Anatomy of a wine list

We are having Thanksgiving Dinner at 2941, an excellent restaurant in suburban Virginia. My mom can't cook, as she is in France visiting my grandmother, and though I could prepare food and take it down with me to finish, that seemed like a big hassle to feed my fiancee, me, my sister and dad.

In any case, I love restaurants that put their entire wine list online, first because it helps me learn about wine, and second because online wine lists give you rare transparency into the restaurant's cost structure.

Here, for example, are 2941's options for Oregon Pinot Noir (something I am trying to learn about in the context of Red Burgundy, which I like a lot), the price they are selling for in the restaurant, the price the wine sells for at retail, and the markup. Of course, this isn't necessarily the price the restaurant paid, but my assumption here (as opposed to when a restaurant buys meat, where a good chef might pay a premium to ensure timely delivery) is that the sommelier or wine director is paying below retail. On the other hand, they probably have good stemware, and I might never have found these wines on my own.

Domaine Serene, Jerusalem Hill Vineyard, Willamette Valley - $150 - $76.95 - 194%

Medici Vinyard - Estate East Block, Willamette Valley, 2002 - $85 - $27.00 - 314%

Rex Hill - Reserve, Willamette Valley, 2004 - $90 - $31.72 - 283%

Shea Wine Cellars - Shea Vineyard Estate, Willamette Valley, 2006 - $130 - $42.99 - 302%

Civic Literacy Test

I took the online test on civic affairs that elected officials are said to have failed. I would think that a lawyer, at least, should never get fewer than 30 of these correct, assuming they did the test with some care, though really, all the questions are entirely answerable.

Some experimentation

I spent the weekend working on some things I know how to do, but wanted to try with a slightly different twist, or to perfect.  

Poached, deep fried, eggs - Since my visit to Blue Hill at Stone Barns a few months ago, I've been intrigued by the prospect of deep frying a breaded egg.  How better to bring together two of the best things in the world?  It seemed to me, though, that frying a soft poached egg would be easier than a soft boiled one, as I've always struggled to get the shell off of an egg that was cooked softly enough to fry.  For this experiment, then,  I poached a good egg for three minutes, dunked in ice water to set, trimmed, and then dipped in more egg and cornmeal before frying briefly in olive oil.  

The results were delicious, but I note (a) that more seasoning in the crust would have made this tastier, and (b) that dried breadcrumbs or panko would probably have been better than cornmeal. 

The presentation of the soft boiled egg is superior, I think. 

Rustic fruit tart - I'm much taken with the rustic fruit tart I made a couple of weeks ago, and want to make it on my visit home during Thanksgiving.   Since my dad boasts a quartet of bypassed arteries, though, I wondered if (no trans-fat) butter substitutes might work.  I made this with some pears that were sitting around.  The flavor is not what I'd necessarily hoped, and it didn't brown as well as it might, but still, quite serviceable indeed.

Lebneh - I have no idea why this is called keffir cheese by some, nor why anyone at all thinks this is Israeli, but lebneh is one of my favorite breakfast foods.  It couldn't be easier to make: simply empty a container of yogurt into cheese cloth and tie, as shown, onto your faucet. The next morning, voila - lebneh. 

Making lebneh made me focus this afternoon on the passing whims of my breakfast appetite.  Sometimes, entire weeks pass by when all I want are bagels with smooth cream cheese or peanut butter.  Then, nothing but croissants with apricot jam will do.  Later, for months at a time, my inner Scot bubbles to the surface, and I spend long half hours stirring steel cut oats in the grim winter and searching Manhattan grocery stores for Lyle's Golden Syrup.  But in the end, put a gun to my head and I'll always pick a Middle Eastern breakfast.  Zatar with oil, lebneh, pita, olives, fava beans, and vegetables. 

Why not review Harlem?

Zubin Jelveh at Portfolio.com posts complaining about the lack of food reviews by Frank Bruni of the New York Times in Harlem. His point, in short, is that despite rating on Menupages for Harlem restaurants that equal the ratings on Menupages for restaurants in the East Village, Bruni rarely writes about Harlem.

To some extent, this regional problem is endemic to every restaurant reviewer. In Washington, Tom Sietsema of the Post was recently reported to the Ombudsman for neglecting the Maryland suburbs (if I recall correctly). The response of every reviewer I've seen when confronted by this variety of accusation is that they go where the restaurants are even while making sure they're not neglecting good restaurants in less trendy areas. The challenge of reviewing breadth is harder for Bruni in New York than for anyone else anywhere. He has the opportunity to review one restaurant a week, 52 a year. There are easily 52 significant openings a year of which the food community in New York demands a review, not to mention returns to old standbys (see here).

