A Literary Feast

Notable And Potable Vol. 17: The Spirits Are Willing, And The Flesh Is At Cocktail Week

Posted on February 13th, 2012

Being the cocktail festival neophyte that I was, I went to Portland Cocktail Week with stuffy journalistic goals of remaining focused, attentive, and slightly sober. In retrospect, I did pretty well– filling an index card with notes during a noontime blind tasting of eight tequilas held in a room warm with bodies and practically damp with agave fumes, achieving a buzz just enough to get me doing live band karaoke and befriending a man who designed a robot, partying with said robot, waking up feeling spunky enough to start my day with a mezcal tasting– and so on. I had managed to achieve a harmonious tripartite homeostasis with my intake of nutrients, water, and spirits, and I held onto it. Until the last day. The day of the cocktail bus.

The day of the cocktail bus began with more mezcal. Mas mezcal, por favor. “Para todo mal, mezcal y para todo bien, tambien” is the popular proverb appropriated by what quickly became my favorite brand of pretty much anything: Del Maguey’s Single Village Mezcals. The day before, Misty Kalkofen and Jeff Grdinich of Drink, like an efficient team of street savvy drug dealers, had gotten me hooked. We drank out of handmade clay copitas that sucked the moisture out of my lower lip and made the first sip more intense, we poured some on the ground for a blessing, and we learned that in one village men pummel the roasted agave piñas with bats before fermentation. The memories of the tequila I’d tasted the other day were now relegated to the Really Nice Guy or RNG region of the brain (“Oh, him? Yeah, no, I mean he’s a Really Nice Guy and all, but…”) while mezcal leaned against a brick wall smoking a hand-rolled cigarette being all complicated.

Of course I had to see it again. I woke up, took a nice long drink of water, checked my hair, and was walking through the door of Teardrop Lounge just after 11am. Breakfast was served in a wave of vintage cocktail glasses, many of them with unique stem heights which lent an air of Seussy playfulness to the experience. The sun warmed my back as we tasted two cocktails two different ways: a Guelaguetza* with either tequila or mezcal, and a Zocalo** with mezcals from two different villages. Misty explained that La Guelaguetza is a Oaxacan festival that celebrates giving and sharing, while Jeff mixed up the cocktails to give and share. My tasting notes on the two Guelaguetzas reveal my huge mezcal crush with the tequila variant only offering up “chocolate, sweet” while the mezcal variant was “Tangy! Bigger, better, muy complex +++.” After comparing Chichicapa to Santo Domingo Albarradas in the Zocalos, we had a beer cocktail. Then a spiked hot coffee. I floated off my barstool and out into the afternoon with my brain grinning like an idiot while the rest of my body nervously wondered if it was going to get fed any time soon. Nope! It was going to run across the Broadway Bridge to the Leftbank Annex and all the fun that waited inside. “Fun will sustain you,” my grinning brain told the rest of my body, and so I spent the next few hours drinking a delicious absinthe-based punch and cheering on the fine ladies vying for the title of fastest bartender in Portland’s Speed Rack competition. “Pssst, I think I’m high… on mezcal!” I said to a tall burly man next to me who gave me a big smile, slapped me five, and replied “Awesome!” At this point, a good way to describe myself might be one of the plastic body-shaped covers for those Visible Woman models, but filled with liquor instead of plastic organs, maybe with a straw for a spinal cord. Oh, and would you look at the time.

I stared into the abyss. The abyss was a bus. It was a shiny red bus, and it reminded me just enough of the shiny red robot named Chassis that had served me drinks at the previous night’s Robots vs. Humans bartending event for me to momentarily believe in Transformers. It made me feel safe. “It’s cool, I know this robus.” I had also reached the point in my personal drunkenness when I was feeling really helpful. When I get drunk, I get helpful. I walked straight to the back of the bus where a man was doling out punch from a big tub into small plastic cups. I’m sure I asked if I could help at least twice, but things were already feeling fuzzy. I do remember the on-board bar though– it was a big old slice of some tree with a very rugged exterior, and very nicely finished. The two bar stools were plush and upholstered with red leather, and they were hydraulic or something. When we started moving, the stools gently swayed along with the bus and I felt like a cowboy astronaut. A cowboy astronaut riding inside a Drinkbot Transformer-turned-spacebus. The punch was yellow and tasty. The person who had come to occupy the second stool was using his iPhone to make Cake play over the bus’ speakers, and I couldn’t have been happier sipping, singing, and bobbing around as we headed to our first destination: a bar. Our second and 5th destinations would also be bars, and although I’d managed to snarf a few crostini snacks at the first bar, I was literally running on fumes.

Journalism? Sobriety? But where was that sexy mezcal? Oh look, a bus! I can’t tell you a thing about the bars we visited except that bar number four was the real abyss. There was carpeting, popcorn machines, and no windows. It was a pitcher plant-like venue, designed to attract and digest those to whom the redolent odor of synthetic butter is irresistible. To be honest, it was the closest thing to a real “dive bar” I’d been inside for months. My body, in its humiliated state, staged a final rebellion when it realized there wasn’t any fresh-squeezed citrus to be had here, and kicked me hard enough to get the point that I needed some goddamned water across the blood-brain barrier. I drank that delicious dive bar water until I felt strong enough to flee.

I fled to Clyde Common and my first significant solids of the day. By the ripe hour of 7:30 PM I was supping on tagliatelle tossed in a beautiful puree of vibrant greens. At the time I didn’t believe in vitamins, only in colors, and this was some of the greenest looking pasta I’d ever seen. It was so green that I felt good enough to have the bottle cap of a carbonated Americano popped off for me and, just like that, the balance was restored. Only a bout of the hiccups and several volumes of water stood between me and the sleep of the drunk. And a cigar. I ended up smoking a cigar. And if it were possible to communicate with spirits, I probably would have texted mezcal.

