Squandered Treasures
I find it embarrassing. It’s beyond merely sad or disappointing.
The comment I received recently from Greg up on the farm only served to solidify my position. It’s embarrassing that our local restaurants don’t support this world-class local pork producer and that all of their output is being sent down to the big city.
Admittedly, Flying Pigs Farm is expensive. I would agree with Greg that it is not expensive for what it is. But compared to conventional pork from Sysco, it’s in an entirely different league.
So naturally when Flying Pigs Farm pork is on the menu it’s not cheap. At Telepan it’s on the menu for $31 and at Il Buco it will set you back $29. Mind you, these are Manhattan restaurants with Manhattan prices where restaurants need to pay Manhattan rents.
Obviously there is still something about restaurants in Albany that I’m missing, because it’s not uncommon for these price points to be in line with some of our local top tables.
Another Decade
For those who haven’t been reading the Sunday wine post for the past few weeks, last night was the twelfth annual Open That Bottle Night. As planned, Mrs. Fussy and I opened one of the two remaining bottles of Domaine du Gros’Noré Bandol from 1998.
Our plans for OTBN were put in jeopardy by Friday’s snowstorm, but everything worked out in the end. The daube de boeuf got a bit dumbed down so it could be ready in time. Regardless, the resulting beef stew was delicious and went splendidly with the wine that still amazingly after over a decade had some firm tannins intact.
It’s sad to think there is just one last bottle of this wine. Raf bought us ten bottles of it (and two bottles of a delightful Châteauneuf-du-Pape) as a wedding gift in the summer of 2001. The idea was for us to drink a bottle a year and watch it develop and age in tandem with our marriage.
Now it’s almost gone, and I think we need to buy another case of wine to keep this tradition rolling. Maybe you should too. What follows is another case for cases.
Rye Dog Delivered
What is something worth? And how do you know when something is expensive?
These are questions that I ponder as I sip on a glass of Rye Dog, a brand new unaged whiskey from one of my favorite New York distillers Cheryl Lins. Because Rye Dog is a lot of things, but cheap is not one of them.
At $67 a bottle it will be cost prohibitive for most. But having met Cheryl I am reasonably certain this spirit is priced based on the intensity of the labor, the cost of the ingredients, and the equipment required to make it. She’s not getting rich off from her passion for distilling.
Additionally, if you break this 750ml bottle of 100 proof spirits down into 50ml pours, it comes out to less than $4.50 a drink. For such a remarkable handcrafted spirit that certainly seems reasonable, especially if one compares it to how much a bar might charge for a substantially inferior spirit.
But that is just one side of the story.
A Good Cappuccino is Easy to Find
The Internet has failed me. It’s a great tool, but the problem is that for many things I’ve become too reliant on it. Driving directions are a great example—I blindly follow Google Maps wherever it decides to take me. But I also use Yelp extensively when trying to find certain kinds of tasty things to eat.
I’ve learned my lesson.
For the past couple of visits to Washington D.C. my Yelp research has revealed Illy Café to be the best place for an espresso or cappuccino in the district. And while it may have been better than anything else I could get in Albany (prior to the arrival of Café Vero) it was certainly no Blue Bottle. Ultimately this led me to conclude there wasn’t truly great coffee in D.C.
Part of the problem was that I wasn’t talking to actual human beings who love coffee, like my old friend Brent for starters. The other part of the problem was that I was lacking an adequate term to describe exactly what I was looking for.
I learned the solutions to both of these by talking with someone who was incredibly passionate about espresso at an amazing new café in Philadelphia. By amazing, I mean I was there twice in three days, and if you live in the area, you should drop what you are doing and get yourself a cappuccino to drink at the bar.
Burger Time
Hamburgers are remarkable things. They are also many things to many people.
Let’s take a moment to stop and consider the many forms a hamburger can take. They can be flat and well-done. They can be thick and cooked to a desired internal temperature. They can be prepared on the griddle, over flame, under flame, or even deep fried. They can be served entirely unadorned resplendent in their beefy goodness. Sometimes the patty can serve merely as a substrate for toppings or a substantive stuffing for a delectable bun. The cuts of beef can range from brisket to sirloin and everything in between. A burger doesn’t even have to be made from beef.