It is simply impossible, in that context, for Bruni to also hit, say, a home style southern restaurant in Harlem just as a matter of geographical breadth. Without some knowledeable buzz to justify his effort and time, there isn't any demand for his imprimatur on such a restaurant - he would be performing a disservice to his readers by wasting a column on it. To the extent, further, that there are innovative or especially good restaurants that aren't hyped and identified to Bruni immediately, these are dug out and brought to notice by the New York restaurant market's elaborately cascading sorting mechanism - first by the veritable blanket veritable blanket of amateur food review that Chowhound has thrown over the city and then by New York's subsidiary food reviewers (New York magazine, Gael Green, Eater, Grub Street, Restaurant Girl, etc, etc, etc). I would argue, contra Jelveh, that New York's restaurant market is frighteningly efficient. Good places are dug out, identified, tested by knowledgeable pioneers, and then mobbed, and places that don't hit the mark are slaughtered with brutal rapidity.

I would argue in a little more depth about the differences between Menupages and the high food press, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Spherical olive

I watched last night's Top Chef episode to learn that the show's token Italian won the "challenge" (make lunch at Craft) with a beef carpaccio with a fancy schmancy "spherical olive" - that is, olive puree molecularized back into the shape of an olive. But, of course, putting aside the fact that the carpaccio was not very original and easy, the much vaunted olive was just a bald faced copy of Adria's signature garnish. New American, as the judges kept saying? Not quite.

Romanette

There's quite a fun discussion of the word "romanette" going on over at Volokh's, a word meaning a lower case roman numeral in the context of legal documentation (as in, "now let's turn to Section 5.1(b), romanette 3"). As Volokh explains, Chief Justice Roberts recently stopped a lawyer who used the term for an explanation, as he'd never heard of it, and the comments at Volokh indicate that those of us who've practiced transactional law think romanette a common-place term, while our litigating brethren don't.

To go on the record, I don't like romanette, though the alternative "3 in the hole" to mean the same thing as the above is even less pleasing. As I mention in the comments over there, some way of distinguishing little "i" from "1" is important, so I guess we just made up a term.

I love the discussion of law firm terms that ensues in the comments, though. As I note, for example, I'm constantly doing the bidding of people who want to "bottom out" problems, as in "let's bottom that out ASAP". And we too at my firm use "it is what it is" all the time, both in our personal and professional lives. But my favorite phrase on the thread, which I had never heard, is to "open the kimono", as in "we need to open the kimono at this point". Apparently this means that the time's come to disclose everything or not keep anything hidden.

I can't wait to see the first caterer's face when I use that later this year, when working on my wedding. "Now listen here, we just need to open the kimonos now." Or maybe, "I can't live with the kimono half open, you know". Or, "I'll open the kimono if you do the same".

Hmm.

Achatz again

Gael Greene says some things I suspect I'd agree with about Grant Achatz's food:

Chestnut-baked potato, quince and smoke come next, just before Keller’s luscious foie gras galette. I want to like Grant Achatz’s food. Truly I do. I don’t want to seem uptight or an incurable old fogey. But perhaps I am. Making something edible out of unlikely components or something inedible out of a classic – like Achatz’s lamb with fennel and Pernod alongside a hot rock covered with coffee grounds, dried citrus peel and spices, three of them in three bowls on the table – “coffee-scented air” – is no guarantee of pleasure. A giggle isn’t enough. I want to be surprised by adventure in texture and flavor. I want to be bowled over by an explosion of flavor, transported by scents and savor beyond imagining. When Keller says “oysters and pearls” and sends out pearls of caviar, I smile and bask in that delicious notion. And I’d embrace the notion of coffee air with a smile if only the lamb tasted wonderful.

On the other hand, a super blog friend who has actually tasted Achatz's food said the below to me a while back. As I keep saying, I will have to taste this damned food in the end.

I share your general attitude about the chemicalization of food in a time when people are finally learning to do the opposite. But my one 12-course meal at Alinea really was incredible, with lots of combinations of flavors and textures that I had never before encountered, or even contemplated. I'm not saying that I'd want to eat food like that every day, or even every year, but at the same time some of the techniques were sufficiently interesting and inspiring that I hope and expect they will trickle down to the home cook (like the creative uses of freezing cold). The analogy that struck me was to high fashion: models strut down the runway half-naked in weird concoctions of feather and silk-- many of these things are not attractive, and certainly unthinkable for day-to-day wear, but some of the artistic developments (a line, a cut, a color) find themselves in very stylish pieces available in clothing boutiques 6 months later, and in the Gap 3 years after that.

