Lighting a Fire Under Your Glass
Brandy doesn’t get a lot of attention. Great brandy is magnificent. It’s made in small batches, from grapes most people have never heard from, and can cost a small fortune. I had the good luck of tasting a bottle of stunning Armagnac Raf discovered on a trip to Paris.
Thanks to the amazing selection of a local store in San Francisco that specialized in the stuff, I was able to buy my own bottle for triple the price Raf paid for it in France. But it was worth every drop. Telling you about it now would be meaningless, since it was a vintage brandy, and as far as I can tell, there isn’t a drop of it available on the market for any price. Wine and booze can be a real bummer.
The truth is that I don’t even drink a lot of good brandy, much less the great stuff, these days. But as winter begins to come on, and people start cozying up with drinks by the fire, there is something about brandy you really should know.
The Truth Will Set You Free
If you are reading this, I think it’s probably safe to assume that on some level you care about what you eat. After all, this is a food blog, and you aren’t here looking for parenting advice or fashion tips. Actually, I don’t really know why you are here, but that’s a whole different topic.
I’m the primary food shopper in our family, and I’m a label reader.
Reading labels is a pain in the ass, especially if you have children in tow. Sometimes it just cannot effectively be done, regardless of the Nutrition Facts’ simple, clear and standardized design. But I think it is important to know what is in the food I’m buying and feeding to my kids.
The successful dynamics of a free market depend on the consumer’s ability to make informed decisions. This is one of the reasons that Trans Fats were added to the Nutrition Facts. Not long after that, trans fats seemed to disappear from a surprising number of packaged foods.
But food labels don’t give you the full story.
The Pasta of Great Virtue
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. But there was an incident a long time ago that elevated Saveur Magazine to the position of one of my favorite food magazines.
One of the two pillars of the category, I can’t recall if it was Bon Appetit or Gourmet had a poll in which readers were asked about their favorite and least favorite wines. Well, by an order of magnitude, Chablis was the big loser.
A few months later Saveur ran a cover story on Chablis.
Perhaps the Saveur story was coincidental. But I loved that this small upstart magazine was challenging food lovers to think about a wine dismissed by many as cheap plonk. The truth is that real Chablis has always been great. It is just that cheap American jug wine producers have done an amazingly effective job at besmirching the reputation of a sub-region within Burgundy, by slapping its name on their vile hooch.
But today isn’t about wine. It’s about pasta. Now prepare to be challenged.
Not So Sweet
Just last month I had an illuminating exchange with Mr. Dave over at his Ridiculous Food Society. Mostly I was amazed to learn he had abs. Having read his blog, I feel like I’ve seen him eat. And for the most part, I think it’s reasonable to assume that those who delight in hot dogs with meat sauce and who have contributed to the This is Why You’re Fat cookbook might command a heavier build.
But it turns out he exercises more than your average bear, and while he may delight in these sometimes foods, they are indeed just that. Occasional treats.
This week the spotlight has been turned onto my eating habits by a reader. Maybe you saw the comment yesterday, but maybe you didn’t. -R wrote in on his perceptions of my diet, which may be fair, and presumably what he thought was a helpful or interesting idea (that is a bit harder to tell). Anyway, this is what he said:
You do, however, seem to consume a lot of sugar. Have you ever attempted to completely eradicate sugar from your diet for any period of time?
The nice thing about having a blog, is that we can nip this in the bud.
Bad Barista Barometer
The crimes against the cappuccino are legion. But before we even go there, one must start with the crimes against espresso. Because espresso is the building block of the drink, and if a café cannot get that right, there is no way they’ll make a good cappuccino.
This is why I’ll put a café to the test first with a simple order of espresso. It helps me to evaluate if the person behind the counter has the passion, knowledge, and skill to use the tools at their disposal in the service of extracting the best from their beans.
But there are some espresso purveyors who fail to even qualify for the test.
A barista stands in front of thousands of dollars of machinery. What separates professional machines from the home models is their ability to pursue perfection: pressure and temperature adjustments that can be made in minute increments to adjust for variations in the beans and environmental conditions. Espresso is a fickle master.
However, all of it is for naught if the barista fails to do one critical thing. And you can tell if they are doing it correctly with your eyes closed.
The Deets on Sweets for Eats
I’ve had ice cream for lunch. That day I drank one and a half Boston Shakes from The Snowman to write this piece for All Over Albany was truly great. But I stuffed myself silly ice cream blended with rich whole milk, topped with more ice cream, hot fudge and whipped cream.
Surely at some point in my youth I had a candy dinner. I know if left to their own devices, or the influence of one certain “Auntie” Young Master Fussy and Little Miss Fussy would have been perfectly happy munching on their Trick-or-Treat bags for their evening meal.
But these sugar-fueled meals are the rare exception to the rule.
People look askance at those who might decide to eat nothing but cake for dinner, and someone who wanted to eat something sweet and chocolate-filled for lunch might face the derision of their peers. That is, except at breakfast. I’m not even going to look too closely at why it’s okay to stuff your face with sweets for breakfast. I think that would be the mouth of this proverbial gift-horse. Instead I simply plan to delight in this peculiar fact.
Bumbo Mumbo Jumbo
This isn’t like me. Generally when it comes to cocktails I am a strict constructionist. For example, to me a Dark and Stormy isn’t just rum and ginger beer over ice (for all that is good and holy, do not even think of sullying this drink with a lime). No. A Dark and Stormy can only be Gosling’s Black Seal Bermuda rum and Barrett’s ginger beer.
You know why? Because that is the freaking drink. It came to exist in Bermuda, and was made from the ingredients on hand.
There are however cocktails that seem to be in a perpetual state of evolution, like the Martinez. In cases like this there is no one clear recipe. Rather people choose to see it in its youth as the drink that would eventually morph into the Martini, or in its final chapter which is decidedly more Martini-like. For the record, I prefer the latter.
Then there are the drinks that are just all over the map, like the Bumbo. The Bumbo is a mess. So I’m going to do something unusual. I’m going to pervert a cocktail so classic, it was enjoyed by pirates before cocktails even existed.
Hot & Cheesy
One kid. Last night we got one freaking kid who showed up asking for candy. He didn’t even say, “Trick or treat.” But he was wearing some kind of red ninja outfit. Now my kids each have their own bagful of candy, and I’ve got a bowl with an unconscionable number of Twizzlers and Twix.
Based on last night’s twitter chatter, it seems like I’m not alone in buying way too much candy for kids that never show up. The candy companies must be laughing all the way to the bank.
But I’m not going to linger in the past.
Well, maybe I am. But I’m going back a bit farther in the past than just last night. Because it wasn’t so long ago that Wendalicious commented on my post about pepperoni. She wrote, “I am also not a fan of pepperoni, though I do admit to enjoying some inside a calzone. I don’t think I want to know how you feel about calzone.”
She didn’t use a question mark, so the comment didn’t get included in the last Ask the Profussor. But Wendy darling, if you didn’t want to know, you never should have brought it up.
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