Sneakeater

And McConnell's Ice Cream.

Doesn't stop me from buying Asian potato chips.

This is (a) off-topic and (b) self-centered and (c) TMI. BUT, I was high on pot virtually every minute of every day from around my 14th birthday to just before my 18th. But then -- I remember this very clearly -- at some specific point I began to wonder why I felt like shit all the time. And I pretty soon figured it out.

You get notifications of what I had to say? Oy.

Trust me, I don't do weed. I'm paranoid and self-conscious enough on life.

Now if I could just figure out who I "am".

Thanks! (I mean REALLY thanks!) I think I've figured out who you "are". Almost.

Ghost Pepper!

Guess what I steeped in the broccolini's olive oil before sauteing?

I tempered my expectations of this because, 1re Cru or not, it's just a Côte de Beaune. But this could be a Nuits-Saint-Georges or something for the way it drinks. (I guess the price factor of its being "just" a Côtes de Beaune has something to do with why I came to have it.)

Roasted saddle of rabbit with roasted maitake. Spaghetti alla Chitarra with goat cheese goop. Sautéed broccolini. A simple roast really cries out for a Grand Old Wine. And the rabbit and mushrooms kind of wanted a Pinot Noir (if they weren't getting a Chardonnay, which tonight they weren't). 1999 Bouchard Père & Fils Grand Vin de Beaune Grèves Vigne de L'Enfant Jésus I don't drink a lot of wines like this. I drink plenty of unNatural wine, sure, but it tends to be of the low-cost-high-typicity kind (which I find to supply some of the best values in Wineworld). I don't drink a whole lot of Great Mainstream Bottles. I think they turn me off the same way Big Mainstream Opera Stars do: I just like things that are more unassuming. But I took my first sip of this and I was like, wow. It's smooth. But it's DEEP. First off, how can a nearly 25-year-old wine have so much fruit? And not just fruit, but really flavorful fruit. Age has robbed it of its brightness -- but that's the point of wines like this. The fruit is there. It's intense. But it's smooth. Then you get a cascade of flavors afterward. Everything you'd find on the floor of a forest except shit. And you taste each of these accents individually: this wine is amazingly precise. Then at the end, something reminiscent of Coca-Cola I swear to God. But it takes you a real long time to get to that end. This wine is definitely in its window. You don't feel bad about drinking it. But I wouldn't be surprised if it were going to keep on improving for almost the same amount of time its been in existence already.

Knuckleballers are always fun to watch. It's like a big part of their reason for being (as we say in English).

Better us than Other H.

Who would make something of tuna salad? (Except dinner!)

One other idea I had was that the sauce would be improved by -- that the lemon and ginger would welcome -- having slices of celery cooked into it (with the leaves than being used as garnish). Remarkably, that seems to have turned out to have been the case.

Sometimes you get ideas. When I went to the fishmonger a couple of days ago to pick up the shrimp (fresh and dried) for my Creole Cassoulet, they had this red grouper that looked just gorgeous. I had a dinner slot still open over the week, and I just couldn't resist getting some. I had gotten some fresh ginger at the Greenmarket that morning. So I quickly formed the idea of pan roasting the grouper and having it with a lemon-ginger pan sauce. This turned out better than I could have hoped. Grouper is pretty full-flavored. It didn't bow to the sauce. On the side, some more green beans, simply steamed this time. With butter duh. The wine was also an "idea". Sometime this morning it struck me that the lemon-ginger sauce would enjoy interacting with a sweet Chenin Blanc. Not a Demi-Sec; a full Moelleux. I figured that the honey that inflects even dry Chenin Blancs would compliment lemon and ginger; and I figured that the tartness of that unsweetened sauce (well except for the Vermouth blanc I put into it) (and all that mellowing butter . . . ) (I had toyed with the idea of making it a cream sauce -- but I wanted to be able to taste what the grouper was like) (and I knew by the time of cooking I'd be having this sweet wine with it), with its sharp ginger flavor, would be complemented by a sweet wine. 1985 Domaine Huet Vouvray Moelleux "Le Mont" This, too, worked even better than I had hoped. So well that I have to wonder why this isn't a famous pairing. It doesn't hurt, of course, that this is simply a splendid wine. The interplay between the sweet honey and the tart fruit elements, overlaid with more exotic fruit flavors, is um profound. And it tastes like it has another century ahead of it. When you open a Grand Old Bottle like this, you hope the food will live up to it. So it's a good thing that fish turned out so well.

I happily eat intestines. So why should the anus bother me?

Hmmmm. I guess I have to rethink this. I mean, I eat Maine at home. I just thought it wasn't up to Ori standards.

Worse. Maine Uni.

The one up the street from me certainly does. (Not that it's anything Ori and Sivan would ever dream of serving.)

This wine is just so APPEALING.

I can remember when I was the boy's age and I hated the taste of beer!

The key characteristic of a good Crémant d'Alsace is a very full flavor with a very thin texture. You can see why that would be appealing. This wine certainly does that.

You'd think eating pig anus is something you'd REMEMBER.

It's called "bung", right?