“There’s one good thing that happens when you toss your pearls to swine…”

“It was hilarious,” I had told her. “My kid thought the whole tray of crackling was for him!” We laughed, talked about how crackling, when done right, is one of the most perfect foods…something I’d want for my last meal. “Crackling wrapped in bacon,” she joked, but we both knew we were half serious. “I’d want sushi for my last meal,” a third one chimed in. “Sushi? I can get that whenever the hell I want! Now if we were talking about crackling sushi, well then maybe.” And that’s all it generally takes. Someone says something in jest, and from that a brainchild is born that has you plotting a cooking experiment that, in your warped little mind, belongs in the damned Bocuse d’Or. “What if,” I pondered, “what if I then drizzle it with a bourbon-maple reduction?” We were both salivating at that point, at the thought of a hunk of crackling, sitting atop a soft bed of still-warm rice, wrapped in place with a piece of bacon (not seaweed) and then drizzled with a reduction. But it had to be good crackling…the best of cracklings….if it would work. Crackling that you can bisect and see three complete layers in the cross section: meat, fat and skin. The idea tossed vegetarians out to pasture, sent nutritionists into cardiac arrest and most likely also gave pork lovers a hard on. My idea, thus, of a perfect bite.

If you’ve never experienced real crackling—which most emphatically does not include store-bought, packaged pork rinds—you haven’t fully lived. The combination of saltiness, richness, crunchiness and butteriness—the counterpoint of textures and flavors—make for gastronomic alchemy. The thought to then take a morsel of piggy perfection and create an oink-worthy “sushi”, well that was pure genius if I do say so, and the bourbon-maple reduction was…ummm….mind blowing. So I offer this creation up to you, gentle reader, as my contribution to Super Bowl munchies. Wash a couple of them down with a refreshing Weisse beer and I promise your guests will never look at another pathetic piece of faux-crab sushi the same again.

 

“Do you come from a land down under? Where women glow and men plunder…”

I was supposed to take part in a Taste Live event a couple of weeks ago, but what with FedEx’s indefatigable determination to spend the rest of its pitiful existence cock blocking me (in a manner of speaking) and such, the bottles for the tasting didn’t arrive in time. I’d apologize to Elderton (whose wines we were supposed to discuss) but in the immortal words of George W. Bush, “it wasn’t my fault.”  The wines, when I eventually tasted them, were a breath of fresh air as far as Australian wines and my palate are concerned, so they’re getting their 15 minutes here, now…better late than never (the also-immortal words of my husband).

Elderton Wines sits in the heart of south Australia’s Barossa Valley, a wine region with residents like Jacob’s Creek, Yalumba, Penfolds and Peter Lehmann. And though it’s certainly a source for what are considered to be Australia’s best, the generally hot climate of the Valley tends to produce grapes that ripen very easily. That means high levels of sugars and low levels of acids, so many winemakers practice acidification in order to balance the wines. The high sugars result in high alcohol levels that are sometimes offset by practices like reverse osmosis, but are more often left in place, creating wines that top off at about 15.5%. Historically, winemakers in the Barossa also use very short maceration periods and rack them into oak barrels before fermentation is even completed. That can leave a seemingly smoother wine, but it often has to have extra tannins added in. And the extensive use of oak (American in particular) is also characteristic of the region, sometimes overly so. All this is to say that many Barossa wines are flabby, overoaked messes (and often enological Frankensteins) that leave you with a hefty buzz after a couple of glasses.

Elderton’s wines had none of the above—a pleasant surprise for a doubtful drinker. Their 2006 “Tantalus” shiraz/cab blend (about $15) only had a short stay in old American oak, thus not trampling over the beautiful notes of plum and cherry. It had a great smokiness to it, but most impressive was its balance, and its 14% alcohol was really kept in check—no overpowering mess here. THIS is what Barossa wines in this price range should aspire to. Period.

The shipment also included a bottle of Elderton’s 2005 “Command”, their single vineyard shiraz (about $85). It’s a big, dark, opulent, brooding wine with absolutely no baked, jammy flavors. Decanting is pretty much a given for this chunk of a wine, but again, the “chunkiness” is balanced with beautiful acidity. Once it blows off a little, it reveals itself to be a masterfully crafted wine, though laying it down for a few years would certainly serve it well, too, especially since the cost prohibits making it your “Tuesday Night” house wine.

