Category Archives: de cibo

Joe Dressner and I have made our peace

Posted on by

I don’t know why but eating dinner at the Wieners Circle in Chicago made me feel at piece with my sometimes antagonist Joe Dressner.

I don’t know if he’s ever been there (he’s from Long Island, from what I understand) but I’m sure he would love it.

It’s one of those sine qua non Chicago places. (There are men who know what sine qua non means and others who have to look it up.)

Seriously, the truly lovey ladies at Wieners Circle are SUPER NICE ladies and we had so much fun talking last night after they served me up a killer charbroiled cheddardog with all the Chicago fixins after me and Pat grabbed a beer by Wrigley Field. Highly recommended for peacemaking. Man, Obama, you listening? These ladies could make peace in the Middle East, they are SO FINE!

Drinking American with my Rockport crispy softshell crab in Houston

Posted on by

We drank two American wines between the four of us last night, when cousins Marty and Joanne, family friend Taylor and I shared a truly superb seafood dinner last night at one of Houston’s more glamorous dining destinations Mark’s (pricey, I gotta say, but worth every penny… thanks again, ya’ll for a great dinner, btw!).

The pièce de résistance was the crispy softshell crabs from Rockport, Texas (above), which wine director Saree Mulhern deftly and keenly paired with a wine I’d never tasted before, 2007 Retour Pinot Noir. I told Saree that I was hoping for a lighter-bodied Pinot Noir, not old world per se, but with good acidity and balanced use of wood. She delivered a beauty of a wine, I must say. The pairing with the fresh-tasting softshell, gently battered and fried (a Houstonian delicacy), was brilliant.

It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white: the 2008 Pinot Blanc by Robert Foley — “no barrel, no malo” as his site reports — was fresh and bright and wonderful with my “trio” of seafood appetizers (actually a tetralogy). I was blown away by the Louisiana crawfish tails, which the chef seemed to have treated as he would steamed langoustines — an aristocratic demise for these “mudbugs,” as they are called around these parts. Man, if I came across a live crawfish as big as that, I’d probably run for the hills!

You see? I’m trying to break my old habits and drink domestically… I can’t think of a better place than Saree’s list to do it.

In other news…

This is how I feel right now:

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody’s help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured,
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won’t you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before.

Man, I’m looking forward to some downtime with that super fine lady of mine this weekend! I miss her so much after a week too hectic with work and other mishegas… On Monday, I might just ask her to call my job and tell my boss I won’t be in, to borrow one of Guy Stout’s favorite lyrics…

Kitchen-sink paella and pleonastic etymologic Sunday morning musings

Posted on by

Photos by the angelic Tracie P.

In Austin, Texas, one really needs no particularly apparent reason to throw a party, other than the patent excuse that the weather’s nice and it’s Saturday. Such was the case when a group of folks gathered in the home of Austinite food and wine personality (and all-around nice guy) John Bullington yesterday for a paella party, a series of paelladas, including some very traditional expressions and highly unconventional interpretations, like the one above, including orange slices, purple carrots, Brussels sprouts, and roast chicken, among other ingredients (and omitting saffron for at least one safranophobe). John cooked the paella over an open, pecan-wood fired pit, and at least one observer could not help but admire his collection of paelleras.

Upon noting praise for his paella prowess, John pointed out that paellapans.com is the perfect place to purchase such implements.

A philologist and lover of words at heart, I couldn’t help but note the pleonastic nature of the binomial paella pan, the pan pan, so to speak, a linguistic conundrum akin to that encountered in the La Brea Tar Pits, in other words, the the tar tar pits. Indeed, the lemma paella has become so deeply entrenched in our everyday parlance that it has lost its connection to the etymon patina (patena) and later patella, meaning [open] pan, from the Latin pateo, meaning to open (which also gives us Anglophones patent, meaning open, widespread, unobstructed, clear, evident, obvious).

Okay, so now you know what I sit around and think about on an early, lazy, sleepy Sunday morning as the genteel Tracie P slumbers angelically.

