Sneakeater

I don't want to boast -- I mean, fuck YEAH I want to boast -- but the salsa roja I made to use in the chilaquiles was just so good. (As usual, I hope you understand that I say that with surprise verging on shock rather than with smugness.)

Breakfast for dinner is an approved sick-food strategy. But I don't know whether what people have in mind is so fried. Chilaquiles rojos con chorizo y camarones secos. I very much prefer my chilaquiles on the goopy side rather than the crispy. But that isn't how I've been making them. Today I resolved to fix that. I was afraid that, in my usual manner, I would overcompensate, coming out with a kind of tortilla soup. Mirabile dictu, that didn't happen: this was just the way I like it. (Also, my first time making chilaquiles rojos rather than verdes. Yay me.) Aside from the usual garnishes (the pickled red onions were particularly good today, if I may say), I had on the side some leftover beans and squash, with some kale cooked in to make it more credible as a vegetable. Instead of the balsamic-honey-rosemary syrup that Lidia Bastianich has you make, I just drizzled on some balsamic and some honey at the end and threw on some rosemary. I can't tell you I tasted a difference. I was stoked about the pairing. Although I'll admit that drinking Czech wine with Mexican food is such a cliche that I'm almost ashamed to admit it. 2019 Milan Nestarec Forks and Knives White To me, Milan Nestarec makes some of the most fun wines anywhere. And his Forks and Knives wines were calculated to be the most fun, or at least the least serious: they were designed to be wines you'd drink with food at home mid-week. (Or at least they used to be: after this vintage Nostarec modified his vision -- or at least his ad copy -- for this line to be "village" wines modestly reflecting the local terroir. I'm not rejecting the new approach out of hand -- but I'm worried.) This, though: a blend of Grüner Veltliner, Welchriesling (which is NOT related to Riesling), and Neuberger, with some Natural wine fizz. I mean, you can just tell how good it would be with a spicy greasy mess like my dinner, right?

Which is exactly what it tastes like.

Looking at the wine, it's that deep amber color that some mainstream wine drinker would see and go, "I hope it isn't oxidated". Whereas I look at it and go, "MAYBE IT'S OXIDATED!!!!!!" It wasn't.

It is a testament to the balance achieved by the maker of this wine that the dregs I am drinking down without any food are not at all unpleasant.

Sick food of a pretty high order, if I may say. Penne with winter squash, roasted with sage and rosemary, and ricotta salata. I crisped a few sage leaves for a garnish. Slow-sautéed Tuscan kale. I know there are people here who don't like winter squash. But it's SO damned comforting. Now you could drink a Nebbiolo with squash and sage (maybe make it an Alta). But what that pasta really seemed to call for was a big, full, oaky Chardonnay. And much as that isn't the kind of thing I habitually drink, I always have some around for just these occasions. 1995 Kalin Cellars Chardonnay "Cuvée W" This is indeed a big full oaky Chardonnay. But Kalin Cellars does it with care. There's a balance to this wine that you wouldn't expect from a California Blockbuster. So while this wine could only be described as "unctuous", it could never be described as "flabby". The thick texture and the big exotic fruit flavors (there is no detectable lemon in this Chardonnay) and the very-much-there-but-not-overwhelming oak toast are balanced by a fine acidity. Now whether you want that thick texture and those big flavors in the first place is another story. I wouldn't want to drink this every night. (I'm afraid to even look at the ABV -- although I tell myself it's killing a virus, even though I intellectually understand that viruses aren't bacteria and don't get killed that way.) But with this pasta, it was fine. More than fine. Given the size of this wine, I decided to follow the canard that "Chardonnay is Burgundy, so drink it in a Burgundy glass." With actual white Burgundies, that never works: you need a smaller glass to concentrate the bouquet. With this (tasteful) bruiser, it almost did work.

I mean that duck. *********************** The first time I went to Spain, Franco was still in power. And there were these 17-year-old policías on just about every corner with rifles a little bigger than they were. It didn't make me feel safer.

This wine is just so lively. "Vivacious" is the latinate word that corresponds.

The real problem was, they had a scandalously tiny amount of wine. I believe the lack of antiseptic alcohol rendered us all unnecessarily vulnerable.

I've only ever had opah shipped in from Hawaii. So I was surprised to see some at my neighborhood fishmonger (not for long) billed as having been caught off Massachusetts. I did some research, however, and found that opah does in fact live in the North Atlantic as well as the Pacific. I did a simple pan sear -- charred on the outside, near raw on the inside -- seasoned only (with a decent wait before cooking) with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I wanted to taste the fish. Opah has the texture of halibut, with something of the flavor of striped bass. You wouldn't expect that combination to exist. It eats well. On the side, some leftover roasted broccoli served salad-style, at room temperature, drizzled with saba. And, since I think of opah as being Hawaiian, I used the rest of my coconut water once again as a cooking liquid for rice, this time augmented with rice vinegar and a good amount of La Boite Breeze mix. I'm nominally sick and all, but this seemed very good to me. I had just the wine picked out. 2022 La Famile Mosse Magic of Ju-Ju This is a wine from a Natural Loire producer I just adore, one of my favorite producers anywhere. I don't think I've not loved anything I've ever had by them. This is always one of my favorites of theirs, a blend of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc. And it works just the way you'd expect it to, the SB sharpness cutting some of the CB roundness to extremely piquant effect. Also, this cuvée is named after an Archie Shepp album. What's not to love?

Most of the people who were at the Thanksgiving dinner I went to this year -- including me -- caught COVID.

Although that video seems to fall into the Rolling Stones "Angry" trap of using vintage footage to hide the performer's current state.

I actually like that arrangement a lot. Personally, I prefer this version to the original.

The single biggest miracle of The Monkees was that there was no reason to expect the star of Circus Boy to be a really really strong rock singer. (There was also no reason to expect him to be a competent drummer -- and he wasn't.)

This wine could probably benefit from aging. But you'd have to have the strength of ten.