2007 Dominique Roger (Domaine de Carrou)

We had a splendid Sancerre from Bue over the weekend, a 2007 Dominique Roger (Domaine de Carrou), which I wanted to briefly write about today. We were able to detect some wonderful fruit aromas, and the wine tasted delicately of what I think of as pear in the mouth. The tiniest bit sweeter than the kinds of austere Alsatian wines I usually prefer on the white side, the wine was a delightful choice with the artichoke and shrimp dish I prepared.

It blinks reality

From the Supreme Court's decision in the campaign finance case, I found this interesting phrasing I have never seen before. Doing a quick google search, it seems fairly common, but I am surprised nonetheless:

"It blinks reality to contend that the millionaire candidate is situated identically to a nonmillionaire opponent".

I'll have to look up the background of this at some point. Huh.

UPDATE: I've had a couple of thoughts about the gun case, as well. As others much smarter than me have observed, Scalia's opinion is remarkably narrow and circumspect. Not only is it fairly moderate, but it leaves much to be decided; the standard of review, the applicability (or not) of the Second Amendment to the states, the reasons why particular restrictions on gun rights are permissible, and others are not, which gun restrictions might be ok in the future. This does not strike me as typical for Scalia, who, to my mind at least, prefers to write broader opinions. I wonder whether the narrowness of his ruling, in the context, had anything to do with Chief Justice Roberts and his commitment to deciding cases on the narrowest basis. While this is entirely speculation, it strikes me that a Scalia-n opinion on the Second Amendment under Chief Justice Rehnquist might well have been a more strident document, or at least one that left less for the "inferior" courts to gnaw at.

Kennedy v. Louisiana

The Supreme Court today strikes down the death penalty for the rape of a child that was not meant to nor resulted in death.

I've read the opinions quickly. I'm obviously not the person to give real expert opinion, but I'm writing to note that PG's recent praise of Justice Alito is fully borne out in his dissent today. As I noted briefly on the Volokh blog comments, I think the newest Justice's dissent does serious damage to what I think is an unprincipled majority opinion. I suspect in its calm disection of the majority, it will have greater long term resonance than would a more fiery opinion by someone else.

Japanese Food is French food, really

Tyler Cowen, an economist whose thinking I respect very much, has been making the argument for some time that Japan (and specifically Tokyo) is the best food destination in the world. Most strikingly, he recently said;

"That Tokyo is the best food city in the world? That's by an order of magnitude; Paris and others aren't close. At this point my best guess is that Osaka is number two."

But that claim is almost matched by the idea that "Japan has arguably the world's best baked desserts." And just yesterday, I listened to Professor Cowen say, in a Bloggingheads video with Will Wilkinson, (approximately, since I'm transcribing quickly),

"What they've done in French and Italian food is what Toyota did to General Motors twenty years ago, so that food of many different kinds is much better in Japan than anywhere else in the world".

To be frank, I really don't believe him, or at least as I understand his claim (that French and Italian food in Japan is better than French or Italian food in France or Italy, respectively - the claim that the Japanese have the most number of cuisines at the highest level in one city is much more plausible to me, especially since New York is probably its closest rival). I particularly don't believe his claim as to desserts, when dealing with a culture that traditionally did not rely on dairy products, but I don't believe him as to savory foods either. And if he was right, would not Japanese style French food be slowly defeating French style french food, especially in neutral battlegrounds like New York, much like Toyota defeated General Motors?

I haven't been to Japan, so I'm in a weak position to judge, really. But I'd love to hear (a) what exactly Cowen's claim is as to Japan and (b) why he thinks what he thinks, as I'm deeply unconvinced.

Astoria-Ditmars

I moved to Astoria Ditmars for personal reasons, but having lived here for a while, I should have moved anyway. For the reasons, read this largely on-point New York Times article. (HT: Phoebe)

Shrimp with artichokes and tomato

I nabbed this recipe this weekend from Bernard Loiseau's home cookbook. (Loiseau, of course, is famous as the chef who commited suicide when rumours emerged of his losing a Michelin star). It's adapted somewhat from Loiseau's original langoustines, but still, I'm in his spirit.

In short, you get some shrimp, and make a stock of their shells, an exercise which differs from meat stocks in that it takes only a few minutes. While you're doing that, cook the artichoke hearts in olive oil, with onion. Just as they start getting tender (at about 5 minutes), pour the shrimp stock into the artichokes. This result in vegetables that taste subtly, but unmistakably, of shellfish. The tomato sauce is served cold - it's nothing more than the simplest tomato and onion mixture, pureed, and the shrimp were cooked for the least possible time on a griddle.

The dish is a playful experiment in contrast. Hot shrimp, cold tomato sauce, hot artichokes. As Loiseau points out, the creaminess of the shrimp against the acidity of the tomato. I served with a Sancerre, which I'll describe later. A wonderful summer dish.