Everywhere is Walking Distance
I used to really like comedy. Steven Wright had a line that “everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”
When I was moving to Albany, and feeling a bit nervous about living in such a small metropolitan area, locals would tell me, “Albany is great. It’s just three hours from Boston, New York City and Montreal.”
This is the worst way to describe a city to anyone.
Especially since the Capital Region has a lot more going for it than its proximity to three metropolitan hubs. There are vibrant four-season farmers markets, it is the home to one of the best bakeries in America, we are right in the middle of apple country which means apple cider donuts and more recently farm-distilled applejack, and that’s not even mentioning our marvelous taverns, diners, fish-fry or mini hot-dogs with meat sauce.
There are also some good things that have nothing to do with food, but they seem somehow off topic. Let it not be said that I’m always down on the region.
Yet, in a few minutes, I’m getting the hell out of here.
Twelve Bottles
The problem with writing so much is that it is hard to remember exactly what you’ve written. I’m just about two weeks away from my 400th post, and post number 300 seems like just yesterday.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting old.
Either way, today I’m going to do something that I don’t think I’ve ever done before on the FUSSYlittleBLOG. Those of you with better memory or who have more time to search the archive can tell me if that’s definitively true or not. But today, I’m going to dedicate this post entirely to highlighting somebody else’s blog.
One of the best parts of writing the FLB is stumbling upon people with whom I feel a strong and instant connection. If Mr. Sunshine wasn’t older than me, I would swear we had been separated at birth. Well there is another fellow I recently came across named David Solmonson, and he writes about cocktails and spirits. But he does it in a way that I wholeheartedly support. Let me explain.
TWGS: The Monte Cristo
I can’t believe it has been almost six months since the first The World’s Great Sandwiches. Admittedly this is an odd choice for the second sandwich in this ongoing series. Especially given my penchant for food quality and cost-value ratios. But how much is a sandwich worth that completely ruins you for other versions of the form?
ADS once brought Young Master Fussy and me to a most unexpected lunch destination. It was the Blue Bayou restaurant in Disneyland’s New Orleans Square. If you have ever been on the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in Anaheim, the Blue Bayou is the restaurant that overlooks the lagoon where boats float past reeds and fireflies on their way to the waterfall.
It’s really a beautiful place to take a break from the Southern California heat and enjoy a relaxing lunch. But it’s not cheap. Lunch entrées hover around $30. And the food isn’t exactly what I would call good. The Monte Cristo is a relative bargain for $22, but considering that it will change your life, one may even consider it a steal.
Too Fussy
Today’s regularly scheduled post will not be appearing this morning.
It has been deemed too fussy by Mrs. Fussy herself, and the post is too important to get it wrong the first time. Hopefully it can get cleaned up and be suitable for publication by Tuesday morning. So in the meantime, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on what has gone right during the first quarter of the second year of the FUSSYlittleBLOG.
Yes, that means that this little corner of the internet is now 1¼ years old.
Plus we just recently passed 100,000 page views which feels pretty good.
Last December I looked back at the top posts from the FLBs first calendar year, and learned a lot about which topics people read the most. But there is no reason I need to wait a whole year to do that again. Want to see if your favorite post from the last three months made the cut?
Oh Sherry
I have no idea what the song is about, and I doubt he’s singing about the wine, but someone needs to sing its praises. Sherry is one of the wines most maligned by the plonk that is sold on the shelves at American liquor stores; although the damage done to Chablis is arguably greater.
Locally, even better liquor and wine stores stock full shelves of Taylor, Fairbanks, and Christian Brothers “sherry,” none of which, mind you, actually comes from Jerez, Spain. It’s cheap, it’s sweet, and it will get you tipsy.
Much like True Chablis must come from its eponymous region in France, true sherry is made in the Jerez region of Spain. Officially, sherry is a fortified wine, with brandy added once the fermentation is complete. The actual process by which this wine is made is complex and unique. If anyone is interested we can talk more about that some other time.
Perhaps it is the complexities of sherry that have kept it at arm’s length from many domestic wine drinkers. It can be difficult to wrap one’s head around the various styles that range from light, dry and snappy to dark, sweet and viscous.
Around these parts, the best you are likely to find is Harveys Bristol Cream in its striking blue bottle.
White Dog a Go-Go
Last week I went to a hunting cabin in the woods, with two bottles of booze and no guns. You can read all about my trip preparations here, but after a thorough evaluation I decided that unaged whiskey, sometimes referred to as white dog and historically known as moonshine, would be most appropriate.
Suffice it to say I will not be asked to bring the drinks for the next camping trip.
Not that the two bottles I brought were bad. Most decidedly they are not. In fact, they are both very good. It is just that drinking straight 90 and 125 proof liquor isn’t most people’s idea of a tasty treat. These spirits should really be saved for whiskey aficionados who will delight in seeing what the brown stuff tastes like before it goes in wood.
But even those knowledgeable in spirits, like regular commenter Collin, had this to say:
Gah… whitedog… the new spirit of the day. I don’t know what I think… a lot of white dogs are –not– good. There are some exceptions (Finger Lakes being one) but still, its an unaged whiskey. Generally there is a reason whiskey is aged.
There is a reason that rum is aged. There is a reason that tequila is aged. Wood and time do magnificent, magical things to raw spirits. Without a doubt there are a lot of bad white rums and there are a lot of bad white tequilas on the market too. It is very difficult to hide shoddy craftsmanship when the taste of a spirit isn’t interlaced with the taste of the barrel.
The good ones are worth seeking out, though.
A Simple Summer Supper
I love winter. I love how the cold makes me crave the comfort of standing by a warm stove for hours. I love filling the house with the succulent aromas of braising meats. I love the blast of steam that comes from boiling pots of pasta.
Summer is different.
It’s hot and it can be sticky. Having lived in Miami, you won’t find me complaining about the humidity. Thankfully, with central air, cooking isn’t unbearable, but it just doesn’t have that same primal draw.
This is the first year that I’ve joined a CSA, and I cannot tell you how much it has increased my appreciation for the agricultural bounty of the region. I find that season-less supermarkets are really soul-killing, from a culinary perspective. However, it does require a lot of summertime cooking.
Our share on Tuesday contained the first tomatoes of the season: a generous basket of red and beautiful beefsteaks. There was corn. There was basil. Tuesday also happened to be Mrs. Fussy’s birthday, and she took it on herself to make her favorite summer meal. Plus she shared with me an amazing treat.
Definition of Cappuccino
Jeffrey Steingarten wrote a magnificent piece called “Explaining Espresso” that can be found in his second book, It Must’ve Been Something I Ate. In it he writes, “Espresso experts are more obsessive about everything than I have ever been about anything.”
That is an amazing statement for a man who has tortured his family and tested the limits of his own body in the pursuit of delicious things to eat.
Just yesterday I suggested that just perhaps I am impossibly fussy on a handful of matters. If this is true, espresso and cappuccino are high up on that list. A good bit of that revelation stems from my recent trip to Washington, D.C. where I stopped into the Illy Café on a couple of different occasions. People love this place. Love it.
Me, I thought it was just okay. Better than Starbucks. Not as good as Peet’s. And not even in the same league as Cartel Coffee Lab or Blue Bottle. At least when I ordered a cappuccino, they actually made me a proper cappuccino.
Speaking of obsessive, here is a great working definition of the drink, in seven parts, from our friends at the World Barista Championship. Read more…
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