The Rest of Us (cont.)

[Sneakeater]

Still have some stale tortillas.  So more chilaquiles.  (And I still have some more stale tortillas.  And boy did I just come up with an idea for the next batch of chilaquiles!)

Chilaquiles verdes con chorizo.  I had some leftover calabasitas, and this time I mixed them into the chilaquiles rather than having them on the side.  Because (a) chilaquiles are supposed to be a kitchen-sink dish and (b) dishes.

I had some green chili/ramp salsa lurking in the depths of my refrigerator that turned out to be great on this.  Otherwise, scallion and egg were the only garnishes (salsa verde [of a sort] was of course cooked in).

When I thought about it, despite my fucking around with reds, there really is one obvious pairing for this.

2018 Domaine du Carrou (Dominique Roger) Sancerre

It's mainly the salsa verde that calls for a Sauvignon Blanc here.  But Sauvignon Blanc is great with eggs, too.  And, for that matter, chorizo.

There's not much to say about this wine.  It's a good, typical Sancerre.

There's enough mediocre Sancerre out there that that's praise enough.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

On 11/18/2023 at 10:31 PM, Sneakeater said:

2022 Les Capriades Méthode Ancestrale "Pet'Sec"

*************

I don't think I'd ID as Chenin Blanc if nobody told me, though.

 

And the reason I wouldn't have IDed it as Chenin Blanc is that it turns out that in 2022 this wine was 100% Chardonnay!

Edited November 21, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Leftover pork chop made into a fake Calabrian ragu (fake because the pork wasn't cooked into the gravy but only reheated in it) (which is not to say it didn't have a lot of fat to give up to the gravy) (which meant this was another case where the pasta water turned a disjointed fatty/oily mess into a gravy) (I should be past being surprised by that, but I'm not).

With Casarecce.  Not a Calabrian pasta shape -- but it looks like one.  Which I guess shouldn't be a surprise, since Casarecce comes from right across the strait from Calabria.

Sautéed bok choi on the side.  I'm pretty sure they don't eat bok choi in Calabria.  But I cooked it like an Italian green, so none need be the wiser.

This was good!  They should make me an honorary Calabrian!

I understand they like to drink Gaglioppo with spicy meat dishes in Calabria.  I don't see drinking a wine that tannic and alcoholic with spice.  So I pulled out a wine where the Gaglioppo is cut with grapes we know better from Sicily and Gaglioppo's surprising parent, Sangiovese.

2015 Odoardi 1480 l'Inizio

Odoardi is one of those Old-Line mainstream producers that'll never be cool.  But they're capable of making some good wines that are good values.

Take this blend (its constituents described above).  The reason it works with this spicy ragu is that with age (and the other non-tannic grapes in the blend) its tannins have softened.  The fruit in Gaglioppos is never pronounced (it's there -- but it doesn't slap you in the face), but time has recessed it here.  This has some oaky vanilla notes that would have been poison with this dinner if they weren't recessed as well; they're more an accent than a note by now.  And while this might be a 13.5% ABV, it sure doesn't go down like one.

I would call this wine elegant.  Certainly smooth.

Did I mention it cost less than $15?

Edited November 22, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

I mean, I could see someone criticizing this wine as being too wan.  Not a wine to contemplate, certainly.  But it goes down easy on a Tuesday.

[Sneakeater]

I see that Eric Asimov had this to say about this very vintage:

Quote

I am fascinated with the wines of Calabria, the wild and arid toe of Italy’s boot. The Odoardi family, the label on this bottle says, has been farming there since 1480. I doubt anyone was making a wine like this back then, but who knows? This red blend, centered on the gaglioppo grape, is smoky, tannic and a little wild, like Calabria, yet focused and delicious.

He's right about the smoke:  I should have mentioned that.  (It goes with the toasty vanilla.)

Not sure about the "a little wild".

Edited November 22, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Just so you know (in the unlikely even you don't), the reason you eat so much Calabrian-style food in the Fall is:  hot peppers.

[Sneakeater]

(The Jimmy Nardello pepper -- my personal fave pepper in America -- was brought here from Calabria.)

