Category Archives: de rebus texanis

“If it’s a blend, I will not attend!” (And the Texas fires)

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Cousin Marty had a hunch about what wine I’d be bringing to our BYOB dinner last night in Houston with friends. And when I arrived and revealed my bottle of 2006 Brunello di Montalcino by Il Poggione, he opened the evening with the line of the night: “If it’s a blend, I will not attend!”

Of course, he was referring to yesterday’s news that Montalcino producers voted NOT to allow international grape varieties in Rosso di Montalcino, a step that many of us feared would irrevocably reshape the appellation.

According to results posted by the Brunello producers association, roughly 2/3 of voting members voted not to adopt either of the two options proposed by oligarchy that controls the body’s technical council. One option would have created two categories of Rosso; the other would have created three; in either case, international grape varieties would have been allowed in wines labeled Rosso di Montalcino.

But that figure is misleading because consortium president Ezio Rivella had called for an “ordinary” assembly whereby the number of votes is allocated according to the size of the winery. In other words, larger wineries had more voting power than smaller wineries. If the voting had been based on a one-vote-per-winery basis, the results would have been a landslide against the proposal to change the appellation.

I am fully convinced that efforts by my colleague and partner in VinoWire, Franco Ziliani, played a fundamental role in shaping public awareness of the issues in question.

Chapeau bas, Franco! IF IT’S A BLEND, I WILL NOT ATTEND!

The 2006 Brunello by Il Poggione was gorgeous last night, rich in body, bright in acidity, with ripe red fruit and that wonderful horse sweat note that often distinguishes great Brunello. The wine was muscular and still very, very tight, young in its evolution. But the green notes that emerged the last time I tasted the wine about 6 months ago have disappeared. There’s no doubt in my mind that this is going to be a great vintage for Il Poggione.

In other and sadder news…

I wanted to share these photos that I took on Hwy. 290 from Austin to Houston of the Texas fires.

In the first photo, above, taken about 20 minutes west of Giddings, the fire had just started and the firefighters had just arrived. Man, it was scary and you could see the fear and the stress in the faces of the firefighters. G-d bless them.

In this second photo, you can see a plume northwest of Houston. Pretty spooky and so sad.

In this last photo, you can see the smoky haze over Houston this morning. That’s not morning mist. It’s ugly, brown smoke. My eyes are burning and my throat is itchy. It reminds me of LA during the riots when I was a grad student at U.C.L.A.

Tracie P and Baby P are fine and even though there are uncontained fires burning not far from our house in Austin, the smoke is not affecting us there.

Please say a prayer for all the folks who are suffering here… It’s so sad…

Boudreaux’s Butt Paste and Boudain Shopping in Port Arthur, Texas

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Here in Texas, everyone says that Boudreaux’s Butt Paste is the best. We’re only 6 months pregnant but we’ll be stocking up on butt paste pretty soon.

Crawfish boudain: if that ain’t country, I’ll kiss your ass.

Pork boudain. We also got some smoked boudain and some green onion pork sausage.

Folks around here are serious about their seasonings.

Impulse buy at checkout.

Nick’s Grocery: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

George the Gator

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After services at Rev. B’s church this morning in Orange, Texas, we headed over to Peggy’s on the Bayou where I met George the Gator (above).

Technically, George is “homeless,” one server told me, but he returns every couple of weeks for the French fries and other food that guests offer him. I’m not sure how they know that George is a he but they recognize him by the hole in his snout that never healed after someone shot him there.

Here in Coonass country, “po’ boy” can be pronounced with the accent on the second syllable: poh-BOY.

The oyster po’ boy was pretty good.

We got there too late for the gumbo (they’d sold it all already)… :(

Peggy’s not kidding when she says her place is on the bayou!

I fall in love again every time…

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…I point my camera at her.

…even when it’s over sausage and sauer kraut kolaches at Hruška’s on Texas Hwy. 71.

