Candor Vineyards is a new producer from California who is offering a Merlot and a Zinfandel and both are non vintage. This means that the wines are blends of two or more vintages that, in theory at least, can produce a wine superior to single vintage wines. Cross vintage blending was used in France in the 18^th and early 19^th century, when wines from Hermitage in the Rhone were often blended with Bordeaux and weaker vintages were blended with stronger ones. The practice is now pretty much out of favor world wide with the exception of wines such as Champagne, sherry, and a handful of other wines. When California wine producers set out to make a quality reputation for their wines one of the first things they did was to adopt vintage dating along with varietal labeling. The old practices of blending across vintages and making "field blends" of  different wine varietals both fell very much out of favor.
Curiously enough, "field blends" have come back into favor in a big way with some of California's best producers and others, such as Ridge Vineyards, which I consider to be America's best wine producer, never stopped producing "field blends" such as their mostly Zinfandel wines. Perhaps cross vintage blending is the next hot, new, thing that is actually a rather ancient practice. We will be tasting these two wines this coming Saturday from 4:30 to 6:30 PM. Please join us.

Classic French cuisine has given us two great recipes/names for steak dishes, Chateaubriand and Fillet Mignon and it is not an accident that both are cut from the tenderloin. Before the introduction of corn fed, feed lot fattened beef cattle that so greatly improved the quality of Beef, good beef was a hit or miss affair. The most consistently tender part of any steer is the tenderloin that is located on the top of the animal and it derives its tenderness not from marbling but from the fact that it is a muscle that the steer rarely uses. In Europe, where beef was traditionally grass fed, the best bet for a quality cut of meat from any steer was the tenderloin. All of which brings us to the subject of how Chateaubriand got its name. Like many famous European dishes such as Veal Orloff, named after Prince Orloff, whose private chef invented the dish, and Beef Wellington, named after the Duke of Wellington, Chateaubriand was invented by the chef of the Vicomte de Chateaubriand a 19^th century French nobleman. No one remembers who Orloff or Chateaubriand was (one was the Russian ambassador to France and the other was the French Foreign minister) but their names live on on untold restaurant menus. (Wellington is still remembered but mostly by just the British). The moral of this story is that, if you want to be famous for a long time, have your chef name a dish after you though, in this age of celebrity chefs, that ain't gonna happen.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 (10-ounce) center-cut beef tenderloin
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1 large shallot, peeled and chopped
1/2 cup red wine (whatever you're drinking)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled
1. Preheat oven to 450°F.
2. In an ovenproof, heavy-bottomed frying pan, heat the olive oil over high heat until hot but not smoking.
3. Season the meat with salt and pepper, then brown it in the pan on all sides.
4. Transfer the pan to the oven and roast until the meat's internal temperature reaches 130°F (for rare), 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven.
5. Transfer the meat to a cutting board and tent it with foil.
6. Pour all but a thin film of fat from the pan.
7. Add the shallot and sauté it over medium-low heat until golden, 2 to 3 minutes.
8. Add the wine and raise the heat to high, scraping up any brown bits from the pan.
9. When the sauce is syrupy (about 5 minutes), turn off the heat and whisk in the butter.
10. Carve the meat in thick slices and drizzle with the pan sauce.

How to Keep Your Kitchen Knives Sharp
Far and away the most important tools in your kitchen are your knives and a properly sharpened knife is an absolute necessity. (Properly sharpened knives are also, strangely enough, much safer than dull knives. Most knife accidents happen when people try and force a dull blade and it slips causing a ragged, painful, and slow healing cut that a dull blade makes. A cut from a sharp knife is cleaner, hurts less, and heals quicker according to professional chefs that I know.) How then to sharpen a kitchen knife? According to an informal survey of the ladies I work with, the proper way to sharpen a kitchen knife is to have your husband/boyfriend do it. It seems that sharpening knives is man's work in much the same way that taking out the garbage and mowing the lawn are. However if no men are available to do the job there is a simple and inexpensive way to sharpen your knives. Take an old mouse pad (that is a computer mouse pad) and glue 600 grit mylar backed wet/dry sandpaper to one I side and 1200 grit to the other. Most auto supply houses stock the stuff. Place the knife to be sharpened flat on the sandpaper and raise it slowly as you draw it towards you in a stropping motion. Use the 600 grit side first and finish with the 1200. You will be amazed at how quickly your knives are sharpened. It will work even more quickly and efficiently if you simply show this article to your significant other/knife sharpening person in your life while informing them that the knives need to be sharpened.