Edited November 22, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

My butcher (not for long) got in a lamb last week that was nicer than usual.  When I commented on how good all the lamb cuts looked last weekend, they all exclaimed how good that lamb that came in last week was.  (I should have grabbed its kidneys!)

So I went a little crazy and got two loin chops and a rib chop.  This gave me a chance to test whether my preference for loin chops is real, or just something I think I think.

I turns out to be real.  Loin chops are both tenderer and more flavorful (you wouldn't think you could have both).  But certainly rib chops look nicer.

With mint sauce.  And some minted (frozen) peas.

The best wine with lamb chops is a Bordeaux.  And maybe the second best is a Southern Rhône.

Hey wait!

1999 Chateau Musar

(I really poured the za'atar into the lamb crust for this.)

A good thing about lamb chops is that they're easy enough to toss together mid-week -- but you can go grand on the wine pairing if you want.  Nearly 25-year-old wine?  Why not?

Musar splits the difference between Bordeaux and Southern Rhône, so it's bound to work notably well with lamb chops.  And yeah, this bottle sure did.

Now Musar, one of the world's avant-la-lettre Natural wine prototypes, varies more than most wines.  Not just vintage to vintage, but bottle to bottle.  Let's talk vintage variation right now.  Some years lean more Bordeaux, some more Rhône.  Musar enthusiasts love to parse that out.  I didn't take the time to do any research today (I certainly don't have this info memorized), but to my taste, this bottle is pretty much down the middle, with a slight leaning toward Rhône.  (There are some vintages that just taste like Bordeaux, and others where you wouldn't know there's any Cabernet Sauvignon in the wine.)

Maybe it's just this point in the wine's development, but this is also a pretty staid bottle for a Musar.  There's some funky muck at the base, but it's subtle.  There's almost no Brett.  This almost -- almost! -- tastes like a "normal" wine.  The fruit -- very slightly stewed by now -- is clear and, I must say, delicious.  Then spice and -- I was hope hope hoping -- some eucalyptus at the finish, to go with the mint sauce.  That's from the Bordeaux side.

The tannis are, by now, all resolved.  The balancing acid is still there (and the lamb fat was grateful).

Even though I have quite a bit of it, Musar isn't a wine I feel I can just pop indiscriminately.  But every time I drink it, I remember that (variation always being kept in mind) I really love it.  Sometimes I love it more than  other times, and a few times -- very few at home:  I've been incredibly lucky with this over the years -- I don't really like it much. 

This bottle tonight is singing.  And I'm singing along with it.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Sneakeater

[hollywood10]

2021 Domaine de la Voutre des Crozes Cote-de-Brouilly.  Very nice.  A beaujolais with some body.

[Sneakeater]

I had initially scheduled tonight's protein before I even realized the temporal context.  Then, it occurred to me that my planning was fortuitous, as the night after a big European Triumphalist dinner, some payback is in order.  (I did understand, though, that tonight's protein would not have been available to Indigenous Americans in Massachusetts.) Then I learned that today is Native American Heritage Day.

By that measure, my dinner tonight was something of travesty.  It tasted good, though.

Coffee-crusted top sirloin of bison, with a Bourbon cream sauce.

Bison is one of those hyper-lean meats that are among the few proteins that benefit from sous viding.  So I sous vided this.  Although it came out nice and rosy, it still seemed tough and grisly to me.  It may be that, at three hours, I didn't cook it long enough.  (I know people who swear that venison should be sous vided for at least a day, if not longer.)

The coffee crust compensated for the bison's relative lack of flavor, though.

On the side, a squash and bean dish that took off from a Lidia Bastianich recipe, and tried to imagine what Indigenous Americans would have eaten if they were indigenous to say Emilia-Romagna rather than North America.  (I don't see Bastianich's original recipe as being very particularly Istrian or wherever it is she's from.)  While wildly inauthentic to anybody's tradition, my dish was just peachy.  (RG Snowcaps, if you want to know.)  The balsamic-honey-rosemary glaze tasted great -- especially with the Christmas-themed hot peppers (red cooked into the beans, green cooked into the squash).

