Riesling Poached Pears

I'm passionate about food. If it were possible, my life would consist of nothing but traveling the world in hopes to try every possible preparation of every morsel of consumable fare the world has to offer...I will try anything once. Chef Duff Goldman (the guy from Ace of Cakes) said "I'd eat human, if it were cooked right". I absolutely agree. I'm not a picky eater. I just plain love food.

With that said, I've taken up baking and cooking in the last few years.  I grew up with an incredible cook for a mother. She and my dad have been married for 24 years and apparently she has only made one bad thing...Smoked Turkey Stirfry, which was before my time. Obviously, since I know about it, its still spoken of, and apparently it was atrocious, but props to her to trying something new! Apparently smoke and soy just aren't very complementary.  

I will definitely be sharing my musings regarding F&B (Food and Beverage for the non-foodies reading).  Recipes, great restaurants, great wine, great dishes, and the failures of each as well.

Today I will share a recipe win! On the scale of sheer simplicity and amazingness of this recipe I will rate it a 10. Right out of the gate...I'm starting big!

Ingredients

• 4 ripe pears, preferably Bosc, with stems, washed and dried
• 2 cups Riesling or other fruity white wine
• 1/4 cup honey
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 4 bay leaves
• 4 strips orange zest

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Cut a thin slice off the bottom of each pear, so they will stand upright. Arrange the pears in a 9- to 10-inch pie pan or similar baking dish. Whisk wine and honey in a medium bowl until well blended; pour over the pears. Add cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and orange zest to the wine mixture around the pears.
3. Roast the pears, basting every 15 minutes, until they are wrinkled and tender, 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the type of pear used.
4. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the pears to shallow dessert bowls. Pour the wine mixture into a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Boil until slightly thickened, about 6 minutes. Drizzle over the pears and garnish with the cinnamon sticks, bay leaves and orange zest. Serve warm, at room temperature or chilled.

These were ah-may-ziiing! I only made two, so I cut the recipe in half, and used ground cinnamon because I didn't think I had sticks (I did...fail), but they were delicious. The only trouble I ran in to with "halfing" the recipe was the liquid dried up toward the end, so I wasn't able to make the final sauce. At about 40 minutes, I did pour some more Riesling in the dish (and my glass) so it wouldn't burn.  I used a 8x8 glass pan, so in the future I'll probably use something smaller, so it doesn't dry up as easily. We had it with vanilla ice cream and it was absolutely delicious. I love hot-cold combos, so this was definitely perfect for me. Just be careful, they're super, super hot when they come out of the oven. Letting them sit for a bit wouldn't hurt...I just couldn't wait. 

Are we married yet?

On October 14th Tony and I, with our parents and his best friend, Jared went to the Buchanan County courthouse to have our civil wedding ceremony. The magistrate who married us, Sarah Rothman Dooley,  was very nice, very sincere and I was very happy that she married us, even if she was an hour late....maybe that should have been some foreshadowing.

For anyone who hasn't been through the marriage process its pretty simple, you get a marriage license, then an official of some sort (religious or legal) as well as two witnesses have to sign your marriage certificate. The official who marries you, then sends that in to the county recorders office from which you received your license. The recorder then documents it with the county and sends you your marriage certificate. Badda-bing, badda-boom, you're married. You then use this marriage certificate to change your name, prove marriage for insurance/tax/etc reasons. Pretty simple, huh?

Nearly two months later, we still haven't received our marriage license, nor has BH County Recorders office.

Sarah Rothman Dooley, swears up and down that she sent it in to BHC. After a few emails and phone calls with both her and and her secretary, progressing from inquisitive to downright rude, as well as multiple calls to both Black Hawk County and Buchanan County (that's the county we were actually married in), no one has the slightest idea where this certificate is. I did receive an interesting tidbit of info from Buchanan County; marriage certificates have to be sent First Class. I'm not a mail person, but from what I understand, that means it's nearly impossible for it to get "lost in the mail".

So technically, according to the State of Iowa, we're not married...I'm pretty sure. This means, we cannot file taxes, I can't get health insurance though Tony's company, etc. In order to get this straitened out, we have to go through the whole process again. Tony and I aren't just swimming in free time either, which just adds to the convenience of the whole ordeal. The other thing, Jared's signature was on the certificate, which meant a lot to Tony. He lives in Chicago, so if we want to file our taxes before April, its probably going to end up being my parents to be the new witnesses...which is fine, but just a little...one sided?

Tony is leaving for Tennessee on Sunday, so we'll have to get it taken care of when he gets back. But jesh, how did something that was supposed to be so quick and easy turn in to such a pain in the ass?

Becoming Crane

I'm going to assume that anyone reading this blog, knows the majority of my story, so I feel little need for the usual complete regurgitation of my entire life history when creating any sort of self-promoting/social networking site...So I'll just back track a few days, since I've only been up for 2.5 hours (time note: 8:35 am...I woke up at 5:50am....booya!) there's not much to say about today...


But perhaps, like any good written work, I should start with a statement of purpose (my research methods professor would be so proud!).  As you know (or possibly don't...creeper) I recently married Mr. Tony Crane...I think..more on that later. Our wedding was simply, perfect. Hopefully a reflection on what our marriage will be :)  Before we got married we bought a house and adopted two kittens. 2010 was a year of things that drastically changed how Tony and I live each day of our life, truly a milestone year.  Through this blog I hope to document 2011 and all the exciting things that are happening because of 2010...the biggest year of our life!