Welcome to Autumn in Denver

Welcome to Autumn

Fall is well on it’s way, actually, it is here, and I am finally feeling the need to return to discipline. It is something ingrained though hundreds of years of academic structure, but it is also a natural change, an unconscious reaction, It is a change of season logic.

Autumn brings, as autumn does, shorter days, cooler nights, and a reminder that the fun loving, sun soaked days of summer have swiftly passed. Autumn is a time to prepare for the long, cold, dark days of winter. Days when solace comes from indoor activities, books, movies, board games and something delicious to warm us up.

This fall, I am reading two books in addition to studying for my WSET diploma exams. The Taste Culture Reader and Making Sense of Taste, both by Carolyn Korsmeyer, analyze the hierarchy of the senses utilizing an aesthetic philosophy. Korsmeyer focuses primarily on taste but ventures in to the analysis of smell and retro-nasal taste.
The information I gain from these fascinating books is leading to an amazing organoleptic experiential study . Cooking has always been my private passion. It is becoming an experimental obsession. By simplifying each dish down to a few prominent and secondary flavors and combining that ole experience with an interesting if not perfect wine pairing, I am creating the most purely aesthetic experience I can. With careful calculation and consideration I am attempting the most fully satisfying and least subjective pairings I can.
Are these aesthetic experiments worthy of being called art? Time, study, and further exploration will tell.

Today’s experiment:

Fried duck eggs with fresh thyme and tarragon
Exquisitely ripe Palisade peaches, thinly sliced
Udi’s millet & chia gf bread, toasted and drizzled with olive oil
Lingonberry preserves

paired with Ruffino Moscato d’Asti
and finished with a cafe au lait made with steamed almond milk

I hate to cook eggs because I can never master the no stick thing. I bought a ScanPan from Denmark and my eggs came out perfectly! I highly recommend the aluminum glazed with a non stick ceramic coating. I will never use cast iron or stainless steal for my eggs again.

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