LOVE AFFAIR RIGHT HERE IN CAREFREE AND CAVE CREEK.
WHERE THE ROUGH WILD WEST AND THE REFINED LUXURIOUS USA FIND EACH OTHER.
Sometimes I don’t know why in the world I am still living in the middle of the Sonoran desert close to the small towns Carefree and Cave Creek.
Maybe the reason these areas intrigue me so much is that Carefree and Cave Creek have an exceptional mix of the old wild west and the luxury modern USA both seemingly living very well together.
Curiously enough the desert is also what you could call the American golfers dream. Here you find The Boulders golf resort with the El Pedregal center, The Tonto golf course and resort, Carefree Resort and their golf course and the largest of the surrounding subdivisions “Desert Mountain”. The last is an enclosed luxury area of eight thousand acres with large individual million dollar homes. On top of that five different golf courses and ten restaurants plus a tennis club with 3 hard courts 5 great clay courts and two beautiful grass courts that at any time can measure up to the grass tennis courts at Wimbledon.
The nature is kept beautifully. The restrictions around the homes are holding up the “natural” standards and thus also keeping the natural animal life intact. Coyotes and Bobcats are not unusual and the smaller animals are like taken out of a Walt Disney script – or I guess it is the other way around!
The signature golf courses with lots of grass are all designed differently by the famous golfer Jack Niclaus. The courses are with variating difficulty and the six clubhouses have all the facilities you can imagine.
When you are tired from getting in and out of the golf cart you have a large choice of restaurants: Everything from regular American food, Southwestern Cooking, Mexican spicy to Italian delicacy.
Everything you buy, eat and drink is added to your monthly account as all the facilities only are available to the people who life at Desert Mountain plus their guests.
This is only one of the many places here where you, undisturbed by the outside, can enjoy life fully.
Carefree is a close by very small town with a small beautiful park and a famous Sundial in the center. The park is surrounded by small local stores, restaurants, coffee shops and wine bars and the charming Spanish Village with an outside top roof bar and eating area. Of course I am not forgetting the new fire station and the even newer very charming electrical “gas lamps”. And the people of Carefree and Cave Cree are serviced well by “Basha” the closest supermarket in Carefree.
Cave Creek is like taken out of an old film script – at least to me-
Very old bars and roadhouses make you feel like you are right in the middle of an old cowboy film just waiting for Clint Eastwood to ride in.
In the morning I can have my latte at the aged Coffee Company and in the evening I can enjoy the rustic band at Harolds roadhouse and watch the cowboy hats jump up and down on the dancing floor, no conversation necessary or possible. Or I can go to some of the better restaurants in the area mostly influenced by the southwestern cooking and also more like the restaurants you find a lot of places in the USA except for Tonto’s Restaurant.
My only problem is that I like Mediterranean gourmet food and only one place makes authentic southern European food and that is the French restaurant Le Sans Souci where you can eat as if you were right on the French Riviera.
Another factor that to me make these small towns nice to live in is that wherever you go you always meet people you know. You can always enjoy a chat about anything and nothing. Having the larger town, in this case Phoenix, close by with a 45 min drive and theater, ballet, music, museums, large sports events etc. is only a plus.
Pia
Friday, December 19, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
I want to start this newsletter by thanking everybody who joined us at Le Sans Souci in Cave Creek Arizona for our very special wine tasting. I was so pleased to see and feel how everybody fully enjoyed the wonderful wine we served and I was overwhelmed by the many great superlatives about all of the wines.
The Cantine Lodigiani's MALVASIA vivace (less sparkling than frizzante) - the bottle with the intriguing blonde on the label - is one of the medium sparkling white wines everybody loved.
Another is the MALVASIA AURORA frizzante that is a wonderful sparkling wine and a great starter for an evening. Extremely popular already. Served in a champagne glass it is a sure success.
The third white wine you tasted is the always dependable ORTRUGO also from Cantine Lodigiani. This wine is superb with any dinner, is the driest of the whites and is irresistibly likable by almost everybody.
