The Rest of Us (cont.)

[Sneakeater]

MORNING AFTER UPDATE

I HATE high-ABV wines.

[Sneakeater]

More leftover Creole Cassoulet.  Wow this just turned out so well.  This is almost restaurant-quality.  (I mean, not Foxface Natural:  a normal restaurant.)

On the side, some fried green tomatoes with Comeback Sauce.  I don't think you're actually supposed to have Comeback Sauce with them.  But now that we know that fried green tomatoes are actually Jewish, I feel freer to take ownership and improvise.

(I don't think the originating Jews had them alongside a stew of pork sausage and two kinds of shrimp, though.)

Albariño's affinity for seafood is proverbial.  But it's also well known for standing up well to spice -- and the hidden kick provided by the Ghost Pepper soak the dried shrimp  got before their incorporation into the cassoulet (with all the soaking liquid going into the gravy) (with the Ghost Pepper carefully removed, of course) gave the cassoulet a solid underlying kick.

2022 Nanclares y  Prieto Albariño "Pergola Dandelion"

Alberto Nanclares makes fancier Albariños than this.  And in the cold light of day, they're better.

But this junior cuvée is such a pleasure to drink.  It's racy.  It's REALLY racy.  It's Speed Racer.

Tart front end.  Grapefruit and gooseberry.  Tons of acid underlaid by slatey minerals.  That's it.  It's enough.

As a pairing, it did work.  It has enough crisp flavor not to be overwhelmed by the extremely flavorful main dish.  And the acid of course works with the spice.

Something different for the next batch.  Stay tuned.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Smoked duck fried rice. On the side, slow-sautéed bok choi-mustard green cross (it's called Dragon something) with garlic chives.

My first thought was of course a Riesling.  But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted a red.

2010 Vignoble Guillaume Pinot Noir

This is a Vin du Pays de Franche-Comté.  Which I guess makes it at least Jura-adjacent.

This is a straightforward Pinot Noir.  But still a French one.  Which means that the fruit is less exuberant than even in a refined Central Coast Pinot.  (We'll get to the wine's age in a moment.)

So there's very cherry fruit, a little reserved but lots of it.  And not really much else.  No profundity, no mystery, no real forest sweepings.

But the fruit, the fruit is lovely.

Now this $20 bottle wasn't really intended to be drunk 13 years on.  I only stil lhave this one through the vagaries of placement in my storage unit.  I can't remember what the other bottles I had from this vintage, drunk long ago, tasted like.  But I remember being less impressed by them than I am by this one now.

What I like about it is that the fruit is just where I like it:  recessed but still THERE.  It's almost like a highly refined Hawaiian Punch.

And it did turn out to be a good pairing for the smoked duck fried rice.  (Pinot Noir going with smoked duck?  Who'da thunk? [sarcasm emoji]

Edited October 15, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

As I was eating dinner last night, I realized that the dinner I had planned for tonight was very close to last night's in flavor.  Too close to have them two nights in succession.

Fortunately, I had a stack of leftovers festering in the refrigerator from which I could pull a substitute.

Pappardelle with rabbit ragu.

On the side, some green beans cooked too little for Jacque Pepin's and my taste, but to a turn for everybody else's.  Sautéed with onions and, at the end, basil.  Drizzled with Saba.

The question wasn't what wine to drink with this, but which.

2006 Isole e Olena Chianti Classico

The back story of this producer is, if you don't know, that the De Marchi family, who had a small estate in Lessona in the Alta Piemonte, bought a rundown property in Tuscany in maybe the 1950s and relocated there.  The son of the family, Paolo, took over in the 1970s and was a major success, becoming one of the most successful and respected winemakers in Tuscany.  For all his prominence, he was a little bit of a Zelig, in that in the '80s and '90s he was a proponent of blending international "noble" grapes with his Sangiovese but now he's pretty committed to localized viticulture (he began to keep his international grapes out of his Chiantis and to bottle them separately -- and they were pretty splendid).  Paolo Di Marchi sold off Isola e Olena last year to retire.

