A light, delicious supper with my carers..

This is Fred.

He is a West Highland Terrier and will be 16 years old in June. His carers, my friends, are very loving and giving people. They put up with his shit and they put up with mine.

Paola (@sipswooshspit) and Mike (@brandtaylor) have been more than generous with their time recently, letting me stay here rather a lot, and helping me set up my blog. Actually, that’s not strictly true. They did it all, allowing me to drivel on without hindrance to you, my reader.

So. If you have enjoyed my first tentative steps up into the blogosphere then thank them, not me.

They like Westies. In fact, Fred has a mate belonging to Paola’s mum called Max. He comes around quite often.

This is the hardest pose you’re ever likely to see of two Westies. They think they’re hard too, but they are very nearly the softest, most affectionate dogs that you are ever likely to meet.

Fred at the back and Max at the front.

Like the Krays.

Mike and Paola have looked after me as well as they have looked after their own frail, cantankerous, but at the same time lovely dog. Which is a huge compliment. Fred and I have become brothers of a sort.

Now, I don’t want to drag up that old nonsense about owners looking like their pets, but….

…this is Mike.

With Paola. Ahhhh. Aren’t they cute together?

It was was very definitely my turn to do something nice, so they asked if I would cook for them one night last week. I asked them what they fancied, and they said anything within reason. Then, I remembered that I had been given a bottle of wine in part way of thanks for cooking for Miles the day before. (Read my post - A Lunch of Mild Excess)

It was from one of my favourite producers, if not in Tuscany, in the world. It is Grangiovese 2009 Castello di Argiano from Sesti.

If you’re trade, you can buy their wines by the case from Mark Roberts at Decorum Vintners for a measly amount. This is astonishing at £125 per dozen ex VAT, and Robin and John Baum at The Winegrowers Club have Sesti’s smarter wines at fantastic prices. The Rosso ‘08 is £20 and the Brunello '06 is £40.

(http://www.thewinemakersclub.co.uk/price-list.html)

So, I decided to cook something vaguely Italian. Below are some starter canapés made from fennel salami, on a paste of slowly caramelised red onions, parsley and finely chopped fennel tops, with a splash of The Wine Society’s Oloroso Viejo sherry and a tiny dollop of single cream. This lot was served on top of a delicious toasted sourdough bread, made with potato, garlic, olive oil and rosemary. Not a million miles away from what I cooked the wine collectors last week, but it was still seriously good nosh. We started with a little dribble of Vasse Felix Sem/Sauv 2010, which was terribly reductive, but tasted perfectly clean and lemon floral once swirled with a penny. (Copper plus hydrogen sulphide in ionic solution equals Copper (II) Sulphate plus water.)

After that we had a little taste of the Grangiovese sangiovese, to check that it wasn’t corked…

Flipping hell, it was delicious. It had a nose of the ripest juicy redcurrants, bing cherries, and blueberries, with the tell-tale spicy undertow of Lea & Perrins and sage, that many Tuscan 'sangios’ have. In the mouth, it was lip-smacking with more sour cherry and warm sweet strawberry compote. How moreish can a wine be? I was asked, politely, to hurry up with the main course.

A friend of mine, one of the few who can follow a recipe properly, has cooked this for me twice before. I asked of I could plagiarise it, and I was informed with some relief that it was a River Café cookbook recipe. With no family secrets revealed I went ahead and prepared these lovely little things.

Quails. Available at any Waitrose for about £3 each, and probably less in a competent butcher.

Now this is so simple, a policeman could do it. You will need…

Five tablespoons of flakey sea salt (Shut up. You don’t have to eat them everyday), and Five tablespoons of chopped sage leaves, the younger and smaller the better.

Mash 'em up in a mortar and pestle, then stuff the birds from arsehole to t'beak, carefully rubbing over every part of the skin and legs. All you have to do then is to drizzle them liberally in olive oil and pop them in the oven at 200 Fahrenheit for half an hour.

Then, eat them with your fingers, with a side order of crunchy, lemony, mustardy fennel-bulb salad.

I know that sounds a long time in the oven, but as Mike said,“ This is like KFC for grown ups. I can’t stop licking my fingers" High praise indeed.

See below.

We weren’t done yet, and we were still quite thirsty. He’d we had something salty? Quite. So we reached into Paola’s stash and brought out a bottle of this.

I’m sure some of you remember when Bodegas Bilbainas was a laughing stock. Great vineyards. Thin, stripped, pissy, stringy wines.

Jesus, what a turn around! Since Arthur O'Connor, the Rainman of wine, (honestly, with grapes in his hands, he’s like an autistic savant) arrived at Gruppo Codorniu, every wine is, at the very least, better than competent and at best, world class. This was such a delicious wine.

Not as good as the Sesti, but it’s a Rioja Crianza from a trickily cool vintage that is currently on offer at a hardly credible £7.99 a bottle of you buy two or more in Majestic.

Gone are those feral, funky, old-wood flavours.

Replaced by focus, crunchy fruit and structure they have been!

You need to do this last sentence in a Yoda voice.