* GUELAGUETZA

0.25 oz. Agave syrup
0.25 oz. Santa Maria Al Monte Amaro
0.50 oz. Lemon juice
0.50 oz. White Creme de Cacao
1.75 oz. Agave spirit
1 dash Angostura bitters

** ZOCALO

0.50 oz. Canela (Mexican cinnamon) syrup
0.50 oz. French Dry Vermouth
2.00 oz. Del Maguey Vida Mezcal
1 dash orange bitters

Categories: Uncategorized

Oysters In Your Mustache: The Rise and Inevitable Future Decline of the Cocktail and Oyster Bar

Posted on February 13th, 2012

The year is 1996. The setting – an enormous industrial loft-style lounge with high ceilings, exposed pipes and sleek modern couches and coffee tables. Narcotic beats by Bristol trip hop groups waft over the space from the sound system designed to get the most bass out of every beat. On one of the couches, a man and a woman in clean black turtlenecks and Chelsea boots lounge with martinis.

Remember Pearl Jam? Says the man. What happened to them? I haven’t listened to them since their first album – Ten, was it?

Is it too early to feel nostalgic for them? Says the woman and giggles self-consciously. Speaking of grunge – wasn’t this place a dingy dive bar just a couple of years ago?

Every few years, trends come along and take over swiftly and efficiently. It happens in every arena of culture – fashion, music, cuisine, restaurant space – and often in clusters, as one trend links arms with another and comes hopping merrily into your bourgeoisie-bohemian neighborhood. At the height of each mini-era, it is almost impossible to believe that whatever seems fresh and vibrant today will become stale and cumbersome tomorrow, that in time you will move on to something new and wonder what the big deal was in the first place. (Remember your last relationship?) After all, the man and woman in the scenario above were sporting flannel shirts and beanies and lamenting the death of Kurt Cobain only two years ago. In another five years, they will be wearing tight jeans and ironic t-shirts at a Strokes concert. And where are they in early 2012? At a dark, retro oyster-and-cocktail bar, of course.

The cultural shift of the mid-‘aughts shook off its backward-gazing rock’n’roll trappings and began to move toward a more rustic sensibility, while simultaneously celebrating the style and attitude of Mad Men America. Short-lived as these things are on their own, the two tectonic plates converged, creating, among other shockwaves, the restaurant industry’s movement toward that Industrial Revolution-era saloon serving stiff liquor drinks and a perfect snack – the oyster.

This type of establishment is the perfect synthesis of Don Draper and Cullen Bohannon (the uber-masculine bearded hero of another AMC period piece, Hell On Wheels). These spaces are in every way the antithesis of the sleek, modernist lounge: instead of exposed metal and pipes, dark warm wooden interiors and occasional taxidermy; instead of emphasis on crisp vodka cocktails, a focus on smoky bourbon concoctions (or else encouragement to take it neat or on the rocks); instead of sleek cosmopolitan beats, the muddy lo-fi reverb of prohibition-era jazz, cornfield blues and beardo folk. An improvement in every way, many of us would say – except, of course, in 1997 we would have laughed.
The perfect cocktail to order in such an establishment is a Manhattan, the virtues of which I have sung previously in this very publication. You can’t go wrong with a classic, though many bars offer their own versions, often slightly tweaked for a sweeter, smoother flavor. Any whiskey or bourbon drink is a fit, of course, as are quality red wine and craft beer, particularly stouts.

Many bars try to entice customers with absinthe – a treat or a gimmick, depending on how you view the substance. The draw of absinthe is the “illegal” angle – until the year 2001, you could not serve it in bars in the United States due to its supposed (and obviously exaggerated) mildly hallucinogenic qualities. To this day, only a limited number of bars have the license to serve absinthe, and those that do will only put a tiny bit in your cocktail. (Thus the “absinthe drip cocktails” section on many menus.) Personally, I find the substance revolting: Its taste reminds me of nothing so much as foolish early college-era experiments with Jagermeister, and instead of visions of lovely maidens in long dresses with exposed shoulders floating through the air, chasing enormous oysters (okay, we all have fantasies, so stop judging), the inevitable outcome is an immediate splitting headache. (Outlawing the spirit was certainly not called upon by the makers of migraine medication.)

Oysters happen to be the perfect snack for such settings. Inexpensive when purchased directly and in bulk, the upsell is tremendous. Menu prices for different oyster varieties range from about $2 to $3 dollars apiece, and since the oysters are delicious at their worst and not filling at all, and the food menus tend to otherwise be limited, your liquor-fueled appetite will demand that you keep them coming by the dozen. A number of bars have instituted the tradition of oyster happy hour, when some (or all) oyster varieties can be had at $1 apiece; it is not uncustomary, on such outings, to find yourself down $20 (not counting the cocktails) and still starving. Oysters are always served with the usual condiments, but I prefer mine unadorned – when I slurp one down like a savage, saltwater and all, I want to taste the ocean. (So long as the ocean in question is not off the coast of Coney Island.)

Of all the places that have been popping up since the late ‘aughts, the one to get it 100% right is Maison Premiere in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The bar has been open for a couple of years now, and many have discovered its charms, resulting in heavy crowding during the liberal oyster happy hour. A hostess resembling a waifish version of Mad Men’s Joan welcomes you to the dimly lit space. You can choose to go to the rustic back area with tables or stay at the semi-oval bar. Old blues and jazz – not hip hop or techno – play in the background, never too loud. The bartenders sport white shirtsleeves, ties and vests; the waitresses are attired in skirts and polka dot everything. Interesting detail is everywhere – from the beer taps resembling vintage spouts, to the beer gutters that look like something a prospector might have built, to the selection of liquor and oysters, everything is well-thought out.

