The Dish

Roasted Dungeness Crab Salad
w/ Cinderella Pumpkin
& Fermented Garlic

The Wine

2010 Domaine Eugène Meyer Riesling
Alsace, France
100% Riesling

The Chef

Casey Overton

With all the rare wines offered here, do you ever lie about your wine knowledge?  No. You can get—especially if you find someone that really knows what they’re talking about—you can get yourself in trouble quickly. It’s important to talk about flavor profiles, I think that’s what’s most important. Chefs have an interesting skill set because you’ve probably seen more flavors than other people.

Explain how you can utilize only 3 to 4 ingredients in a dish and prepare them perfectly.  Well the ‘prepare them perfectly’ thing is the tricky part, right? Utilizing 3 or 4 flavor combinations that go well together is my job and that’s what I have fun doing. Finding what works well together, looking to classic combinations but also experiencing new and exciting combinations. But it has to make sense, it has to be well thought out. With just 3 or 4 ingredients it has to be very thoughtful in organization, in preparation and then of course, in the final product. Preparing them well is what separates chefs and anybody else. There isn’t such thing as perfect, so you try for the best and refine it every day.

*See all of Casey Overton’s photos, interview, and recipe at  Chef’s Insight.

The Wine Expert

Meg Houston Maker

The 2010 Riesling from Domaine Eugène Meyer, produced Biodynamically in France’s Alsace region, is delicious with shellfish, salads, and Asian-inspired cuisine—making it a peerless partner for this recipe. The wine’s ample texture and vein of minerality beautifully balance the rich, savory crab and roasted nutmeats, while its flavors of citrus, lychee, and ginger polish the salad’s top notes of pumpkin, pomegranate, Meyer lemon, and Asian five-spice powder. It’s an integrative pairing, one that will partner gracefully while highlighting the sublime interplay of flavors in this elegant dish.

Meg Houston Maker, CSW, is a writer curious about nature, culture, food, wine, and place. Her freelance writing focuses on traditional foodways, artisanal food and wine production, sustainable agriculture, and the human connection to landscape. Meg contributes regularly to many food and wine publications. Find her creative writing at Megmaker.com and her essays on food and wine at Maker’s Table. Follow her on Twitter @megmaker.

Chef’s Insight is a raw, behind-the-scenes look at the culinary process and the people behind it. Photographer Bob Hodson shadows the chef—in his or her restaurant, home kitchen, backyard, favorite farmers market, wherever—shooting editorial style and capturing the details and the process… action on the line, scribbled recipes and plating notes, flashes of knife work, the flip of a pan, the beautiful symmetry of the finished mise en place