Pam and Melvin Croaker’s fried corn-meal-dusted boudin balls paired superbly with an 2007 Dolcetto d’Alba Monte Aribaldo by Marchesi di Gresy at yesterday’s Christmas day supper. The weather’s been cold and windy here: Dolcetto is such a great wintry grape, with its rich, meaty mouthfeel and nervy acidity pillared by a fulcrum of gentle tannin and meaty flavor. At less than $20 a bottle, the single-vineyard Dolcetto Monte Aribaldo has been my 2009 holiday season standby wine.

Sadly, a bottle of 2004 Rosso di Montepulciano by Sanguineto was corked. It wasn’t corked in the tainted with a corky or wet dog smell, the way “viciously” corked wine can smell (as BrooklynGuy likes to say when he’s disappointed with a much-anticipated bottle like this one). It was just that the fruit had died: as BrooklynGuy might say, it wasn’t “terrible, just dull.”

Boudin balls are made from the filling of boudin sausage — pork, pork liver, rice and Cajun seasoning (spicy). They can be rolled in breadcrumbs or flour but Pam and Melvin used a cornmeal coating (also traditional) for these tasty delights. Soooooo good…

In other news…

Yet another dream came true this Christmas yesterday when Tracie B and I got the 3-quart All-Clad sauté pan we’d been hoping for.

Thanks Mrs. and Rev. B!