These three white wines melt on your tongue, are relatively light and give you room for more than one glass of enjoyment.
One of the red wines is the naturally sparkling GUTTURNIO that is a wine widely enjoyed in the northern part of Italy. It takes taste from what you eat and is beautiful with pasta and meat and is on top of that a red wine that is intriguing with fish.
The other red wine is the majestic Primitivo di Manduria LUPORANO. This is a wine that can stand up for any wine connoisseur and has already become a bestseller. You just have to try it. Remember to let this wine air for 20 min or decant it well.
I can't stress enough that these wines come from some of the special wineries in Italy with limited production single - vineyard, single grape, Estate bottled wines and we are the lucky ones to get them.
At the wine tasting we gave a new-wine special sales price to everybody attending and YOU as a subscriber to PIA's Newsletter will also get the same chance the next eight days. This means you get a chance to get this wonderful wine and more for the coming holidays.
If you are not already a subscriber to PIA's newsletter click here to subscribe from our home page and enjoy all the great advantages this gives you. In addition to special pricing on the wines, subscribers also get access to the special holiday prices on all of our new and exciting products.
And as an extra bonus for subscribing to the newsletter, you will also receive free recipes and tips and be able to submit special questions to Pia who will answer with each newsletter.
(Of course we will keep your email address in the strictest privacy and will never provide it to anyone else. You will only receive communication from us and you can always opt out at anytime by clicking the link at the bottom of the newsletter.)
And The Winner IS:
The winnner of our wine tasting drawing for a dinner for two at Le Sans Souci is......
PEGGY KIESEL! Congratulations!! Please email us at info@piaseuropean.com or call 480.595.3923 to redeem your prize!
Question of the Month:
I have chosen the following question because we are so close to Thanksgiving and we will all likely be eating our traditional turkey.
Question: How do I make sure that my Thanksgiving turkey does not get dry when I cook it?
Answer: My Thanksgiving turkey is never dry and here I give you my turkey cooking secret:
Clean and make the turkey ready for stuffing. I always use at least two to three lemons pierced several places with a fork and not the traditional stuffing. The lemons absorb a lot of the surplus fat. Then with a brush cover the turkey with some olive oil and repeat the process with Dijon mustard.
Place the turkey in a large pan that can get into the oven. Start the oven at maximum heat and when it is hot let the turkey cook for 10-15 minutes. This is critical as the crust of the turkey keeps the moist inside the meat and that is the whole secret!
After the 10-15 minutes turn the heat down and add white wine to the pan, you can mix it with some water, and let the turkey cook the normal time. Halfway the cooking time I remove some of the surplus fat from the pan (keep it for the sauce) and add to the pan sliced potatoes turned in a mix of olive oil, salt, pepper and lots of rosemary. If necessary add more wine/water.
If you want you can add cream after taste to the potatoes 10 minutes before the turkey is finished cooking.
When the turkey has finished cooking take it out of the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes before you start cutting. This way you keep as much of the moist inside the meat and you are able to serve a moist turkey everybody will love.
The surplus liquid you use for the sauce that you can make in a separate pot, if the taste is not strong enough for you add some chicken soup or base. Take care not to add too much - it can get too salt and spoil the rest of the food. When the sauce is almost ready you can add a tiny bit of cream.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
..........
At last I want you to know that I have already received several thank you e-mails from people participating in the wine tastings and I am very happy and grateful for that - It is always wonderful to see that the work you do is appreciated.
PS: Remember that if you live in the Carefree area you can pick up your orders and save the shipping. Just select "In Store Pick Up" from the shipping options at checkout or send us an e-mail at piaseuropean@cox.net or call at 480.595.3923
Warm regards,
Pia
The Cantine Lodigiani's MALVASIA vivace (less sparkling than frizzante) - the bottle with the intriguing blonde on the label - is one of the medium sparkling white wines everybody loved.
