Sneakeater

After weeks of assuring everyone that she would never again have hot peppers this season, the hot pepper vender at GAP had . . . hot peppers. (She also had late-season dragon's tongue beans that oddly looked better than the smack-in-the-middle-of-season ones did.) (This is a crazy year.)

Never Mind the Ham . . . I Sliced a Bialy It could be an album title!

Oh I mean that Ulysses thing is obvs one of my favorite thing in all of English (OK Anglo-Irish) literature. Although nothing will ever beat, "Men have died from time to time/And worms have eaten them/But not for love."

https://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poems/best/offal

Leftover Creole Cassoulet with shrimp and andouille. God this is good. And it tastes like something you'd have in New Orleans. I wouldn't have thought I could do it. In making the side dish, I realized that all my life up until today I've been sauteing vegetables wrong. I'm not gonna tell you what I've been doing wrong, because it will reveal me to be even more inept than I already seem. Anyway, sautéed mustard green/bok choi cross, with garlic and actual mustard (I saw that in some Southern recipe, and as silly as it seemed to me when I read it it tasted good) and crushed dried chili de arbol and onion vinegar. What if you were trying to think of a wine to pair with a mildly spicy stewed dish with shrimp and pork sausage -- and you remembered that you have a wine that's a co-ferment of Pinot Noir and orange skin-contact Pinot Gris?* You'd think: that's it! 2017 Hiyu Wine Farm Aura I didn't want to drink this with last night's chili verde cuz I feared the chili would overpower the wine. But tonight's Creole Cassoulet, while it might be a bit spicier than the chili verde, is a more refined thing flavor-wise. Happily, this was one of those pairings that worked as I'd hoped. Both Pinot Noir and the Pinot Gris would have been fine with either of the proteins in this stew. The oranging of the Pinot Gris (take a bow Max Apple) provided some funk to stand up to the flavors (although the strong orange tannins didn't love even the restrained spice). Another thing about this wine, from a leading Oregon Natural producer, is that it's just fantastic. Every transition in this wine is seamless. This is just elegant with a capital E. The fruit is laser focused, but very refined. Not just the expected pinot cherry/berries, but hints of a lot exotic stuff (maybe from these grapes' Pinot cousin, Charonnay). Some salt, some funk, some slate. There's more going on in this wine than my description has been able to convey: it's quite complex. I guess it's ineffable. A magnificent wine, actually. I'm happy I opened it to accompany one of the best things I've ever cooked. __________________________________________________________ * Let's nerd out for a minute and remember that Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris are the same grape, Pinot Gris merely being a color mutation of Pinot Noir.

And the bigger new place has a smaller bar!

Once, when I had a date, I was magically able to get a reservation there. It had never happened before nor has it happened since. My attempts to walk in were of course laughable.

Clearly the rereview was cuz they moved into larger quarters, which is often the kiss of death for cute tiny restaurants.

Oh God now I'm excited. This pairing tomorrow is going to be genius.

Wait wait. That pairing I'd been considering with tonight's dinner would be genius with tomorrow's dinner. Unless I think of something better before then.

Costador has a good thing going with these "Metamorphika" things.

Just drinking the wine down: that fruit is so delicious.

The end of my chili verde with pork. Served the same way I did all the other batches. On the side, flame roasted (on the közmatik) (meaning burnt to a crisp) Roma beans. Wow this is a good way to cook these. Tossed with olive oil, seasoned with lots of salt and some chili de arbol. I had an idea for a wine pairing that would have taken off from the successful red-white field blend pairing for my last batch of the chili verde. But I couldn't see drinking a supernal $70 bottle with food that was so flavor-forward and spicy: I wouldn't have tasted the wine. Plan B: 2019 Costador Trepat "Metamorphika" (Wow. They must have had their vintage mark designed and placed by the same person who designs and places the cooking time notations on Italian pasta labels.) Trepat is a Catalan grape that is most frequently used in Cava and Rosados. So I figured it would have to be light and untannic enough for a mildly spicy chili. Almost: this was more tannic than I expected. And not quite light. But what an intriguing flavor(s). Lots of black cherry and raspberry at the front. Lots. But not particularly light-textured, as you'd expect of a Natural wine vinified in amphorae. This has substantial mouthfeel (something I don't really like). But the wine as a whole stays sprightly enough that the mouthfeel isn't annoying. Then there are A LOT of minerals. But they don't follow the fruit. Rather, they sort of emerge from underneath the fruit. The fruit lasts and lasts, pretty much until the finish. Which is this sort of indistinct syrupy thing that feels good in your mouth. Perhaps happily, it doesn't last very long: just a tickle. So an interesting wine, and a very tasty one. Perhaps not a pluperfect pairing for the food (although at least the food didn't come near overwhelming it). But life is like that.

Just to be clear, this is NOT a request to @Orik to reactivate the "time required between posts" feature.

My belief is that anything that stops me from posting inane serial posts is a blessing for mankind.

Hey I've had that! It's really good!

I'm beginning to think I'm NEVER going to get a MacArthur.

My meal plan for the week got messed up when it hit me that something I missed out on at the Greenmarket last weekend was needed for two of my planned dishes. (Deluge or no deluge, I KNEW I shouldn't have slept in.) So, what with my having a friend who's currently vacationing in Amalfi and all, I thought I'd pivot to Linguine with Colatura di Alici. I was sure I had some Colatura. But the bottle wasn't there! (Which is not to say it won't turn up somewhere else in my refrigerator tomorrow.) So I pivoted to making an anchovy/bottarga/cured tuna heart sauce for the linguine. (The anchovies were from Cetera, so I still got to commune with my absent friend.) (I will repeat, self-congratulatingly, that I have gotten so good at managing Ghost Pepper that I now look with sorrow at my impending completion of the second of the two that I accidentally bought, as opposed to the horror I felt when I initially realized what I'd purchased.) And on the side, one of my favorite things: fioretto roasted with Nonnata di Pesce (or whatever Tutto Calabria's version of it is currently called). The pivot to a more Sicilian pasta preparation (the origin of the anchovies notwithstanding) clarified my wine choice. (I had planned something more um geographically disconnected for the Amalfian pasta I originally thought I was making.) 2022 Mortellito Cala Ìancu My favorite white of the Summer. Mostly Grillo. Some Carricante. Natural but in a non-overbearing way. Fruit pops out of the glass: apricot, grapefruit (a very intriguing combination). Very herby. Lots of salt. The grapes are grown near almond trees, and although I know it doesn't work like that, I could swear you can taste the almonds. This is so good you don't want the bottle to end. But more than that: this is one of those wines that bring you joy.

Too soon. RIP

You'll be married to an American!

Terminal 5 is even worse.

This is exactly true.

The girls need to get with fart jokes.

(Patrick Macnee always fessed up to how intimidated he was to have to act opposite as superbly classically-trained an actor as Diana Rigg. (Fortunately, he appears to have somehow got over it.)

First appearance of Mrs. Peel on The Avengers in the mid-'60s. How did British television get to be so sophisticated back then?