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Humble Steward, Norfolk, VA (2025)

06/26/2023

Sorry folks. I'm in Facebook pergatory, or maybe hell. My regular page has been blocked and now all I can access is my old Humble Steward page. This Humble Steward page is the one I dropped a few years ago because Facebook blocked so many posts because I refused to pay $30 a month for a commercial page. I've never touted any wine or food or product and never considered Humble Steward a commercial post. Facebook deserves our outrage and pity.

08/26/2020

For reasons I don't understand, Facebook has blocked Humble Steward posts with photos. Please see my Jim R***r page for new posts.

07/15/2020

Test

06/28/2020

Sent by a friend who knows my taste in masks!

06/26/2020

For more than 25 years I’ve been drinking wines in Spain’s Catalonia from a large producer west of Barcelona called Raimat. This winery has a massive network of vineyards in what once was an arid wasteland. Thank canals and irrigation for making the land suitable for grapegrowing. Raimat is so large/influential it has its own Raimat subset of the Costers del Segre DO. Wines I’ve had from the producer have ranged from satisfactory to very good, and I’ve seldom paid more than the equivalent of $10 for a bottle at retail in Spain. Here, the bottles I’ve occasionally found have been more expensive, but never over $20. The other day I received a bottle of the Raimat Rosada 2018 from the winery’s marketing firm in the US, and I was impressed. It is made from cabernet sauvignon and tempranillo, and has flavors you might expect from those grapes, tangy red fruit. But it’s not a heavy rose, like so many I’ve had from northern Spain. At about $15, it’s a rose to search for.

06/18/2020

I see that our friends at La Tienda in Williamsburg have padron peppers -- famous fried in olive oil and sea salt in Spain and parts of France. These are the "roulette" peppers, mostly sweet, but once in a while hot. We can buy them in Port Vendres for 7 or 8 bucks a pound. Once they get to this side of the Atlantic, these Spanish peppers cost $24 a pound at La Tienda. But they are the Cadillac of frying peppers. Just now in my garden I have Italian Frying Peppers, Shish*to, and Cubanelle just starting to produce, and I look forward to a fine summer of fried and grilled peppers. Photo is from La Tienda

06/10/2020

D and I sure would love to be back on Tenerife eating the wonderful seafood there. Pepe and Pete entertained us six months ago and we hope to go back one of these days. The guys went to one of their favorite restaurants the other day and sent us these photos. That big plate of a variety of fish and seafood is a parrillada that you'll see for 28 euros on the menu. Remember, the price of the meal always includes tax and tip, and sometimes a carafe of wine. That's Pete finishing up. They were at a restaurant in Arona, which is home to some great white wines.

06/08/2020

Remember the Frescobaldi (Tuscany) and Robert Mondavi (California) partnership from some years back that brought us the Tenuta Luce wines? The brand is still humming along in Tuscany (Montalcino) producing a premium Super Tuscan called Luce from sangiovese and merlot that costs $100. A second wine, Lucente, is more approachable in taste and price ($30). It’s made from sangiovese and merlot, as well, mostly from younger vines on the Luce estate. We had a bottle of the 2017 the other night and I liked it very much. Leaning toward full bodied, with blackberry and raspberry highlights on an earthy and warm frame.

06/07/2020

Wineries in Alto Adige in northern Italy were hit pretty hard by the economic collapse there caused by the pandemic. So we’re rooting for them to recover soon, and can point out these two wines as reasons why we should help them recover. The Tramin Kellerei Moriz Pinot Blanco 2018 ($22) is a mineral and lemon delight. The Castelfeder Pinot Nero (pinot noir) Burgum Novum 2016 Riserva ($45) has delicate pinot black cherry, loam and beetroot flavors. A great food red.

06/04/2020

I haven't tasted Mojama Tuna, much less tried to prepare it myself. It's dry cured yellow fin tuna loin, almost as chewy as ham. Friends in France taught me how to dry cure a duck breast, which makes daggone good dry ham-like meat, served in very thin slices. I'm told Mojama Tuna can be cut into thin slices and served on toasts, or cubed and put into green salads. I'm sure there are other ways to eat it, too. I'm assuming La Tienda in Williamsburg, which sells Mojama for about $70 a pound, gets it from Spain. But you never know. La Tienda is selling Iberico pork from Texas these days. The photo is courtesy of La Tienda's web site.How about serving this tuna with a garnacha red.