Naturally, like any other trend, in a matter of a few short years this kind of establishment has multiplied like a rabbit on Viagra. Today, it seems like you cannot toss a half-eaten Crumbs cupcake without hitting a cocktail-and-oyster restaurant. This is now the standard in New York restaurant/bar design and concept; if you want your new eatery to succeed, this is how it should look and what it should serve. The formula can be tweaked: replace oysters with all things bacon, or take the place out of 1890 and dump it in 1935, or pipe in some Kings of Leon. So what’s wrong with that, you ask?

The year is 2012, month of November. The setting – a Prohibition-era speakeasy-style bar with dark wood paneling and fine bourbon on the shelf behind the shirtsleeve- and suspenders-clad barman. He is mixing a Long Island Iced Tea as deep Miami Bass thunders over the crammed space. A man with a half bottle’s worth of hair gel, sporting an A|X t-shirt, is talking to a woman whose features are caked in multiple layers of makeup.

This place is dope! Says the man. Worth leaving Staten Island for.

I know, right! Says the woman. I gotta tell the girls about this. They’re clubbing tonight though.

Okay! Says the man. I’m gonna text my boy, bro is gonna come out for sure.

It’s an all-too-familiar cycle. Something starts small, and is embraced by a few; quality is high. It gets a little bigger, and is embraced by enough people to warrant write-ups in edgy publications; quality is still high. Then it explodes, everyone is abuzz, edgy press grumbles about the coming end; quality starts to drop significantly. Finally, the world moves on, and the cycle restarts itself. And there are signs that we are reaching the end of the cocktail and oyster bar cycle.

As mentioned previously, the bars are everywhere. What started as a few charming throwbacks has turned into a mass-produced gimmick. In the East Village, an old grungy pizza shop on Avenue A and East 7th Street was converted into an oyster bar; another one opened up on First Avenue and 4th Street a short while afterward. Brooklyn’s Smith Street is home to Brooklyn Social, Clover Club and Char No. 4, with Henry Public just a few blocks away in Brooklyn Heights. These are not oyster bars per se, but they do all sport an old timey air while charging very modern prices that would have Don Draper himself taking stock of his weekly nightlife budget. It may not be long now before the quirk – already no longer just that – becomes the standard.

And what of quality? It’s already dropping. There is a bi-level bar/restaurant on the Lower East Side called The Essex. The Essex offers cocktails, food, and an oyster happy hour ($1.50 per critter). It is also the sort of soulless bi-level space that tries to cater to the Gossip Girl aesthetic but ends up resembling a Mob Wives reunion in Miami. The cocktails are still expertly mixed, though the menu allots plenty of space for Sex & the City-style sugary concoctions. The staff is all hollow-eyed models, towering over the Phil Collins lookalike who slings drinks and also manages (and perhaps owns) the bar. The oysters, it must be said, are extremely subpar to Maison Premiere’s offerings. Worse, this place obviously has an unjustifiably high opinion of itself. When my friends, a couple who are both attractive, highly paid professionals, came there for brunch, they were immediately given the worst seats in the restaurant even though other seats were available and promptly ignored. Perhaps they were not sufficiently tanned.

The current oyster craze reminds me of another food that started high and ended up generic. Sushi was once exclusive cuisine, expertly prepared, carefully stored and generally pricey. Once it caught on and the prices dropped, so did the quality and sushi became a lunch food. Mediocre sushi, its fish shipped and stored under questionable conditions, now litters deli and supermarket counters, prepared not by expert Japanese chefs but by the guy who makes Reuben sandwiches. You can still get top-notch sushi at beautiful restaurants, but the exotic factor is long gone. Which is not to say that I am against proletariatization (yes, I made up a word) of sushi; but how long before the oyster special becomes a regular occurrence at your nearest Financial District uber-deli?

Be not afraid – the oyster-and-cocktail bar will not disappear completely in the next couple of years. The best ones will persist. Some will hold fast to their mustache-and-suspenders theme, and when our culture gets enough of everything heritage, will once again become throwback curiosities rather than au currant hotspots. Others will take on a new look; we do not yet know which era the new wave of cultural nostalgia will ape, but rest assured, the next new-old thing is already about to graduate high school and move out of parents’ basement. And then you can sit down with your whiskey cocktail, order a dozen large beautiful oysters, watch the barman with the side part in his hair, and say to yourself, gosh, remember when these places were everywhere?

Categories: Uncategorized

Tropic of Cutlet

Posted on February 13th, 2012

To eat you must first open your mouth. You must have an alimentary canal, and a little knowledge of forks. It is not necessary to have a knife or mandoline. The essential thing is to want to eat. Then it is a meal. I am cooking.

It is you, cutlet, that I am eating. I wish that I could eat better, or more languidly, but, then perhaps you never have actually consented to dine with me. Others have eaten you and only half finished, leaving you cold. They claimed to eat beautifully, but, were, let’s face it, kind of picky in the end.

It is the somethingth of February—I no longer keep track of the menus. Would you say—the takeout of last week? There are containers, taken from the fridge between meals, and in the morning there is no consciousness of them left. The kitchen around me is dissolving, leaving here and there spots of unclean linoleum. The kitchen is the shell where I’ve eaten you away…I am thinking that when El Bulli closes everywhere cutlets will at last triumph. When into the breading bowl of fry-cookery everything is again thrown taste will be restored and schnitzel is the page upon which gastronomy is written. You, cutlet, are my chaos. You are why I eat. It is not even I, it is the world tonguing, licking the plate of time. I am still eating, tasting of your pan drippings, a gut to dote upon.