Also, roasted broccoli.  But instead of dressing it with Parmesan, I dressed it with Cojita.  See what I did there?

In the what-grows-together-goes-together category, the wine concededly wasn't grown on the Prairie.  But it was grown right near the Prairie.

2007 Stone Hill Norton

From Hermann, Missouri -- right on the Missouri River.

We now have a fairly definitive answer to a question few care enough to even ask:  can Norton age?  Because the last three bottles I had of this mid-oughts stash, which I just stowed away somewhere years ago when I decided I didn't care for the younger bottles at all, are much much better.  They're even kind of good.

Which maybe shouldn't be surprising.  What was wrong with the younger bottles were that they were incoherent messes.  I mean, sure, the individual flavors weren't anything to write home about, but what was worse was the way they plopped themselves down next to each other without speaking.  So you just got this cacophony of unpleasant flavors sounding off in your mouth at random.

Now, they've integrated.  And working together, they aren't even that unpleasant.  They are, as I said above, almost good.

A lesson for us all, this horrible Thanksgiving.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Ramp fusilli (deep in November it's nice to remember although you know brassica will follow) with creamy sea urchin sauce.  (I improved on a suggestion of Kenji Lopez-Alt and tossed in some Nonnata di Pesce.  It made the dish!)

Bok choy cooked like an Italian green on the side.

That pasta is one of those things (like Tajarin al Tartufo) that's really simple but contains an ingredient so expensive it deserves a grand wine.

2019 Alexandre Bain Champ Couturier

So after I threw a Sancerre in the refrigerator, I took it right out and threw in this instead.

It would be stupid to say that Bain's are the best Sauvignon Blancs in the world.  (Actually, I think the best may be this Natural winemaker in Germany whose name I can't remember at the moment.)  But Bain's wines are up there.

This is one of Bain's crus.  What's interesting is that in some ways I prefer his non-single vineyard entry-level wine to this.  The cadet just has more of that kick you want from Sauvignon Blanc.

Which is not to say this isn't a fabulous wine (nor that there aren't lots of ways this is better than the junior cuvée).  What sets Bain apart is the subtlety of the flavors he gets from what is widely loved as a pretty blatant grape.  And in the crus you get that in spades.

This leads with the citrus/exotic fruit/grass you get from all Sauvignon Blancs -- but in this case, it's like a syrup, with all those flavors blended together and mediated (not what you'd expect from a Natural wine, right?).  And when the minerals come on, it's like the same thing.

Did this go well with that pasta?  Are you NUTS?

I almost hate it when the first meal in my weekly meal plan (the plans run Saturday - Friday, since Saturday is Greenmarket day) proves hard to beat.  What can I look forward to?  (Actually, this week I'm not worried.)

Edited November 26, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

This almost tastes more like a Chenin Blanc/Sauvignon Blanc blend than a straight Sauvignon Blanc.

Which (SPOILER ALERT) will provide an interesting comparison with tomorrow night's wine.

[Sneakeater]

This wine could probably benefit from aging.

But you'd have to have the strength of ten.

[Sneakeater]

I've only ever had opah shipped in from Hawaii.  So I was surprised to see some at my neighborhood fishmonger (not for long) billed as having been caught off Massachusetts.

I did some research, however, and found that opah does in fact live in the North Atlantic as well as the Pacific.

I did a simple pan sear -- charred on the outside, near raw on the inside -- seasoned only (with a decent wait before cooking) with lemon juice, salt, and pepper.  I wanted to taste the fish.

Opah has the texture of halibut, with something of the flavor of striped bass.  You wouldn't expect that combination to exist.  It eats well.

On the side, some leftover roasted broccoli served salad-style, at room temperature, drizzled with saba.

And, since I think of opah as being Hawaiian, I used the rest of my coconut water once again as a cooking liquid for rice, this time augmented with rice vinegar and a good amount of La Boite Breeze mix.

I'm nominally sick and all, but this seemed very good to me.

I had just the wine picked out.

2022 La Famile Mosse Magic of Ju-Ju

This is a wine from a Natural Loire producer I just adore, one of my favorite producers anywhere.  I don't think I've not loved anything I've ever had by them.

