Shredded corned beef in pickling-spice sauce, on shredded steamed cabbage, with boiled carrots and red potatoes and chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon. 

I came across a recipe, in one of those quick, good eatin’, sections of a food mag, suggesting shredded steamed or sauteed cabbage with leftover corned beef on top, pulled-pork style. Good idea.

So tonight we’re having that. I’ve steamed the shredded cabbage and am about to boil potatoes and carrots, all to be re-warmed when the time comes. The water I’m using has fresh pickling spices, bagged, and a good half-teaspoom of ground allspice. Half the liquid is water, half is a Mendocino chardonnay.

As before, I’ll thicken the liquid with a little corn starch and will warm the slices of leftover corned beef in it. Everything I’ve mentioned above will wind up suffused by (in, Jan?) the sauce. And we will have the result with the Mendocino chardonnay (a special bottling called Pound Hound, by two Sonoma County wineries at the Trentadue Winery) and with a gift wine from Judy’s teaching partner, Sharon — Clos du Bois 2003 Sonoma County cabernet sauvignon.

Can hardly wait. I’ll only report on the result if for some reason it disappoints. –Bob Cramer, The Fearless Taster.