Hah! So I finish my dinner, which included some MAC&CHEESE and red vino, I click on WLTV to find you talking about the same damn thing! I think the mac/red vibes were in the air. I kid you not, I had no idea it was in the show. And, by the way, mac + cheese + red = good eats. The wine sucked however, Red Truck blend, only 7 bones so who cares.

QOD: My senior year of HS we all played a stock market game that had we invested real money, we would have been rich. So what’d we do after the school year? Yeah, we put money in the market and it TANKED. Well, such was the case at the end of the millennium.

Nice show Gary. I will check out Twitter.

QOTD: Apple for sure. I’ve always been a fan of Apple and watched as the stock tanked to about $13 a share years ago. I said to myself, I should plunk down $5k or so on the stock. I procrastinated and had to find an ass-kicking machine to punish myself as the stock went over $100 a share not a year later.

Have a good weekend. Enjoy catching up with your brother. I’m off to Kansas City.

Gary-
THANK YOU!!!
for the tip on the inexpensive
monastrell!!!!!!!
🙂

QOTD: As others have said, Google Stock at IPO. 🙁

Will be trying the Castano Monastrell this weekend, thanks GaryV!

Thanks for answering my question – just bought a bunch of the Castano! QOTD: Very creative procrastinator. Learned a lot about wine trying to finish grad school…

I know and have known what the countdown of days are for, since 138.

QOTD: the new york city real estate market right after 9/11. co-op and condo prices took a temporary dip for a few months. by the time we were ready to start looking in jan 02 the prices had already risen. we were almost entirely shut-out but we finally pulled the trigger in ’04 and bought a discounted wreck that needed some serious work. if we looking now, we couldn’t affort our own apartment.

QOTD google and when you did that monkey prize tasting. I waited and it sold out the same day!

Hey Gary,

I’m a huge Mac and Chees fan, but don’t give me any of that boxed crap. I like to experiment with the all out gourmet Mac & Cheese recipes. The other day I found a recipe for Bacon Shallot Mac & Cheese with Asiago, White English Farmhouse Cheddar, and Truffles that was just out of this world. I substituted some spicy Tasso for the bacon and it came out great.

However, the best Mac & Cheese I have ever tasted was the recipe that Cesare Casella came up with to use at his restaurant, Maremma, in NYC. Apparently he won best Mac & Cheese in the City in some NY Times contest or something. He recently demonstrated part of how to make it on a TV show. I watched it and was intrigued, so I called him and got the recipe. I just made it the other day and it is FREAKING AMAZING!!! Have you ever tried it? Basically, you saute some finely minced garlic and shallot in a few tablespoons of butter, then add several large stirring spoons full of a well seasoned, homemade tomato sauce. After about a minute of stirring, add about 2-3 cups or so of heavy cream…..until you get a nice medium to light pinkish-orange color, like any red cream sauce. Then toss in a huge handful ( 3-4 cups )of 6-month aged Grana Padano cheese. Stir until the cheese melts completely and then let that simmer down. Immediately add your already cooked and well-drained pasta…..I prefer either Radiatore or Rotini, but Cesare uses small broken Fusilli. Add a little pinch of salt and a hearty dose of freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper. As the pasta and sauce simmer, pour in about an 1 1/2 ounces ( more if you like ) of high quality Bourbon. Simmer for a few minutes to let the alcohol evaporate off. Right before you serve, toss in several more handfuls of the grated Grano Padano and remove from the heat after about 30 seconds or stirring, that way the residual heat can melt the cheese, but it doesn’t become completely incorporated into the sauce. It still stays gooey and stringy. I, personally, also add a little hint of Pecorino Romano and Asiago to the Grano Padano that I add at the end. Dish it up, garnish with chive, and enjoy! If you haven’t tried this amazing Mac & Cheese, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!!!!!! This is the best damn Macaroni and Cheese that I have ever tasted. I’d love to go to Maremma just to taste it from the man who came up with it. Supposedly he spent almost a year trying different cheeses trying to come up with the perfect Mac & Cheese. I, personally, think he did it. Everyone who reads this MUST try out this recipe. Grana Padano ( 6 month ONLY, any longer aging makes the cheese too salty and musty tasting ) is pretty easy to find at any Whole Foods or store that has a good selection of cheeses. Everything else is standard ingredients.

I’m a big fan of Spanish wines with my Mac & Cheese. I do like big extracted gushy fruit reds from Priorat like Mas Doix, Vall Llach, or Mas Igneus. One of my favorites, though, is a the ’00 Bodegas Sierra Salinas Mira. Its a brambly buzzsaw of a wine that is a blend of Mourvedre, Grenache, Cabernet, and Alicante. It has some really spicy earthy and resin-like flavors, fierce but integrated tannins, and great dark fruit. To me, its the perfect wine for rich Mac and Cheese.