Monday morning promises to deliver some significantly less whimsical wine blogging (stay tuned)… In the meantime, let’s all hope that everyone’s favorite natural wine blogger Saignée can be delivered swiftly and safely back to his lovely better half… He’s stuck somewhere between a volcano and San Francisco. Let’s all wish him buon viaggio…

And buona domenica to the rest of ya’ll…

Whadda night! Anthony Wilson Trio at the Neurosciences Institute, La Jolla

Posted on by

Above: What a mindblowingly great show last night by The Anthony Wilson Trio, with Larry Goldings on Hammond B-3, Jeff Hamilton on drums, and guest Gilbert Castellanos on trumpet! The old auditorium at the hyberbolically postmodern Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla continues to be a great “room” to hear jazz.

Wow, last night, whadda night… At the last minute, our good friend Robin Stark hooked me up with a ticket via her frequent flier miles and got me into La Jolla for Anthony Wilson Trio’s show at the Neurosciences Institute.

These guys — each of them a jazz master in his own right — performed two spell-binding sets, with original composition “Mezcal” flooring me in the first, and the theme to the movie Chinatown transporting me (and a lot of other folks) to a new plane of consciousness (I’m not kidding) in the second. Both tracks appear on Anthony’s latest disk, Jack of Hearts. They also did a hauntingly gorgeous cover by Judee Sill (can someone remind me of the title?) and a a couple of Ellington covers.

Above: Stopped in briefly for a Campari and soda at Jaynes, now serving cocktails nightly.

Brother Tad and nephew Cole (both of them jazz aficionados) were there, as were Yelenosky and Jon and a whole mess of nice La Jolla folks I know. Jayne and Jon hosted the after-party for the band and Robin’s posse at their home. Robin, who underwrote the performance, was talking up her ProKids charity: “The mission of Pro Kids is to positively impact the lives of inner-city youth by providing programs that promote education, character development, life-skills, and values through the game of golf.”

Above: 2006 Meursault Les Chevalières by Boisson-Vadot and 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon by Chateau Montelena with pizza for dinner. That’s how one rolls in La Jolla. The Montelena, which I was tasting for the first time, impressed me with its restraint. The Boisson-Vadot? Killer. To borrow Lyle’s phrase, rocks and fruit.

I’m already on a plane back to Texas (posting from the plane!) and I’m looking forward to a weekend at home with that super fine lady of mine.

With the arrival of spring and the wine industry and its media back at full throttle these days, I have to confess that the lame-assed negativity of certain bloggers (and haters) has been bringing me down lately. I don’t know why certain folks can’t realize this blog — my blog — is about my life and nothing more… It’s a journal, its entries filled with my experiences, the wines I taste, the foods I eat, the pairings I stumble upon, the music I like to listen to, and my impressions of the places where I travel and the people I meet.

Anthony Wilson is definitely one of the coolest dudes I’ve ever met and we all had a blast drinking some killer wines, listening to vinyl, munching out, and hanging at Jayne and Jon’s after the show. A truly “epic” night, as we say in Southern California.

I was reminded just how lucky I am to be surrounded by such wonderful folks who truly care about and for me, warm family that cherishes my happiness and my achievements, and a gorgeous and loving lady, whose affection and carbonara truly rock my world…

Yesterday, I was treated to a heaping serving of awesome music, thanks in part to friends who know how much I like that type of thing and who just generally like having me around.

This post is for me to look back on and remember this moment and how it made me feel. This post is dedicated to those friends…

Thanks for reading…

Air guitar notion, chicken fried steak, and Valpolicella

Posted on by

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (online edition), the earliest documented occurrence of the term air guitar in print dates back to 1980:

    1980 Hartford (Connecticut) Courant 24 Apr. 2/5 (caption) Roy Charette displays his prize-winning form at playing the ‘air’ guitar. 1980 Mountain Democrat (Placerville, Calif.) 19 Dec. A6/1 The fans whip out their air guitars to catch all of Mick Taylor’s licks. 1982 N.Y. Times 21 Feb. XXIII. 15/4 (heading) Her performance almost convinces the audience that she holds a real guitar and not a tennis racquet… ‘Air guitar’, the art of miming musical performances, has caught on around the country. A New Haven nightclub..held the Connecticut air-guitar championships. 1995 Guardian 30 June (Friday Review section) 18/1 Whole venues full of people..playing air guitar and moving their heads in an exaggerated side-to-side motion. 2002 D. AITKENHEAD Promised Land xiii. 139 We did our best to look impressed, but really it was just Armien, standing outside a shed, playing air-guitar on an imaginary AK-47.