And you’d think I’d be most impressed by “Command” but I wasn’t. The wine that most impressed me was Elderton’s 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay (about $15), not because it was the best wine of the bunch, but because it was a lovely, untethered chardonnay in a region where chardonnay often gets oaked to hell, and is subjected to malolactic fermentation which usually produces a big, full-bodied, creamy mess. This harkened back to a nice, everyday Chablis, with hints of tropical fruit and crisp acidity. Full, but lithe. An Australian chardonnay that you could, in fact, drink at room temperature…happily.

 

“Two can be as bad as one…”

So it appears I’ve got two requests of my readers today. Don’t get your panties in a bunch….it doesn’t involve waiting for me in the getaway car, smuggling in Cuban rum or even watching my kid for a night. These are two things you can do from the comfort of that crappy chair you are sitting in, without getting off your precious internet. Ready?

I WANT MY GSM

Don’t know if you remember, but a while back I wrote about New Jersey being one of those idiot states where residents can’t receive wine directly from wineries, be they in-state or out-of-state (see here). Well, apparently the bill to permit direct shipping of wine to NJ residents is finally being voted on. S766, sponsored by Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-3) has been scheduled for a vote at 1:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 4, in Trenton. Please, please, please, if you live in Jersey contact the members of the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee and urge them to support this legislation. We’ve lived under the tyranny of Fast-Fingered Freddie for way too long. Just visit UnCorkNJ and click the - Alert-Take Action - button. Fill out ALL the information, because these fields ensure that your message gets to all the members of the Senate Law and Public Safety Committee as well as your local legislators. If you have already sent a letter to your legislators, then please send another one and encourage your family and friends to visit UnCorkNJ to do the same. Every voice of discontent is needed.

BRING THE NOISE

Dale Cruse over at Drinks Are On Me asked if I would contribute a bit of wine-infused fiction to his blog, and I was happy to oblige. He supplied the photo that would serve as inspiration, and the rest was up to me. So do me a favor and stop by Dale’s site…check out the story…drop a comment. It’s good karma, trust me.

 

“I said it once before, but it bears repeating…”

You know what I never got? The Gay Olympics…I’m sorry, I mean the Federation of Gay Games. The struggle for every minority in this country’s short history has been that of equality…of assimilation. “We’re just like you and deserve to be treated the same and receive the same opportunities.” Which is why self-imposed segregation has never made any sense to me. If you’re a great athlete, go try out for the Olympics, please. I don’t give a shit if you are straight, gay, bi or dig animals. I just want to know that you can nail a triple axel and make it look like a cakewalk. The same holds true in the wine industry, although there seem to be plenty out there who disagree with me and continue to make themselves a separate target market simply because they deal with PMS and have tits (no, man boobs don’t count). I wrote about this a while back in Mutineer Magazine, but it bears repeating because female wine guru Leslie Sbrocco is at it again.

Leslie is the author of Wine for Women. She’s also a speaker and personality of sorts, and her speech topics include: “Top 10 Ways to Reach the Female Customer,” and “How to Teach a Male Dominated Industry the Customer is ‘Queen’.” Chapters in her book are organized around an insultingly soft-headed fashion theme (chardonnay is “basic black,” while rieslings are “spring dresses”). All of this sends a message that women are not part of the mainstream and need special attention. She recommends that wineries approach their marketing to women from a lifestyle angle and says, “Don’t just talk about things like ‘12 months in new French oak.’ Who really cares?” Umm, me Leslie, because I’d put that chardonnay back on the shelf. She also recommends that retailers hire more females for their sales staff because, “Female salespeople help make wine buying less intimidating for other women.” What?! How am I supposed to get 10% off the shelf price if I can’t flash a salesman some cleavage?! Geez.

Now she’s back with a new book, Adventures of a Thirsty Girl, and a website to match. “Women rock. We generally don’t get hung up on what wine scored what…but we do care about taste, style and pleasure.” (and men don’t?) “It’s our way of relaxing and connecting with friends and family. As a girlfriend of mine who stays at home with her kids says, ‘my 5pm glass of wine is called mommy’s little helper’.” Fucking great. Now we’ve equated the nectar of the gods with Valium.

