The Rest of Us

[Sneakeater]

Mississippi Roast over Pennsylvania Dutch pot pie squares.  AaronS is right:  brisket makes one fine Mississippi Roast.

Two tweaks this time.  One, a usual tweak of mine:  spicy pickled green beans instead of pepperoncini.  I dunno, I think they just make more sense in this resolutely American dish.  The other, a tweak to a usual tweak:  I usually put a leek at the bottom of the roast, for an allium kick.  But this time, I put in some celery instead.  I thought the celery would add some crunch.  Silly me:  no crunch (indeed, no visible presence) left after cooking this roast for 20-some-odd hours (after 8 hours, the brisket didn't quite "pull"; after 20-some-odd hours, it pulled like butta).  But, to my surprise, the celery did add a pleasant flavor element.  I never even think of celery as having a flavor, though of course it does.  And it worked very nicely in this Pot Roast Of Pot Roasts.

Steamed broccolini on the side.

For the wine, something from another state named after a great river beginning with "M" and ending with "i".

2013 Stone Hill Chambourcin

Chambourcin is one of those hybrids we hear so much about these days:  a cross between some noble European grape and a native North American variety.

But this wine isn't made by hipsters.  This wine is made by a stodgy old producer in the German enclave of Hermann, Missouri, one of the oldest (and certainly the longest-running) of the viticultural areas in the Southeast.  (I understand that Missouri isn't very far East.  But the competition is in Virginia.)

The first thing to say is that this wine is over it.  You read about how Chambourcin's "balance of fruit, acid, and tannins" gives it genuine aging potential.  Well, not this bottle.  On first encounter, the fruit seemed to have totally left the house, leaving mainly acid to make an impression.  Now, later on, I'm getting some impressions of fruit (the kind of bright red stuff that makes you understand why this wine is sometimes compared to Pinot Noir).  But there should be more.

It's good that the fruit finally showed up, though.  Because the secondary flavors, dominated as they are by sour biting acid, remain pretty unpleasant.

I'd give Chambourcin another shot.  But only from hipster winemakers.  Then, at least, any sourness in the finish would be a feature not a bug.

[Sneakeater]

Let me just add that it takes something special to get me to even buy wine any more (I've got enough on hand and in Ridgewood to take me WAY past any actuarial likelihoods).  But the first hipster Norton I see, I'm buying at least a fucking case.

[Sneakeater]

Not to mention Concord (which, to be clear, is NOT a hybrid; it's ALL native).

[Sneakeater]

When I have some appetizing

More than enough for one it's true

I forego all self-despising

I enjoy being a Jew

R&D sable, sturgeon, and smoked salmon on bagels with scallion cream cheese, capers, and lemon spritz.  Pickled herring with onions in cream sauce.  Radishes and their greens overdressed (it's a holiday!) with a Coquelicot vinaigrette.

2017 Domaine Barmès-Buecher Crémant d'Alsace Brut Nature Zéro Dosage

All the various Pinots (that means Chardonnay, too).  No Riesling in this bottling.

A very nice, non-special example of what it is.  Tart fruit.  The bubbles aren't tingly little things like in a fine Champagne.  No dosage means not even a hint of sweetness, which maybe made it a bit less festive than the occasion called for.

The sturgeon really wanted a Champagne.  Everything else was perfectly happy with this good bottle.

[Sneakeater]

2 minutes ago, Sneakeater said:

[DELETE][MISPOST]

 

[bloviatrix]

I had sable tonight for the first time in forever. It really could have used some single malt as an accompaniment. I find it hard to believe my mom use to send me to school with sable sandwiches considering these days you have to sell your first-born in order to afford it.

[Sneakeater]

I was shocked that sable now costs the same as sturgeon.  Sturgeon used to cost a lot more.

[Sneakeater]

And I don't even have a first-born, so I'm stuck.

[bloviatrix]

1 minute ago, Sneakeater said:

And I don't even have a first-born, so I'm stuck.

In your case, you have to sell some of your audio equipment.

[Sneakeater]

Some things are sacred!

[voyager]

41 minutes ago, Sneakeater said:

Coquelicot vinaigrette.

You are so cool!

[Sneakeater]

See what I did?  Bagel . . . poppy.  (Yeah, I'm sure you saw.)

[Sneakeater]

Tonight a tribute to the classic Brooklyn Hot Roast Beef Hero.  To be clear, this is not the Irish roast beef sandwich you get at Brennan & Carr and Roll 'n' Roaster.  This is the Italian-American roast beef hero you get at John's Deli and Clemente's and DeFonte's.  It consists of (a) sliced roast beef and (b) brown gravy and (c) mozz on (d) a hero roll (DeFonte's puts some fried eggplant on -- but they put fried eggplant on EVERYTHING) (they're like a non-vegan Guevara's).

But, instead of sliced roast beef and brown gravy I used . . . leftover Mississippi Roast!

Roast romanesco with whatever the current iteration of Tutto Calabria's Nonnata di Pesce is (profoundest possible thanks to joethefoodie for the jar!).

It is slightly disturbing to me that I will almost certainly not have a more delicious dinner than this rather quotidian offering for the rest of 2020 (if not forever).

I spent all afternoon agonizing over what Southern Italian wine I would have with this.  But then it occurred to me that the perfect wine for these two dishes is from a whole other place.

2019 Cacique Maravilla Pipeño

Pipeño is a rustic Chilean wine made from the Pais grape, which is known as Mission in California and Listan in Spain (the family who makes these wines actually brought seeds or maybe vines with them from the Canary Islands generations ago).  These days, at least the versions that find their way to the U.S. are almost always natural.  I like them immoderately.

This wine (famously) works with spicy foods because of its low tannins.  But it's the rest of it that makes it so gulpable.  I love all the dark red fruit.  I love the fine funky follow-up.  I just never tire of this.

Good thing, too -- because Pipeño always seems to come in 1L bottles.  Do they not get hangovers in Chile?  OTOH, tonight, under the circs, the extra milliliters of alcohol for once were welcome.

[Sneakeater]

I'm going to link this because it strikes me as totally offensive bullshit (that's my bottle of the night in the big picture at the top).

[joethefoodie]

Hey, you drank a Southern wine...just much further south than Italy.