This is always one of my favorites of theirs, a blend of Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc.  And it works just the way you'd expect it to, the SB sharpness cutting some of the CB roundness to extremely piquant effect.

Also, this cuvée is named after an Archie Shepp album.  What's not to love?

Edited November 27, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

This wine is just so lively.  "Vivacious" is the latinate word that corresponds.

[Sneakeater]

Sick food of a pretty high order, if I may say.

Penne with winter squash, roasted with sage and rosemary, and ricotta salata.  I crisped a few sage leaves for a garnish.

Slow-sautéed Tuscan kale.

I know there are people here who don't like winter squash.  But it's SO damned comforting.

Now you could drink a Nebbiolo with squash and sage (maybe make it an Alta).  But what that pasta really seemed to call for was a big, full, oaky Chardonnay.

And much as that isn't the kind of thing I habitually drink, I always have some around for just these occasions.

1995 Kalin Cellars Chardonnay "Cuvée W"

This is indeed a big full oaky Chardonnay.  But Kalin Cellars does it with care.  There's a balance to this wine that you wouldn't expect from a California Blockbuster.

So while this wine could only be described as "unctuous", it could never be described as "flabby".  The thick texture and the big exotic fruit flavors (there is no detectable lemon in this Chardonnay) and the very-much-there-but-not-overwhelming oak toast are balanced by a fine acidity.

Now whether you want that thick texture and those big flavors in the first place is another story.  I wouldn't want to drink this every night.  (I'm afraid to even look at the ABV -- although I tell myself it's killing a virus, even though I intellectually understand that viruses aren't bacteria and don't get killed that way.)  But with this pasta, it was fine.  More than fine.

Given the size of this wine, I decided to follow the canard that "Chardonnay is Burgundy, so drink it in a Burgundy glass."  With actual white Burgundies, that never works:   you need a smaller glass to concentrate the bouquet.

With this (tasteful) bruiser, it almost did work.

Edited November 29, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

It is a testament to the balance achieved by the maker of this wine that the dregs I am drinking down without any food are not at all unpleasant.

[Sneakeater]

Looking at the wine, it's that deep amber color that some mainstream wine drinker would see and go, "I hope it isn't oxidated".  Whereas I look at it and go, "MAYBE IT'S OXIDATED!!!!!!"

It wasn't.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Breakfast for dinner is an approved sick-food strategy.

But I don't know whether what people have in mind is so fried.

Chilaquiles rojos con chorizo y camarones secos.

I very much prefer my chilaquiles on the goopy side rather than the crispy.  But that isn't how I've been making them.  Today I resolved to fix that.  I was afraid that, in my usual manner, I would overcompensate, coming out with a kind of tortilla soup.  Mirabile dictu, that didn't happen:  this was just the way I like it.

(Also, my first time making chilaquiles rojos rather than verdes.  Yay me.)

Aside from the usual garnishes (the pickled red onions were particularly good today, if I may say), I had on the side some leftover beans and squash, with some kale cooked in to make it more credible as a vegetable.  Instead of the balsamic-honey-rosemary syrup that Lidia Bastianich has you make, I just drizzled on some balsamic and some honey at the end and threw on some rosemary.  I can't tell you I tasted a difference.

I was stoked about the pairing.  Although I'll admit that drinking Czech wine with Mexican food is such a cliche that I'm almost ashamed to admit it.

2019 Milan Nestarec Forks and Knives White

To me, Milan Nestarec makes some of the most fun wines anywhere.  And his Forks and Knives wines were calculated to be the most fun, or at least the least serious:  they were designed to be wines you'd drink with food at home mid-week.  (Or at least they used to be:  after this vintage Nostarec modified his vision -- or at least his ad copy -- for this line to be "village" wines modestly reflecting the local terroir.  I'm not rejecting the new approach out of hand -- but I'm worried.)

This, though:  a blend of Grüner Veltliner, Welchriesling (which is NOT related to Riesling), and Neuberger, with some Natural wine fizz.  I mean, you can just tell how good it would be with a spicy greasy mess like my dinner, right?