Food coma. The anatomical reality of gluttony. I am a whale, in repose, with a belt that needs to extend six feet. Do bats need belts? Animals don’t wear pants. Except in cartoons. Think of the human race walking round without pants on. I have two sets of sweatpants—one for weekdays, and one for a holiday. Dozing. A post-it from my girlfriend asking if I have found a name for my food blog yet. To be sure: “Phatass Pho”.

Your gastronomic life! A phrase I picked up at the Des Moines food blogger potluck. It is on Wednesdays, but it’s always at Mindy’s. Her partner only eats lentils and makes everyone use napkins. She’s studying Shamanic Nutrition—her favorite phrase is ‘the atavistic lentil’. You can see immediately what a pain in the ass these meetings are. But wait…it gets better…

Mindy wears tracksuits and plays the theremin. Pretty weird for Iowa, especially when you consider that she’s mostly a therapy dog breeder. She puts on that she’s a Foodie, but she is not, of course. She is a Velveeta-eater, and her father worked in the meat-packing plant. In fact, almost all of Des Moines is Velveeta-eaters, or into E-Z Cheez, which is worse. There’s the Casserole Celebration, and the Hot Dog Hoedown, and the Turkey Shuffle Run—all sponsored by Kraft Foods. Even that fudge from the office holiday party turned out to have Velveeta in it. You have to know what I’m working with, to understand.

Kraft is unaware of you, schnitzel, but if they found a way to turn you into a TV dinner, I’d still eat you. Why not? I already fry you twice weekly. I like gravy-inspired sauces. I’m as girthy as the rest of them. Who hates Velveeta more than the secret Superbowl queso eater, anyway?

Snack time. White pepper-flecked gravy, a glass of water, fat glistening and luminescent. The napkin falls away to the floor. The long spaetzle with buttered sides drapes like a lock of hair. This isn’t Austria. This isn’t Poland. It is a cardiovascular hotpot of all of the gravies of Europe and Middle America. The plate hovering below me, the pork crisp, trembling, not ordered by the vegan but fiendish in delectability, like those really good sandwiches at that one subway stop before you get to Zito’s, whose innards cause you to temporarily lose consciousness and register the sidewalk in degrees of black.

Panko is one of those things that I dig on enormously. And in this city, it’s super hard to track it down. It’s all ‘Italian-style breadcrumbs’ all the time. I’ve asked George time and again to order them in for me, but he always forgets. He calls them ‘terrorist crumbs’. And when I come into the store he puts one hand on that secret police-summoning button behind the counter as though I don’t know that he’s doing it. He watches me buy ponzu sauce and talks loudly about the Grand Slam at Denny’s. Then he tells me that I’m a Bad American.

I like Arthur but I do not share his opinion on veal stock. He’s all ‘but I have a Master’s Degree in Gastronomy from BU’ and I say ‘do you even know how many episodes of Two Fat Ladies I’ve watched, bro?’ He is Achatz-struck, that’s all. And he’ll never be a gourmand. Nor will Norman ever be a decent home cook, even if his Crock Pot Cookery For One is doing well in e-book sales on Amazon. The only cooks near me for whom I have any respect are Hall and Oates. They’ve got that BBQ pit over in that vacant lot on Titus Ave. They’re obsessed. They’re always talking about smoke temps. They’re each missing eyebrows. They’ve suffered for pork.

George, on the other hand, has only been mildly inconvenienced for pork. He’s like a once a week bacon drunk. He’s not on Lipitor, or being forced to watch Food Inc. by concerned relatives. He keeps crapping on about that Mark Bittman ‘mostly vegan’ diet, and his spice rack is organized into those little pewter jars that are like forty dollars for two from the Container Store, the labels written out in Courier New, Comic Sans, Papyrus, Helvetica, Wide Latin, Bookman Old Style, and one old one in what we’re pretty sure is Shoyu…

Mallory says that I should move a mirror into the kitchen so that I can see myself eating over the sink late at night…

Cutlets are like eggplant parm. They expect a fork and a knife. But there are other cutlets, cutlets like communion wafers, scattering crumbs everywhere—or, like the big hook in Smoke On The Water that really just gets into your guts. Cutlets are a fever, too—the pork sweats, the Ham Hummer, the Café of Schnitzel Surrender, ever-widening waistbands, the quiet acquiescence to caftans, a long drag on a post-prandial cigarette, cutlet on cutlet on cutlet, crisp pan leavings, delirium, warm napkins, pork chips, soft burping sighs. Cutlets say so that everyone may hear : “Yes that was Jagermeister!” And while the home cook scalds himself with leaping fat, cutlets say “Sit down and eat me already! O love…the whisk…don’t forget. The sauce—go beat it!”

At night when I look at the grease streaking the pillows I get hungry all over again. O cutlet, where now is that warm shape of yours, that fat, heavy gravy, those soft, bulging meat piles? You may be boneless, but my pants aren’t. I will use up every goddamn paper towel in the house, cutlet, after spraying your grease. I will send you down to digest despite the ache in my belly and my t-shirt turned inside out. Dr. Oz! Sure, he’s still successfully married and on Oprah, but I know how to make the heart burn. It’s all crisp skin and wet grease, cutlet, I make your salt incandescent. The broccoli rabe is a little envious now, isn’t it? It feels limp in the crisper drawer? It sits in the remnants of the last time I tried to diet. I’ve made the waterfront a little wider in my BVDs, I have jam-packed last holiday’s union suit. After eating you, cutlet, I can take on whole briskets, the Bacon Explosion, the Lutheran Lutefisk Luge at the winter Craft Fair, the pork shoulder I just found in the freezer on Tuesday. I can shove whole kielbasa down my throat. Sure, I’ll shit fire later, but for now string sausage around my navel. I am eating you, cutlet, so that you’ll stay eaten. And if you’re afraid of me eating you publicly, I will eat you privately. I will smear a few crumbs from your coating across my chin. I will bite into your naked side and spit grease at my dining companions…