That sounds about right to me: I started playing air guitar when I was around 13 years old. Doesn’t everyone?

I indulged in some very public air guitar last night, as well.

Last night we joined Björn Türoque (aka Jean-Luc Retard, my bandmate in Nous Non Plus, aka Dan Crane) and his lovely wife Kate for one of the regional editions of the US Air Guitar Championship at the High Ball in Austin. Björn and Kate travel around the country, emceeing these super-fun events.

Tracie P didn’t join me on stage last night (she’s more of air drum person and man, don’t let this woman loose in the Abba and/or Xanadu karaoke room!).

I couldn’t resist the Chicken Fried Hanger Steak at Lambert’s before the event (probably not the best idea, unfortunately, in the wind-up to an air guitar competition). Lambert’s allows corkage and so we paired with an awesome bottle of 2006 Le Ragose Valpolicella, one of my favorite expressions of the appellation, earthy and grapey, a superb barbecue and southern cooking pairing.

That’s all I have time for this morning as I’m headed out the door. You’re not going to believe where I’ll be tonight… Stay tuned… and thanks for reading!

Do Bianchi blue Monday, Air Guitar Tuesday (and bonus carbonara porn)

Posted on by

I just had to share this image, snapped last night at Vino Vino in Austin, where Hammond B-3 player Mike Flanigin and Gary Clark Jr. have been performing on Mondays. To my palate, Gary is one of the greatest blues players in the world today and to get to hear him play in small room like Vino Vino, where you hear his amp and Mike’s Leslie speaker unmitigated (i.e., not pumped through a PA), is simply one of those life-changing musical experiences. Add to the mix that the show is FREE and that you can order a killer bottle of wine (we drank the Bea Santa Chiara to the warm tones of Gary’s Gibson). If you know of any other place in the world beyond Austin, Texas where such an incredible confluence of sensuality occurs, please let me know…

In other sensual news…

Our good friends the Housewrights and I were treated to Tracie P’s amazing carbonara last night before we headed over to the show…

Did I mention the girl can cook?

In other other news…

Tracie P and I will be joining my erstwhile bandmate Björn Türoque tonight at the Highball in Austin for the Air Guitar Championship competition (regional edition).

See you there?

98 López de Heredia rosé and a gordita at Fonda San Miguel, anyone?

Posted on by

fonda san miguel

As much as Tracie P and I LOVE Austin’s Fonda San Miguel (a restaurant considered by many, and rightly so, one of the best Mexican restaurants in the U.S.), it would be untrue for me to say that we are fans of its wine list (dominated by new world Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay). But when we cozied up at the bar the other night for one of our favorite guilty-pleasure dinners, we were thrilled to find the 1999 López de Heredia Viña Gravonia (white) on the by-the-glass list and the 1998 Viña Tondonia Rosado Gran Reserva by the bottle. That gordita paired brilliantly with the acidity and fruit in this gently oxidative wine.

fonda san miguel

I couldn’t resist posting this photo Tracie P snapped that night. You can see the beautiful stained glass in the ceiling reflecting in the wine.

And on the subject of the 1998 Rosado, you can also find it by the bottle at a happy-hour price (too obscene to report here!) over on Josh Loving’s list at Fino, from 5-7 p.m. My advice? Run don’t walk…

In other Spanish-speaking news…

guerrero

Tracie P and I attended a fascinating lecture and presentation by our friend George O. Jackson Jr. at the University of Texas Ransom Center the other night.

George O. (as he is known) has been traveling in and photographing folk culture in Guerrero, Mexico for 20 years. These images are from the jaguar dances and competitions performed by Indian tribes there as an offering to G-d.

guerrero

The pain the participants endure in the dances, George O. explained, is one of the ways they offer sacrifice to their vision of the Judeo-Christian G-d in return for their bountiful rain.

His photos are not yet entirely available for viewing online, but you can see some of them here, from a previous exhibition. Truly fascinating stuff and simply thrilling images…

Happy Friday, ya’ll… I sure am ready to get my weekend on!