PS- Gary, does WineLibrary carry a good quality 6 month or 1 year old Cacio Di Roma ( aka Caciotta ). I’ve recently become a huge fan of this Sheep’s milk cheese and have been trying out as many varieties of it as I can find. Some people prefer them younger when they have a softer texture and lighter flavor, but I like them with a little age and the firmer texture and sharper flavor that comes with it. My girlfriend absolutely hates it. She says it tastes like grass and barnyard, but I absolutely love it. On a salty, buttery cracker like a Ritz, it is heaven!

Best wishes.

Jester

Gary, great episode. Nice pics!!!!
QOTD Highspeed internet, now that I finally have it I spend more time online than I should.

Mac & Cheese sounds like a plan. I’ll have to email my old roommate for his grandma’s homemade mac-n-cheese recipe. It’s awesome, loaded with white cheeses (jack and mozz I believe) and onions, backed in the oven it gets a nice brown cheese leather on the top. Have it once and it’ll change your life. I’m not sure the box stuff will do it. Unless it’s kraft deluxe, or velveeta shells & cheese, I guess I’m more high maintenance than I thought. In any case, you just gotta love that greasy salty goodness. All my friends’ 5-ish year old kids may have it right after all.

Hi Gary, just got introduced to the podcast via diggnation, and am hooked, bought a 30 buck bottle that you liked, I started my own wine blog called ‘wineskeptic’ but now that I find your show, who needs it? We all needed a voice that wasn’t snooty and unnecessarily expensive to find out about this amazing world of wine. Keep up the good work!

QOTD: Apple!!!!

I can’t wait for the Portuguese Wine Episode! Or one on the inespensive Spanish wines you keep mentioning. Or both!
I have to use you as a conduit to find all the great deals, since all I have access to is supermarket wine (usually).
Thanks for all you do!

Last year World Cup Football: Licata (an Italian wine importer) did a stunt. When Italy ‘d reach the finale, you’d get a total refund of your last command. I didn’t go there, and yes the Italian got to the finale. A lot of friends got a huge refund and I just got nothing, cause of my own stubborness …

Okay Gary,

You have to Have MJK on the show. I’m a huge tool fan and have been posting on the Tool forum at Toolshed.down.net for years. I have a wine thread over there and I’m going to let everyone know about this and that should get the viewer-count up big time, atleast for that show, and there will definitely be people who stay for good.

I’d love to watch the show and love to ask the guy some questions if you would have an email segment. Who knows maybe that’s asking to much, but this got me real excited. Any comments would be appreciated.

I’m still looking for a decent priced Chablis since your last Chablis Ep., but I’m definitely going go come home with a bottle after my next trip to the wine shop.

QOTD: How about waiting to put my money into anything other than CDs and an IRA so far… I’m 21 already, so why haven’t I bought some stock?… oh yeah- because of STUDENT LOANS!!

Gary-
Guess who was chanting your name this am?
My nephew Mark LOVES you!!
🙂

Mac & Cheese ??? YUK !

Gimme Pizza wit extra pepperoni, peppers,
onions, garlic, & cheese. Dats what i eat
wit my red wine! Yummy !!!!

Nice ep Gary. Maxin and Relaxin on the Friday couch!!!

QOTD: Still procrastinating on opening up the vino store… Just doing as much research as possible right now to get ‘er going. Didn’t really blow up in my face or anything, but just havent’ been doing as much as I should be doing on it.

Qotd: I just jumped on the last 05 Suduiraut future. I’m still procrastinating on purchasing 05 Muller Catoirs and the last Stone IRS in the cooler.

So, you decided to jump on Twitter after all? Cool. Are you really going to tell us if you’re taking a dump at midnight? Maybe they should call the service Sh*tter.

Google. I wanted to buy the IPO and my wife was hesitant. I still bought it but made about 1/2 what the people at the outset made. From using Google since it started I knew it was going to be a big stock but I couldn’t convice my wife for 3 months and the big money went out the door. Since Yahoo isn’t going to be bought by Microsoft now the time has passed for that stock as well.

I’m a Chablis fan and have a number from Montmain. It’s grownup Chard.

I agree, don’t have guests, at this point the show should run the way it’s been running. Not as an interview show. I don’t even like when you have your own created parodies–I just skip right through them.

oh no, twitter.
one more thing to become addicted to.
at least finals are almost over.