Where he retired to is interesting.  Twenty years or so ago, Di Marchi reacquired his family's old holdings in Lessona.  He sent his son Luca up to manage them.  And Luca has been almost as major a success with the family's Proprieta Sperino estate in Lessona as his father was in Tuscany (it's gobbling up other local estates).  Paolo retired to Lessona, where, his handlers said, he could lend his son Luca his wisdom and experience.

One wonders how Luca feels about that.  Especially in view of the famous (and of course possibly apocryphal) story behind Luca's single most successful wine.  It's a Rosado made from the local Nebbiolo blend.  When Luca mooted the idea to his father, Paolo reputedly said that it would be idiotic to make a Rosado out of Nebbiolo and threatened to disown Luca if he went ahead and tried.  So Luca proceeded behind his father's back (this is where this gets a little hard to believe), and the wine, called Rosa del Rosa, was and remains a smash hit, selling out almost immediately upon release every year.  When he saw the financials, Paolo evidently decided not to disown Luca.

But back to this wine.  In 2006, I doubt Paolo De Marchi could even have imagined ever retiring.

This wine was made at the tail end Di Marchi's tenure as a proponent of internationalizing.  So it's mainly the trad blend of Sangiovese and Canaiolo -- but there's a splash of Syrah, which Di Marchi even now continues to believe can lend structure and substance to the somewhat loosely wrought Chianti blend.  (As for me, as much as I very strongly support the local approach in theory, I think Sangiovese tastes very good blended with Syrah or Merlot.  So shoot me.)  Anyway, it's only a splash of Syrah:  in this vintage, I think something like 3%.

Now Syrah is nobody's idea of a dream date with rabbit.  But Sangiovese and Canaiolo certainly are -- and as I said, there's just a tiny bit of Syrah here, deepening the wine's color as much as anything else.

Now there are people who'll tell you that Chiantis don't age.  And sure, they don't age like Barolos.  But nobody who insists against aging them period had dinner at my apartment tonight.

It's the usual story.  What this wine lost in fruity exuberance -- and let's face it, young Chiantis aren't very exuberant (maybe let's say "freshness" then) (but young Chiantis aren't that fresh) -- it gained in coherence.  There's still fruit there (and it's pretty nice).  But that fruit now moves seamlessly into the herbs of the Tuscan countryside.  Which is exactly why I like to drink aged -- even overaged -- wines.  (Although, to be fair, 2006 is recognized as one of the most ageworthy vintages of Chianti like ever.)

And probably thanks to the Syrah, this is still dark purple.  Not even bricking at the edges.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

The whole purpose of this dinner was to use up some feta that I  had lying around.

And I didn't even use it up.

A fairly genuine Greek fish dish, striped bass (OK that isn't Greek) baked with citrus and olives.  OK, Greeks would have used a sweet red pepper in this instead of a hot one.  But I'm not Greek.

Also, in the absence of anything Greek to serve the fish on top of, I served it on cous cous.  I put in a lot of La Boite Chios blend to season (and color!) the cous cous, though.

On the side, this dinner's raison d'être (well other than to take advantage of the continuing availability of striped bass):  Melitzanes Me Feta.  No question that that's OG Greek.

In a normal climatic year, I wouldn't be eating eggplant and tomato in mid-October.  The saving grace is that these were clearly end-of-the-line eggplant and tomato:  if there are any more next week, they won't be worth eating.  These were close.

The only Greek white I had around.

2022 Domaine Zafeirakis Assyrtiko

This is a relatively inexpensive Assyrtiko.  But don't take that to mean it's one of the watery plonks that flood the market.  This is a good, serious wine.

Grapefruit up front, pretty intense.  Lots of salt:  this tastes like it was grown on a smallish island (even if wine flavors don't actually work that way).

This was actually particularly good with the eggplant.  Which I wouldn't have predicted.

With its sharp acid, it also was good with the hot pepper I snuck in.

It's nice that you can get a wine with this much going on in it for less than $20, when potato chips, ice cream, cookies, Mexican soda, and beer cost north of $40.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

This wine drinks particularly good on its own, I have to say.

[Sneakeater]

Wait!  This doesn't come from Santorini.

It's from Thessaly, from the foothills of Mount Olympus.