Mamma and Baby P are healthy and happy and pregnancy cravings have evolved into “snack attacks” (as they are called in Parzen parlance) and Tracie P is more beautiful than ever.

I just keep falling in love over and over again…

Since when is Texas a Muslim country? Sans pain, sans vin, l’amour n’est rien #TexSom

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I filed my report on the Texas Sommelier Conference today over at the Houston Press.

Click through to the post and see why Master of Wine and Master Sommelier Doug Frost was asking: since when is Texas a Muslim country?

Everyone was looking sharp at the opening session of the conference yesterday, including D’Lynn Proctor (left) and Devon Broglie, one of the two new Master Sommeliers in Texas.

The other new Texas Master Sommelier Craig Collins (right) posed with winemaker legend Serge Hochar at the panelists dinner party the night before.

Golden rules of wine blogging

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Alfonso and I had a blast at yesterday’s wine blog seminar at TexSom 2001.

In prepping for our talks, it was a great experience to reflect on the nature of wine blogging and how and why we do it. You’ll find a lot of our notes and posts by seminar participants at the ad hoc blog we created for the session: Wine Bloggers Unite.

One of the posts that seemed to resonate with participants was the golden rules to blog by:

1) remember that all blogs — wine and otherwise — are vanity blogs.
2) tell the truth and write “what you feel.”
3) avoid negativity and write about things that you do like.
4) engage in collegiality, solidarity, and camaraderie.
5) follow your palate and listen to your heart.

As one participant Tweeted during the talk, “it’s all about love, community, and finding our humanity.”

No hat[e]orade here! :)

Another series of posts that seemed to resonate with participants was our classification of wine blog types:

1) institutional wine blogs
2) commercial wine blogs
3) professional wine blogs
4) pure wine blogs

Heartfelt thanks to Master Sommeliers Drew Hendricks, James Tidwell, Craig Collins, and Devon Broglie for making us part of the wonderful and amazing experience of TexSom!

BBQ Capital of Texas THE WORLD: Lockhart

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To call Lockhart, Texas the bbq capital of the world is simply insufficient in describing its role in the gastronomic state of world bbq affairs.

Lockhart is a true Mecca — by antonomasia — the ultimate and supreme destination for bbq, where the German-Texan tradition of dry rub smoked meats has not only been institutionalized but has become a true religion.

And Kreuz Market is the bbq religion’s pontiff and its most pure expression: no forks, no napkins… just butcher paper, paper towels on the tables, and plastic knives to cut through the tender bounty and plastic spoons for the sides. And most importantly: no sauce… Housemade hot sauce (in the style of Tabasco, to give you the idea) is sufficient to add the desired kick to this perfectly seasoned meat.

That’s cousin Ben in the photo above. He, cousin Marc, Marc’s children cousins Jessica and Jacob, Cousin Marty and I headed down to Lockhart early yesterday morning for a ‘cue crawl.

We did also make it to Black’s, where cousin Jessica took this excellent photo of the signature beef rib using my camera.

There are three destinations for bbq in Lockhart — Black’s, Kreuz, and Smitty’s. They are highly competitive, steeped in familial rivalry and intrigue, and each with its own particular and peculiar nuances and idiosyncratic signatures.

One man’s poison is another man’s meat. However much the families of Lockhart feud and vie with one another to claim the title of best in a village of champions, our family was surrounded by other happy families who come together everyday united by a common cause — great food…

Buona domenica, yall!

Mazel tov to Craig Collins & Devon Broglie! Two of the six new Master Sommeliers!

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You can only imagine our joy in hearing (just now) that our good friends Devon Broglie (left) and Craig Collins have passed the final exam (tasting) and have become Master Sommeliers.

We are so proud of them and proud to know them. And we’re looking forward to seeing them at TexSom, the Texas Sommelier Conference in a few weeks in Dallas, Texas!

Congratulations, yall! We are so stoked!

Boudin balls and Brunello (and a Ringo Starr anecdote)

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In case yall don’t know what boudin balls are, yall don’t know what you are missing!