It pisses me off to think that in an honest attempt to gain a bigger market share, many wine brands are grossly underestimating their female market…but then again, are they? I’d like to think that we are above the “oh m’god, that’s like soooo cute” way of wine shopping, but recent trends in marketing would shut me up quickly thanks to folks like Sbrocco, who keep women shackled to a stereotype that segregates us because of gender instead of uniting us because of passion.

 

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY – “You’ve left me speechless, so speechless…”

 

“We all know that crap is king…”

I have come to the sad but enlightening conclusion that I can get all of the news I ever need from Twitter. Sure I’m a fan of the Sunday Times, but it’s really too fucking heavy to carry when you’ve got a balancing act of groceries in your arms. Channels like CNN can be great too, but who’s got the time when shows like Celebrity Rehab and That Heavy Metal Show are begging to be called up from the DVR list? The more I frequent Twitter the more I realize that you find out anything…truly, anything…that you need to know, as well as plenty of shit you didn’t even know you wanted to know, and even more shit you seriously don’t wanna know at all but are suddenly hit with the awareness of. For instance, in the course of only 1 hour I learned the following:

As per @meredithmo, Monsanto Chief regrets not commenting in Food Inc.

Do you do yoga? According to @newjerseylife, your downward-facing dog may be saving your life

@SudsyMaggie is “Dressed up” in khackis today. She feels like a tool. Looks forward to being reunited with her jeans later today

According to @PRBWine, who has tasted all the Bordeaux 2008s for a second time from barrel, it continues to be a remarkable vintage

The @UnknownChef and I were both yawning with boredom at the NY Times proclaiming: Music Industry Counts the Cost of Piracy

@EssexEating and @graphic_foodie both prefer the shape of rigatoni pasta

@dlayphoto retweeted to let us know that a former Cleveland Playboy Playmate was found dead from a drug overdose

@DJLitten warns that Burger Kings in Miami and New York will soon start selling beer (now catering to all your needs, not just for coronary disease, diabetes and obesity but cirrhosis and hypertension as well)

And lastly, we don’t need weathermen anymore because @bradinator can tell you that it’s a beautiful day in Okanagan, @oxfordfalls says it’s 52 and cloudy in Mississippi, @earthydelights is freezing his ass off in central Michigan, @Olivier1uk alerts me that it’s pissing down with rain in England, @NataliesCuisine pisses everyone off by mentioning that it’s 65 and sunny in Dallas, but @WoodwardCanyon and @thescorpiowoman make you feel better by letting you know that it’s foggy and cold in Walla Walla and a numbing 22 degrees in Montreal. Australia would no doubt have chimed in but they are all sleeping at this hour.

Want a recipe for snickerdoodles? No worries. Need a good late-night wine bar in Tribeca? Just ask. Did you miss the Jersey Shore finale? Fear not! Search the hashtag #jerseyshore and hundreds of tweets will give you the 411. If you follow and are followed by enough people, you can get the answer to just about anything, and it won’t be any more or less accurate, factual or unbiased than Fox News Network or British tabloids. Hell, I’ve conducted surveys on whether people prefer candy apples or caramel apples, puffy or crunchy Cheetos, and milk or dark chocolate, and gotten a widespread data sampling within seconds. It’s like the Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia, NY Public Library, Zagat Guide, Rolling Stone Magazine, Gallup Poll, Gourmet Magazine, NASDAQ, Saturday Night Live and Nightly News all rolled into one, and it’s as addictive as Sriracha and crack. And don’t think for one moment that mobility will inhibit you in any way. There are a boatload of phone apps to make sure the drip in your direct-line IV to Twitter never stops. All that, and we can’t cure cancer…amazing. On that note, I’m now going to go cancel all my magazine subscriptions, discontinue my cable service and build a port-a-potty next to my computer so my Twitter and I are never far.