Enormous, fat cutlets, falling crisp before the touching tongue. A pork suitcase without straps. A meat door without a key. You have German origins, Polish desires, Berkshire pork background, and my Iowan ass. Cutlet international. When the dinner flag is waved it is all down the back of the throat. You came in on a plate and came out in a bowl. You made me forget sweetbreads and pork belly—even David Chang’s. At the confluence of fork and me, where the gastric juices sluice through the maw and drip like small rivers beneath bearded bridges, cutlet is lying there now and the mouth is full of panko splinters—the tofu weeps, and so does Mallory when I leave that fat fart hovering near the dining table, fogging up the windowpanes. One cutlet out of a million, darling—a cutlet in which you can read the history of my own coming middle ages.

Categories: Uncategorized

Drinking Alone With Attempted Blogger

Posted on February 13th, 2012

What’s dark about Massachusetts? Well, other than the months between December and March, the first thing that comes to mind is pizza. But this issue’s theme — I love you, but I’ve chosen dark meat — implies a conscious decision, and no one really chooses Massachusetts pizza. Like snow shoveling and long underwear, it’s an unfortunate aspect of New England life that one must solemnly accept, but under no circumstances, embrace.

What I really needed, I decided, was an honest-to-goodness adventure on the dark side. Why not start with beer? It’s practically the official drink of Massachusetts and you can’t get any darker than drinking alone.

Step 1: Open fridge and discover leftovers of dubious age and one empty bottle of wine.
Step 2: Stop by liquor store and wander into mysterious craft beer aisle. Citing a lack of imagination, settle on an assortment of “dark” (get it?) beer.
Step 3: Decide that gambling is a key component to a dark adventure. Purchase scratch ticket.
Step 4: Win one dollar on a one dollar scratch ticket. Debate with Mr. Max over the wisdom of cashing out versus using the winning ticket to purchase a second ticket. Settle on inaction.
Step 5: Return home to continue “adventure.”

Beer — particularly dark, European-style stuff — is something that has always made me a tad uncomfortable. It’s one of those subcultures that’s particularly dismissive of neophytes, and, unlike wine, I don’t have enough basic knowledge to fake it in a crowd. To avoid embarrassment, I usually stick with safe, inoffensive IPAs. But, I thought to myself, not today.

At home, I cracked open each of the bottles and vowed to confront my ignorance and fear head-on.

Fumata Nera, High & Mighty

Like any good consumer, I based my decision to purchase this beer entirely on the label design. Dark and modern, it seemed like just the thing to break me out of my Pale Ale rut.

My Latin’s a little rusty (or, uh, nonexistent) so I had to use the Internet to find out the meaning of the name. Fumata Nera, I learned, refers to the black smoke that signals an indecisive papal election. The product itself, produced by High & Mighty Brewery, is based on the pre-malt method of “smoking” beer, now mostly forgotten outside of Bamberg, Germany.

Fumata Nera is made in the States, but High & Mighty’s website makes their beliefs about American hops pretty clear. “Like many other American brewers, we love our hops, and use lots of them, but we think it’s worth the trouble and expense to get the best ones, which have been grown in Europe for centuries.” Sick burn, America.

Hoping to raise the brow of an evening spent, well, drinking alone, I dug out a copy of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation that a friend had recently lent me. I turned the page and tipped my glass, surprised to find that the “smoky” flavor was pleasantly noticeable, and vaguely reminiscent of the burnt exterior of a toasted marshmallow. After a few more sips I noticed that the Nera also left a smoky haze around reality in general, effectively transporting me to the planet Terminus to begin my study of the science of “psychohistory.”

Overall verdict: Rich and dark. Pairs well with novels set in the galactic empire.

Samuel Smith’s Organic Lager

This lager was actually on the light side (despite the dark tinted bottle), but Samuel Smith’s legacy as the oldest brewery in Yorkshire gives it more than enough street cred. A beer like this begs to be imbibed in an English pub by someone with a carefully refined palate, I thought to myself. Not by a newbie alone in her living room.

At the very least I could create the appropriate mood. Barrett-era Pink Floyd seemed like too obvious a choice, so I fired up the iPod with Talk Talk’s spacious post-rock album Spirit of Eden. I poured a generous serving of the lager into what was definitely the wrong kind of glass and took a sip.

The finish was shockingly smooth, even sweet. Like Spirit of Eden, a tough intellectual exterior belied an inner gentility. I allowed myself a full four seconds of uninfluenced opinion before prying open the laptop to see what the Internet had to say. I thought it was good, and according to some of the wordier reviewers on RateBeer.com, its flavor is “gorgeous.” Pleased that my assessment agreed with the experts, I moved on to the next bottle.

Overall verdict: Lush. No pun intended.

Abbey Ale, Ommegang Brewery

Ommegang Brewery is well known for its Abbey Ale, a Belgian style beer with ecclesiastical notes of dried fruit, plums, honey, clove, and toffee. The deep, fruity aroma reminded me immediately that I was far out of neophyte territory. What, I asked, should this decadent ale be enjoyed with?

At this point it became clear that I was way past the point of appreciating anything requiring more than basic cognitive function, much less science fiction or moody experimental British rock albums.