Scenes from an orange wine dinner

Posted on by

Tracie P and I had a blast at the orange wine dinner last night, at Vino Vino in Austin, where I poured and spoke about the wines. Life could be worse… Here are some “scenes from an orange wine dinner” for your virtual and vicarious enjoyment… Photos by Tracie P…

movia puro

Got it all going with a little bit of 2000 Puro by Movia, disgorged tableside (not really an orange wine, but a great place to start).

paolo bea

The first three wines were all by the hand of Giampiero Bea. Man, the Arboreus was outta sight… and I always love the Santa Chiara. The Coenobium, always a go-to for us.

gary clark jr

Shared a little Lunar by Movia with B3 player Mike Flanigin and Gary Clark Jr., who played later that night. Man, only in Austin: killer orange wine followed by some of the most insane blues musicians I’ve ever heard… I’m not shittin’ you, either…

lewis dickson

I was geeked to taste with Lewis Dickson, arguably the best winemaker in Texas and probably the only one who uses native yeast and a natural approach to winemaking.

seared flounder

Chef Esteban’s cooking was OFF THE CHARTS AMAZING last night. Seared flounder with purée of English peas. For the complete menu, click here.

vodopivec

I had a second glass of the 2005 Vodopivec Vitovska. Man, I dig that wine.

gravner

No, that’s not old man piss. It’s GRAVNER (2003 Ribolla Gialla Anfora)!

1989 Produttori del Barbaresco for Easter

Posted on by

produttori del barbaresco

Above: The 1989 Produttori del Barbaresco Barbaresco was truly brilliant yesterday afternoon. We paired with roast leg of lamb and sat outside in the gorgeous weather. Ubi major minor cessat: check out Tom’s excellent profile of Produttori del Barbaresco here. I visited the winery during my March trip to Piedmont and will post on my tasting there in the next few weeks.

Posting in a hurry this afternoon because slammed with work and getting ready for tonight’s Orange Wine dinner at Vino Vino, where I’ll be pouring and talking about some amazing wines. We posted the wines and the menu earlier today. (There are still a few spots open: the wines are great, chef Esteban is pulling all the stops, and in true Austinite fashion, the dinner will be followed by Gary Clark Jr.’s first performance at Vino Vino.)

produttori del barbaresco

We shared our Easter feast with another couple, close friends of ours. I roasted a leg of lamb yesterday afternoon, seasoned with rosemary from our garden. My beautiful Tracie P made all the fixins. :-)

produttori del barbaresco

Tracie P had also dyed some Easter eggs. Our new home is so wonderful. Words just cannot say how much I love her…

In other news…

Alfonso aka Italian Wine Guy has been making his way from Bordeaux down to Italy. I’ve really be enjoying his posts and his travels… Definitely worth checking out…

More tomorrow…

Recipe: Giovanna’s Spinach Casserole (and I know my chickens)

Posted on by

Many years ago, I worked as an editor at an Italian food magazine where I must have translated thousands of recipes. I had fun this morning translating Giovanna’s recipe below.

Giovanna’s Spinach Casserole

An old, simple, and tasty recipe.

Wash the spinach well and then wilt in a pan with a pinch of salt. Squeeze and then use a sieve to purge the spinach of its water. Sauté in a pan with a little bit of butter.

Make a béchamel and seasons with salt and pepper to taste and a dash of nutmeg. Fold the béchamel into the spinach and add freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano, 2 whole eggs, and 1 egg yolk. Whisk the remaining egg white until it forms peaks and then carefully fold it into the spinach mixture.

Grease a loaf pan (or a bundt cake pan) with butter and then coat with a thin layer of flour before transferring the spinach mixture to the pan. Heat the oven to 375°, arrange the pan in a bain-marie and bake for 40-45 minutes. Remove the loaf from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes before turning it out on to a serving platter.

Serve with a fondue, with mushrooms, or chicken livers.

*****

Tracie P’s comment reminded me that I had neglected to post about Giovanna’s rooster and chickens!

franco ziliani

There’s a wonderful expression in Italian, a phrase you might hear a mother or a grandmother utter when she can predict a child’s desire or request: conosoco i miei polli (I know my chickens). If you ever get to stay in an Italian farmhouse estate like Giovanna’s, you’ll notice that the chickens (like Giovanna’s) have very distinct and often peculiar preferences about their daily routine and pecking order, as it were. Hence the familiar, affectionate expression…

Thanks again, Giovanna, for sharing your recipe!

And for my fan of the “burning disappointment,” please don’t despair! Next on deck: Beppe Rinaldi on natural yeast… Stay tuned!