Boudin balls are a specialty of Cajun cuisine: you form balls using uncased boudin (pork and rice sausage, commonly found in Louisiana and East Texas where Tracie P grew up) and then you dredge in flour and cornmeal and then you fry.

For Easter this year, Pam brought steaming-hot, freshly fried boudin balls over to Mrs. and Rev. B’s house (she lives just a few blocks away). I paired with an 06 Brunello di Montalcino by Il Poggione that I’d been saving for the occasion. I wrote about it over at the Houston Press, the Houston alternative rag, where I am now a regular contributor on wine. Here’s the link. Fun stuff…

Speaking of Easter, what Easter celebration would it be without memaw B’s deviled eggs?! Man, they’d be worth the drive to from Austin to Orange alone! Love that stuff! Also excellent with the Brunello, where the acidity and tannin the wine cut through the fattiness of the filling like a Bowie knife!

Speaking of balls, I am reminded of something I once heard Ringo Starr say. It was back in 2003 and the French band was asked to open for Ringo at the now defunct Bottom Line in the Village. (You can imagine how thrilled I was to get to do this! It was an amazing experience. Nora Jones — at the height of her fame — also appeared with Ringo that night. Incredible!)

After sound check, Ringo was totally cool and signed autographs for all the folks who managed to make it in through the extremely tight-security (I got to be there because we sound checked after Ringo’s band). At one point, this dude brought him a baseball and asked him to sign it. To which Ringo said, “I’ll sign just about anything, but I don’t sign balls.”

So, there you go…

A living museum of Tex-Mex at Robb Walsh’s El Real, Houston

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Googling around the internets this morning, reflecting on a fascinating dinner and conversation last night with legendary Texas food writer Robb Walsh and his protégé Katharine Shilcutt (both magister and alumna have been nominated for this year’s James Beard food writing awards, btw), I found the above and wonderful photograph Tula Borunda Guttierez in an archived copy of Texas Monthly, January 1986.

Robb wisely insisted that I have the Enchiladas Borunda last night at his newly opened, living and breathing, museum of “vintage” Tex-Mex cuisine and restaurant, El Real in Houston: stacked as opposed to rolled enchiladas, a signature dish of the Old Cafe Borunda in Marfa, Texas, a restaurant that he calls the historic epicenter of Tex-Mex cuisine.

I also found this utterly riveting high school essay, dated 1965 and composed in Marfa, by Lupe Lujan, “Love, Laughter, and Enchiladas: A History of The Old Borunda Cafe and the Women Who Made it Famous.” I devoured the entire essay this morning over my coffee (don’t miss the episode where the café is visited by Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor!).

El Real is the most-talked-about restaurant in Houston right now. It is, after all, the brainchild of Houston restaurateur aristocracy (from the dudes at Reef et alia) and el rey of tejano food writing, Robb, who literally wrote the book on Tex-Mex cuisine.

I’ll leave the punditry to the pundits and will merely inform you that the stacked Enchiladas Borunda (above, stuffed with braised pork and topped with fried egg) were delicious (“I’m glad to see we made you sweat,” said Robb.). They were preceded by the sine qua non of Tex-Mex cuisine, Queso with Picadillo (made rigorously with
Velveeta, noted Robb), and an excellent heaping ladleful of Posoles (below).

Be sure not to miss the Tex-Mex museum in the gallery above the dining room floor and don’t hesitate to grill Robb with questions about Tex-Mex cuisine and its place in the culinary canon of Americana (as I did). He’s there every night and he loves to talk about this super fun project.

It was remarkable to watch and hear the interaction between Robb and his hand-picked successor Katharine, now the food critic at the Houston Press, the city’s weekly alternative rag. She worked in corporate America until Robb discovered her awesome blog, She Eats. Now they’re both up for James Beard awards!

Robb talked about his background in advertising and how his early gigs in food writing didn’t pay. As we got up from the table, he looked around the packed dining room and waxed, “Isn’t it incredible? I made money while I was having dinner!”