I don't care:  I STILL taste salt.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

I'm really liking this.

I'ma have to explore this producer's other offerings.

[Sneakeater]

I like this more, for example, than the considerably more expensive Assyrtiko I had a few weeks ago.

[Sneakeater]

Apples along with the grapefruit, I'm now tasting, as the wine opens up.

And herbs along with the slatey minerals.  I'm flattering myself that they mimic La Boite's Chios.

[Sneakeater]

My most erotic Erotic Beef yet!

I had to freestyle.  I  never bothered to bookmark the recipe, naïvely assuming I'd always be able to access it through the link in one of @Orik's posts.  But this isn't a very complicated recipe:  it's sort of like losing the recipe for a Last Word.  And anyway, what's erotic is personal to each person, isn't it?  This freed me to change up the recipe a little (as best as I can remember it), to play to my erotic preferences.

Garnished with scallions, with some of those Japanese beach plums or whatever sitting next to the highly erotic beef.

One the side, some Tokyo Bekana dressed with sesame oil and a little togorashi.

I'm sure I tried this wine pairing before, but I can't remember it.  It occurred to me because I remembered Fiona Beckett once saying that Beaujolais was a red wine that goes well with Chinese food, meaning presumably (among other things) that it could take soy sauce.

2018 Domaine de Robert (Patrick Brunet) Fleurie "Cuvée Tradition"

It can't.

Throughout the meal, this just tasted weird.  The soy sauce in the sauce (I'll admit I put in a touch too much) kind of obliterated any independent flavor of the wine.  The wine seemed to taste like salt.

I know this was a fault of the pairing, and not the wine, because now, after dinner, the wine is its usual wonderful self.  I adore Patrick Brunet's Beaujolais.

Year in, year out, it's the same.  Absolute typicity:  it just tastes like a Beaujolais.  Flawless craftsmanship.  But still in a modest wine:  the won't blow you away, like the best Beaujolais.  What this is instead is sort of like the Platonic ideal of an everyday Beaujolais:  everything precisely in place, everything you like about this kind of wine is there and it's near-perfect.  That there's no idiosyncrasy is a flaw.  But it's also a virtue:  this wine is what it is, to the highest degree.  It will only surprise you to the extent of surprising you how well it embodies its type.

Which in my case is a type I love.  If you love Beaujolais, you'll love this.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

I mean, there's a reason I've been drinking oceans of Beaujolais for more than 50 years.

I just LOVE this stuff.

[Sneakeater]

Creole Cassoulet.  This has reached such a height of integration that I can only fear that the next batch will be septic.

And there will be a next batch.  I had resolved to finish this tonight -- even I acknowledge that cooked shrimp doesn't stay good forever -- but there was just too much of it.  But God this has now gotten so good that whatever my fate may be, it will have been worth it.

The side dish, though, was a failed experiment.  I got a kind of radicchio at the Greenmarket over the weekend that is new to me:  Galileo.  It looks like a cabbage.  So when I was thinking what my side dish would be with this Creole Cassoulet, I thought, butter-braised cabbage goes well with OG Cassoulet, so for this sharper, spicier Cassoulet why not swap in the Galileo radicchio?

If I had been thinking straight I would have realized that butter-braised cabbage is so good because the mellow cabbage melds with the sweet butter.  The bitter radicchio, on the other hand, warred with the butter.  Even the carrots i sautéed it with -- great with cabbage -- attained a candy-like sweetness after absorbing the butter that didn't like being with the radicchio at all.

What I should have done was saute the radicchio in oil and dressed it with Balsamic or Saba.  Lesson learned.  (What will probably be my next use of this radicchio is pretty sure-fire, though.  Stay tuned.)

The wine, OTOH, was an experiment that succeeded.

2013 Brunori Lacrima di Morro d'Alba "Alborada"

It occurred to me that if you have a sausage 'n' seafood dish in Portugal -- as you frequently do -- you invariably drink a red wine with it.

Of course there's nothing in Portuguese cuisine that's as spicy as this Creole Cassoulet is (or was:  refrigerator age has really mellowed it).  So the Dourox or even Barraida Bagas you'd have with a dish like this in Portugal weren't going to cut it:  too tannic to drink with the spice.

