Christinas great blog

You have to check out my wife Christinas excelent blog on http://tasteland.unictaste.se/#post57

I love Sherry Wines

The 4th edition of the Copa Jerez food and wine competition, held this week in the Jerez Hospitality School, ended in victory for the Spanish team made up of chef Cayetano Gómez and sommelier Juan Luis García, representatives from the Murcia restaurant Casablanca El Taller. This is the first time Spain has won the competition, which is organised by the Regulating Council for DOs Jerez-Xerès-Sherry and Manzanilla Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and Fedejerez, and which aims to give more international scope to the region’s wines by exploiting their food pairing possibilities.

The team from Casablanca El Taller won three of the six awards given by the jury, which was made up of representatives from the world of food and wine, including Juli Soler, owner and manager of the legendary restaurant, El Bulli, as well as sommelier at the Noma restaurant, Pontus Elofsson, award-winning Spanish chef, Julián Serrano, manager of the Picasso restaurant at the Velaggio Hotel in Las Vegas, and UK Master of Wine, Jancis Robinson. The Spanish team won in the categories ‘Best menu-pairing’, ‘Best dessert pairing’ and ‘Best chef’ competing against five other teams from Germany, Belgium, Denmark, the US, and Holland.

The pairing menu created by Cayetano Gómez and Juan Luis García entailed a starter of charcoal-grilled marinated oyster paired with an Amontillado, while the main course was shoulder of glazed suckling lamb on toasted almond cream paired with a sweet Oloroso VOS, and for dessert a cocoa and peppermint sorbet with ‘coffee cubes’ over date curd cream paired with a Pedro Ximénez VOS.

The award for ‘Best starter pairing’ was won by the team from the Danish restaurant Kiin Kiin, made up of chef Anton Ulrik Christian Eff and sommelier, Henrik Yde-Andersende, for their creation ‘mini corn with caviar’. Anton participated in the first Programme for Young Foreign Chefs in Spanish Gastronomy. In addition, chef Rogér Rassin and sommelier Ronald Opten, from the Dutch restaurant La Rive scooped the award for ‘Best main course pairing’, with their pork cheeks with carrots, potatoes and cloves, paired with an Amontillado. And lastly, the US team from the Colorado restaurant, The Broadmoor, made up of chef Bertrand Bouquin and sommelier Tim Baldwin won the award for ‘Best sommelier’.

The event, which was held in the Jerez Hospitality School, was the culmination of a endeavour which began three years ago, in which the teams taking part had to scoop the winning prize in their own countries before going to Jerez to take part in the final. Juli Soler, the manager at El Bulli and this edition’s chairman of the jury, highlighted the quality, creativity and daring shown by the participants in a competition he rated as “exceptional”.

cr/wines from Spain
I just love Sherry wines

Naturliga viner?!?

Naturliga viner, vad är det? Jag tycker att det börjar bli lite väl hysteriskt med alla vin människor som serverar vad dom kallar naturliga viner.

Jag tycker inte heller om manipulerade, till fixade och översvavlade viner som filtreras för mycket, jag gillar också iden om att man ska göra vin på ett naturligt sätt som är skonsamt mot miljö och människor, jag har inget alls emot detta men när man börjar servera rent ut sagt skit viner för dyra pengar bara för att någon skriver naturligt på det så blir jag ilsk.

Är Latour, Margaux och Gajas viner naturliga? Självklart är dom det men inte fan håller dom på med att marknadsföra detta fenomen, dom är precis som alla seriösa vinmakare stolta över sina produkter och gör det bästa man kan.

Smaken på det vi dricker måste väl i första hand handla om att det är gott och välgjort eller har jag helt fel? Jag tar gärna emot synpunkter på dragan@unictaste.se

Rock on babe

Michelin 2 star dinner

Hans Välimäki with his Chez Dominique is the only 2 Michelin star restaurant in Helsinki Finland, we where fortunate to share a great experience when he last night did a magnificent dinner at the Grand Hotel in Lund Sweden.

I meet this creative chef many years ago when we both was attending a jury for a fish competition and the most memorable moment that day was that Hans received  his first star that day. How exiting was that!

The pressure on him and his staff is tremendously and he is working with full steam to be the first in Scandinavia who will receive the third star ‘’’  

So how was the food? Great with a nice twist of Japanese flavours and a lot of personality and I will show you some pictures of the dishes and here are the menu.

Champagnes from Moet, to be or not to be is the question.

What to say about the champagnes of Moet & Chandon? First of all, I really don’t like them at all, actually non of the wines that they produce ( very old vintages is different) I have tried so many times to understand what the winemakers are doing when they do the assemblage for the different cuvees and I simply dong get it and always try to skip using Moet’s wines on my tastings or I use them to show some bad examples of how champagne are supposed not to be, but at the same time I know that many people especially in the US love the Moet and symbolise champagne with that brand, everything is effective marketing like the latest small film with Scarlett Johansen as a Moet muse. Nice production by the way.

On my latest visit to Epernay I forced my self to enter the Moet HQ for a private tasting of the wines, the old tasting room from the Napoleon days is magnificent and amazing, the quiet and efficient private sommelier was very nice.

Reflection: I still do not like the wines produced by Moet but I will try them again.

Dragan Unic.

BALKAN FOOD & SLJIVOVICA IN ENGLISH

There are not many cookbooks on the theme of food from the Balkans, the famous TV profile Jovan Radomir have put a lot of effort and energy to produce a cookbook that shows that the food from the Balkans is good without having to use a lot of fuzz, good ingredients will go a long way.


The book showcases the Serbian cuisine, and the Serbian people's casual way of relating to food, parties and friends in general.


The recipes in the book is a classic simple to do with beautiful photos of food, people and environments, making it more interesting, I'm incredibly pleased and proud that someone has taken it upon themselves to make a book like this,so far in Swedish for Swedes.

Now we just wait for someone to do a book that shows the potential of Balkan wines.
I encourage everyone to buy a copy and give away as this year's Christmas present to yourself and everyone else.

BALKAN FOOD & SLJIVOVICA

Det finns inte många kokböcker med temat mat från Balkan och det som finns är gammalt skräp som inte duger till något därför är det extra trevligt och fantastsikt att den kända TV profilen Jovan Radomir har lagt ner mycket möda och energi på att få fram en kokbok som visar att maten från Balkan är god utan att man behöver använda en massa fuzz utan att bra råvaror räcker en lång väg.

Boken visar upp den Serbiska matkulturen och det Serbiska folkets otvungna sätt att förhålla sig till mat, fest och vänner i allmänhet samt att traditioner i vår monekulära värd består och kan utvecklas för att måltiden alltid är fokus i alla familjer.

Recepten i boken är klassiska enkla att göra med vackra fotografier på mat, människor och miljöer vilket gör den extra intressant, jag är otroligt glad och stolt att någon har tagit på sig att göra en bok som denna, dessutom på Svenska för Svenskar.

Nu väntar vi bara att någon ska göra en bok som visar potentialen på Balkans viner.

Tack Jovan för att du visar hur bra och gott det kan vara och jag uppmuntrar alla att köpa ett ex och ge bort som årets julklapp till er själva och alla andra.

Ziveli & na zdravlje