Bitters Freak
What do you get for the food lover who has everything? Well, if they like cocktails, the answer is simple.
Hand crafted, small batch bitters. That, or Mandy Aftel’s chef’s essence sprays.
I think I may have a drinking problem. My drinking problem is that I don’t drink nearly enough to justify the sheer quantity of cocktail enhancers I want to bring into my life. Bitters is really a terrible name as it implies a single and limited flavor sensation. Yes, cocktail bitters exist to add complexity and backbone to your drinks. But they also add an avalanche aroma and can transform the everyday into the extraordinary.
Quality – A Guest Perspective
Sometimes this little blog of mine drifts off course. One cannot be influential when mired in petty squabbles. I recognize that. But details matter. This is why in three star restaurants chefs use tweezers to plate their dishes. This is why the best coffee shops steam a fresh pot of milk for each order. This is why top flight bartenders will spend countless hours making homemade bitters just to add one drop into their mixing tin.
Maybe influential is too high a bar anyhow. After all, those that are attracted to a food blog like this one, are generally fairly likeminded individuals. So I’ll gladly settle for inspirational.
Just recently, I got a note from someone involved in the restaurant business who has asked to remain anonymous. Let’s call this person Capital Region Foodie X. Well, Foodie X has been hearing what I’ve been saying and was inspired to write an insider’s view on food quality in Capital Region restaurants.
The truth is that not everyone involved with restaurants in this town hates me. Sure, some of them talk smack behind my back on Facebook writing things like, “DB pooped in his big girl panties because people called him out for giving 5 star yelp reviews to people that sell fish sticks…” But others solicit my input, and put my thoughts into action in ways that benefit their bottom line.
Still, it’s refreshing to see someone from the front lines of our emerging food scene recognize that we’ve got a problem in the Capital Region. Hopefully by calling attention to one of the issues that’s holding us back, we can make the changes needed to improve our restaurants.
Here’s what Foodie X had to say:
At Midnight Beaujolais is New Again
There is a misconception that the older the wine, the better it is. I once was looking around a very dusty wine store that had abysmal inventory management and happened to stumble upon a bottle of ten-year old white zinfandel. The juice in the bottle was more gray than pink. I didn’t even know that wine could turn that color.
Now granted, I didn’t try it. But sometimes you have to trust your gut.
Most wines on the market these days are vinified to be enjoyed at the time of purchase. Some will improve with time. Others are at their best when they are young. Granted, that last part may be a matter of personal preference. But if you like certains wines to be bright, and tart, and full of life, then dammit, you best be drinking them while they are young.
After a wine spends some time in the bottle, its acidity can mellow and its fruit flavors decline. If you are lucky, there are other elements within the wine that emerge, but for the most part these aren’t present in wines not intended to age.
One potentially charming wine that’s meant to be enjoyed in its fragile youth is Beaujolais Nouveau, although some dismiss it as a marketing gimmick or diminish it as a wine that’s not terribly serious. By in large, those are legitimate criticisms.
Still, at midnight tonight the new vintage of this wine will be released with great fanfare. Here’s a primer on the stuff, as well as some tips on how you might find a good one.
Freaking Out About Chanukah
Talk about freaking out. The first night of Chanukah is actually before Thanksgiving. Wednesday night, November 27 is when it officially begins. That means the Jewish holiday of lights ends on December 5. December 4, is officially the last night of the celebration.
Since my Thanksgiving celebration is currently scheduled to last four days, that eats through half of the holiday that celebrates the miracle of the oil.
I know that there are a lot of people who are looking at the overlapping events and taking this as an opportunity to go hog wild (forgive the expression) with a mash-up of holiday foods. But that’s just not my style.
There is one upside.
Freaking Out About Thanksgiving
You don’t have to cook. Cooking isn’t love. Cooking well doesn’t make you a better person. The ratio between the crispiness of the turkey’s skin to the juiciness of its breast meat isn’t nearly as important as the number of times you call your distant relatives in an average week.
People get crazy in the days coming up to Thanksgiving.
For some folks it’s the only time they actually use their kitchens all year. And in doing so on such an elaborate fast, just reinforces the notion that cooking is a time intensive, stressful, and messy proposition.
It doesn’t have to be. Enduring the annual rites in the kitchen isn’t going to make your family’s Thanksgiving any better if you are a basket case. And honestly there just aren’t that many home cooks who can pull off all the dishes of a classic holiday meal with ease. And that’s okay.