Young Riojas work well with spice.  But all the Riojas I have at hand are old.  (Everybody should have that  problem.)

Then I thought of this odd bottle I have laying around.  Odd in more ways than one.  This is most certainly a bin-end that's laid around for a long while both because I didn't previously much like its predecessors and because this wine is so odd that I have trouble pairing it.

But tonight's dinner seemed promising.

This is a dark purple wine with a light flavor profile.  Indeed, my past bottles have been almost all nose and no palate:  just an unpleasant bitter aftertaste.  (The highly floral nose, though, was delightful.) 

Despite that bitterness, though, there was not a lot of tannin.  But plenty of acid.  So this as a pairing for a spicy dish seemed like a good idea.

It was a better idea than I knew.  Cuz while Lacrima Morro d'Alba (it's from Abruzzo, BTW) doesn't have a reputation for being particularly ageworthy, this now-10-year-olld bottle was much better than any of its predecessors.

What's happened is that the palate has developed.  There's now some blackberry fruit -- and you can taste the flowers as well as smell them.

What had been a vaguely unpleasant wine is now an intriguing one.

Moreover, the flavor profile -- there's still plenty of acid at the end -- worked very nicely with the shrimp 'n' sausage 'n' pepper stew.

I can't take credit for the success of this pairing, because I didn't know how this wine had developed, that it now has a flavor to go along with its fragrance -- and that the flavor is very good with spices (well that I would have figured).

So no "yay me".  "Yay" the bottle.

Edited October 17, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Serve at about 10º above cellar temp, BTW.

(I mean the wine.)

[Sneakeater]

Braised lamb shank with peppers.

Like many of us, apparently, I am now looking for recipes that use up stuff I have sitting in my refrigerator and freezer.  (Tomorrow's dinner hits like the Trifecta in that regard.)

This is an adaptation of an adaptation of a recipe of FloFab's mom, purportedly combining Middle Eastern and East European elements.  Whatevs to that.  But FloFab's mom appears to have been a really good cook, cuz this was a really good dish.

On orzo.

On the side, the leftover remainder of my Greek eggplant/tomato/Feta.  Which actually was kinda appropriate.

This seemed to call for a Grenache-dominated Southern Rhône.

2016 Xavier Vignon Gigondas

This is the kind of wine I hate.  Big, spoofy, hedonistic, highly alcoholic.

But while I worried about the way the high alcohol would interplay with the (still not very) spicier of the two peppers I put into the lamb shank dish, I reasoned that its exaggerated flavor and mouthfeel would be a decent foil for this extremely highly flavored (especially the way I make it) dish.

And it kind of worked that way.  One way to put it is, you could still taste this wine with the flavor-forward lamb.

This wine is 85-some% Grenache and 15-some% Mourverdre -- and that's what it taste like.  It really tastes mainly of Grenache, Somewhat blowsy red berry fruit -- and lots of it.  Chocolate, all that other International Style stuff coming up behind it.  But the fruit lasts.  The Mourverdre is there providing some meatiness in the background.

And the high ABV worked because for once I wasn't resentful of pouring a good wine into the gravy.  To the contrary, I was releived at not having to drink the whole bottle.

Drinking down the bottle by itself after dinner, I'm thinking, this really isn't what I like.

But with the food, it was fine.  More than fine.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Wilfrid]

At a catered dinner last night I drank one of those big, buttery, hard candy west coast Chardonnays. First time in years, I think. It was quite startling (but free). The red wine was on similar lines, but not as dramatic.

[Sneakeater]

Vietnamese pan-roasted quail (a dish that used several things I had laying around needing to be used).  Over rice duh, with some Vietnamese style stir-fried vegetables (as far as I can tell, "Vietnamese-style" means nothing more than that you dump some fish sauce into it), also on the rice.

The quail was spatchcocked -- by me!  You always hear that two quail make a serving.  I am hardly a dainty eater, but I have always found one sufficient.  But then, I can rarely finish a whole grouse in one sitting.  (Also, eating only one leaves me able to make my very favorite quail recipe soon with the other of the set of two this was sold as.)

