut squash and apple soup that was posted about earlier. What was extraordinary about the soup this time was the wine Tom chose to drink with it: a lightly sweet, acidic German Reisling from the Mosel-Saar region--a perfect match.

With the entree came a sweet potato and Swiss chard mash. I grew the sweet potatoes at my "chef-in-residence" plot at the Washington Youth Garden. The chard came from our garden in the front yard, where it is in full form and eager to be culled. The second side was a curry-roasted cauliflower, the cauliflower gleaned from the Saturday farmer's market down the street.

Tom couldn't have struck closer to my heart than with the big Zinfandel he chose to go with the beef. I love the complex, fruity flavors of the Zinfandel playing with the deep richness and garam marsala twist of the beef.

And for dessert, my wife made one of her famous creme brulees, in this case a pumpkin creme brulee using eggs from the farmers market. Who could ask for a more glorious repast using local ingredients?

Here I have to put in a word for SmithMeadows Meats, the source of our beef short ribs. SmithMeadows is a family farm that's been in operation nearly 200 years in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, west of the District of Columbia. They raise beef, pork, sheep, goat and chickens on pasture and send the meat to a Menonite family near Hagerstown, MD, to be butchered. It's a small operation dedicated to quality--just the kind of people we want to support. And they'll be selling their wares all winter at a few select farmers markets in the area.

We can't wait for first frost...

Note: I use the Whole Foods house brand Merlot for the short ribs marinade. At $4.99 a bottle, it's a good value, not a great wine. You can certainly spend more on a wine you like better.

An Evening of Big Flavors

Before serving our corn chowder last night I ran across a small bag of farmers market potatoes in the pantry and added perhaps 12 ounces, diced small, to the soup pot. I have to say it made a real improvement, so if you've been tempted at all by yesterday's takeout on corn chowder, do consider adding potatoes to the recipe.

The chowder served as a first course to a small dinner party that really started at the liquor store. I was picking up some wine for a client and happened to notice several of the shop's employees engaged in a tasting in the back room. This being 11:30 in the morning, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of tasting was going on and I was soon invited to partake in a glass of excellent champagne.

A rare treat for me, and I mentioned that my tastes in wine are fairly plebeian, nothing fancier than a reasonably priced Zinfandel for me, something with lots of character, lots of ripe berries, open, friendly. Well, said the clerk, have I got something for you. And he showed me a gorgeous bottle of 2001 Aida Zinfandel that would not have been affordable on my best day, but was on sale for half the price, he said. On sheer impulse, I bought the thing.

And that was the genesis of this dinner party.

Of course I had to invite my oenophile brother-in-law Tom, who immediately volunteered to bring his own idea of a big Zinfandel. So there I was planning a menu around a couple of luscious Zinfandels, a corn chowder already made and the tomatoes getting riper and riper out in the garden.

What you see pictured above is one of the hors d'oeuvres, a bruschetta with a big slice of Brandywine tomato, fresh pesto sauce, shavings of ricotta salata and a drizzle of olive oil. We picked up a ripe cantaloupe at the farmers market and served it with prosciutto, very simple. With these we served a cocktail my wife made of pomegranate liqueur, grapefruit and vodka.

I purchased a lovely bottle of Argentine chardonnay/viognier at Whole Foods that went very well with the corn chowder. For the main event, I grilled ribeye steaks from grass-fed beef. Tom had brought a 2003 Ridge Pagani Ranch Zinfandel that had all the big berry flavors and accessibility I associate with my favorite red. Inevitably, there was a comparison with the Aida, and just about everyone preferred the much less expensive Ridge.

Well, not so fast, Tom said. The Aida was definitely "tight," as they say in wine circles. There was still a bit of chew to it, the flavors had not opened up. Tom judged this a simple matter of resting--in the decanter or in the bottle--another day. Or maybe it needed to sit in a cool wine cellar another 10 years.

Anyway, bring on dessert, a beautiful peach and raspberry cobbler that my wife had made in individual ramekins using peaches she'd bought at the farmers market down the street that morning. There was a big dollop of vanilla ice cream on each ramekin and Tom had brought a surprise--a delicious bottle of Sauterne.

This was an unusual extravagance for The Slow Cook. But can we say, it was damned good?