It pays to keep an open mind, because there are fantastic versions of every form. I do recall how incredulous I was the first time I read that Five Guys cooked their burgers to a juicy well-done. Until my first bite of their tasty burgers, I had always considered these two qualifiers on opposite ends of a continuum.
Burgers have been on my mind a lot lately. Recently I had a stunning deep fried burger at the request of my favorite editors at All Over Albany. That really didn’t help my resolution about trying to eat happier meat, but it was well worth it. Luckily I had a different kind of experience with burgers on my recent trip to D.C.
A Year Ago Today: The Cuban
Most of the time when I’m on the road, I’m able bang out some new content. But not today. Yesterday’s trip from Albany to Washington D.C. left me completely spent.
Fortunately I was able to avoid stopping at McDonald’s while on the road. I had a great espresso and macchiato in Philadelphia at this amazing cafe named Elixr. And I got to poke around the main DiBruno Brothers store downtown which was a treat. Although I didn’t like to see what they were doing to their cheeses. Luckily, I have someone on the inside there who can help to fix it.
It was really Trader Joe’s that was the hero of the day, because since I had just stocked up a few days ago, the car was filled with all kinds of tasty snacks. And it was these that sustained Little Miss Fussy and me over the long drive. That and Raffi.
Anyhow, today we are off to museums, and hopefully some tasty eats. ADS mentioned something about fried fish. And I’m still pulling for an Ethiopean dinner. But that idea hasn’t been met with much enthusiasm. So for now I will leave you with a much beloved food from ADS and my collective past, The Cuban Sandwich.
A Good Cappuccino is Hard to Find
The standards are too damn high.
My grandfather who lived through the Great Depression thought I should be thankful just to have a cup of weak watery coffee. It’s hot and it’s wet. He used to look at me with disdain and confusion as I drew him diagrams that demonstrated the practical differences between a latte and a cappuccino.
And I’ll admit that my standards are high. But they have indeed been satisfied at a small handful of places around the country. So I know for a fact that they are not impossibly high. Still, I acknowledge that I am difficult to please.
Another reminder of that came from a recent trip to Boston and a cute neighborhood café in Charlestown. I walked away remembering how rare it is to find a reliably good cappuccino, and that one can get bad espresso drinks anywhere (AKA not just in Albany but even in a top ten DMA). I also left with a renewed appreciation of some of a bad cappuccino’s critical flaws.
John & Dottie Return!
Over a year ago, two of my favorite wine writers disappeared. Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher wrote a weekly wine column for the Wall Street Journal, and it was my favorite thing about the paper. Then abruptly it was gone, and so were they.
I was not alone in missing their unique and decidedly un-snobbish take on wine.
People have been coming out of the woodwork looking for these guys. Seriously. The post about their departure is among the top one percent, based on total page views, of all 562 posts on the FLB. And this is because every Saturday over the course of the past year, when somebody has newly discovered John & Dottie’s absence, they invariably run to the Internet looking for answers.
Honestly, I have no idea how it happened, but if you search Google for “Where are John and Dottie,” yours truly is placed remarkably high on the page.
Then a few weeks ago something else remarkable happened. Dottie sent me an email.
Shipping Spirits
With any luck I’ll be home when the UPS driver swings by today. He’ll need a signature of an adult over 21 years old to drop off the package, because it’s filled with booze. According to the packing slip, 21.5 pounds of it to be precise.
It begs the question why I would order booze by mail when I have at least two serviceable liquor stores within a thirty-minute drive.
The answer is easy. Not only did they not have what I was looking for, it was unlikely they could even order it. But that doesn’t explain all 21.5 pounds. You see, I hate to pay shipping charges, and if I ordered enough stuff shipping would be waived. So I went on a bit of a shopping spree.
Uh oh.
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