St. Patrick's Day Lunch

I've never really celebrated St. Patrick's Day other than the obligatory wearing of green to avoid getting pinched, but that's more of a good touch/bad touch issue than ethnic pride. Out of respect for the history of brewing I've never touched green beer, out of general self respect I've never dressed as a leprechaun, and because I want to respect myself in the morning I don't go to places like Hjálmar McGillicutty's Norwegian-Irish Chucklehut for loud singing and happy hour half price Irish nachos (made with potato chips instead of tortilla chips).

I was in the mood for cooking something different (I'm trying to exercise the culinary muscles these days), and as it had been so long since my last foray into the cuisine of the British Isles, I decided to make an Irish meal for Saturday lunch. I started, of course, with a very Irish appetizer: various American cheeses like hard aged cheddar from Fiscalini in Modesto, California and Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill Farm in Greensboro, Vermont.

The blue cheese was soft and tangy, but I loved the aged cheddar, with lots of crunchy tyrosine crystals. Rich and nutty and such a wonderful mouthfeel. And I had some naturally bright green Castelvetrano olives from Sicily, because I thought the table did need a little hint of holiday color. These are delicious olives, and are apparently quite trendy these days. A little salty, a little sweet, a little savory, and so cheerfully colored that you'll forget the fact that you used to own a jar of model airplane paint called olive drab.

OK, nothing Irish about any of that, but lately I've really been digging a nice round of cheese and olives with a martini before dinner. It is far from an original concept but it's often easy to neglect the classics in a rush to plop down an aluminum tray of frozen grocery store lasagna on the table.

Earlier on Friday night I made a simple lamb stew with a pound of shoulder, bacon, a can of Guinness Draught, some beef stock, onions, and a few other odds and ends. A few hours of braising and then I let it all cool and rest in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning I removed the rendered and solidified pork/lamb fat and slowly reheated the remainder. Fortunately these cuts of shoulder had nice thick marrow pieces, which I made sure to distribute throughout the sauce as it reduced.

In the morning I made colcannon, a simple dish of potatoes and cabbage. The more complicated part was making boxty, a class of potato pancakes that come in various forms from latkes to crepes. I decided to go the crepe route, stuffed with the stewed lamb and topped with a little sour cream. The boxty took forever to cook. Each pancake took a good 20 minutes, and I started getting annoyed at the whole process. I was successful, but it was much harder than making crepes or fresh tortillas, and the final product wasn't as flexible as any of the various wrapper flatbreads of the world. This is perhaps entirely due to my inexperience with a potato-based flexible wrapper, but frankly I'd prefer lavash or mu shu or blinis or injera over this particular form.

I grated a little green apple into the batter, and despite the difficulty (I only made four pancakes in the 80 minutes of griddle time), the combination of the potatoes, eggs, apple, lamb, and sour cream was really wonderful and filling. Washing it all down with cold and smooth dark beer was fun as well, and I was finally able to relax after hours of cooking and ponder the question of overthinking the peasant fare that I adore. Remember the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. It probably would have been a better idea to do the simpler latke-style boxty with a combination of mashed and grated potato, and I still could have topped it with lamb stew and cream and even a decorative garnish of microgreens that looked like tiny shamrocks, but it wouldn't have taken anywhere near as long.

But at the end of the day, I had a great meal, good company, delicious beer, and didn't have to wade through a horde of idiots wearing "KISS ME--I'M IRISH!" buttons. Instead, it was a quiet meal between a Scots Presbyterian (yours truly) and a redheaded Irish Catholic (Julia) that didn't involve warfare, internecine domestic violence, or the mediation of Bill Clinton on the public stage. Rather, I think that the Irish and most folks around the world would prefer a gentle and respectful celebration of their holidays by non-residents, and I hope that I have done so in this post.

Fee Bros. Gin Barrel-Aged Orange Bitters

Not that long ago, I knew nothing about bitters aside from having seen yellow-capped bottles of Angostura from time to time and hearing something about it on Lynn Rossetto Kasper's The Splendid Table in the late 90s. Now I get obscure bitters delivered right to my front door.

Ellen Fee and the other folks at Fee Brothers have been good to me over the years, allowing me to try some special bitters after I fell in love with their collection. The grapefruit bitters are getting low, while the rhubarb bottle is still pretty full. But I love breaking them out for friends and family to sniff or sample in a cocktail.

You probably won't get to try this latest concoction, as only four barrels were made. Why such a small batch? Well, it's a test idea that Ellen had, and the recipe requires aging in barrels that previously held Old Tom Gin. Gin is not typically aged in wood but in skilled hands it can produce a fascinating liquor. Old Tom Gin is a lightly sweetened style that was popular in England in the 1700s and is mostly a curiosity these days.

Fee Bros. Gin Barrel-Aged Orange Bitters
Rochester, New York
5 oz.

It includes gentian and "oil of bitter orange terpeneless", which means that a certain class of organic compounds produced by certain plants (it's where we get the word turpentine) have been removed. but let's get away from chemistry (which plays a very important role in bitters production) and move on to aroma. Most orange bitters have a pretty bright and citric character, along with whatever herbs and spices were included to enhance the flavor. This is different, and the best way I could describe it is by eating orange-scented cookies around Christmas. It's a mellower, cooked orange aroma, with dark spices and juniper and all of the interesting elements leached from whatever gin was used to produce this. Slight caramelized aroma, and you'll be reminded of herbal tea.

I tried it with the pretty basic New Amsterdam gin, which is the house gin of Casa de Benito and one that is smooth but not heavily flavored in any particular direction. When combined with the Old Tom bitters, it was suddenly a much better gin. I will experiment with cocktails further, but the idea of a "gin booster" is a fascinating one and I'd like to surprise a few friends with a blind tasting.


Note: This bottle was received as a sample.

The Beauty Shop Lunch

A few weeks ago I took Julia to The Beauty Shop, an interesting little restaurant in the Cooper-Young district of Memphis. It's a converted hair salon that still has the hairwashing sinks behind the bar and you can sit under the old hairdryers in the back. I like it because of the great cocktails and eclectic, constantly changing menu. Plus, it's really fun to take someone there for the first time, and we had a great little lunch. The following weekend I decided to recreate it at home. Anything you see here is the creativity of the Beauty Shop staff, and any flaws in the execution are my own fault. I take no credit here beyond the fact that a particular joy of cooking is the ability to have a great meal and then pull it off with your own kitchen.

First up: the appetizers with assorted cheeses, olives, marinated mushrooms, and some other neat things. They had a nut-brown sugar-butter spread that was delicious, and a dish of canned cherries that had been reduced down with balsamic vinegar. I did a decent job with the spread using walnuts, and found that sea salt was crucial to bringing out the flavor. My cherries were not pretty to begin with, but flavorwise I got pretty close with a slow reduction using both balsamic and red wine vinegar. The cheeses here are Manchego, Gouda, something Basque, and something else from the Netherlands.

I had a roast beef sandwich of some sort at the restaurant, but Julia picked their ham and cheese which included thin slices of apple and spicy brown mustard. When I made it, I used mandoline slices of Asian pear, Black Forest ham, smoked cheddar, and a combination of oak leaf lettuce and frisée. Like the restaurant, I did not grill the whole sandwich but merely used lightly toasted bread to make the sandwich. Minus the lettuce, I've made similar sandwiches in a skillet.