Little Bits

UPDATE: I should add that I've thought more about nibbles and appetizers because they are so often the best part of a meal out. While I don't necessarily hold with the tapas/small plates trend that has overrun New York and much of the rest of the culinary world (though is it now receding in the face of hamburgers? I think so) it is a fact that I often remember what I ate when I arrived at the restaurant, and less what I ate later. I think part of it is that these small bites are short and punchy - they deliver their flavor in pitter-pat jabs, rather than in the dull thud of a roast - and are less cabined by convention. In size too, they tease without satisfying. One can never get tired of an amuse bouche, while no matter how good, repetitively sawing a prime steak can become tiresome. But I can't put aside the theory that I enjoy them better because they're at the start of the meal, when my anticipation is at its height and my hunger too. In any case, it is no surprise that many of the trademarks of the best restaurants (Oysters & Pearls, anyone) are starters, and not main courses.

I've been thinking more and more about little bits recently - hors d'oeuvres, appetizers, snacks, amuses. I feel as though I can produce a fairly creditable meal, most times, but don't know much beyond crostini to give to guests (assuming I had any) when they arrive. I notice the idea of using fingerling potatoes as an appetizer receptacle recently, and thought of sour cream and pancetta as nice accompaniments. I simply boiled the potatoes until cooked, rendered the pancetta, and then cooked the potatoes in the pancetta fat until browned. Topped with some greek yogurt rather than sour cream, the cooked pancetta, and chives, and these were delicious.

Dinner was a spatch-cocked chicken rubbed with salt, paper, and spanish paprika. We drank Cloudline's 2006 Pinot Noir, which was, to me, a sort of deceptive Pinot Noir - much more fruity than I would have expected.

Momofuku cakes

Some pictures from the brand new Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar, sure to be mobbed very soon. The "crack" pie, halfway down the page, is a version of a traditional British tart which I can't remember the name of, but which I distinctly remember looking at for a long time on the last page of Tesco's monthly recipe magazine about ten years ago in a section where people looking for recipes their grandmothers made were encouraged to send in obscure questions.

UPDATE: I remembered! Crack pie is gypsy tart, but with corn flour.

Taverna Kyklades

Taverna Kyklades has been a very low grade stress on my relationship with my fiancee for about a year. Every time we walk by (and we walk by often), I point at the giant lines outside and say something like "you know, we should try it". Plus, Kyklades sounds to me in my head like Cyclops, even though that's not how it's pronounced, and the idea of dining at Taverna Cyclops appeals for a variety of juvenile reasons. My fiancee always answers with something like "but I've heard it isn't very clean, and by the way, it smells".

So, we visited last night. And Kyklades really does smell - a sort of constant musk of fish and coals. The open kitchen reassures me about cleanliness, and the fish was quite good. I especially liked my dark, full of flavor sardines, which stand up well to the traditional Greek fish cooking technique (Char until dead on coals). My fiancee's red mullets were less good, though still fine, and full of the inevitable pin bones (for which Kyklades cannot really be blamed, but which speaks well of traditional fussy french technique, in which bones would have been removed and the fish rendered easy to eat). I was delighted by the galaktabouriko dessert, which is a free add on, and was fresh and just sweet enough.

Though this all did made me think of an interesting question - Would you rather have a free dessert, or be able to choose your own dessert for an extra price? The answer says much about your personality, I've decided.

Career changes

I'm in the middle of a fairly major career change I've been working on for three months. Tingly anticipation abounds. Wine will be needed tonight.

Big mouths

By the way, I've noticed that people in food ads geared to young men conduct the physical act of eating in a way that suggests they'd engulf the whole spoon or fry or burger if only you weren't watching, a sort of big mouthed super enthusiasm that, I suppose, is supposed to convey that the food is really delicious, and the person eating it is the kind of extreme, viril, hungry, potentially violent guy that you are too.

Here's Ladainian Tomlinson half swallowing his spoon while eating Campbell's Soup, just as an example, but the Guitar Hero ads are equally glaring.

1630

1630. Is it the year some important city fell to the Ottomans? No. Actually, the number of calories in the "Guitar Hero Fully Loaded Box Meal" from KFC, according to KFC's nutrition calculator. Why do I know about this? Because I love football, and the GHFLBM is promoted heavily during football games to people in the demographic I'm just leaving, which means that I see the ad about 40 times as I flip through my 10 channels of football each Sunday.

* for the record, that's with a full calorie Pepsi, potato wedges, mac and cheese, an extra crispy drumstick, and a normal snacker. This webpage comes to a different number.

Twitter

As you'll see on the left, I've finally adopted Twitter. The idea is to post what I've been eating, a concept I just now stole from Ozersky's "Last Meal" feature.

A talk with Ripert and Carmellini

I went last night to a talk with Eric Ripert (of Le Bernardin), Andrew Carmellini and Josh Ozersky (of the new blog, the Feedbag), obstensibly about Carmellini's recently released book, Urban Italian. There was some interesting discussion of cookbooks and the cooking life in general, and it was a rare delight to see Ripert in person after having eaten his food a couple of times, but the fun I had was a little obscured by moderator Lee Ann Wong, who talked too much. Not to be unkind, but it was as if I was moderating a panel of two of the partners of my firm, and a law professor, but decided to interject an equal amount of my own musings.