I thought I was being pretty assiduous in patting the marinade off the quail.  But it developed a thick char as soon as I dropped it into the pan.  I was worried cuz it looked burnt, but I should know myself better:  that's just the way I like it!  In the eating, the char almost functioned more like a lacquer.  This was very good.  (The best part was the little quaily helzel -- not gefilte, of course.)

I chose a wine that has the reputation of going well with Asian food.

2021 Benvenuto Zibibbo

Most Zibibbo comes from Sicily, but this one's from across the strait in Calabria.  "Zibibbo" derives from the Arabic word for raisin, an artifact of the time the Arabs ruled Sicily.  They didn't make wine, obvs.  So guess what they used this grape for?

I want to say I've never had a Zibibbo before.  But while that's technically true, it's not strictly true.  Cuz Zibibbo turns out to be another name for Muscat of Alexandria, and God knows I've had Muscotos.

Indeed, Zibbibo is most frequently drunk in Sicily as a sweet passito.  But they make some dry as well.  This Calabrian one is dry, too.

But you can tell it's Muscat.  It's weird to experience that burst of grapefruity flavor -- and it really is a burst -- with no sweetness accompanying it.  Weird but kind of nice.

And it makes this wine great for food.  Because it's another wine that won't be dominated.  You can throw a fish sauce at it (not literally) and it still keeps chugging along.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Sneakeater

[relbbaddoof]

21 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I can rarely finish a whole grouse in one sitting.

Easy shot, but I'm weak. Grousing again are ye, laird sneakeater, of yer excess of game?

[Sneakeater]

Fried breaded lamb chops.  I've always thought this was a Tuscan dish.  But I just read somewhere on the interwebs that it's a Roman dish that is "almost Tuscan in its simplicity".  So now I'm confused.

In any event, this is my favorite way to have lamb chops.  Or would be if there weren't Scottadito, and broiled and served with mint sauce, and whatever the Greeks do.  But whatevs, it's a great way to have lamb chops.

On the side, Roma beans braised in the soaking liquid of some dried porcini I used in last night's dinner.  Patting myself on the back because (a) this really tasted good (and particularly complemented the lamb chops) and (b) I'm such a bonne femme.

The wine was chosen before I even bought the lamb chops.

2004 Fattoria Viticcio Chianti Classico Riserva "Lucius"

Don't let the Chianti Classico fool you.  This is the kind of wine that would have had to be labelled an IGT Supertuscan before the Chiantese lost their integrity.  It's Sangiovese blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

As I've said enough times to be tiresome, despite my theoretical misgivings, I like Sangiovese blended with Merlot and even Cabernet Sauvignon.  For that matter, I like Sangiovese blended with Syrah.  When the Brunello scandal about the secretly blended-in Syrah erupted at about the time this wine was released, I was like, yeah, blend that sucker!

And I mean, what could be better with a lamb-chop preparation you thought was Tuscan?  Sangiovese cuz that's what you drink with Tuscan meat dishes (and I'll tell you what:  they drink Sangiovese with lamb in Rome, too).  Cabernet Sauvignon/Merlot because everyone in the world knows that that's the best pairing for lamb (OK Rioja).

And it worked.  It worked in practice just the way it worked in theory.  Some dusty tart Sangiovese, some meaty suave Cabernet Sauvignon with a ton of secondaries (including eucalyptis for that all-important mint with the lamb), and some Merlot to soften everything up.  It loved the lamb chops, and the lamb chops loved it back.  The mushroom water (which made itself felt in that bean dish, believe you me) also loved the Sangiovese with the Cabernet.

The smart money said to drink this up wine 10 years ago.  But I knew it wanted more time than that.  I just love where this wine is now.  Whatever disjunction could possibly have occurred between these grapes that aren't supposed to go together has long been smoothed over.  The word I'd use for this wine is "seamless".  Another word I'd use is "delicious".

Yeah, this is a totally mainstream wine made in the International Style.  But taken in moderation, with proper (over)aging, those wines can be good sometimes.

Edited October 20, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

3 hours ago, relbbaddoof said:

Easy shot, but I'm weak. Grousing again are ye, laird sneakeater, of yer excess of game?