It's a great flavor combination and I had a few more of these over the next few days with the ample spare ingredients. Wrapped tightly they also last long enough to make in the evening and enjoy at lunch the next day.

The Beauty Shop serves sandwiches and other lunch items with freshly fried potato chips and a garlic-chili aïoli. For my aïoli, I used Sriracha sauce to spice it up with excellent results. Aïoli is not the kind of thing you want to eat every day, but man, it's delicious. I left half of the batch plain and found it tasty, but so much better with that squirt of Sriracha. Here's the recipe I used, not really taken from anywhere but just a result of trial and error.

Benito's Aïoli
5 Cloves of Garlic
Dash of Dijon Mustard
1 Egg Yolk
½ Lemon, Juiced
Dash of Sea Salt
A few turns of freshly ground Black/White Pepper
1 Cup of Pure Olive Oil (no extra virgin necessary)

Combine everything except the oil in a blender or in a cup with a stick blender. Then slowly drizzle in the cup of olive oil while blending. That's it. You can modify this in hundreds of different ways, either by adding chopped herbs or by using different vinegars instead of lemon juice. Throw in some hot sauce like Sriracha or toss in diced cornichons, go crazy.

2010 Domaine de la Tourmaline Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie

Muscadet is a light white wine from France traditionally paired with oysters. And I love oysters, but I really don't like shucking them myself. I know a few places around town where I can have dozens of Ameripure oysters for next to nothing, and while I like the restaurant standard oyster, I really miss traveling to other cities where I could try a dozen different east coast or west coast bivalves depending on what was in season. Tiny salty ones paired with a grapefruit granita or big buttery ones served with mignonette sauce... Anyway, I chose to buck tradition and regions and serve the wine with pasta and rapini.

2010 Domaine de la Tourmaline Muscadet Sèvre et Maine sur lie
Made by Gadais Père & Fils
Melon de Bourgogne
$14, 12% abv.

This is distributed in the US by Cognac One, known to me as the provider of the various interesting wines of Xavier Flouret that I've reviewed over the years. Light floral nose with a touch of lemony acidity and a great mineral tone. Overall mild body and a slight finish. I haven't had many restrained French whites recently and this was a pure delight to try. While it would work great with oysters or other fresh shellfish, I defend my choice to pair it with the following dish.

Speaking of minerals, geology fans will enjoy the fact that the name includes the semi-precious stone tourmaline and that the grapes grew in soil full of mica gneiss, a type of metamorphic rock.

Yes, when taking a walk, I pick up odd rocks and have a bit of training in the subject.

For the pasta dish, I started with olive oil and diced shallots and garlic, followed by red bell pepper and a big dollop of tomato paste. I added chicken stock and white wine, and after reduction, I introduced chopped rapini to let the leaves wilt and the stalks and blossoms to soften. At the last minute I introduced sliced salsiccia, sweet Italian sausage that I'd previously simmered then browned. A dash of dried pepper flakes, a little red wine vinegar, a few other touches of magic and a final toss of shredded Asiago cheese with the tongs, and we've got a good meal.

This was a very fun wine pairing, and although the Loire is not near the Mediterranean, I like mixing French/Italian/Spanish foods with French/Italian/Spanish wines. I do so in the tradition of Phoenician traders 3000 years ago. I'm guessing they didn't get too picky about matching the right grape to the right culinary tradition, and their Egyptian customers were probably even less discerning.

Folks, as you pop a cork and let fermented grape juice fall out of a bottle, never forget that you're experiencing history in a glass.


Note: This wine was received as a sample.

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay

Here are a few wine notes from a month ago that I'd neglected to turn into posts. Nothing wrong with the wines--in fact, I really enjoyed these. But sometimes you get caught up with other things, and sometimes you want to wax nostalgic about your Scouting days, and sometimes you're more in the mood to write about cooking.

I don't review every wine that I taste, though that was the goal of the blog in the first two years. And I slogged through it with notes and links and prices on everything I tasted, which was kind of crazy since I was mainly going to free tastings on weekends and reviewing 10-20 wines per post. Now I write about far fewer wines but spend more time with them. Perhaps during my 10th anniversary year I'll just write about one wine a month, but it will be some legendary, rare vintage plucked out of a cellar in Bordeaux. A fella can dream, can't he?

2008 Foley Chardonnay Rancho Santa Rosa
Sta. Rita Hills, California
$30, 14.4% abv.
Honey and vanilla with a touch of coconut. Firm acidity, long finish. A surprisingly tropical Chardonnay with an excellent use of oak. While tasting it I found myself wishing that it was summer and that I had some Thai food in front of me. The aromas on this wine are not too strong, but it is a very fun wine to let novices sniff while they try to figure out what those elements are in their glass of white wine.

2009 Parducci Small Lot Blend Pinot Noir
California
$12, 13.5% abv.
Firm tannins but still smooth and creamy. Strawberry with slight leather and smoke. This is a bargain Pinot Noir without a lot of complexity, but it works well. I enjoyed it with leftover turkey sandwiches during the holidays, and the combination made for a pair of delightful weekend lunches.

2009 Craggy Range Te Muna Road Vineyard Pinot Noir
Martinborough, New Zealand
$40, 14.4% abv.
This one probably deserved its own post, but I did recently get the opportunity to try two other wines from Craggy Range. This dignified Pinot Noir was fascinating with a solid body and great red berry flavors. Elements of spice and a hint of raspberry seed, medium tannins, and firm acidity. As it opened up, floral and additional spice aromas were present. Even though it was two years old at the time, I still felt that it was not quite ready. In a few years this should be spectacular. I'm not an expert on aging and cellaring, but if you do enough verticals and early release samples from established winemakers, you start to figure out the differences between a "drink now" wine and a "arrggh... why didn't I hold onto this for half a decade?" wine. Which means that if you're thirsty now, you might want to be on the lookout for any surviving bottles from 2004, and set this vintage aside for enjoying during the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.


Note: These wines were received as samples.

Merit Badges

"Where are the wine reviews?" Patience, young grasshopper. There's some wine in the cellar downstairs, and a couple of wine reviews that I haven't posted yet, but I've finally worked my way through the waves of Christmas/New Year's Eve/Valentine's Day wines, and am currently in the ebb before the next big wine marketing holiday: St. Patrick's Day. Yes, there are wines with green labels and wines with Irish names, and all joking aside, there are various bottles on their way. This blog won't stop if the faucet gets turned off, but it will give me a chance to focus more on food and beer and cocktails and essays and other fun stuff.

I had planned on writing a long essay about getting my Cooking merit badge in Scouts, but when I went to grab my old sash it was notoriously missing. And now I don't think I ever earned it, though I certainly met all the requirements and did all the work. (The white sash is a separate one for the Order of the Arrow, an honor society. Longer story that I won't get into here.)

