RICHEST CHICKEN SOUP EVER! We were thrilled to be asked to take part in the inaugural Independent Food Festival, an online event designed to "honor the extraordinary but obscure, the serendipitous, the special food experience that you typically never read about, but that you relish once you know about it."
     For our entry, we looked well outside New Orleans -- to the Greek Corner Restaurant, 2366 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Mass., 617-661-5655. Becky Mowbray, the member of our wine club who nominated the restaurant's egg lemon soup for this award, wrote the following citation:

     Over the years, the egg lemon soup at the Greek Corner Restaurant in Cambridge, Mass., has taken on mythical significance for me.
     Rich, tangy and satisfying, the Greek Corner's egg lemon soup, or Kotosoupa Avgolemono, sustained me while I was in graduate school nearby. The soup has a custard-like broth the color of sunshine with flecks of chicken from the homemade stock enhanced with eggs and grains of rice that have surrendered their starch to the pot. Cutting across this comfort food base is zesty lemon and black pepper, like laughter in the company of friends.
     The beauty of this soup is its simplicity, the magical harmony of these humble ingredients when they are whisked together. It's got the strength of a large family and the spirit of a festive Greek wedding in one dish. Savoring a warm bowl with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc beneath the cool blue-toned murals of Grecian waters in the reassuring, friendly din of the Greek Corner makes it all the more satisfying.
     Since leaving the area upon graduation, I have been on an odyssey searching for another bowl of Avgolemono with the soul and personality of the Greek Corner. I have sought out bowls of egg lemon soup in Greek restaurants across the country, only to be disappointed by watery broth and limp rice that bear no relation to the pert and robust original. A few years ago, I nearly leapt when I discovered that my husband's then boss, Kokos, had emigrated from Cyprus, and I begged him to make Avgolemono. But even this otherwise accomplished Mediterranean cook known for his dinner parties and endless bottles of wine couldn't deliver. So I have resorted to making it myself from a recipe that I got from a free cookbook offered on a jar of Kalamata olives. What I make at home is OK, and helps cure the sniffles or soothe a rough day at work, but it's not in the same league as the original.
     I've finally realized that my odyssey must end where it began, back at the Greek Corner. This soup can’t be duplicated in my kitchen, at a friend's house, or in a half-hearted restaurant that lacks the bustle of the Greek Corner. While there is no secret ingredient, the secret of this simple soup is the broth. And it's simply not possible to make a broth confident and strong enough to support the punchy lemon and pepper without cooking about 100 chickens a week, as the busy Greek Corner does. Discovering the simple truth of egg lemon soup involves a journey back to the source. The Greek Corner Restaurant's Avgolemono is a rare find. --Becky Mowbray

     So if you're in the Boston area and want to find the richest chicken soup available anywhere, you know where to go: It's right there on Mass. Ave., out past Porter Square, almost to the Arlington line. (Photo of Greek Corner restaurant © HiddenBoston.com.)
     And if you're wondering what kind of wine could possibly stand up to a dish like the Avgolemono at the Greek Corner, please read on to the next post below...
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 9:00 AM
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WINE PAIRING FOR CHICKEN-LEMON SOUP. Since this is a wine site, our award wouldn't be complete without a suggested pairing. Granted, none of us could make it to Cambridge for an on-site taste test at the Greek Corner. But I did whip up a batch of chicken-lemon soup (using a recipe by the fabulous Mark Bittman) and found the perfect wine to go with it -- the 2004 Brancott Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand's Marlborough region.
     Here's why: The soup calls out for a cool, crisp wine with enough acid to cut through the richness of the chicken stock. (This would be doubly important for a stock like Greek Corner's.) The Brancott Sauvignon Blanc serves that function; it's very citrusy, which also means it picks up the lemon in the soup. Furthermore, this wine is grassy and herby -- even compared to other New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs -- so it adds a complementary flavor that isn't in the soup.
     Two other considerations. You won't feel like you're wasting expensive wine on soup, because the Brancott is only $9 a bottle. And since it's the product of a major wine conglomerate, it's available almost everywhere. Which, sadly, can't be said of Greek Corner's chicken-lemon soup.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 8:59 AM
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Bonny Doon tasting notes. For our January 20 meeting at Pam and Shaun's house, Kate and Wayne wanted to explore the well-known California wine operation (which makes wines from grapes all around the world).
     People remember winery honcho Randall Grahm for his wacky newsletters and twee wordplay -- not to mention his wine labels, which often look as if Dr. Seuss drew them between hits of crystal meth. But some of us had begun to wonder if Grahm's mad-winemaker image was a marketing gimmick, because a number of his wines are predictably, reliably pleasant without any sharp edges. (For example, his cheap Big House Red goes down easy, and I used to bring it to lots of parties, bourré games and such.)
     Fortunately, we found a lot of variety in the wines. But while most of us were expecting to fall in love with at least one wine, nobody got completely swept away.

