Mon Jan 05, 2009
Repeal Day
0 comments (0 views) | Posted by: putnam | Jan 05, 09 | 7:58 pm
Thu Jan 01, 2009
The Fork
"If the food is very soft or flaky (for example, fish), some choose to disregard the knife entirely, using a fork in their right hand and cutting their food by pressing down with the edge or with the tines of their fork. Sawing at the food in this way is considered bad form."
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Tue Dec 30, 2008
Savory Pumpkin Pie
I was looking at two pumpkins and pie crust. I did not want a sweet pie. I thought, why are pumpkins only used to make dessert pies? "Sugar" pumpkins are actually one of the most savory of the winter squashes, with their subtle nuttiness and wry herbal aromatic topnotes.
So I google the terms in the title of this post and there is the NYT's Mark Bittman's post on just this very subject.
"After" photo after the jump.
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Sun Dec 28, 2008
Milk
Terry Gross interview with Anne Mendelson. I drink both homogenized and unhomogenized Calder milk from the outlet in Lincoln Park. They both taste better than any other milk to me, even other non-homogenized milks ... so I guess I disagree, sort of.
Thu Dec 25, 2008
Wine Program Design
From now on, never trust a word I write. I am a vertically integrated provider of beverage and foreign food strategies for independent restaurants and retailers. I sell wine dispensing systems, wine, advice on packaged prunes, coffee roasting, menu writing, promotional help, etc., etc.
Here's my website still in development. Any thoughts or feedback that actually helps me will earn you a free drink whenever we can meet next.
Sat Dec 20, 2008
Web 2.5
"Designers. If you do the kind of work that you want to do, and put it out on the internet, someone will find it and hire you to do it."
Local Mustard
I bought this unit of Charley's Mustard at Leon & Lulu in Clawson. I had remembered seeing a picture of this product in a google search for "Red Pelican" (which used to be made somewhere on John R when it was the official mustard of the Detroit Tigers). I imagined it might be some kind of Ur-Red Pelican, brown like ballpark mustard might have been in the 19th century.
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Tue Dec 16, 2008
6 Questions Not to ask Your Wine Seller
Most of these are superfluous - beside the point. They are commonly used to advertise, often falsely, familiarity with the subject, armor against advantage taking.
Relax. Wine sellers want you to be happy so you will come back. (You may know that you only buy wine once a quarter, or year, but they don't.) If something goes wrong it is vastly more likely the fault of ignorance or bad luck than it is of malice.
1. Is it a "good" vintage?
This only makes sense for certain wine uses, like cellaring, which are likely to be irrelevant - good wine varies across vintages. Instead of "good," approved adjectives for vintage are: big, ripe, light, appealing, keeping, immediate consumption, dilute, alcoholic, tannic, schizoid, etc.
2. What grape variety (varieties) is it?
Ok, this may be interesting. Go ahead and ask. But try and resist the temptation to associate variety with style or substance. The variety is best regarded as a vehicle, not a flavor.
3. What's it like? Is it like a (fill in the blank)?
If it were like something else, why not just have something else?
4. Does it taste like grapefruit/cherries/coconut/etc.?
The predominance of single flavors is easily and artificially manipulated, a form of scent-branding, like laundry soap. It has nothing to do with wine.
5. Is it estate bottled?
This is a legalistic indicator of a winery's ownership of its vineyards. It may be interesting but hardly definitive of any specific quality. It does usually imply a higher cost. The exception to this rule is Germany. In Germany, only estate-bottled wines are worth a damn.
6. What score did it get?
This is the most abused concept. Ever. Most wines are never rated! Those that are scored are ushered into a separate media price-inflated wine economy. Scores obliterate awareness of the essential values of diversity and variation. Scores displace and kill thoughtfulness. Please leave them alone. They are training wheels for children.
BONUS. Four things not to say:
1. I like Pinot.
Pinot-what? There are several.
2. I like Cab.
Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc?
3. I don't like (fill in the blank.)
Generalizations are dangerous. A few stabs at Pinot Grigio in fine dining restaurants hardly show the range of this important grape. By the same token, even hundreds of same-tasting Chardonnay probably say more about mass selection trends than anything inherent about the variety (or geology). Most wine types have the potential to be delightful or they wouldn't exist.
