— Kris Erickson

I love the tomato goulette, and that's something that can be made the day before and brought in a nice little short crust, uh, butter, olive oil, um, some smoked paprika in there, a little bit of cumin maybe into the crust to give it sort of that kind of thing. Like what is that? It's not a cumin crust, but just a, a little hint, especially at, at a winery where wines, of course, uh, sort of pick up and pair well to those little somewhat surprises that you get. You don't want to overwhelm them ever, but just offering them sort of points to which the wine can offer a counterpoint, uh, is a really great way to just make the experience well, more interesting really. And don't worry about getting the pairing like dead on. Perfect, right? I just, if there's little points of interest is, is the tomato goulette really delicious? Awesome. Is the wine really delicious? Great. You're probably gonna have a really good time, right? Even if the, even if those two don't become best friends, it's still a great lunch. So with that, uh, the dishes that I've suggested, uh, I think I really like as well, specifically for that winery idea. You got a lot of those Mediterranean flavors, fresh herbs, mint, mint and wine, uh, is really wonderful combination. If not because the wine and the mint are a perfect pairing for each other necessarily so much as the, the mint is like lemon juice and salt to me in that it basically takes the flavors of whatever you're serving and just makes them a little more proud, uh, offers them some amplification, uh, and a little bit of grandeur, if you will. Certainly it adds mint flavor to things, but it also just elevates and it adds this elegance and also this element of surprise in a way to say, huh, I never thought about using mint in anything but iced tea. Or is that like posh, non-edible on top of my dessert, right? That just sits there. And the first thing I do is say, oh, mint. Right? No, put the mint in the dish. It's delicious. And any of you who have ever grown mint in your yard know that the only way to control mint is to eat it voraciously. So there you go. Put it in everything that will offer a nice little, uh, point of contention or even point of attention for that wine to spark off. And guess what, when the people in the tasting room are like, oh, hey, what do you got served with your stuff? And you tell 'em, oh, I've got this baba ganus with some mint on top of roasted red peppers with smoked anchovies, mint, and a little bit of collab and chili and be like, wow, Chris, you are so interesting. Where does you get all these great ideas? What are you gonna tell him? Oh, I made it all up cuz I'm awesome cuz I'm Chris eating and I know my stuff. That's what you should tell him cuz you do and you're awesome.