Today, I’m going to cut you a lot of slack.
Showing is Telling
My plan for today was to write about not getting yourself into a panic about Thanksgiving. For those who need a little hands on instruction, my pal Deanna Fox of Silly Goose Farm is teaching a class in Albany tonight that sounds very good and thorough. It’s not too late to get in on it. All the details are here.
But sometimes the best laid plans have to get put aside.
A few of you have suggested that perhaps the best way to close the case of “lettucegate” is to simply ask Bryan Fitzgerald for his pictures of the tacos he was served at La Mexicana. So that’s what I did. Yesterday, I sent an email which among other things asked, “Is there any chance that you would be willing to share that picture with me and my readers?” And to my surprise later that same day he sent me the following snapshots.
AskTP – Deep Breaths
For the record, I still have high hopes that a crime reporter who has worked as a chef can be an effective critic who improves the overall Capital Region dining scene. After all, I’ve long held that what some of these places charge for the food they serve is a crime.
But I’m not going to talk about that today. It’s been so long since I’ve written an Ask the Profussor that some of you have feared that the feature has been cancelled.
Let me assure you, it has not. My commitment is to make sure that every question asked in the comments section of the blog (with appropriate punctuation), eventually receives an answer. Sometimes the answers come fast and furious. Other times the questions languish.
For those unfamiliar with this semi-regular feature, the links assigned to each question have nothing to do with the question at hand. Instead, they will direct you to the same mystery link of the day, and today’s is pretty sweet.
Now, without further ado, onto the questions.
Read more…
The Splurger
The FLB was created with a category called Fussy About Criticism. The idea behind this isn’t some nefarious plan to take down the Times Union. It’s just that when I first arrived in Albany, I thought the major metropolitan newspaper was largely to blame for the sad state of food I found in the region.
Over time, layer by layer, I discovered that the issues were much more complicated. And that’s usually the case. Things are never quite as simple as they may first appear.
Still, when I believe the food coverage of the newspaper is a net detriment to the community, I’m compelled to speak out. It’s not that I expect the restaurant reviewers and journalists at the paper to be flawless superhumans. No. Rather, I’d like to point out where I see them going astray, so that hopefully they can get on a better path.
Maybe I should give up. But I’m just not a giving up kind of guy.
That brings me to the new fellow who is writing restaurant reviews for the paper. His name is Bryan. You may remember him from Lettucegate, or perhaps you’ve been following him on Twitter. Actually, don’t do that. I did, thinking he might share some thoughts on food and what makes it good. Instead I got pictures of buildings in which somebody was just murdered. That was pretty grim. But I suppose it shouldn’t have been unexpected since he’s primarily the paper’s crime reporter.
Anyway, Bryan’s not so new anymore. He has six reviews under his belt. And when you put them on paper, one begins to see a very clear trend line.
The Health Kick
Did I mention that I recently walked up six flights of stairs? What is notable was that at the top I wasn’t completely winded. Not only have I been trying to eat better, but I’ve been mightily consistent with a thirty minute aerobic workout that leaves me in a puddle of sweat.
Sorry, that last part wasn’t too appetizing.
Really, I want to focus on the food part of this experiment. Even though that’s probably not too appetizing either.
Wrong About Cafe Cubano
Last week a few more facts emerged concerning “lettucegate”. Globe trotting food blogger DocSconz made a trip to La Mexicana in Schenectady and snapped a pic of his lengua taco.
Spoiler alert: The picture showed meat, onion and cilantro with no lettuce at all.
Also, we finally heard from the mysterious yelper Paul G. It was his taco picture that Burnt My Fingers insisted showed lettuce on a La Mexicana taco. But Paul clarified in the comments that none of his tacos from La Mexicana have ever come with lettuce. That green stuff is, and always has been, cilantro.
In this case, I was correct. The Times Union food critic Bryan Fitzgerald was wrong. And Steve Barnes who said I was wrong, was also wrong.
Which isn’t to say that I’m never wrong. For example, I’m probably wrong to be harping on this. Much like I was wrong to escalate the argument over banana “ice cream”. But today I wanted to share with you the time that I was wrong about Cuban coffee. So let me say this. I was a fool to have ever doubted my old friend Raf. Even though his assertion struck me at the time as being completely ridiculous, he was right and I was wrong.
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