Thursday, August 31, 2006

$12.00 jam, revisited

what's in my fridge? 08/31/06


so there is no lavender nor pomegranates in this sorry excuse for a foodie fridge. the contents of my ice box are so random because i have usually had to purchase strange things to diversify other items that i'm photographing... the fancy cheeses sitting next to canned tomatoes, the $12.00 blood orange jam in a small jar peeking out from behind a can of light beer (which isn't mine i swear.) but that is the methode to my strange stockpiling...

aaron, your coors light is still there waitin for ya.
mark, your fat tires are going flat.

all those vegetables - a little too ambitious a purchase on my part... i keep forgetting to take them with me to work, so i end up grazing on fig newtons or leftovers from when other people get to go out to lunch and i don't.



right in the middle shelf there is a delightful cheese, a big improvement on the last one i tasted, this one is called harlech, and it is a creamy Welsh cheddar made with horseradish and parsley. (add a little mustard seed and pepper stoli and it sounds like we're getting close to a good bloody mary, but i get distracted... ) harlech is a whitish 'mature' cheddar, perfectly crumbly with a mild snap but no deep breath to it like a goat or feta. the parsely gives it a great texture too; as, like a bloody mary or a soup, it's always better when you have to chew it. this cheese would be wonderful with a good medium rare burger or would give a great zip melted over fries... or pair it with a pint of boddingtons. i found this cheese at safeway, by the way...

Monday, August 28, 2006

future infusion



lavender is the new pomegranate.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

malodorous memories

epoisses de bourgogne - cheuvront wine & cheese

there are some tastes and smells that haunt me. driving 18 hours straight every summer from virginia to grandma's in chicago we invariably passed through that gem of a 'burg that is gary, indiana. whatever they're making there you smell the haunting gas/garbage odor in the car with the windows rolled up. it's definitely not louisiana, paris, france, new york or rome...

i worked for outward bound for two summers driving teenages who had not showered over the course of a 16 day backpacking trip in a two door mini-pickup truck - with my head out the window - and i still could not escape the smell of rotting fruit that poured off these poor pubescents.

i now have another malodorous memory to contend with.

Époisses is a pungent unpasteurized cows-milk cheese. it's washed in brandy with a distinctive soft red-orange colour.

it's so smelly it is actually banned from being carried on the paris metro.

i don't know how to describe the smell without using the word 'funk' in one form or another. i believe the sample we got was actually past its prime, as it was quite runny, and the silence around the table was only broken by occasional um, ewww's. it felt like my entire mouth was coated with butter made from armpit funk. (see?) it completely enveloped my mouth, nostrils and even ears, and, 21 hours later, it can still make me and my fellow diners shudder.

cheuvront serves tasting menus of three different wines, paired with three small samples of cheeses. this epoisses was served on a zinfandel tasting menu which was not quite hearty enough to wash the taste out away no matter how many refills.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

great grape: angeline pinot noir


i used to overcompensate for being self-conscious in social situations. to make my mark, i would try to assert my ability to hold my own by ordering bad-ass drinks like makers on the rocks and smoking cigars with all the boys. that would actually apply to wines too... only the biggest, spiciest, heftiest reds imaginable will do. after too many sick/fuzzy evenings and too much drambouie (neat) i have finally come to a place where i know that i am a bad-ass and i don't have to really flaunt it. it's just there, and true, and neat. now i know that subtlety is a gift, a makers mark should be shaken not stirred (no fruit in my manhattan, though, thank you very much), drambouie should just stay on the shelf (chilled irish mist trumps) and pinot noir is not just lame, watered down merlot.

i'm not going to reinvent the wheel by rehashing what the website says this wine tastes like... i'll just say it is delicious, and it's on the by-the-glass menu at tarbell's. and it's not wimpy or self-conscious. don't call it 'noir' for nothing....