05/30/2020

When we were visiting the island of Tenerife in the Canaries late last year, where we dined on some of the best restaurant food I’ve had anywhere, my wife ordered at one of our 3 p.m. lunches a grilled “secreto” Iberico pork cutlet. It was remarkably tasty. I wasn’t familiar with this cut and I’ve done research since. Unfortunately, secreto pork cuts are so secret that there is no agreement about what it is. The best I can tell, good butchers usually know where to find secretive thin strips of pork that are tender enough to be cooked quickly on the grill and served still pink inside. You find butchers who say it’s a pork skirt steak, bottom of the belly, or top blade, a tasty triangle under the shoulder blade, etc. Whatever, it’s very good and very expensive. I noticed that our friends at La Tienda in Williamsburg have a sale just now on 1 pound secreto Iberico (acorn and herb fed pigs from southern Spain) pork cutlet for $45. That’s the sale price. But I do believe this stuff is better than almost any beef steak you could buy, and $45 a pound isn’t outlandish for the best beef. Grill up a secreto cutlet and pop the cork on a prime red, say, from Jumilla.

05/29/2020

I’m a big fan of furikake. I used it, purchased from international grocery stores, for years without knowing its Japanese name. I just called it Japanese rice seasoning. I have used it, however, in many ways, especially sprinkled over fish filets and in salads and soups made with rice noodles. Note the photo (which I apologize for; concoction tasted better than it looks here). The other night I had about six ounces of a side of salmon left in the fridge and cut it into inch squares and slathered them with a curry glaze before smoking/cooking them on the grill. Got the pieces firm and caramelized at the edges. Served the hunks of salmon over rice and snow peas and scallions (plus some slivers of seaweed) in a bowl with green tea and bonito broth. On top of that I sprinkled furikake. This mixture, in my experience, usually includes sesame seeds, seaweed, dried leafy veggies such as spinach, egg yolk powder, corn/potato starch, soy sauce powder and rice wine powder. The two kinds shown in the photo are anchored by bonito and dried shrimp. A very nutritious addition to rice! Yes, it’s a bit expensive, but worth it. A little goes a long way. I have also made my own, using most of the ingredients above dried in a slow oven. Wine? Maybe sake is best, but I like champagne or unoaked chard with most furikake dishes.

05/27/2020

A humble little plate made with leftover roast lamb, white beans, arugula, thyme, mint and grape tomatoes. Good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon finish it off. Poured with it a nice Morellino di Scansano, that quirky sangiovese from Tuscany that is not well known.

05/26/2020

Tomatoes are coming. Hope to have some on my table by the middle of next month. Mortgage Lifter, Brandywine and a variety of "Beef" hybrids.

05/23/2020

There's something about these spring days when it's not too hot and we can cook on the grill and sit on the balcony for dinner. My thoughts soon turn to North African tagine. We have a pretty good vessel, authentic, and in this dish yesterday we cooked chicken thighs with a lemony sauce and sweet potato, zuke slices, onion, chick peas, and green beans. The tagine lid directs broth steam back into liquid and back on the chicken and veggies. Serve with couscous that's spiced up with harissa. We drank a pink pinot grigio from northern Italy with this.Dry, but a little more fruit that the clearer pinot grigios.

05/22/2020

I've written the Humble Steward wine column in The Pilot since 1991 (with a lapse 1996-02 when I lived outside the area). At times it ran weekly, but more recently monthly. May's column was my last, and it was already submitted when I learned of a staffer salary and freelancer pay cutback imposed by the new owners. So even though I had announced I would retire from the column at midyear, the Trib folks beat me to it. Thanks to editors such as Melinda Forbes, Dan Duke and Jamesetta Walker for care of the column. It may be difficult to find the column on the newspaper's website, so here is a copy of the last one from my files:

Humble Steward May 2020 Jim R***r
Recent dark days of Covid-19 brought to mind a book I read long ago – “How to Cook a Wolf” by M.F.K. Fisher – which I had at home and revisited. Many of you know of this erudite and irreverent woman (1908-1992) who wrote so well about food and wine and many other topics.
Celebrated chef James Beard once summed up her gifts this way: “There is almost a wicked thrill in following her uninhibited track through the glories of the good life.”
But “How to Cook a Wolf” is not about the good life. It’s about eating and drinking the best you can when the wolf is at the door. Fisher published the compact book in 1942, just at the outset of World War II. Rationing and shortages were a part of life in America, and, as Beard said, she wanted to have her say about wartime economics for the table.
Fisher surprises by endorsing monotonous dishes such as hashes and frittatas made with whatever leftovers are on hand, or (canned) shrimp and egg curry made with cream of mushroom soup. This from the woman who in good times was very comfortable cooking Oysters a la Bazeine.
A Californian who lived on and off in Europe, Fisher never allows for the sort of haphazard culinary technique we might expect of people just getting by. She believes there is good inexpensive food to be found among the bad. (You can start with potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbages, dried beans, rice, and dried pasta, plus eggs.) With the best of cheap ingredients, she believes, tradition-mindful cooks can lift morale during hard times.
This brings me to wine.
Fisher suggests several ways to stretch your wine budget, including some that at first seem dated, like having a wine merchant fill your jug a gallon at a time. Just be careful , she adds, to restrict yourself to wine that brings you pleasure.
Applied to today, this advice could lead us to 3- or 5-liter bladder boxes of wine. But we need to be rigorous in our selection because so many of these do not bring pleasure. The only boxes I’ve bought recently are the 3 liters of La Petite Frog 2018 Picpoul de Pinet ($22), a white from southern France, and the Kirkland 2018 Cabernet Sauvignon California ($13). These are sturdy choices.
Another tact of Fisher’s is to drink inexpensive sherry and dry vermouth, which is good advice for today. Even though you find high-priced bottles of each, there are those, both domestic and from Spain and Italy, that are downright cheap, while still pleasant.
Fisher never exactly abandons her pursuit of the good life in “How to Cook a Wolf.” She warns us off cheap beef, saying save your meat money until you can buy a decent steak or roast. One sublime meal can make you forget the common grub you’ve been eating. And we may want to do the same with wine, she suggests. Save up your wine money and devote it to one good bottle of champagne a week.

05/12/2020

Two books I recommend, both with ample servings of French kitchen practices and lore. You may know Melissa Clark from the pages of The New York Times. Her "Dinner in French" is a splendid French cook book with great photos. F***y Singer, daughter of Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame, has written a dear and often funny memoir of life with her mother, and many of the stories are from southern France. "Recipes" is also in the title and the book does have good advice about French culinary technique and ingredients, sometimes from well-known French cooks such as Lulu Peyraud.

05/08/2020

Someone may be able to help me with this. I have clear taste memory, but weak location memory about eating “Crab Norfolk” or “Shrimp Norfolk” or “Seafood Norfolk” in the Hampton Roads area during the 70s and 80s. I remember oval baking dishes filled with lump blue crab swimming in butter. The butter would get some zip from white wine or champagne vinegar that had steeped with sprigs of fresh tarragon. And a fresh sprig would bake in the butter with the seafood. This is my fondest memory of the dish, but other great ones came similarly prepared, except with shrimp or shrimp and scallops. Unfortunately, I can’t remember who was serving these “Norfolk” dishes. Was it Lockhart’s, one of the fancy restaurants where Monroe Duncan or Todd Jurich ran the kitchen, or maybe Joe Hoggard’s Ships Cabin? When I look up “Seafood Norfolk” on Google I get a lot of shrimp with Old Bay, and even one recipe of lump crab with butter and basil. I don’t remember those. For D’s birthday I decided to try “Shrimp and Scallop Norfolk” made the way I remembered it. The fact that my French tarragon crop for 2020 is already up influenced me. All that butter sure is good, but heavy, as well. I can understand why “Norfolk” preparations went out of style. Still, for a birthday once a year, go for it.

Humble Steward