What are merit badges, and how do they work? As you advance through the ranks, you have to have various required merit badges (silver border) and enough electives (green border). The requirements have changed a bit over the years, but in general it's always been around 11 required badges and 10 electives, plus all of the various other requirements, leadership roles, and community service to make it to Eagle, which I did in 1991. You can continue earning merit badges until you turn 18, which is why I have a total of 36. For the required badges, you generally have assigned instructors and very rigorous rules. For electives, you're either getting it at camp through organized classes, or you're seeking out an expert in the field to teach you the subject because you're interested in it. Some people get every merit badge, but it's very rare. Some of these badges involved a few days, some took years, some I barely remember, and others almost killed me. I've always wanted to list them out, so here goes...

From left to right, top to bottom, more or less in chronological order from 1986-1993:

• Citizenship in the World: Basically social studies class with a bit of geography thrown in.
  
• Swimming: Surprisingly difficult, with a lot of attention on how not to drown. More survival if you fall out of a boat than learning specific swimming techniques, though we were tested on all of those as well. This one was a make or break moment for a lot of guys over the years.
  
• Safety: Pretty general subject, but some good common sense stuff.
  
• Home Repairs: I don't remember a lot of this, aside from basic plumbing and carpentry.
  
• Traffic Safety: Essentially Driver's Ed long before you can drive. I think this was probably more intensive in earlier days, as I've met guys at reunions who talked about learning to drive via our Scoutmaster and having him take them to their license tests.
  
• Rifle Shooting: For this we shot .22 calibre rifles and I was a good enough shot to pass. My brother is an expert marksman and in our family there are lots of guns, but the sport never quite clicked with me, even while shooting oddballs like a .50 calibre black powder rifle.
  
• Reading: I think I had to do a book report for this, and since I was a kid who sometimes wrote term papers for practice in the summer, I was way overqualified for this one.
  
• Genealogy: Very interesting, and I got to do a lot of work with a few relatives who were really into the subject.
  
• Shotgun Shooting: Basically like rifle shooting, except that I really enjoyed shooting clay targets with a 20 gauge. The Roommate has a 16 gauge in the closet that doesn't get any use, so I should probably take up this gentleman's sport again at some point.
  
• Pioneering: Making structures based on chopping down saplings and binding them together with rope. Surprisingly difficult to pull off well and safely, and you learn a lot of primitive engineering techniques.
  
• Aviation: A cherished memory, and something of a rare badge to earn. Dad had his single engine pilot's license and needed to get some hours in, so we did all of the preflight checks and filed a flight plan and everything else required for the badge while flying around south Memphis/northern Mississippi.
  
• First Aid: One of the best I ever took, and I've used the lessons learned with this badge many times over the years.
  
• Mammal Study: The first goofy summer camp badge I ever earned, which involved writing a report on river otters and building a habitat for various ground rodents.
  
• Canoeing: Loads of fun, and I loved canoeing for years afterward. It was good to learn some proper technique and how to recover from a tipped canoe in a safe environment.
  
• Indian Lore: A simple look at Native American culture, and may have indirectly influenced my later choice for an Anthropology major.
  
• Wilderness Survival: Probably my favorite of all time, since it involved going out in the woods, building your own shelter, and sleeping in it overnight. Multiple other tests for managing to live in the woods on your own without the benefits of civilization. I've always felt that if society completely collapses, I'll be fine for a good long while.
  
• Basketry: As much of a joke as it sounds, though I still have the little wicker basket from 1988 and keep change in it.
  
• Citizenship in the Nation: Another social studies class.
  
• Woodcarving: I think I made a neckerchief slide and learned how to not cut myself, which was a bit late judging by the scars on my fingers.
  
• Leatherwork: Arts and crafts time, with emphasis on stamping patterns into leather sheets.
  
• Citizenship in the Community: Social studies class. By the way, these were good classes, I just don't have a lot to say about them.
  
• Nature: Normally a simple badge, but in my Troop it was a requirement for Eagle and our Scoutmaster made up his own requirements. We had to be able to identify more than 40 trees (even in the winter, without leaves), plus bird identification and other requirements. This one took me years of hikes through neighborhoods and forests.to finally earn it. It drove me crazy at the time but I can still identify trees at a great distance or sometimes just by a piece of bark.
  
• American Heritage: More social studies.
  
• Camping: This was something you sort of earned out of endurance, by completing a number of nights spent outdoors and the ability to pitch a tent and build a fire and not starve over a weekend.
  
• Environmental Science: Fellow Scouts of my era will know why this one was difficult, but I'll leave it at that. Another one that took months of work.
  
• Sailing: The most fun I ever had with a merit badge. Tiny one-person sailboats with a single sail, one seat, and a dagger board you had to drop through the hull before going out on the water. Learning to tack into the wind and not get hit in the head with the boom, and then you learn to catch the breeze just right and you zip across the lake while you're just two feet above the surface... heaven.
  
• Lifesaving: The one that damned near killed me. It's all about how to save someone who is drowning, which is accomplished by taking a 13 year old and having to rescue drowning adults, who punch you and try to dunk you and otherwise act like a frantic, scared drowning victim. Also fun was diving into a murky lake to pull up a cinder block (the "victim") before brain death occurred. You dive, hear the minute count, you dive again, etc., if you fail, the victim dies. Keep at it until you can save the victim in time. This one made me angry at the time, but I'm so glad that I went through that training.
  
• Communications: Public speaking and letter writing and other good gentlemanly skills. I'm still exceptionally polite on the phone because of this and my parents' upbringing.
  
• Personal Management: A difficult one that involved six months of work. This was basically an economics class, which involved learning about banking and taxes and other things. As part of the class I had to meet with a loan officer and go through a sample credit approval process.
  
• Pottery: Everything from here on out is just gravy, since I'd already reached the rank of Eagle. Can't remember anything about this one, but I had a fun week at a new Scout camp.
  
• Archery: A lot of fun, and I still have my old scores and worksheets from this for some reason. I love archery.
  
• Sculpture: Like pottery, I have no memory of this one, and probably don't deserve it.
  
• Rowing: I worked hard at this one, though I didn't really enjoy it. Canoeing is great because one person can lift a canoe and paddle it and they're pretty quick on rivers. Rowboats are heavy, slow, and you can't see where you're going. I'd hop in a canoe in a minute, but you'd have to force me back into a rowboat.
  
• Horsemanship: A great class that involved not only riding but also grooming, including cleaning the hooves. Along with earning a lot of respect for horses, I also managed to get bit and kicked by a new animal. (Before collecting wine grapes, I loved to list off all of the various critters that had gnawed on my flesh. Getting bitten by snakes is painful, but moles have a certain rage that is just scary.)
  
• Backpacking and Hiking: The last two were earned as a result of two separate treks at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico, in the lower range of the Rockies known as the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Each trek involved two weeks in the mountains, carrying a pack between 40-50 lbs. depending on water and provisions, and days that included waking up in snow and spending the day slogging through hot desert with sand and cactus. Those experiences could fill an entire book, and serve as a fitting conclusion to the sash and to this post.

queue de boeuf à l'haïtienne

When I read the Knipples' book The World in a Skillet, many all of the recipes made me hungry. However, one jumped out as the dish I'd have to try first. I've never had Haitian food before: check. I love oxtails and habaneros: double check. Opportunity to make hot sauce for the first time: check. Eight hours of marinating plus six hours of cooking: be still my beating heart.