     1) "Ace of Spades" (with picture of Saddam Hussein). 2002 Domaine des Blagoeurs Syrah, Pays d'Oc, France. $9. Average 13.3; range 11-16. Kind of funny that this one finished first, given that people initially described it as smelling "like something at Rite Aid" -- Chloraseptic, Band-Aids, latex, something. Wayne said he couldn't get past the Band-Aid nose, and Gary found it unpleasantly musty. But others liked it; Steph said it shifted shape and smoothed out to become chocolatey and chewy. Delia said it had a Châteauneuf-du-Pape-like pucker. Becky liked the wine's mossiness, though she did say it smelled like marijuana.
     2) "W." 2001 Le Cigare Volant California Red Wine, 34% Grenache, 33% Syrah, 27% Mourvèdre, 2% Viognier, 2% Cinsaut, 2% Carignan. $25. Average 13.2; range 12-14. Extracted, grapey, a little oaky. Pam and others noted some eucalyptus in this wine. Many people found it nicely balanced, and less alcoholic than reds that came earlier in the tasting. Chip appreciated "that it's not in my face." I liked the beginning and the end of this wine but thought it was rough in the middle; Becky referred to the phenomenon as "turbulence."
     3) "Makeover." 2001 Cardinal Zin Beastly Old Vines. $18. Average 12.5; range 12-14. The last wine of the night; less turbulent than some of the ones before it. Seemed balanced, but not terribly complex. Maybe some cherry and vanilla in there. Not challenging but drinkable, Terri said.
     4) "AG" (John Ashcroft). 2003 Pacific Rim Dry Riesling. $10. Average 12.3; range 10-14. Unclear where the grapes come from; the Web site talks about hot weather in Germany and being "unencumbered by an inflexible interpretation of the Pacific Rim, happily willing to encounter it in the most landlocked and/or Atlantic of neighborhoods." Anyway, this was the first wine of the night. Our palates were fresh; it reminded people of lemons, melons, green apples, ginger ale, apricots, tropical fruit and Rolling Rock beer. Gary thought it was easy to drink, and Steph said it was "right to the edge of good sweetness." However, Charles found it overly floral. Kate said the citrus was bitter, and that the wine fell flat.
     5) "Jacko." 2001 Heart of Darkness Red Wine, Madiran, France; apparently made from obscure French grapes. $17. Average 12.3; range 11-15. Our descriptions of this one, which comes from an appellation in the Pyrenees, were all over the map. Smelled like blueberries and grape Kool-Aid, I thought; it reminded Delia of deep cherries. Pam thought it would go well with elk, duck and other game. Viscous and extracted texture, which Kate preferred to the taste. Fairly bright when it hits your tongue, but some of us thought it started to get pretty rough, and there was a lot of talk about cough syrup and rubbing alcohol. Terri couldn't drink it. The wine didn't seem to resolve into anything. Steph thought it was pleasantly warming as it opened up.
     6) "Hole" (Courtney Love). 2001 California Syrah. $12. Average 11.4; range 9-13. "Don't light a match near here," said Pam, who complained about the wine's straight-up alcohol flavor. Others found it boozy, reminiscent of vodka and bereft of any nose or fruit. Wayne did find a hint of chocolate in it somewhere.
     7) "Esther" (Madonna, looking all kabbalistic). 2003 Vin Gris de Cigare, California; Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, Cinsaut and Marsanne. $10. Average 9.3; range 5-13. This rosé reminded people of roses, rosehip perfume, rosewater and, in Steph's case, creamy strawberries. Kate thought it was pleasing and perfumy. I've enjoyed previous vintages of this wine, but I thought this had a powdery flavor -- and more sugar, less acid and less fruit than it should. Chip said the wine wasn't offensive, just uninspired. It reminded him of a boxed rosé that his mother forgot in the garage when he was growing up. "Its banality oppresses you," somebody suggested. Chip allowed that this was exactly the problem. All this abuse made Gary feel sorry for the wine. "It has feelings," he said.

     All these wines came from Martin Wine Cellar.
     Kate was the fake-label artist tonight. All the names, she says, refer to extremists -- people who, like Randall Grahm, are out of the ordinary in their views or their behavior.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 10:45 AM
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ZAP! in New Orleans. The Zin in the City Spring Tour, organized by a group called Zinfandel Advocates and Producers, has scheduled a stop in New Orleans Thursday, April 14. Tix are $40. I'm planning to go.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 10:27 AM
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Bordeaux book. In lieu of actually tasting many wines lately, I've been reading a book called Noble Rot. The author is the Brussels bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires (Note to John: Do you know this guy?), and he writes about Bordeaux's efforts to deal with changes in the international wine market and with the influence of Robert Parker.
     There's a lot of great detail in the book. The extent to which even well-established winemakers -- or at least those interested in the export market -- change their wines to match what they believe to be Parker's expectations is pretty amazing. The writer seems to accept the idea that Bordeaux's long-standing classification of wineries is a lousy guide to what's worth drinking. Echikson also talks about a nasty little intra-family squabble at Château d'Yquem, and about how co-ops outside the well-known appellations are knuckling under to marketers to keep from losing money. (For example, one guy frets about losing butch points by putting a heart on the label of his co-op's wines.)
     Obviously, you can't learn much about wine tasting from a book. But this one is more about the business and culture of wine rather than the aesthetics, and it's well worth reading.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 9:59 PM
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