I'm trying to figure out what the phrase "excess of game" might mean.

I know what each of those words means independently.  But strung together they make no sense to me.

[Sneakeater]

I finished my Creole Cassoulet!  Now let's see if I wake up tomorrow morning.

I still can't believe how well this turned out.  Not just that it was good, but that it tasted recognizably like something you'd eat in Louisiana.

I want you all to understand something about how I think about my cooking, so I don't seem like a total narcissist.  Sometimes things I cook turn out well; sometimes they don't.  I don't really feel like I, myself, have anything to do with it.  I think it comes from the universe.  So when I praise my cooking -- and I hope you can see it's always with surprise -- I'm not praising myself.  I'm giving thanks to the universe.

On the side, some braised mustard greens that the universe also was kind to.  Did I slurp down the pot likker after I finished it?  You bet I did.

I went with the obvious pairing.  Once you've drunk it with this stuff, you can see why it's the obvious pairing.

2018 Domaine Ricard Les Trois Chênes

Not just a Touraine Sauvignon Blanc, but a particularly sharp one.

So sharp, in fact, that I find you can't drink it immediately upon release.  It's too sharp then:  the acid is totally unintegrated with the other elements of the wine, and it's not only incoherent but actively unpleasant.

A few years in the bottle, though, and it comes together into a bracing treat.

Gooseberry and a tiny touch of grass (Touraine, after all, isn't in New Zealand) at the start.  Then very damp slate.  Then acid.

There's actually more here as well, but I don't have words for it.

So is this some cataclysmic wine?  No, it's a very (very) good everyday quaff.  One that was perfect with this meal:  more than enough acid to deal with the waning spice in the Cassoulet, more than enough flavor to match the multitude of strong flavors in the Cassoulet.

As I said, there's a reason this is the obvious pairing.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Japanese-Javanese fusion!

Smoked wagyu strip steak in a Kecap Manis-based sauce with smoked mushrooms, garnished with smoked egg and raw scallions.  On the side, a baked white sweet potato (a new thing to me) (less sweet than an orange sweet potato) with togorashi butter.  And ginger-sesame sautéed Tokyo Bekana.

Sometime this afternoon I formed the felt certainty that a Radikon RS would go with this meal.

2018 Radikon RS18

I didn't know how right I'd turn out to be.

This is a red wine -- not what Radikon is known for.  But their reds are great.

This one's a blend of Merlot and a local Friulian grape called Pignolo.  It was the Pignolo that made me go for this with this dinner.  I'd heard that Pignolo tastes like barbecue sauce, which seemed like a good thing to drink with smoked beef.

But that's not why this turned out to be a brilliant pairing (through none of my own doing).  This was a brilliant pairing becaue, at the last minute, I decided to put a medium hot pepper into the Kecap Manis-based sauce, and to balance that I put a bunch of stuff in that elevated Kecap Manis's characteristic sweetness.  So I ended up with a sweet-and-hot smokey sauce.

This is an "S" when, meaning it was supervised by Radikon son Saša even before his father died and he took charge of the whole estate.  Saša  is a somewhat more conventional winemaker than father Stanko was, performing shorter macerations and even adding a little sulfur when he thinks it's warranted (and putting his wine in 750ml bottles).

But that's not to say he's not a Natural winemaker and this isn't identifiably a Natural wine.  Slight fizz, laser-focused fruit.

The fizz was great with the thick rich sauce (and exactly on point with the chili pepper).  But what I didn't know is that this wine has a slight sweetness to it that, paired with its Natural funk, was just the thing with a sweet/hot sauce with its own Indonesian funk.

It really is kind of outrageous how delicious this wine is.  If it came in a 2L bottle I'd probably drink it right down.  (Although it's deceptively alcoholic:  something like 14 ABV.  It sure doesn't taste like it.)

The universe came through again!

Edited October 25, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

Caldereta de cordonices, a Spanish (I have no idea what region) quail stew.  You eat the broth on the side, over fideos (or, if you're in New York, skinny egg noodles).  The quail, out of the broth, is seasoned with nothing but black pepper and paprika.  You eat it over the onions that flavored the broth (more on that later).  This is elemental Spanish cooking near its most elemental.