Haiti is the western half of the island Hispanola, and notoriously the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. It became independent from France in 1804 following a slave rebellion led by Toussaint Louverture. Haiti has had a complicated and sad history that would take far too long to tell here. The US hasn't exactly been a friend of the country for most of the past 200 years, with the embargoes and refusal to acknowledge a sovereign Haiti for most of the 19th century and the US military occupation from 1915-1934. Today, most Haitian immigrants are in South Florida or in large cities like New York. Though I've met a few Haitians in my lifetime, there's not much of a presence either in people or food here in Memphis.

This recipe has three parts: a habanero hot sauce, a marinade, and the actual braising of the oxtails. I made the marinade first. Known as epis, you take herbs and garlic and oil and vinegar and onion and other goodies and make a thin pesto. This can be used either for marinating pieces of meat or as a flavorful punch up to other recipes. The recipe called for parsley as the main herb, but I decided to go with the variation listed in the sidebar and use cilantro instead. Since I'd already alienated several people with the hot peppers and the offal, I decided to go all the way and make myself happy with yet another contentious ingredient. Saturday evening I rinsed the oxtails, covered them in epis and let them sit overnight.

(As an aside, I completely shut down a lane at the grocery store with the purchase of oxtails and habaneros. Neither were labeled, neither had SKUs on the cheat sheet, and clearing up both took a solid 15 minutes as I apologized to the customers behind me and tried to explain to the poor checkout girl why I enjoyed eating chopped up cow tails. This is not the first time this has happened to me, and it won't be the last.)

Making the habanero hot sauce was my next adventure that night. Eight habaneros, a carrot, half an onion, a little white wine vinegar and sugar and the juice of two limes. Blend until smooth. Now, the recipe was responsible and suggested wearing gloves. I've never really had a problem processing peppers before, but I've never made hot sauce or used an open bowl with a stick blender with hot peppers before. Not a great idea. The capsaicin became aerosolized and I got a nice zingy dose to the nose, lungs, and most of my exposed skin. I'm still stinging a bit in places, but the upside is that my sinuses are clearer than they've been since I was born.

I made enough to fill three of these little tubs. One was used with Sunday dinner and the other two were sealed and sent to the CDC in Atlanta and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia (Вектор).

If you decide to do this, use an enclosed blender or food processor, wear gloves, and maybe goggles and a mask. And if you're in the habit of wiping your hands on a kitchen towel after chopping vegetables, go ahead and toss that towel in the washer before a roommate or family member happens to come by and use it. The resulting sauce is thick and bright--almost unnaturally orange, though I didn't add anything artificial to it. Definitely hot but with that sweet habanero flavor and good balancing from the limes' acidity and the carrot's additional sugar.

I started the third part (the braising) around ten in the morning on Sunday. Put the oxtails in the Dutch oven, add a can of tomato sauce and a little water, and bring to a slow boil. Remove from the stovetop and put the entire thing in the oven for six hours. I skipped the last part involving browning the oxtails with onions and tomato paste--everything was browned and nicely tender and caramelized and any further cooking would just ruin things.

I threw a little turmeric in the rice, and have to say that the meat was incredible. Tender and flavorful and full of intense elements from the bones and fat and everything else. The hot sauce was still good on the second day but milder and fruitier. Julia, having her first encounter with oxtails said, "Tastes like pot roast, but not as stringy." I'm impressed with the recipe but in the future I'll probably roast at a lower temperature and add some things like beer or chicken broth or white wine to the braising liquid. The habanero hot sauce is delicious, but I'm going to need a new set of friends to share that level of heat.

Saffron Road Lamb Saag with Basmati Rice

Frozen food doesn't have to be bad. When I'm talking about my homemade chicken stock (or gloriously rich tubs of duck stock), that's not a bad frozen food. And there are lots of veggies that are great from the freezer, particularly because they were picked and processed at the height of ripeness rather than picked unripe and trucked across the country and left to sit in the produce section for a few days.

I was walking past the organic freezer section at the grocery store, and saw this: Saffron Road Lamb Saag with Basmati Rice. I've had it in Indian restaurants, and thought I'd give it a shot. I'd never eaten microwaved lamb before, but the list of certifications was incredible: Halal, lamb raised without antibiotics, lamb raised on 100% vegetarian foods in an open pasture, etc. It's a far cry from the mystery meat/soy protein mush found in your 75¢ frozen burrito.

The company also makes a variety of other frozen entrees based on dishes from Morocco to Thailand. I haven't tried any of the others, but will probably check them out based on this experience.

I was really happy with how this turned out. Though it's difficult to see, there is a lot of lamb in here, and I'm thinking that the cubes came from the shoulder. There were a few fatty pieces (that were delicious), though most of the cubes were fairly lean. Really tender and flavorful, and superior to the lamb that I've gotten in some local establishments. The saag was mildly seasoned and decent, and the basmati rice was properly tender without being chewy or crunchy.

I'm not planning on making frozen dinners a major or even minor part of my diet, and don't plan on further reviews here. Burt this was a nice surprise, and it's good to see that with quality ingredients and the right technology, it's possible to do this properly.

Benito vs. the Cocktail: The Salty Pamplemousse

Sometimes when I crave things that are odd or outside the mainstream, people think it's an affectation or that I'm deliberately trying to be weird. Quite the contrary--there are a million flavors out there and only so many meals you get in your life. And typically anything odd that I try is beloved by hundreds of thousands of people somewhere. I think in the American diet from WWII to the present we abandoned a lot of things for various reasons: tea and coffee are bitter, so mask the bitterness with sugar and cream and other flavors. Organ meats are weird and the things we used to have to eat during hard times, so we must shun them and only eat the muscles. Fish somehow shouldn't smell like fish, and thus we praise the flavorless white fillets where the only flavor comes from the fried batter encasing. Processed cheese is deliberately engineered to remove any texture or aroma or flavor of "real" cheese. Wine should never be earthy, it must always be big and fruity. And so on and so forth.

The following cocktail was made in praise of bitterness, namely in the form of grapefruit juice. No sugar or other sweeteners, just the tart bitter joy of a half glass first thing in the morning. And while I had a half gallon in the fridge and some free time on a Sunday afternoon, it was time to use the ingredients lying around the kitchen to make a new cocktail.

Mixing two different cocktail recipes together is generally a bad idea. A Michelada Margarita is a recipe for disaster. A Rob Roy Wine Spritzer would... I don't even want to contemplate the flavor. But I put a few things together in my head with this one, and was very happy with the result.

Benito's Salty Pamplemousse Cocktail
2 oz. Gin
2 oz. Unsweetened Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice
Tonic Water
Dash of Fee Bros. Grapefruit Bitters
Kosher Salt

Start with moistening the rim of the glass with water and dip into a dish of the salt of your choice. Pink Himalayan would be an attractive and decadent choice for a trendy bar. The rest is easily mixed in the glass with ice. Combine the Gin and Juice and Bitters (the name of my upcoming rap album under my stage name "Ice Tongs" featuring "The Boston Shaker"). Stir carefully with a bar spoon so as not to dislodge the salt, and top off with tonic water. Serve immediately.

This is the accidental cross between a Salty Dog (vodka + grapefruit juice) and a Gin & Tonic (er, gin + tonic water). The idea was to boost the bitterness of the former with the quinine of the tonic water and botanicals of the gin. The sugar in the tonic water would mediate things a bit, the effervescence of the tonic water would make it a little more fun, and the bitters would add that little touch to make it special, like good bitters always do. As for the salt, if you've never had salted fresh grapefruit it's one of the greatest things in the world. I detest salt on margaritas but here it's divine.

