Sneakeater

Oh! That totally makes sense.

I made a lot of new things this Summer. Not new in that I've never eaten them, but new in that I've never cooked them (or even thought to cook them). On the whole, they turned out very well. But if you'd have told me that my favorite would be a salad of all things, I'd have said you're crazy. But it is: the Ligurian tomato salad Cundigiun. The thought that I can conjure up a good approximation of this -- and that it's just fucking delicious -- is amazing to me.

Do radishes get more peppery as they sit around? I could swear that these were like A LOT more peppery than the first ones I ate from this batch. (That's a GOOD thing.)

The last of my carnitas. Eating them tonight proved two things about confit theory. First, it is absolutely true that meat encased in rendered fat lasts, if not forever, a long time. Second, in terms of flavor and texture, the meat so encased gets better and better. Tonight's leftover pork bits -- shoulder, belly, heart, kidneys, tongue -- were crazy good. I had them over rice, topped with radish, cilantro, and what you'd have to call deconstructed salsa verde. And of course a squeeze of lime. On the side, Guiso de Flor de Calabaza. An excellent dish -- and not too hard to make. My best pairing with this had been a Côtes du Rhône. So back to the Rhône we go. 2015 Domaine Jaume Côtes du Rhône "Génération" My tendency to (over)age "generous" wines might have slightly got the better of me this time. This tasted maybe a year or two past its prime. But it was still plenty good. It's a GSM blend from the northern part of the Southern Rhône. I kind of expected more Syrah -- one reason I held it this long -- but, as a famous rock band now in the news almost once said, you don't always get what you expect. So this tastes like a fairly nice Southern Rhône. The Grenache exuberance (which I personally find a little wearing, like a big dog that licks you too much) has been tamed. The only fly in the ointment is this slight bitter aftertaste that I'm pretty sure wouldn't have been there a year or two ago. And this kind of wine remains a very good pairing for carnitas. Keep that in mind.

Tangentially relevant at best, but I can't believe I never saw this one.

I mean obviously the only reason this pisses me off so is that they used to be so great. (Including so SMART.)

The Times also made THAT point.

I'm surprised you noticed there were other actors in that show.

If it were 1968 it would have been meant to be ironic. That's beyond them now.

Thinking it over, what pisses me off about that video is that it isn't particularly about the song, and it de-ages the Stones for no reason other than not to show them as they are now. Instead of having anything to do with the song, all the video shows is this Hot Young Woman writhing in response to The Stones -- clearly directed at an audience of Dirty Old Men who cherish the illusion that The Stones (and I guess by extension they) can still elicit such responses. Since as The TImes pointed out today, Actual Young People barely know who The Rolling Stones are.

Wait are you saying you don't have an infinite capacity to be aggravated?

Also, how do you not get pissed off at The Stones' attempt to conceal that they have physical corpereal bodies that have aged? THAT'S just pathetic.

If pop culture isn't worth thinking about seriously, it isn't worth attending to, right?

What inoffensive way is there to take the use of Sydney Sweeney in that video? (And not just on grounds of sexism, either: the attempt to create a fiction that Young People respond to The Stones.)

The lyric is contentless. But the video is vampiric.

The video harkens back to the days when the Stones weren't 80 or whatever.

Spaghetti alla Norma. (Yes, in view of the waning of the tomato season -- soon I'll be switching to Cathy Chan's tomatoless family eggplant dish to close out the eggplant season -- I went back to Spaghetti from Penne. TBH, I prefer Spaghetti.) Something else I went back to: I found a recipe this year that has you skip the couple-of-hours' salting of the eggplant before frying -- and I'm always one to skip a step if there's any justification for it. But for this near-the-last iteration of the year, I went back to salting. I can now say there's no doubting that salting materially improves the final result. On the side, sautéed Spigarello with blistered pepper and a good deal of garlic. When cooking for oneself, one can overcook one's vegetables to one's liking with impunity. One thing I didn't change is the wine pairing. I'm convinced I've found THE BEST wine for Pasta alla Norma, and I'm sticking with it. 2021 Mortellito Tuttu Rosso Mainly Nero d'Avola cofermented with some Grillo, Frappato, Insolia, Catarrato, and Perricone. You just look at that cepáge and you think, this has GOT to be great with Pasta alla Norma. And it is! Bright fresh fruit. Some salt on the finish to make nice with the Ricotta Salata. I have to say that Mortellito wines have been my discovery of the Summer. (The white blend is even better than this red-white field blend.)

The new album is so superbly great there's not much to say to it.

My MAN!

It's sort of funny -- Alanis would have said "ironic" -- that the Rolling Stones promote a song that goes "don't get angry with me" with a video that gets me for one pretty angry.

The competition for Best Symphonist Of The Last 50 Years isn't fierce. But Coates won it. The competition for Best Uses Of Glissando In The Last 50 Years is stiffer. But Coates won that, too.

I listened to that album pretty obsessively when it came out. But then -- you know how it is -- I kind of stopped. I have to get back to it. Obvs.

This wine and surrounding vintages of same are so much better now than they were when I drank them younger that I can only conclude that Norton not only can age, but must.

Another dish that it had never occurred to me I could like make.

Don't listen to me. I'm senile.