I diverged from what Penelope Casas tells me in one way.  Apparently, the Spanish eat the quail only over the onions used as aromatics in the broth, discarding the celery that was also so used.  Why would you do that?  I'm here to tell you that, having sat in that slightly vinegary broth for a few hours, it was just about the best braised celery I've ever had.

On the side (along with the noodles), a Spanish cabbage-with-garlic dish whose name I don't know (don't tell La Theñora Pereth), with Gallileo radicchio once more subbing for cabbage.  This time the swap worked:  indeed, the vinegar you put into this might have been even better with radicchio than it is with cabbage.  And the caramelization that's a big part of this dish tames the radicchio some.

You could have a Big White with that quail (and I have one I was thinking about).  But that quail could take a very old Rioja Reserva as well.  I'm always happy for an excuse to open one.

1982 Viña Albina Riserva

I've drunk a bunch of this, and this -- my next-to-the-last bottle -- is the first one that didn't taste positively youthful.

Which I guess is a good thing:  this dinner wanted an old wine.

Not that this is pallid or anything.  There's still plenty of fruit -- but for the first time it tastes like old fruit, with a sour tang and a background of what you can only call muckiness.

And then there's that calm you get from old wines.  No tension at all.  Just this cloud of progressing flavors for you to lay down on.

The secondaries are all there -- leather, spicebox -- but mellow.  And really integrated:  you don't taste a lot of things, but one thing that tastes like a lot things (if you know what I mean).

I love drinking wines like this.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

HAPPY GOATOBER EVERYBODY!

Barbacoa.

Now this was't completely authentic.

For one thing, I used banana leaves (which I had lying around) instead of maguey (which I somehow didn't).

For another thing, I didn't cook it in a pit lined with rocks, but in an Instant Pot.

(I had it from a pit once in Mexico City -- at that very very Old Skool restaurant on the very edge of Polanco -- and it was outrageously good.)

Garnished with cilantro, Cojito, avocado, crème fraiche, and my homemade deconstructed (lazyboy's) salsa verde.

Since Nixtamal and Sobre Masa tortillas have mysteriously disappeared from my neighborhood, I used this second-string Old Skool Brooklyn producer I'd never heard of.  They were fine.

On the side, calabasitas (creamy cheesy variety).  And Mexican rice (which I'd never thought to make before) (if you're asking yourself, as I did, whether it would break a rice maker to use stock rather than water as the cooking liquid, the answer is:  not the first time) (PS -- if you've never made Mexican rice before, the secret turns out to be that you toast the rice first).

I make a pretty good fake barbacoa, if I say so myself.

I knew JUST what to drink with it.

2015 Domaine Le Roc des Anges Reliefs

This is mostly Carignan.  Most people say that the rest is small amounts of Grenache and Syrah.  But Becky Wasserman says (or rather said) that it's small amounts of Grenache Noir and Grenache Gris.

I'm not detecting any white wine in this.  But I'm not detecting any Syrah, either.

The reasons you'd drink Carignan with barbacoa are (1) Carignan is just good with goat, and (2) Carignan is a red that's good with spicy foods.  That's partly because it's got a lot of spice flavors itself.  But also, although it has tannins (which was good since I used a fatty combination of shanks and riblets), they're very fine-grained (especially with some bottle age).  So there are enough tannins to bond with the fat, but not so forthrightly many as would battle unpleasantly with the spice.  It has enough flavor not to get lost, but not so much that it seems like it's competing with the food for your attention (as, say, that Prisoner CA blend would do).

And it worked just like that.

This is an impeccable wine.  For worse as well as better:  I often find it too smooth, too every-hair-in-place, when I'd prefer something wilder and more individual.

But for the kind of wine this is, it's really fine.  And, at a mid-$20s price, a really solid value, considering how well-made it is.  (Old vines, too.) (Well, medium-old.)

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Sneakeater

[Sneakeater]

The consommé is now being used to keep the leftovers moist.  But it will be a great accompaniment to some future meal.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Sneakeater