The flavors all work quite well together, and I am sure that the ratios could be tweaked a bit to perfect it. But I found one to be just right on this bright, sunny, warm day during this preternatural winter we're experiencing. As always, if you try one of my original concoctions, please let me know what you think in the comments or by e-mail.

Steel

Recently I was staring at my old baking sheet and marveled at its smooth, nonstick surface. It's not due to a Teflon coating or an anodized finish. Rather, food doesn't stick to it because it's been in continuous use for 40 years.

It's an Ekco, perhaps from 1972 as best Mom can recall. A sheet of steel that was probably stamped out in a Rust Belt factory just like thousands of others. It has a brother--a round sheet that's pretty battered and beaten but can still cook a pizza. When I was a kid this baking sheet was used to make biscuits and cinnamon rolls and cookies and lots of other baked goods. Since it was handed down to me in the mid-90s, I've used it for those purposes as well as a million other things. Yesterday it was used to heat up frozen crab legs dusted with a little Old Bay seasoning.

It was difficult to get a good shot of the cooking surface, since you're looking at black on black. So I took it outside and first snapped a shot of the bottom. Not quite as seasoned, but there's nothing shiny or gray. A little rust here and there.

Despite four decades of use the baking sheet isn't warped or bent, and it doesn't have any holes from rust or damage. It won't last forever, but it's certainly performed far beyond what anyone could have imagined.

When you're photographing something that is dark, it helps to go with brighter light, and you can't get a lot brighter than the sun on a clear day. In this picture you can see some of the patterns in the patina, but more significantly the nonstick coating that has built up over the years allowed me to see my own reflection. A white t-shirt, a big SLR camera over my face, and the blue sky behind me.

This pan and a few bowls and other items are remnants from my parents' wedding in 1972 and early years together before I came along in 1976. Sunday they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. As I gaze into my reflection in this otherwise unremarkable piece of metal, I know that I'm in the pan and the pan is in me. The food cooked on it allowed me to grow up and build bone and muscle, and every meal meant a few iron atoms that strayed from the pan to the food to my bloodstream. Likewise, I've burned myself on the pan many times, adding my own contribution to the patina of the lip and edges.

There's a lot of enthusiasm about that which is new and exciting and sparkly, but there's also a great deal to be said for that which is still going strong after so many years and shows no signs of stopping.

Cupcake Wines

I have tried a few Cupcake wines in the past. I was reminded of the brand recently when my mother was getting ready to host a big baby shower for my cousin. She asked my advice for wines to get for the occasion, and I wasn't terribly helpful--I spend so little time in retail shops in town that I can't really recommend something specific that's here in town. Usually I direct someone to a trusted shop in their neighborhood and put them in the hands of our city's best retailers.

Mom said, "Have you heard of Cupcake wines? I've heard they're good for parties." I think this might be the first time that Mom had asked me about a specific wine label, and I pointed out that it's not just a single location, but rather a brand that gets wine from all over the globe and labels it. Nothing wrong with that, and there are many companies doing the same thing. But from anecdotal evidence I've heard that the Cupcake wines are popular at baby showers, bridal showers, and other such hen parties. And I say that not to condemn the wines from a male perspective--each bottle must be judged on its own merits. But I'm always a fan of making wine less intimidating and easier to pronounce for the average American consumer. You don't need to be able to read the Greek alphabet or have a working knowledge of German to ask for these wines. And if we want a robust American wine market, we need brands like this.

NV Cupcake Prosecco
Prosecco D.O.C., Italy
100% Glera (Prosecco)
$14, 11.2% abv.

Crisp and refreshing with big bubbles and a splash of lemony acidity. Not the most complex Prosecco I've ever had, but it's a serviceable midday sparkling wine for casual lunches. I served it with sweet potato soup that I made for Julia, one of her favorites.

2009 Cupcake Red Velvet
California
47% Zinfandel, 29% Merlot, 19% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Petite Sirah
$14, 13.5% abv.

A very interesting yet distinctively Californian blend. I love creative red mixes but this one goes in the sweeter direction. Great berry flavors and low tannins, and better cold than at room temperature. For me, I'd serve this as a dessert wine (it's really not that sweet, just my preference for drier wines). But if you're just dipping your toe in the red wine pool, this might be a good non-threatening way to start. Served with thin pork chops and roasted peppers, a rerun of this memorable meal.

Note: These wines were received as samples.

Musings on the Manhattan

As long time readers should know, though I enjoy inventing new cocktails and having fun with mixology, at heart I adore the classics. My two favorites are the Martini and Manhattan, and which one I prefer at any given moment depends a lot on mood and atmosphere and the ingredients at hand.

A bad but serviceable Martini can be made in pretty dire circumstances: a clear liquor, a shaker of ice, and a brined vegetable or strip of citrus peel, and you can achieve something bracing but able to perform the work at hand. I prefer a Martini as an aperitif, something strong but bracing and crisp that gets you ready for four courses and half a dozen different wines.

The Manhattan is different. It requires a higher degree of civilization. Whiskey/Whisky can be found everywhere, but bitters and Sweet Red Vermouth are a must, and so many bad variations are made in bars that it's often a losing proposition to order one in the first place. I once ordered said cocktail in a bar that shall not be named, and the bartender said, "Manhattan. Got it. Crown Royal and Dr. Pepper. Give me one second." And I said, "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? Good day, sir!" I swear that the silk ribbon on my top hat positively wilted at that egregious faux pas.

Your worst Martini might have ruined rotgut vodka that spent a few hours in steel tubing, but a bad Manhattan ruins years of barrel aging in oak. Keep these things in mind when you're mixing drinks.

When I'm in the mood for a Manhattan, it's normally with the company of other guys and as a prelude to a dinner of hearty red wines and lots of rare red meat. To do it properly, you need control over your own ingredients. Better, older whiskey will make for a better Manhattan, and quality bitters are essential.

Here I lined up the various components I assembled after a long, hard day at work, and a desire for something relaxing but dignified:

• Cocktail Shaker with Ice and a Long Spoon
  
• One Shot of Gallo Red Vermouth (in place of my beloved Noilly Prat)
  
• Two shots of Michter's US*1 Single Barrel Straight Rye Whiskey
  
• Two dashes of Fee Bros. Whiskey Barrel Aged Bitters
  
• A Cherry That's Been Soaking in Bourbon for Weeks

The end result was amazing, rich and spicy and with layers and layers of complexity. Even the cherry, the weakest part of the whole cocktail, was delightful upon consumption. When you have the opportunity, take the time to craft the very model of a modern major Manhattan, and enjoy the warmth and relaxation that flows from the glass.

糜

When I was a kid and couldn't drive, and Memphis was a somewhat less metropolitan city than it is now, I did get to try a lot of interesting foreign foods via my father's adventurous palate. But at other times I had to try and make them myself using cookbooks, ingredients available at the nearby grocery store, and my own limited skills. Sometimes I made something delicious, often I had so little concept of what the final product was even supposed to look like that I ended up with a big plate of failure.

