Damn

This is what screen porches were invented for; Chris, Sirkka, and Nissa came over for dinner and brought incredible veggies from their garden. I had been shopping earlier, including a stop at Fleischer's (only grass-fed, organic) butcher shop in Kingston. So we began with a pizza, on a spelt crust, of storemade merguez, heirloom tomato, caramelized (in merguez fat) onion, basil, and fresh mozzarella. Awesome, especially with a Raffault Chinon rosé. Then a sirloin tip steak, after marinating for hours in rosé, nama shoyu, rice vinegar, garlic, and pepper, went on the fire along with fresh fennel from their garden, while their fingerling potatoes roasted in the oven with rosemary and garlic.

Chris also made a salad from everything in their garden- as alive and vibrant as it gets, with a simple mustard vinaigrette. For a steak sauce, I reduced the marinade along with a glug of Elyse Nero Misto that Chris brought over already opened, then finished with truffle oil and goat butter. We had moved on to another Turkey Flat rosé, much richer and more fucshia, and then to a 2004 Gachot-Monot Côtes de Nuits Villages which was light but great for the price and did the dance with the meat and sauce. For dessert some fantastic chocolates- cayenne, salt, raspberry and DARK from Lucky Chocolates in Saugerties. We finished with the last drops of the Elyse, which has some of the remarkable cream cheese frosting flavor that Marquis Philips always seems built around.