Another is the MALVASIA AURORA frizzante that is a wonderful sparkling wine and a great starter for an evening. Extremely popular already. Served in a champagne glass it is a sure success.
The third white wine you tasted is the always dependable ORTRUGO also from Cantine Lodigiani. This wine is superb with any dinner, is the driest of the whites and is irresistibly likable by almost everybody.
These three white wines melt on your tongue, are relatively light and give you room for more than one glass of enjoyment.
One of the red wines is the naturally sparkling GUTTURNIO that is a wine widely enjoyed in the northern part of Italy. It takes taste from what you eat and is beautiful with pasta and meat and is on top of that a red wine that is intriguing with fish.
The other red wine is the majestic Primitivo di Manduria LUPORANO. This is a wine that can stand up for any wine connoisseur and has already become a bestseller. You just have to try it. Remember to let this wine air for 20 min or decant it well.
I can't stress enough that these wines come from some of the special wineries in Italy with limited production single - vineyard, single grape, Estate bottled wines and we are the lucky ones to get them.
At the wine tasting we gave a new-wine special sales price to everybody attending and YOU as a subscriber to PIA's Newsletter will also get the same chance the next eight days. This means you get a chance to get this wonderful wine and more for the coming holidays.
If you are not already a subscriber to PIA's newsletter click here to subscribe from our home page and enjoy all the great advantages this gives you. In addition to special pricing on the wines, subscribers also get access to the special holiday prices on all of our new and exciting products.
And as an extra bonus for subscribing to the newsletter, you will also receive free recipes and tips and be able to submit special questions to Pia who will answer with each newsletter.
(Of course we will keep your email address in the strictest privacy and will never provide it to anyone else. You will only receive communication from us and you can always opt out at anytime by clicking the link at the bottom of the newsletter.)
And The Winner IS:
The winnner of our wine tasting drawing for a dinner for two at Le Sans Souci is......
PEGGY KIESEL! Congratulations!! Please email us at info@piaseuropean.com or call 480.595.3923 to redeem your prize!
Question of the Month:
I have chosen the following question because we are so close to Thanksgiving and we will all likely be eating our traditional turkey.
Question: How do I make sure that my Thanksgiving turkey does not get dry when I cook it?
Answer: My Thanksgiving turkey is never dry and here I give you my turkey cooking secret:
Clean and make the turkey ready for stuffing. I always use at least two to three lemons pierced several places with a fork and not the traditional stuffing. The lemons absorb a lot of the surplus fat. Then with a brush cover the turkey with some olive oil and repeat the process with Dijon mustard.
Place the turkey in a large pan that can get into the oven. Start the oven at maximum heat and when it is hot let the turkey cook for 10-15 minutes. This is critical as the crust of the turkey keeps the moist inside the meat and that is the whole secret!
After the 10-15 minutes turn the heat down and add white wine to the pan, you can mix it with some water, and let the turkey cook the normal time. Halfway the cooking time I remove some of the surplus fat from the pan (keep it for the sauce) and add to the pan sliced potatoes turned in a mix of olive oil, salt, pepper and lots of rosemary. If necessary add more wine/water.
If you want you can add cream after taste to the potatoes 10 minutes before the turkey is finished cooking.
When the turkey has finished cooking take it out of the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes before you start cutting. This way you keep as much of the moist inside the meat and you are able to serve a moist turkey everybody will love.
The surplus liquid you use for the sauce that you can make in a separate pot, if the taste is not strong enough for you add some chicken soup or base. Take care not to add too much - it can get too salt and spoil the rest of the food. When the sauce is almost ready you can add a tiny bit of cream.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
..........
At last I want you to know that I have already received several thank you e-mails from people participating in the wine tastings and I am very happy and grateful for that - It is always wonderful to see that the work you do is appreciated.
PS: Remember that if you live in the Carefree area you can pick up your orders and save the shipping. Just select "In Store Pick Up" from the shipping options at checkout or send us an e-mail at piaseuropean@cox.net or call at 480.595.3923
Warm regards,
Pia
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