For the past few years, I've been listening to a lot of podcasts, which remind me a lot of my early fascination with Public Radio and some of the more obscure shows that would air at odd hours. I like a lot of the comedy-themed podcasts, but one directly related to this blog is The Sporkful hosted by Dan Pashman and Mark Garrison. The two guys debate about food in various ways, sometimes going into strange minutiae like the best strategies employed at a buffet. I enjoy listening to the show, but it hasn't really inspired me to try something new or different--they tend to focus on foods that are not too far outside of the mainstream. However, the show has a handful of snappy slogans, including two that have generated some inspiration, or at least direction with my food consumption, production, and writing: "we're obsessively compulsive about eating more awesomely™" and "eat more, eat better, and eat more better™".

In this new year, perhaps our final if the Mayans are correct, I'm trying to be a little more adventurous. Not just in weird ingredients, because I've done a lot of that, but challenging my cooking techniques and approaches to food. With that in mind, today I decided to tackle something that I'd heard of, but had never eaten, and did my best to make it authentic. Congee, or juk, or 糜, or whatever you call it, is rice porridge. Normally when you make rice you use a 2 parts water/1 part rice mix, but with this you start with 8:1 and can go as high as 16:1. You end up with a thick, gelatinous, milky white porridge that serves as a base for all kinds of things.

I decided to use a few scraps from the refrigerator, which is traditional (this is a common breakfast dish of leftovers as well as a hangover cure, not to mention the fact that the rice porridge is supposed to be very easy to digest for anyone that is ill). I used shredded pork, bok choy, fried shallot rings, and a raw egg. I let the egg sit for a while, and then I added soy sauce and Srirarcha and mixed everything together. Even though this was my first time eating the dish, it was surprisingly comforting and mellow, not odd or exotic in the least. Salty and savory and smooth and crunchy all at the same time, not quite a soup and not quite a stir fry, but its own unique texture and sensation. If there were some way to prepare this quickly I think it would be the perfect backpacking food. I would have killed for something exactly like this after scaling a 10,000 ft.+ peak in the Rockies.

Like phở, I think a great strength of congee is the customization and economical use of leftovers. Next time I make this, I think I'll do it for a group and use chicken broth instead of water, and lay out a few extra ingredients like shredded chicken or tofu or other vegetables. It's always exciting to discover a new food, and even better when you can easily make it yourself and find great variations in the future.

T

For Christmas, Julia got me an assortment of gitfts including some looseleaf tea and a strainer from Teavana. Here you're looking at the Celestial Temple blend, a Chinese high-elevation mix of black tea leaves.

I am not a tea expert or a snob. While I appreciate using a tea ball or other device like this strainer for using looseleaf, 99% of my tea consumption in my lifetime has been via bags. At work I mostly use bags of green tea, herbal tea, or Earl Grey depending on my mood and the season. I often head to the coffee maker and hear a yelp of "It's not ready yet" when I'm just siphoning off some hot water from the release valve on top of the machine. That's what the spigot is for, people.

In fact, for the past week I've had a little seasonal sinus trouble, and a gentle green tea with the perfect amount of dried orange peel made the start to each day so much happier.

At right you see a double dose of the Celestial Temple in the Teavana strainer, resting in a Pyrex measuring cup. Normally you just use a mug for a single serving, but I wanted to capture the color of the tea while it was steeping. The tea is rich and aromatic, with notes of flowers and honey. It's nice because you get a full-bodied brew and the requisite caffeine kick but with great complexity and interesting aromas that will be fun for the wine enthusiast.

I do have to mention that growing up in Memphis, tea was one of my earliest beverages and one of the first things I learned how to make. Though always in the iced form. Brew four bags in a half gallon of water for five minutes, remove bags, add a quarter cup of sugar, let cool, pour into pitcher and cover. The alternative was reserved for holidays: essentially an Arnold Palmer called "Payne Tea" after my Mom's maiden name. We would squeeze lemons and make pulpy gallons of this beverage and, to this day, none of us have ever suffered from scurvy.

High school got me into hot tea, partially as an extension of Anglophilia but also as a desire to try as many different culinary traditions as possible. Celestial Seasonings was widespread at the time and I had a blast working my way through their boxes of teabags. A night with the South American "Morning Thunder"/yerba mate was a transcendental experience of listening to trance radio and not sleeping for 36 hours. But these days, I approach tea in a much different way. I don't add milk or sweeteners or anything else. Just the leaves, in water slightly lower than boiling, and sip at the temperature that makes me the happiest. Sure, I get some weird stares occasionally and people wonder why I'm looking at my watch for a few minutes before I drink something, but the ritual and the swirling of the colors in the water always make me happy, whether at work, or sitting in an airport, or crouched on top of a mountain where it's taken forever to get the water up to temperature. As you sip the tannic liquid you can reflect upon centuries of British tradition and more centuries of Chinese/Indian agriculture, or you can simply accept the caffeine hit, let your belly get happy from the warmth, and be glad about the whole process... until the mug goes cold and it's time to start over.

Craggy Range Wines

When I received the wines of Craggy Range from New Zealand, I experienced that momentary thrill that I get whenever something has taken a very long trip from the farm to the table. Yes, I know that with that statement, millions of locavores suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I like the eating local thing when the season's good and the region's good. When it comes to drinking local, I like our local beers but otherwise everything else is coming on a truck or a plane or a boat from a very long way away. The green tea leaves that gently stained the water in my teacup this morning like an artist's brush resting in a jar of mineral spirits came from somewhere in China. Everyone gripping a Starbuck's cup is holding onto something that came from Colombia or Kenya or Indonesia or elsewhere.

There are heated arguments over shipping costs and packaging costs and lots of other factors, but at the end of the day I am that six year old boy staring at the globe while lying on the floor, checking out all of these interesting places on the bottom of the sphere. Why is New Zealand a separate country from Australia? What does New Guinea have to do with New Zealand or New York or New Jersey? Why do all the pictures of New Zealand in National Geographic look a lot more like Ireland or Scotland instead of the South Pacific? As a child, I had to seek out these answers, and today, the luxury goods of the islands are delivered to my doorstep. What a wondrous time to be alive.

2011 Craggy Range Kidnapper's Vineyard Chardonnay
Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
100% Chardonnay
$20, 13% abv.
Very interesting for a Chardonnay. Lots of green apple and pear, balanced acidity, slightly tart. Fascinating and ultimately delicious with some grilled shrimp with lime. The name of the Vineyard comes from Cape Kidnappers in Hawkes Bay, where Captain Cook's crew got into an altercation with the locals and they tried to nab a Tahitian servant from the H.M.S. Endeavour. A bit ironic that they named the cape after that event when later, Cook would die after attempting to hold Hawaiian King Kalaniʻōpuʻu hostage.

2010 Craggy Range Te Kahu Gimblett Gravels Vineyard
Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
80% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Malbec
$20, 13.5% abv.
When this first arrived I was thinking that it was a Pinot Noir and let it rest in the cellar next to other representatives of that grape. And then when I served it, I knew it was something much different. While mellow and mild, this has definite structure and the balance of black cherry and leather and chocolate is incredible. Highly recommended and a great bargain, not to mention showing that New Zealand has an opportunity to do some Bordeaux or Meritage blends that can stand out.