Saturday, August 12, 2006

dishwatching: ginger snap

C H E L S E A' S K I T C H E N

Tuna Tartar and Guacamole Dip .......................................................................14
Ultra fresh blue fin tuna with shredded radish and soy lemon vinaigrette. tortilla chips.


wine pairing: angeline dry creek zinfandel ....................................................9/35

some places are hard to get a handle on - they seem to attract the most diverse clientelle, serve the widest range of menu selections, decorate unassumingly with no real thought... succeeding in somehow pleasing everyone from swank mr.- or mrs.-right-now to little old ladies who lunch, they are strangely comfortable, yet aggravatingly crowded. chelsea's kitchen fits that bill, with a packed parking lot at 11:20 am for button-downs with bluetooth's , and a busting-at-the-seams bar of mostly beautiful people after 8 pm. (or is it 'blueteeth'... whatever -they're idiotic...)

chelsea's, out of all the LGO hospitality exhibitions, takes the bravest (however miniscule) step out and away from the pottery barn catalogue as far as decor goes, although it utilizes the great space that it has poorly, ensuring long waits and dining at a one-foot-wide bar rail that taints the experience to no end.

a recent lunch visit was so tainted, with plates and glasses precariously and precisely arranged on this rail, where sitting at the (admittedly comfortable) leather bar chairs, you knock knees with whomever is seated across from you. just made the sauce served on the Howie burger even more tasteless than it was, and my medium rare burger had no pink to begin with, even less so when i had to drench the thing with mustard to give it any flavor other than too sweet carmelized onions. typically their medium rare is cooked to tuna steak specs, barely seared on either side. the fries aren't as greasy as wendy's curly fries but chelsea's has recreated the spices exactly, whatever that says. i watched one of the owners do a quick breezethrough which included reaching from the aisle back into the line seemingly to touch the french fries as he was walking by in jeans and a plaid shirt.

an interesting dish, however, is the tuna tartare appetizer. it's only as good as how fresh the tuna can be (way inland) and this fish was as the menu described. you can catch a hint of ginger added to the soy lemon vinaigrette, not normally expected in a guacamole dish. (barrio cafe adds pomegranate seeds to its made-at-tableside guacamole casero for an added sweet/acidic pop.) at chelsea's their asian/mexican fusion combination becomes quite snappy and cooling, balancing off the rich avocado. i only wish that the tortilla chips were a little thicker and heartier - they are kinda thin, causing more than a few breakages when trying to sample the guac and tuna together in one bite.

the soul of the wine...

...sang by night in its bottles: 'dear mankind -
dear and disinherited! break the seal
of scarlet wax that darkens my glass jail,
and I shall bring you light and brotherhood!

how long you labored on the fiery hills
among the needful vines! I know it cost
fanatic toil to make me what I am,
and I shall not be thankless or malign:

I take a potent pleasure when I pour
down the gullet of a workingman,
and how much more I relish burial
in his hot belly than in my cold vaults!

Listen to my music after hours,
the hope that quickens in my throbbing heart;
lean on the table with your sleeves rolled up
and honor me: you will know happiness,

for I shall bring a gleam to your wife's eyes,
a glow of power to your son's wan cheeks
and for this athlete flagging in the race
shall be the oil that strengthens wrestlers' limbs.

into you I will flow, ambrosia brewed
from precious seed the eternal sower cast,
so that the poetry born of our love will grow
and blossom like a flower in his sight!'

Sunday, August 06, 2006

speaking of ink....


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2292596_1,00.html

british times reported a company has applied heat sensitive ink to the outside of eggshells calibrated to the correct hard- or soft-boiling cooking temperatures - you buy the dozen with the setting that you want inked on it, and the ink will appear when the temp hits that perfect mark.


not that most brits need any help with their culinary skills - nooooooo...

i'm sure gordon ramsey just sensed a disturbance in the Force.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

exit, stage left



everyone i'm sure has their own opinions on certain food critics. reichl chronicles her shape-shifting stint as the dining critic for the Times, when she donned wigs and took on completely different personalities to try to preserve her anonymity in the cutthroat new york restaurant scene. definitely illustrates the theatre of the 'scene' as she describes becoming these characters, and trying to experience Daniel as one of the bourgeoise.

it really is quite a skill to be able to discern squid ink in a dish, or to recognize that a lamb dish sauce has been thickened with blood.

the language she uses... now i guess it seems eye-rollingly over the top, since any yuppie yahoo now extolls the decadence of truffle oil. see bruni's annoyance at that profulgation...