This past weekend we got the chance to cook some chicken soup and roast some chicken.  But the best part was cooking some Chinese and Japanese Shitake mushrooms, along with some oyster mushrooms.  Sautéing the mushrooms were super easy.  I cleaned them and then I sliced them thinly, while removing the stems, and then sautéed them in hot oil.  The mushrooms cooked quickly and were crispy while staying meaty and nutty, really cool.  We ate them all week, with rice and wheat berries.

My wife roasted some pepper and honey-roasted chicken, and I made some chicken soup.  I love chicken soup, because it is so crazy easy.  The way I cook my chicken soup, is to first sauté the chicken with its skin (a pound of chicken to a quart of soup), to render its fat.  Once the chicken is rendered, drop in chunks of:

1. Carrots
2. Parsnips
3. Sweet potatoes
4. Potatoes
5. A beet or two
6. Onions
7. Zucchini
8. Spices and flavorings: cumin, garlic, pepper, bay leaves, sage, and lemon juice

and add water until it covers the vegetables, and cook for an hour or two. The time gives the chicken a chance to extract its goodness and share it with the rest of the vegetables into a killer soup.  Anyway, the soup was awesome, and the beets gave it a red look, which was cool.  Anyway, I paired it with some 2006 Tabor Merlot, which was nice for a couple of hours and then died quickly, which is unfortunate.  During the day, I went to a Kiddush and they served a 2005 Grand Prince Bordeaux, which was a nice mevushal wine, but not so great overall.

Anyway, the wine notes follow below..

2006 Tabor Galil Merlot - Score: B – B+

The nose on this bright garnet colored wine is hot out of the bottle, along with raspberry, plum, cherry, and light mineral notes along with pepper. The mouth on this medium bodied wine has light coating tannins that are close to integrating with the bottle, along with cranberry, plum, and raspberry. The mid palate has light acidity with integrating tannins. The finish is nice and long with cherry and plum along with a dollop of pepper. This wine reminded me of a Four Gates Merlot for a few hours, but that ended quickly when the wine died about two to three hours after it was opened. It was nice in the beginning and got better for about two hours where it peaked, and then it crashed and burned. This wine should be drunk soon, or else you will be left with a bunch of acid and little fruit.

2005 Grand Prince Bordeaux – Score: B+

The nose on this garnet colored wine is very French with tons of mineral/earth notes, along with some black fruit, and pepper.  The mouth on this medium-bodied wine starts off with soft and almost caressing tannins, but man did that change with air.  The tannins exploded and they were heavy handed and far from integrating.  The mouth also has blackberries, plums, and cherry.   The mid palate has nice acid and tough tannins.  The finish is medium long with tannin, cherry, and pepper.  Not bad for a mevushal wine, and I liked it, but it is one of those classical French Bordeaux wines with little complexity and a ton of earth/mineral characteristics, that tends to overpower the fruit. In the bottle I tasted, the tannins were initially quiet, but then made their presence quite known. I think I would have given it a higher score, but its lack of balance, and limited fruit, make me pause.