Red Bicyclette Rosé

It is hot in Texas. Over 100 degrees all week and, let me tell you, grocery shopping today was a chore. When I finally got home and took a cool shower, I was ready to face my Saturday night Grand Dinner, with a little help. I decided to see if rum was an acceptable substitute for vodka in a pomegranite martini . . . and it is. A little too sweet, so I might add lime juice the next time, but it was cheerful and refreshing and had the desired effect of making me think I could clean and cook a tenderloin roast after running around in the heat. Tonight's entrée was Filet de Boeuf En Croute, which is a fancy name for a tenderloin roast smeared with pate, wrapped in puff pastry and baked. It's really good and pretty easy. Just season and brown the roast on all sides (I'll bet you could use a pork tenderloin instead of beef), bake it for 10 minutes in a 400 degree oven, spread pate all over it (I use the liver paté from World Market that's about $3.50 a can), wrap it in puff pastry and bake for 30 minutes at 425 degrees. I served it with mashed red potatoes, asparagus, sauteed mushrooms, and homemade focaccia.

And Red Bicyclette Rosé. I picked up a bottle when I was at Super Target -- it was under $8 and a nice blend of syrah and grenache, from the Languedoc region of southern France, which makes for a good rosé. I liked it. It was crisp and dry, as promised, and not too sweet. Probably a little light for tenderloin, but it was too damned hot to get out anything else.

I also bought a Chardonnay from that label and will give it a try tomorrow. A friend of mine wants a review of Chardonnays, which are not my favorite whites, but I'll give it a shot and see how it goes.

I love French wines and I have thought that my ideal retirement would be a quiet village in Provence. I avidly read Peter Mayle's books on the region and was charmed until I read his description of a "mistral," a weather phenomenon common to Provence. The word seems to invoke something subtle and not particularly foreboding but, as I read Mr. Mayle's description, I realized that Provence and Texas share a commonality: what they call mistrals, we call blue northers.

A blue norther, for those of you who don't live in Texas or Oklahoma, is a weather event in which the temperature of the day can drop up to 40 degrees in an hour, brought on by a blast of artic air that sweeps from Canada straight down all those flat states (both Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas) with speed and vigor. There are certain times of the year that it really pays to listen to the weather forecast; otherwise, you could cheerfully leave home with a sweater in the morning and by noon be wishing for an overcoat. You just have to see (and feel) it to believe it. I wouldn't mind one right now!