Spying the remote out of the corner of my (bleary) eye, i turned to what would end up being the darkest chapter of my adventure: Lifetime Movie Network.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I watch more than my fair share of Lifetime Movies, but never before had I thought to pair them with 3 large bottles of heavy craft beer. Under these conditions, the low-budget, Canadian-produced teledramas I had made a hobby of mocking suddenly seemed, well, not so bad. Tales of psychotic husbands and murderous babysitters began to seem like misunderstood Greek tragedies. The Canadian-based sets began to actually look like New York or Atlanta. I wondered aloud if Meredith Baxter-Birney’s acting was “maybe even underrated.”

Overall verdict: Decadent, out of my league, and possibly dangerous. Not to be combined with Television for Women.

Categories: Uncategorized

Agaricus the Champ(ignon)

Posted on February 13th, 2012

In an issue about the dark side of epicurean endeavors you might guess an article about mushrooms would focus on the mysterious effects of the few and illustrious psychotropic fungi. Good guess-but I have no experience with psychotropics in any form, so this article must be about something else entirely. It will, in fact, explore the notion that the mushroom, specifically the mature agaricus bisporous or portobello, is the dark meat of the meatless world. Agaricus bisporous is the most common species of edible mushroom. Many popular “varieties” – white mushroom, button mushroom, crimini mushroom, Swiss-Roman-or-Italian brown mushroom, champignon mushroom and portobello mushroom – are actually the very same agaricus at different stages of maturity. Historically harvested in grassy fields after cool autumn rainfalls, frequently in manure, the mature agaricus bisporous seems to appropriately find a frequent and comfortable home on the dark side of victuals.

As mentioned earlier, portobellos are the same species as the often benign white mushroom; just a little more mature and undeniably a whole lot darker. Just as many who choose to dine on white meat leave the often tastier, tender, velvety, succulent dark meat of the same bird to the wayside, many mushroom eaters choose to only experience the mild and safe white mushroom. Those who do appreciate either one know a dark, silky, sultry pleasure that they would not quickly forgo given the option. That being said, preparation is the key to achieving bliss in either case. Any fan of roast duck knows it should be crisp outside but NOT dry and any portobello enthusiast knows it can’t be slapped on a hot surface NAKED and be called done when heated through. After all, no one wants to eat a damp, rubbery sponge.

Despite it being a somewhat acquired taste, a portobello cap is frequently the only vegetarian (and even more frequently the only vegan) option on a restaurant menu. It is placed there by meat-eaters because it’s the meatiest naturally-occurring non-meat. It’s not a fruit or vegetable and it isn’t a grain – the usual vegetarian limitations. It isn’t a plant – and while it certainly isn’t an animal, there is something very carnal about this edible piece of mycology. It has some serious substance to it; juices flow when a portobello is cut or bitten into – making it a very logical choice for a meat substitute on a menu. However, as the dark meat of meatless offerings, it is not entirely beloved by those it is intended to please. Though the portobello graces menus all over just waiting to be ordered by restaurant-goers who are not going to consider any of the other entrees, it frequently gets left untouched in the kitchen; passed over for a garden salad and a side order of fries. In defense of these unenlightened diners: many restaurants have it on the menu for the sake of having a vegetarian/vegan option – not because they know its true charms. So in effect, many veg-heads who have taken a leap of faith and ordered a dark and seductive portobello have not actually been satiated by the deep, rich, earthy, juicy delight of a well prepared champignon. They have instead been subjected to a damp, rubbery sponge…usually on a previously frozen par-baked ciabatta roll.

The tragedy is that no matter how well-prepared the portobello may be, it still dwells on the dark side of culinary possibilities and – as with all foods that do so – it will never be truly appreciated by the masses. On the flip side, this leaves more for those of us inclined to brave the shadowy reaches of epicurean endeavors. As for me, I like my portobellos the same way I like my dark meat: (feel free to insert your own innuendo here) roasted, with a simple and savory sage and bread stuffing.

Sage and Bread Stuffed Portobellos

4 Portobello Mushrooms-washed, stems reserved
3 TBSP. Butter or high quality non-dairy margarine
1-2 Shallots, finely chopped (about ½ cup)
1 Carrots, diced (about ½ cup)
1-2 Celery Ribs, diced (about ½ cup)
½ C. Mushroom Stems, diced
6 C. Stale Bread, cubed
2 C. Vegetable Stock
¼ C. White Wine
2 TBSP. Fresh chopped sage
1 TBSP. Dry Parsley
Salt and pepper
Balsamic Vinegar
Grated Hard Italian Cheese of Choice, or finely chopped hazelnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Drizzle both sides of mushroom caps with balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place them gill side up on a baking sheet Cor casserole dish.
3. Melt butter or margarine in saute pan on medium-high heat. Add shallots, carrots, celery and mushroom stems.
4. Cook until shallots are translucent and just starting to caramelize and carrots are tender, about 6 minutes.
5. De-glaze pan with white wine, add sage and parsley.
6. Reduce heat to low and cook for another 1-2 minutes.
7. Place bread cubes in a large bowl.
8. Add contents of saute pan to bread and mix thoroughly.
9. Add 1 C. vegetable stock and mix. Continue to mix in stock until bread becomes soft and a cohesive mass is formed (best to knead with hands for this step).
10. Heap ¼ of the mixture onto each of the mushroom caps and pat down to stick mixture together.
11. Sprinkle with grated cheese or finely chopped hazelnuts.
12. Bake for 25 minutes, until mushrooms are tender and cheese or nut topping is slightly toasted.

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You Say ‘Salud’ I Say ‘Satan’: Satanic Feasting In Early Modern Europe

Posted on February 13th, 2012

Witches throughout history have always thrown the greatest parties. Part of what made them so great was that witches spared no expense, hiring only the best caterers Tattenwang had to offer. More important was their exclusivity. Of course, even in the height of the glamorous 17th century, there were always bitter detractors would spoil it for everyone by telling all.

