Pink: The Color of Easter

I didn’t realize what a picky eater I was growing up until I started adding up all the things that I now eat.  Mushrooms, squash, bell peppers, just to start.  Another thing I wouldn’t eat was ricotta cheese, which is a damn shame because my little Italian grandmother used to make her own to put into lasagna.  I would eat the noodles with sauce and skip on the final product.  I also passed on Easter pie, which my mom adored and considered a great treat.  Not a dessert item, this one’s savory—made with ricotta, egg, ham, parsley, and seasonings, all baked in a flaky crust.  I made it my first Easter in California but somehow forgot about it last year.  And though I didn’t bake one this Sunday, Wednesday night found me in the kitchen, cracking eggs and dicing ham. 

The first time I made it, I drank a Thomas Fogarty Rose’ of Sangiovese.  This time I had it with a rose’ from one of the best-known regions for making pink wine: Côtes de Provence. Some say these wines fall flat when taken out of context (drunk ice cold along the warm beaches of southern France), but I enjoyed this 2006 from L’Estandon. Very pale pink, this one showed strawberry, raspberry, lemon zest, and melon. It went nicely with the saltiness of the ham ( I adore rose’ with ham sandwiches or BLT’s), though in retrospect might have been a slightly better pairing had I squeezed a bit of lemon over my slice. Either way, with a side salad, it was a nice, light meal. And it made me realize it’s time to replenish my stock of pink.