4. Your prices are ridiculous.
Hey! Wine sellers are not highly compensated. The lucky ones have only rudimentary health care plans (no dental.) Decent wine is expensive to make and distribute. There is the growing, labor, risk, logistics, marketing and advertising. If you don't like the prices you are by definition making a comparison. (You know what wine XYZ is supposed to cost.) Prices for known wines are manipulated at verious choke points in the distribution system. These are not the wines value-seekers should be looking at. Ask for a recommendation at a price that you like and be absolutely severely open-minded when reading the label.
Ten Questions to Ask Your Wine Seller
1. Is it fresh?
Wine is preserved grapes. It should contain an aspect of natural fresh grape flavor. This is just as true for a barrel sample as it is for 100 year-old Madeira. By extension, flavors of the mechanics of preservation -- like raw oak or fatuous flavors of carbonic maceration -- only serve to obscure and suppress freshness.
2. Is it ready to drink?
Whether a wine is ready to drink or not is personal and culturally determined. Taking the broad view, all good wine is ready to drink, immediately (barring instances of short-term bottle shock.) Wines that are hard with flavors of sour oak, green tannins, cumbersome alcohol, bacterial funk or other things are not likely to "improve." On the other hand, ripe grape skin extract can taste fairly intense in the first years of a wine's life; you may prefer to let it soften. Naturally, there are certain vineyards which are known to produce wines that evolve and display an expanding universe of flavors over time. You might feel as if the wine is more "ready" after it has aged, but it would have also tasted good if you drank it without waiting.
3. Was it an unusual vintage?
Good wine is grown at the natural limits allowed by the climate. Only in certain marginal zones do phenolics (skins, seeds, color) and sugars ripen reliably at the same time (and not without sacrifice and effort.) So good wine will always vary from vintage to vintage. Each vintage has its own unique character and each vintage has the potential to produce wonderful wine. Some vintages produce wines for aging. Some produce wines that are immediately appealing. Some produce wines that are highly deviant in some way. Variety is the spice of life.
4. Why is it a good value?
What does this wine have that a wine of equal or lesser price does not have?
5. Is it mainstream?
This is actually a well-established concept. Most mainstream wines are carefully controlled, down to the chemistry and ecology, to satisfy certain performance standards. There are also a few naturally made wines that just happen to exhibit mainstream organoleptic values; these tend to come from the Languedoc and Abruzzi.
6. Is it distinctive?
This is the fun part. While many of the thousands of choices in the wine store are really just different labels (made the same way, by the same people, from the same fruit sources) there is an exciting range of wines that are distinctive and impossible to duplicate. This is where the wine shop resembles the museum or library or Wikipedia. There are always new sensations to learn about.
7. Does it exemplify an ideal? (explain)
Many premium Chilean wines are very deliberately made to resemble classic Bordeaux. Why? Bordeaux was the summer home, and therefore the liquid symbol of fine living in the last great world empire (England.) There are techno wines from Spain that are intended to be different from a more passive, oxygen-influenced and less marketable tradition. There are hipster wines from France and Italy that are made as passively and purely as possible, even at the risk of microbial instability. All of these ideals are valid.
8. Does it exemplify a terroir?
Certain vineyards have the magical ability to produce fruit so naturally stable that it seems to hold its freshness over a very long period, during which some aspects of the wine transforms, but the freshness remains. Usually these wines are identifiable regardless of the uniqueness of vintage variables. Oeno-archaeologists are still discovering lost and forgotten terroirs, but they are rarely as noble as the discoverers hope. Again, Germany stands out here; Germany is the best most cost-effective way to experience terroir.
9. Is it adaptable or is it best with a specific menu?
Loire Gamay goes with everything. 30 year old Champagne only tastes good with fine caviar.
10. Do you drink it?
Do you even drink wine? You would be surprised how many wine sellers rarely drink wine. Some of them prevaricate (lie) about this. Those that do love wine tend to succumb to depression and alcoholism by the age of 35. If you are lucky you can catch one of the latter sorts in his or her late-20s, when they still heal quickly and after they've learned some of the basics.
4:20 am
Cars are burning outside.
0 comments (19 views) | Posted by: putnam | Dec 16, 08 | 3:20 amNEXT page
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