I hesitate to quote directly from press releases or company websites, but to explain the name of this wine I could not add anything to the following: "Te kahu means 'the cloak' in Te Reo Maori and refers to the mist that envelops our Giants Winery in the Tuki Tuki Valley. Legend has it that this mist was used to protect a mythical Maori maiden from the sun as she visited her lover Te Mata."

Another two wines, another two stories, and that little globe of cardboard with raised mountain features continues to spin at the slow rate of once per day, in a dance around the sun 365.25 times a year...


Note: These wines were received as samples.

2008 Biltmore Estate Château Reserve Blanc de Blancs

Over the past couple of years I've tried several wines from the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Recently I was contacted by a PR firm offering various wines from the Biltmore, and looking back over my notes, I saw that pretty much the only thing I hadn't tried was bubbly from North Carolina itself instead of California. A couple of weeks later, this bottle showed up at the house.

Now, it's not purely from the Tar Heel State, but it's close enough, and I was impressed. I was also impressed with the bottle of sparkling wine that Joe brought from Georgia, and of course most in the know are familiar with the delightful Gruet bubbles of New Mexico. And on top of that, I was pleasantly surprised by my recent encounter with the fizzy Moscato of Moldova. If you know what you're doing, good sparkling wine can be made in a lot of interesting places.

I still haven't forgotten my encounter with Belarus, though. Shudder

2008 North Carolina Blanc de Blancs Chateau Reserve
Méthode Champenoise
100% Chardonnay: 88% North Carolina, 12% California
$35, 12.4% abv.

The nose is light with a faint tropical fruit note. It's crisp and clean with a touch of lemony acidity. Decent bubbles with a short finish. I served this with a salad before a dinner of roasted pork, and I ended up sipping on it throughout the entire meal. A good complement with food and generally a fun wine to imbibe. It's not often that I enjoy vintage sparklers and I'm curious as to how this one will develop over the next few years.

Note: This wine was received as a sample.

Benito vs. the Cocktail: The Admiral Benbow

The Admiral Benbow Inn. It's a place where Jim Hawkins stayed in Treasure Island, and it shares a name with this cocktail I'll get to in a moment. But for anyone from Memphis, there's a far different association.

There are good hotels, affordable but clean motels, and places that are a little sketchy but sometimes the only option when there's a big convention in town or you just need a few hours of shuteye before getting back on I-40 heading toward one of the coasts. There are the places that show up on the news for various criminal activity, and then there's the Admiral Benbow. By the 1980s it was a haven for all sorts of weird, sad crime. If you had a friend who called in tears and needed a ride home at two in the morning, it wouldn't be too much of a surprise to find him at the Admiral Benbow, missing his car, wallet, and most of his pride.

It was the site of the 1986 Memphis Trousers Affair, in which former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser was found in the lobby wearing nothing but a towel, and confused as to where his pants were.

This is an older and somewhat obscure cocktail, but it contains classic ingredients and proportions. You're supposed to use Plymouth Gin, but in tribute to the Inn I went a little downmarket with a regular domestic gin.

The Admiral Benbow Cocktail
2 oz. Plymouth Gin
½ oz. Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice
1 oz. Dry White Vermouth
Garnish with Citrus Peel and Maraschino Cherry

Combine everything but the garnish in a cocktail mixer with ice. I tried one shaken and one stirred, and found that I preferred the cloudy appearance of the shaken version. Reminded me a bit of some bad motels I've stayed in across the country where you get a glass of water from the tap and it has to settle for a few minutes before it's no longer cloudy.

The cocktail has a nice balance of elements, though the lime juice covers up most of the vermouth. Sort of a very tart martini, and while it won't be in the main rotation, I think I'll come back to it every once in a while. The stories alone are worth it.

Benito vs. Homemade Pasta

On a Sunday morning, Benito woke up tired and weary, and resigned himself to a meagre lunch of spaghetti and marinara. Granted, the marinara was homemade from good canned San Marzanos, and he planned to amp it up with the pork rillettes in the freezer, but a half hour of thawing and ten minutes of boiling were all that were required for said meal. And then he looked in the pantry, and saw that he had only orzo and stelline, tiny pastas better suited to soups. But he did have eggs and flour, as well as a manual pasta roller.

He'd made pasta with varying results in the pursuit of delicious ravioli, but felt it was time to crack the knuckles and attempt a proper noodle. First, the dough. Simple 1 egg per 100g of flour (about one cup). He used two of each and after some vigorous kneading, had a little dough ball that needed resting. He pulled off a bit and ran it through the rollers to produce the taglierini at right. Not a perfect batch, but a decent proof of concept. Those noodles were tossed aside while waiting for the dough to rest and develop properly.

He mused on the whole eggs vs. egg yolks debate, but elected to keep it simple with whole eggs. Besides, there was no lemon pie in desperate need of meringue.

His manual stainless-steel pasta machine had nine levels of thinness, a nice square number. Some skip levels but he always works through the process methodically, two passes per setting. In the past it's involved sweaty brows and sore arms, but on this Sabbath he fell into a rhythm and took pleasure in the work, much like the feeling of accomplishment after mowing a yard or painting a house. (Rather not like taking shingles off a roof one hot Memphis summer, which left Benito with a pair of jeans full of holes from all the exposed nails.)

The moment of truth is when you get to the seventh level of thinness and think, "Maybe it would be better to make lasagna." But he persevered, and continued with the rolling, only occasionally dropping the handle to the ground where it clattered like a 11mm wrench falling through the engine of a car only to lodge in some obscure nook. Fortunately the space under the kitchen table is less complex and does not require a telescoping wand with a strong rare-earth magnet on the tip.

Another decision point. The pasta machine has two sets of rollers, one for the wider tagliatelle and one for thinner taglierini. He decided to try a sheet of pasta to see how the tagliatelle looked. And they were perfect. Picture perfect and delicate and even fitting within the 6mm specifications set by the EU.

Taking the story of Solomon and the baby far too literally, he split the dough in half and processed half into wide noodles and half into thin spaghetti-like noodles.

Time to let everything dry, a step that doesn't show up a lot in cooking unless you're making jerky or dried green beans or other survival fare. One can of course cook fresh pasta right away, but he realized that he couldn't eat all of it in one setting (even with two dinner companions), and that it might be good enough to hang out for a few days in the freezer.

There are different ways to dry pasta: on spindly wooden pasta trees (not the other kind of pasta tree), on sheets or towels, in adorable twirled nests, or made in a dry climate more like Albuquerque than Memphis where the noodles will quickly dry themselves on the trip out of the machine.

The next decision point: which to use with his carefully made sauce and pork rillettes? The sauce was already simmering away, awaking from its winter hibernation with wakeup shots of red wine, balsamic vinegar, and a few other dashes of magic. He turned to the internet, where Facebook users had been following the progress, and ultimately went with the advice of the German reader. After all, Nudeln mit Schinken is delicious and the Germans know their pork. Plus, he was still a little concerned that the tiny noodles might fall apart.

The end result was divine, with the sauce warmed in a skillet, combined with the freshly boiled pasta and a little pasta water until everything came together perfectly. He grated a little Romano cheese on top, finding the unique tang of sheep's milk to be a good fit for this dish.