Hierarchies exist for a reason, you know.

You killed [Ghandi]?

Justice Stevens emphasizes today "no member of the [California Supreme] court suggested" that the showing of a video of a murdered victim's light set to music" shed any light on the character of the offense, the character of the offender, or the defendant's moral culpability". His point was that such emotive evidence problematically interfered with the murderer's sentencing, possibly inclining the jury towards death.

I am basically unread in this field, and am sure this has all been discussed ad naseaum, but it seems at least arguable to me that the defendant's moral culpability is somewhat wrapped up in who he killed. Of course, I appreciate the prejudice laden implications of considering the nature of the victim when deciding how society is to punish criminals, but when meting out a punishment that is meant in large part to be retributive, I'm not sure it makes sense that the way the victim was killed is relevant, but the character of the victim him or herself isn't. Why isn't the video relevant because it shows an innocent's life was nipped in the bud?

Zahav

I don't mean to be petty, but my hackles were kind of raised by a blurb on the Philadelphia restaurant Zahav in Food & Wine this month. The relevant passages follow:

Other than stellar hummus, I didn't know what to expect from a restaurant calling its food modern Israeli. . . . My favorite was the cauliflower florets, fried until sweet and caramelized. Crisp enough to pick up with your fingers, they're a terrific bar snack, served over a pool of tangy, dill-flecked, lebneh for dipping. . . . I was a bit squeamish about trying the kibbe naye, made with raw ground lamb, but after tasting the allspice seasoned meat scooped into crunchy romaine lettuce hearts, I changed my mind. I left Zahav more informed about Israeli food - and delighted with what I'd learned.

In case what is wrong with this passage isn't obvious, let's give a hypothetical French restaurant the same treatment.

Other than stellar pasta, I didn't know what to expect from a restaurant calling its food modern French . . . My favorite was the veal meatballs, fried until caramelized, crisp enough to pick up with your fingers, they're a terrific bar snack, served over a pool of tangy, thyme flecked, gorgonzola. . . I was a bit squeamish about trying the proscuitto crudo, but after tasting delicate flavor of the pork arranged with melon, I changed my mind. I left the restaurant more informed about French food - and delighted with that I'd learned.

Apple Galette

I can't get enough of rustic apple pies, a condition which hasn't stopped me from ignoring rustic apple pies so far this season. I finally fixed that problem this weekend with this simple galette. All this involves is a rich dough (3 oz. flour, 3 tb butter, and ice water) rolled out to a thin circle between plastic wrap, and some halved and cored apples filled with apricot jam* in the center. The remaining dough is just sloppily pulled up and some granulated sugar applied everywhere. It cooks in about 45 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

* I'm not normally much of a homer for Armenian products, but Harvest Song Apricot jam is terrific. The apricot flavor is so much more pronounced here than in the kind one gets in the supermarket that I almost wonder whether they're doing something nefarious.

** A clever observer will notice the burned sugar to the back and deduce that I kind of screwed this up. Obviously, my galette leaked, and it shouldn't.

Ecrevisses, girolle, jeunes pousses de salade, jus de tete perle. Ok, so not quite

One of the truly great dishes we had at Hostellerie Berard this summer was the dish described in the title - effectively, a crayfish salad with mushrooms and a sauce based in part on crayfish stock. While I couldn't quite get all the ingredients for that, the idea is easily adaptable to the kind of shrimp salad I normally make. Here, I simply made a shrimp stock with white wine, and used it as a sort of court bouillon to cook the cleaned, deveined, shrimp. I then cooked the potatoes in the same stock, by which time the liquid was reduced almost to a syrup. I added some further white wine to pick up some tasty looking residue in the pan, and then reserved. I tossed the baby greens with lemon, olive oil, and salt, tried to arrange into a decorous pile with some avocada and parmesan cheese, and then dressed further with the shrimp stock sauce. Delicious.

I recently saw this recipe on Lidia Bastianich's television program, which on occasion is very instructive.  Apparently, this pizza like pie is a speciality of Gaeta, a town in between Rome and Italy and can contain either escarole (or kale, as here) or octopus (or other things, but these are the main variations).  The dough is just normal bread dough with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (in other words, water, flour, olive oil, and yeast, kneaded until smooth).  For the filling, I boiled kale for ten minutes, then slowly cooked it in olive oil with chopped olives and garlic until tender.  The pan is brushed with olive oil before the bottom layer is stretched out, and then a top layer is added before decorating.  Cook at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, and don't forget to add slits to let the steam escape.  I found the individual slices best eaten by hand.