 

Edited November 29, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

I don't want to boast -- I mean, fuck YEAH I want to boast -- but the salsa roja I made to use in the chilaquiles was just so good.

(As usual, I hope you understand that I say that with surprise verging on shock rather than with smugness.)

Edited November 29, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

I had some excess coffee rub from last week’s coffee-crusted bison steak.  And also some leftover Bourbon cream sauce.

And I got to thinking:  what if I coffee-crusted the meat in a Mississippi Roast?  And turned the Bourbon cream sauce into an equivalent of the Ranch dressing goop?

I figured that the coffee would provide all the acid tang I needed, but would reward some real spicy heat.  So instead of pepperoncini, I flame-roasted some hot peppers and soaked them in water for a while before cooking.  (I then threw some of the soaking liquid into the pot for gravy:  this was wetter than a classic Mississippi Roast.) (The opposite of a problem when the roast is dumped on a mashed tuber, as it was tonight.  But I'll have to reduce the gravy when I have the leftovers piled high on a sandwich, as Sam Sifton would say.)

Don't get me wrong:  the original is still the greatest.  But this was definitely something you would eat.

Over some mashed Jerusalem artichokes.

I had some leftover squash 'n' beans 'n' kale.  That proved to be a perfect side dish (I really got the balsamic/honey ratio right this time) (not just between themselves, but the right amount on the vegetables).

This was just the food for a superannuated Big California Red with distinct coffee notes.

2007 Orin Swift Cellars The Prisoner

My last bottle, I'm not sorry to say.

But it's going out on a win.  The only thing wrong with this pairing is that the hot chilis in the roast didn't love the wine's high alcohol level.

But the coffee notes are even more distinct than I remembered.  The wine and the roast just kind of tasted like each other.

Win.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Usually when I make a Mississippi Roast, I figure if I'm cooking it I might as well have it, and I buy enough meat for three or even four servings.

This time, I thought, that's stupid:  it only festers in the refrigerator.  I bought enough meat for two servings.

And now, I'm kind of sorry.

[Sneakeater]

Drinking this wine down, this really is a testament to the practice of over-aging Too Big Wines.

This really is quite pleasant now:   lotsa flava, but within reason.

I'm still not sorry to be done with it, though.

[Sneakeater]

I'm really liking Jerusalem artichokes this season.

My increased consumption raises the question:  if you fart and there's nobody else there to smell it, have you farted?

(Actually, TBH, Jerusalem artichokes don't seem to affect me that way.) (Or maybe I just don't notice.)

Edited November 30, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Smoked duck.  This time I dry-brined it for a full 24 hours instead of just twelve, and that seemed to solve the flabby-skin problem I had last time I tried this.  Of course, this was also much leaner, generally inferior duck breast than the one I had last time, so that "helped" too.

Umami-setting rice on the side.  And Addictive Salted Cabbage which, while it might not have the sex appeal of Erotic Beef, certainly does leave you craving more.  Those Japanese really know how to name dishes!

The wine was something whose existence in my storage unit was something of a mystery.

2005 Schellman An der Südbahn

This wine was clearly not meant to be cellared for nearly 20 years.  For God's sake, it has a screwcap!  So how did it get stashed somewhere in my storage "system" where I was pretty much guaranteed not to find it until now?  I have no idea.

The good news is that this is not actively unpleasant.  The bad news is that it doesn't have much going on at this point.

Instead of sharp fruit, you get kind of fruit muck.  As I said, it's not unpleasant -- especially if, like me, you like recessed fruit.  There just isn't much there there.

Similarly, whatever secondary flavors this wine ever had (and there wouldn't have been many) have melted into the primaries.  With deep complex wines, that's a distinct pleasure.  But in a wine like this, that means there's even less there there.

Another mystery:  the front of the label very clearly labels this as being comprised of "Zweigelt 50%; St. Laurent 40%, and Pinot Noir 10%" (you can see why I thought this would be good with smoked duck) (if there were anything left of it).  But the back of the label -- and this was all on one sheet -- calls this a "White Wine".

Mysterious.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Sneakeater