A guest post by Steve Dennison, 26 June 2014
So just hear me out on this, Ed and Gail couldn't go to the 4th annual crab feed hosted by Dakaro and Churn Creek Cellars. Something about traveling to North Africa or something. Anyway, Kathy and I decided to carpool with Steve and Lisa Whitehorn to Churn Creek Cellars in the cool Churn Creek Bottom area in Redding on June 20th.
We arrived to a warm 92 degree day and ample shade, appetizers, wine and of course lots of friends. The deal with the crab feed is IF you can score an invite (and that's a well guarded secret) you bring a bottle of wine and a side dish. The wine isn't supposed to be a bottle of David and Kathy's (Dakoro) or Layne and Denise's ( CCC). Ok, easy enough. I actually gave more thought to the wine I was bringing because I wanted it to be something the winemakers might like, but not be too heavy in the heat. So, I decided on two wines. I brought a good little Pinot Grigio and a Spanish Tempranillo.
The Pinot Grigio was very fruity and crisp and pleasant on the hot day. David was very interested in the Tempranillo as he was getting notes of Grenache in it which made it unique. Seeing as this was the first crab feed Kathy and I were attending, we had to go to Hawaii during last years crab feed, we followed the lead of Steve and Lisa who have been to all of them.
So, first, find a spot to ground all of your stuff. We brought a ice chest with some water, beer, and room to store the salad we made while in transit. We set up some chairs in the shade on the lawn next to the vines just catching a smidge of the misters on the large covered patio and tasting area of CCC. Once that was done Steve and I took our wine over to the wine bar. It was overflowing with wines from all over on the table along with two ice chests of assorted varieties of white and red. I noticed right about now that Nels and Christine from Albireo made the trip from shingletown and brought beer and of course, a couple bottles of Object Trouvé. Mmmmm. This is turning out to be a feast of blog worthy proportions.
I settled in at the wine bar with Steve pouring wines for people as they sauntered up. Steve is a trained and certified winesta, so he gave me a crash course on the essentials of pouring, corking, and quality control as the chief winesta. I'm a fast learner and soon enough I took over for Steve perfecting the essentials of the three second pour. I was soon relieved by David and was free to explore the appetizers. Salads, fruit, berries, cheeses, anti pastas. You name it it was probably there. It was about this time we all had a pleasant surprise. The big BBQ was fired up and the elk sliders and sausages were grilled up. Wow! Tender and delicious. But the main attraction was soon to come. David and Layne pulled out the giant ice chest with over 100 fresh crab!!!
So David and Layne take a few family to Trinidad every year just for this event. They go out in the pacific and brave the swells and weather to bring back the freshest crab you can imagine. So this year they caught the crab on Wednesday, cooked cleaned and cracked it on Thursday, and served it to us on Friday. This crab was fresh and it melted in your mouth. There was fresh sourdough bread and butter along with it which made it just great.
So with all of the food, crab, appetizers, beer and water consumed, we all sat back in our chairs as the sun set over the Sacramento River and it cooled down. We all just kind of smiled at each other and rubbed our bellies. But wait, there was more. How could this be? I can't fit anything else in the belly. Fresh churned vanilla ice cream with raspberries and blackberries on top. I quickly got out of my chair, ok not quickly, but I managed to get out of my chair and I hopped up and down several times to pack it all down to make room for dessert. Oh..my...cristo!!!
So we were packing up and loading our stuff into the trunk when Kathy Roth takes us back to the treasure chest of crab and has us take several home.. Am I dreaming? So we took bags full of fresh crab home which we devoured over the next two days marveling at the great food, wine, and friends we enjoyed the night before.