As for the wine, he had an extra bottle of that 2004 Il Borro in the cellar, and felt that what had began as such a simple dinner deserved a really fantastic wine. Everything came together so perfectly, like magic, and Julia and The Roommate were equally enthused about the meal.

The next day, it was time for Benito to try some of the leftover sauce with the thinner noodles, the taglierini. They performed admirably but between the two he felt that the wider noodles provided a better dining experience, allowing better sensation of the flavor and texture of the homemade product.

Later, he collected photos and began reminiscing over a regional favorite, BBQ spaghetti, served at locations like Leonard's Pit Barbecue and too many church potluck dinners to mention. And he reflected on how a long and laborious process had brought him right back to a dish of his childhood. And while he thought that his was more refined and the pasta better presented, he thought back on both, and smiled.

Clayhouse Tasting Samples

From the good folks at Clayhouse in Paso Robles came this sampler via TastingRoom.com. I've gone through many of their tiny bottles, and in honor of this tasting, I made a batch of "Munchkin Burgers" with a nod toward Julia's love of The Wizard of Oz.

Small beef burgers topped with homemade red onion marmalade, smoked cheddar, mesclun greens, sliced Roma tomatoes, and a variety of crazy mustards, because I have at least half a dozen in the icebox at any given time. And of course, a nice cold Claussen pickle to accompany the burgers and fries.

A brief note on ingredients... While I was a cheddar fiend as a child, enjoying all levels of mild/medium/sharp/etc., covered in wax or not, I really didn't like smoked cheddar. I'd eat it with the same enthusiasm I employed while chomping down the questionable abalone dish at Dah Wah near Rhodes. Interesting but not something I'm going to seek out often. Yet as with Scotch and a few other things, I've discovered that smoked cheddar is amazing, even if it refuses to melt and is difficult to separate into single slices.

The meal was delicious, and fun to try with the variety of wines. I've had plenty of Clayhouse wines in the past, and have liked the various Paso Robles blends that made their way to my glass. And for the record, these are all Paso Robles wines...

2009 Clayhouse Estate Cuvée Blanc
40% Grenache Blanc, 40% Roussanne, 20% Viognier
672 bottles made
$23, 13% abv.
Light, mild, slight apricot aroma, low acidity, mellow mouthfeel.

2008 Clayhouse Estate Malbec
86% Malbec, 8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Merlot, 3% Petit Verdot
672 bottles made
$35, 14% abv.
Plum and spice with low tannins and a long, delightful finish.

2006 Clayhouse Hillside Cuvée
56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Petit Verdot, 7% Malbec
3054 bottles made
$33, 14.5% abv.
Black cherry and pepper with a touch of green bell pepper.

2006 Clayhouse Estate Cuvée
Rhone blend with Petite Sirah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Syrah
3960 bottles made
$30, 14.6% abv.
Plum and licorice, mellow and mild, soft tannins, full-bodied.

2007 Clayhouse Show Pony Petite Sirah
98.5% Petite Sirah, 1.5% Syrah
1620 bottles made
$40, 14% abv.
Nice black cherry and licorice, touch of chocolate and leather, soft tannins and delicious.

2007 Clayhouse Estate Petite Sirah
15000 bottles made
$23, 14% abv.
Nutty, earthy, rich black cherry. Great example of the Petite Sirah grape.

Note: These wines were received as samples.

Book Review: The World in a Skillet: A Food Lover's Tour of the New American South

Full disclosure: I'm good friends with the authors of this book, as well as a few of the people covered in it. However, for the past year, whenever I've invited the Knipples to come over for dinner or to help me empty some wine, they were out of town tracking down people and recipes for this book. Doing serious writerly legwork on the road instead of helping me drain some Chilean wine while we swap tips about where to find hibiscus flowers in syrup and weird organ meats in the Mid-South. So while I'm glad that the book is a reality and not just a polite excuse after I served them haggis tamales, I'm going to call this even on the journalistic ethics front.

I first met Paul and Angela when they reached out to me in 2007 to have a little gathering of Memphis food and wine bloggers at a Mexican restaurant downtown. I knew we'd hit it off when they bypassed the gringo fare and went straight for the cactus appetizer. At the time they wrote about local food and related topics on a blog called Squirrel Squad Squeaks, though over the years they rebranded with the more essay-driven From the Southern Table. And of course, the book has its own website, which features a calendar of book signings and other events throughout the Southeast in the next few months.

The World in a Skillet: A Food Lover's Tour of the New American South
By Paul & Angela Knipple
Foreword by John T. Edge
The University of North Carolina Press
$35, 296 pp.

While you can pre-order the book at Amazon using the above link, fellow Memphians might want to attend the official launch party at the local independent Booksellers at Laurelwood, formerly Davis-Kidd.

Don't let the cover mislead you: this is not a collection of Southern classics like cornbread and collard greens, though those dishes make appearances. Rather, it's a look at the increasing cultural and culinary diversity of the South and how such cooking traditions have settled and adapted in towns small and large in this corner of the United States.

The new South is a different place. Within walking distance of my abode in a fairly vanilla suburb of Memphis, I have two Thai restaurants, a Vietnamese place, two Indian restaurants and a third grocery store, two Japanese sushi bars, and more. I now encounter old Russian ladies working at local supermarkets, and whenever I say "Спасибо", I get an involuntary response of "Пожалуйста" followed by a chuckle at the short Irish guy spouting bad Russian. Less than 20 years ago, this was still farmland, and even 10 years ago it was just a sea of fast food joints and chain restaurants.

Each chapter focuses on a chef or a restaurant, telling the story of how that person or family came to the United States, and concluding with a couple of choice recipes. (Memphians include Pepe Magallenes of Las Tortugas and Wally Joe of Acre.) In places, anecdotes and cooking tips are included as sidebars. It's a fascinating oral history project that has the added benefit of making you very hungry.

It reminds me a lot of one of my favorite formative cookbooks, Jeff Smith's The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors (Recipes You Should Have Gotten From Your Grandmother). He was writing from experience in the relatively cosmopolitan cities of Chicago and Seattle as well as lots of world travel. I was excited to have one book that had dozens of chapters focused on specific world cuisines, each with an introductory story/history lesson, quotes from friends, and four or five recipes. For someone that would go on to get excited about wines from Colorado, Moldova, and India, it was a book that combined Gourmet with National Geographic. (And come to think of it, the Hawaii chapter had a drawing of a topless native...)

For me, the best part of The World in a Skillet was reading about Haitian food. I've never been exposed to it and have never thought to seek it out, despite a love of Cuban, Jamaican, Puerto Rican, and other styles of cooking that are collectively Caribbean but so individually unique. I can't wait to try out the recipe for queue de boeuf, which combines two of my favorite things that never made Julie Andrews' list: habaneros and oxtails.

The book is a great read for either short or long stretches and builds upon a unique strength possessed by the authors. They both have distinct and interesting personalities but are able to collaboratively write in a third and separate voice. I've known them for years but when reading their essays or this book I can't pick out which parts are Paul's or Angela's. I can edit or be edited, but I can't write with a partner to save my life, and I admire that talent. Think about that love and friendship when you're reading the book, and it will let you know how they were able to get so many people from so many different backgrounds to contribute to this effort. Best of luck to them both, and I can't wait to read the next one.


Note: This book was received as a sample.