The Rest of Us

[Sneakeater]

I'm sure it would!  My butcher didn't have any chuck around.

[Evelyn]

I modify the recipe to use a pork shoulder (saving my beef allotment for Flannery ribeyes 🥰). It also works well with lamb shoulder.

@Sneakeater I do not leave anything high voltage on that might possibly short. I am probably overcautious...but...when I was a child, our clothes dryer caught on fire (lint build up) and would have burned the house down had we not been home. We only noticed it because smoke was coming through the A/C vents. No flames or smoke from the dryer at that point. Luckily the fire department was about 2 minutes from our house. That was followed by a former college roommate's house actually being a total loss from her crockpot catching on fire. And I always considered those safe. So I go the "better safe than sorry" route.

[voyager]

4 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

Mississippi Roast can only be made in a crockpot.

I've made it a handful of times and I don't have a crockpot.   Nor an Instant Pot.

I make it in Dutch oven IN the oven.   

So is this an Alabama Roast?    California Roast?    Holland Roast?

[Sneakeater]

I’m willing to leave my crockpot going when I’m out but not my oven. Since the whole point of an eight-hour dish for me is to have something ready when I get home late (from a concert, say), for me the crockpot is the only way to go with a dish like this.

The nights when I’m actually home I generally allot to more labor-intensive preparations. 

[Sneakeater]

California Roast!

@Evelyn’s is an Alabama Roast!

[Sneakeater]

Of course the people on that Southern foodboard would say that what I make, following Sam Sifton, is a New York Roast. 

[Wilfrid]

Okay that is all helpful but I am not going to add sugar to my Caipirinha or my coffee or tea. Period. Period.

[Sneakeater]

You don't have to add sugar.  Just don't call it a Caiparinha.

(Sugar in coffee is barbaric.)

[Sneakeater]

I mean it's like, if you don't like mint so you don't want to put any in a Mojito, God bless.

But don't go calling it a Mojito.

[Sneakeater]

Kathy Chan's Eggplant Dish (Grandma's Version).  Sided with a fried red pepper with some Calabrian hot pepper (and garlic!), topped with capers, olives, and anchovies.

If it weren't for the anchovies, and the egg, and the fish sauce, this would have been a vegetarian dinner.

Tonight's dinner negatively demonstrated the importance of mise en place.  Cuz I totally fucked that up.  What was supposed to be a quick prep after finishing some work after coming home from a show ended up being an extended process -- I finished dinner at two in the fucking morning -- cuz I just didn't plan it right.

It was good, though.  At least.

I was pretty sure I had nailed the pairing.

2019 Louis-Antoine Luyt "Gorda Blanca" "Cuvée Benoit"

This is a blend of Moscatel de Alexandria, Torontel (which is what they call Torrontes in Chile), Corinto (which is what they call Chasselas in Chile), and Cristalina (which is what the call Semillon in Chile).

All those grapes produce sweet flavor accents -- even in wine, like this one, that is vinified dry.  That means this wine could go up against the Thai Birdseye Chili in The Eggplant Dish and go head-to-head  with the fish sauce as well.

Of course, the risk with a Natural wine like this one is that things won't taste the way you expect.  But those sweet accents were lurking.  The surprise was a welcome one:  there's some salinity here, too.  Which just said "howdy" to the fish sauce.  Also -- not that unexpected, considering -- a strong Gewürtz-like lychee accent -- which was all to the good, as Gewürtztraminer would certainly be a prime candidate for a pairing with this meal.

Aside from working exceptionally well as a pairing (you can't see me patting myself on the back as I write that), this is just a really good wine.  It's complex -- which you don't necessarily expect in a white in the mid-$20s.  And it's complex in an "interesting" way.  But also in a very delicious way.  You can drink this.

So, another winner.  I'm not gonna say "another winner for Luyt", because the name of the producer has become kind of misleading.  Luyt has moved back to France with his family.  Winemaking is now handled entirely by the local staff Luyt had trained to work with him.

Now I'm not gonna complain about Chilean wines' being made by Chileans.  And I get whose capital remains behind this.  But it seems a little, I dunno, imperialist.

[Sneakeater]

Oh I should note that "Luyt" ages this wine for years before release.  This 2019 is the current release, hitting stores only recently.

That helps account for the complexity (and probably the salinity), of course.

[Sneakeater]

There's also a (slightly odd) (in a good way) smokiness to this (that may be where the salinity I was tasting came from).  Very nice with the eggplant.

I can't take credit for that aspect of the pairing, as I had no way of knowing that accent would be there.

[Sneakeater]

You know, a primary reason I like to drink down bottles I've opened is that I really can get a full feeling for the various flavor and textural accents that way.  (Eric Asimov would say it's because I'm depressed -- but I don't know about that.)

How people could have anything intelligent to say about a wine after taking a mouthful and spitting it out is beyond me.

[joethefoodie]

6 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I mean it's like, if you don't like mint so you don't want to put any in a Mojito, God bless.

But don't go calling it a Mojito.

To say nothing of things which are called martinis.

[Anthony Bonner]

If you aren't rinsing the glass with a Marten then are you drinking a Martini?