During one witches’ Sabbath, told a country rube called Anna Pappenheimer, witches from near and far arrived to the party riding on broomsticks and pitchforks. A bit cliché, maybe, but this was Bavaria. She further disclosed that after an amaranthine-robed Satan arrived in a puff of sulfur-smoke and farts, they supped on “disgusting” foods like horse meat and various reptiles and ravens. Disgusting? Isn’t that a bit xenophobic? Sure, the spit-roasted suckling infant was unseasoned. Listen, we’re all concerned about sodium these days. Nonetheless, the name Pappenheimer literally means “from the sticks,” so one might take her word with a grain of (apparently much-needed) salt.

Perhaps Mrs. From-the-Sticks should have stuck to the Scandinavian Sabbath parties. Perhaps their food would more to her sensibilities. Humble peasant fare was a favorite of Swedish devil-worshippers in the 1670s. On the tails of the droll European witch hysteria, English philosopher (and ironic defender of religious freedom) Joseph Glanvill wrote in his 1681 Sadducismus Triumphatus of wild, Satanic sex orgies at Blokulla, Sweden, in which Lucifer himself laid out for his witches a diabolical feast of “broth with colworts [cabbage] and bacon in it, oatmeal, bread spread with butter, milk and cheese.” This meal was followed by dancing and other venereous acts.

This cuisine sorcières was echoed fondly by an adolescent witch named Anna Catherina Weissenbühler of Württemberg, suggesting that southern German witches really did eat something other than toads and crows. During one revelrous evening of bagpipes and other merrymaking, the witches feasted on meat, cabbage, bread and salt. They actually licked the salt from the bread — how delightfully boorish! The Neuchâtel witches always had plenty of good food and wine, and provided their own entertainment. At their last soiree, they all gathered round and sang the delightful new smash hit, Frallalon, Frallala.

For what they lacked in headlining acts, the witches from the British Isles more than made up for in sophisticated comestibles. In Wincanton, the Somersetshire Coven girls had wine, cakes and meat, all on a proper white tablecloth. Most elegant, the Riding Mill witches in Northumberland supped upon the finest boiled capons, beef, mutton, plum broth, cheeses and butter, bottles of wine and brandied “humming” ale.

Anne Whittle, one of the famous witches from Lancaster, told that during a different feast with another witch Elizabeth Southerns, “there was victuals, viz. flesh, butter, cheese, bread and drink.” Those Pendle witches were so two-faced. Whenever the Prince of Darkness came around, they were such sycophantic groupies; they called him “Fancy” and literally kissed his Beelzebuttocks. As soon as he was out of an earshot, they turned into the biggest divas. Ever since that book The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster came out in 1613, fame went right to their heads. One almost wishes that those meretricious shrews had gone to the guillotine rather than the gallows.
Speaking of which, there was definitely one downside to 17th century witches’ parties: after all that feasting, dancing and other corporeal jollity, the host always abruptly disappeared without a word. Call me old fashioned, but it’s just bad form to leave your guests hanging.

Berliner Schwarz

This drink is a spin on the Berliner Weisse, a light beer from 16th century Berlin that is commonly drunk with raspberry or woodruff (waldmeister) syrup. Here it’s prepared with a strong, dark dunkel instead of a light beer, hence the name “black Berliner.” I use a Franconian dunkel for its hoppy bitterness; ales were traditionally distinguished from beers by their use of hops.

The humming ale mentioned between the 16th and 19th centuries was so named for the feeling it imparts to one’s head upon quaffing. It could be derived from either the effervescence or the alcohol content; in this cocktail, it is provided by both. Find waldmeister syrup at a German or European deli, or make it yourself with fresh sweet woodruff (*Galium odoratum*). Woodruff, an old witch’s remedy, is high in the toxic, aromatic compound coumarin (also found in cinnamon), which acts as an anticoagulant.

12 ounces cold Franconian-style dunkel (such as Aufsesser or Postbrauerei
Postwirts)
1 oz brandy
1/2 tsp waldmeister syrup*

Combine ingredients and stir together.

*To make waldmeister syrup, simmer a handful of woodruff leaves in one cup of water for ten minutes. Strain and dissolve one cup of sugar into the liquid. Alternately, a waldmeister extract can be made by macerating one cup of woodruff leaves in one cup of grain alcohol and steeping for 30-45 minutes. Strain and use within a few days. Mix 50/50 with honey for use as a syrup.

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The Meal: Much More Than Eating

Posted on February 13th, 2012

A three-cheese fondue filled my belly a number of weeks ago and nearly two years before that. I had invited my friends to share this meal before I left for Europe and again when I returned home. Both times I used Swiss cheeses, imported into the states, boxed cooking wine, and dipping ingredients that were not traditional to this Alpine meal. Presumably, I could have made a “better” fondue at any time during my European stay, but these two meals were The Best I had ever had. I was sharing food and time and conversation with my favorite people in the world, and I didn’t care about the freshness of the cheese, the container of the cooking wine, nor the choice of food bits covered in melted dairy. I don’t think any one else cared either because it seemed like the food was merely an excuse for being together.

Unlike dry white wine and Swiss cheeses, while in France I discovered that my personality did not meld well with a number of cultural traits. The French ex-patriots with whom I have spoken agree that the attitude at work in France was often one of hierarchy and complaint. The formalities in language and interaction felt insincere to me. Without a shadow of a doubt, however, the one thing the French got absolutely right is their relationship with food. Even before one meal is over, the next is being planned. The outlook is not of decadence, but of appreciation and conviviality. Meanwhile, in the United States, we seem to approach food either in hedonistic orgy, or as a friend of mine put it: “I eat to stay alive, but it feels like a waste of time.” Considering the number of fast food chains and microwaveable dinners, I should not have been shocked but this statement. So where does this slow food preparation for communal enjoyment spawn from? Perhaps it comes from the same place as artisanal cheeses and meats: history.

Community in food has existed from the moment we needed a social system to survive. The sharing of a meal meant, “See? I’m taking care of you – remember that when the lion is charging at us.” From the beginning, religions influenced society and reinforced identity through group eating, fasting, and storytelling. A common message of love exists in today’s major religions but one thing that varies is food-rituals. In Judaism there is the Passover Seder and eating kosher, in Islam, Ramadan is the month of fasting during daylight hours, and Christianity recognizes Carnival and Lent – events that may date back to pre-Christian times.

Medicine now scrutinizes the communal meal as one source of health. Studies often cite the sit-down family meal – one where the TV is off and any take-out food present is of the healthy variety – as a way to avoid obesity and help children learn to make good dietary choices. Could being healthier be as simple as taking the time to eat with loved ones? As mundane as it is, eating can be a binding activity that reinforces the bond within family. I know I am not the only kid whose parents relentlessly, day after day, year after year, asked her about school at dinner time. I remember covering many different topics – from describing my interactions with other children and the homework I still needed to do, to observing my parents’ dialogue about work, politics, religion and society – all of which shaped the way I think and act today. My parents and my sister were like coaches or judges, assessing my independent actions and helping me decide what to do in a future, similar situation. Dinner shaped my identity.

Beyond survival, religion, and a sense of self, sharing food may also have been the most practical venue for daily communication in the recent past. France, for instance, is a geographically small country with a climate ideally suited for all kinds of agriculture most of the year. The sit-down meal may be the heritage of generations of agricultural people. Perhaps this is why the deliberate, slow preparation and enjoyment of the meal now goes beyond any religious precedence and beyond a modern concern for diet and health, to all populations of French society. During my farmstead apprenticing, farmers often shared the noon-time meal with the laborers of their farm. In Europe, the largest meal is at noon, after the morning chores are done and before a siesta in the early afternoon to rest prior to the evening milking and feeding of the animals. The noon-time meal can thus be extended over several hours as energy is regained and workers plan projects or problem solve farm issues together.

Whatever reason we find to value sharing a meal together is a good one. For me, Michael Pollan best described cooking and eating in his Omnivore’s Dilemma as “a way to honor the group of people you have elected to call your guests… [and] a way to honor the things we’re eating, the animals and plants and fungi that have been sacrificed to gratify our needs and desires, as well as the places and the people that produce them.” I went to Europe in the first place because my cheese and goat career is important – I wanted to work with the best. But just like Coca-Cola CEO Bryan Dyson said, even if you drop the ball, career will always “bounce back.” Taking the time to feed my body with good food and my soul with good company will always come first.

If you ever feel like honoring your elected guests and gratifying your desires, may I recommend to you the following recipe for Cheese & Love Fondue.

Cheese fondue, the Swiss national dish, is made differently in different regions. This style is a variation of the Fondue Neuchâteloise, which calls for 50% Gruyère and 50% Emmental. I added the Der Scharfe Maxx, a six-month cow’s cheese from the Swiss-German border, for its sweet creaminess to balance the salty, bold Gruyère and the bitter Emmental. This recipe makes enough for 9 to 10 people, as we discovered together. First prepared on the 30th of May 2010 (and again on the 14th of January 2012).

1 ½ lbs Gruyère
1 ½ lbs Emmental
¾ lb Der Scharfe Maxx or Vacherin Fribourgeois
2 c dry white wine e.g. Chablis
3 cloves garlic
Juice of half a lemon
Cornstarch or other thickening agent e.g. Wondra
Splash of kirsch or other dry alcohol e.g. brandy (optional)
Nutmeg, paprika and black or white pepper to taste
Fuel for your fondue set!! I always forget that.

Dipping options:
Crusty bread
Broccoli
Green & wax beans
Fingerling and other small potatoes
Carrots
Brussels sprouts
Asparagus
Bell peppers
Parsnips
Mushrooms

1. Broil, roast, or microwave your vegetables of choice until as tender as you like them. I broiled mine on high with olive oil just long enough to keep their crunch and prime dipping form. I added salt, black pepper and ground red pepper when done. Meanwhile, if you are making potatoes, either boil or microwave (in a covered ceramic dish with a little water for steaming) them until fully cooked.
2. Cut or rip your bread into approximately 1-inch cubes.
3. Grate your cheese. Resist eating grated cheese.
4. Peel your garlic, cut one clove in half and crush the rest. Rub the inside of your pot (preferably enamel coated cast iron like Le Creuset) with the inside of the cut clove. Crush that garlic too.
5. Pour 1 cup of wine into the pot and a glass for yourself. Add the crushed garlic, the lemon juice, and the kirsch to the pot. Heat on medium.
6. When steam begins to rise from the pot, add your cheese and stir frequently. Add the second cup of wine (or more) as needed.
7. When the cheese is melted into the wine, add the nutmeg, paprika and pepper.
8. Watch your fondue as you keep stirring to determine how much cornstarch to add, if any. Your fondue should be just thick enough to cling to your bread or veggie, trailing a thin sting of melted cheese.
9. Serve hot with white wine and friends.

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Don’t Mess with Tradition, or How Not to Make a Manhattan

Posted on December 28th, 2011

Of all the cocktails that the sufficiently mustachioed gentleman with rolled sleeves behind the bar can construct for you, I’ve always considered the Manhattan to be vastly superior to the rest. This has reasons of an aesthetic nature as well as those pertaining purely to sensory pleasures. Beautiful in color, the drink smells sweeter than straight whiskey but still carries enough menace for the novice and the teetotaler to take one whiff and turn away.

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