 

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY – “I don’t have to see tomorrow, ’cause I saw it yesterday…”

 

“Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage…”

The Food Network is no longer in my cable channel line-up. Hasn’t been since the new year, and I haven’t exactly lost any sleep over it. When the Food Network started back in 1993, the thought that someone would actually have both the foresight and the balls to put food-related programming on the air 24/7 was thrilling. These guys were mavericks in every sense of the word, and their goal was to take basic instructional cooking and make it entertaining. But then the pendulum swung, and now we struggle to find any instructional cooking amidst all the entertainment. So despite all the tears, the freak outs and the subscriber demands that it be put back on the air immediately, I could care less that it’s gone. In fact, I’m angling for a channel that plays Lost episodes day and night to replace the now-dead air time. You listening Cablevision? LOST.

When The Food Network and HGTV both disappeared from their channel slots, I could hear the screams of anguish echo through my neighborhood. What, no more garlic-hating Sandra Lee and her ever-handy can of mushroom soup? Shit! No diner-hopping Guy Fieri and his back-of-my-head sunglass styling? Damn! How will this nation survive if its unemployed, its uninspired and its drones can’t watch Paula Deen deep fry butter? Oh, the humanity! All it took was one wholesome-looking Bobby Flay commercial telling viewers how truly sorry TFN is that they are missing out on all their great programming, and how they can go about blaming the whipping boy…err…I mean Cablevision, to get people riled up. And man have they played the ever-loving crap out of that commercial during prime time. So viewers going through weird versions of withdrawal jump online, follow TFN like a flock of blind faithful sheep and begin their battle cries against Cablevision—“Just give us our channels back. We don’t care why they went away, just give them back.” But what I want to know is, do you love Rachel Ray that much that you’re, oh, I dunno, willing to pay for her?

TFN will tell you that Cablevision wasn’t paying them their due. That their distribution rates were among the lowest in the industry.  That Cablevision wasn’t willing to negotiate and compromise a better rate. Unfortunately, Cablevision can’t afford the same kind of jingoistic ad campaign, not that many Americans would be willing to listen to someone badmouth the likes of their precious Giada & Bobby and the network that carries them to their TV screen each night. Cablevision claims Scripps (programmer for both channels) is being irrationally unrelenting. That it is demanding a 200% fee increase, which would drive up customer rates if accepted. That Scripps is counting on the viewers to put pressure on the cable company in hopes that they’ll give in. Higher fees, not just for cable networks but in all likelihood for broadcast company-owned stations as well, will almost certainly mean higher prices for consumers, so the question becomes, what are you willing to pay for Giada and Bobby? Especially when you’re already paying for 50 other channels of shit that you never watch.

TFN has managed to bombard viewers with bobbleheads who are, in essence, their own brand. They come with taglines and hooks like “Bam” and “Delish.” They flirt, they smile and they tell you how much they are like you. They sell you an image and they use food as the vehicle. But they’re NOT like you, unless you happen to have 6 different cookbooks on display at Barnes & Noble; unless you happen to pull in 7 figures a year; and unless you have an agent. Those bobbleheads treat cooking as a chore, and he who gets through that chore the quickest is the winner. They’ll teach you how to cook as if you were downing a spoonful of castor oil. Somewhere in East Bumfuck there’s a loyal viewer that relates to it all because she or he hates to cook each night, too. And you’re more apt to hold on to that viewer if you validate their misery by showing them how to race through making dinner each night so they can get to more important things like watching Survivor. That’s the viewer that wants their Food Network back, and they don’t care how it happens.

Other channels that shall remain nameless (oh, OK, it’s Fine Living TV) are now carrying the torch in epicurean shows. They’ve got programming that includes shows about wines, fine beverages and ethnicities other than Italian and Asian. The only problem is that Fine Living TV isn’t carried by a whole lot of cable providers, which makes people like me crankier still. How much fucking EVOO does America have to drown in before it begs for something more? Where are the Jacques Pepins and Lidia Bastianiches of the world? I’ll tell you where they are, brother— they’re on PBS. Scripps executives said at recent investor conferences that they’re looking for rates that “better reflect” the value of the network. My wooden nickel is in the mail.

 

“Give me a nickel, brother can you spare a dime…”

While I have very mixed emotions about this sort of thing, I’m going ahead and posting it anyway simply because I can’t let my usual disappointment in humanity keep me from helping others. While there are certainly exceptions, most of us (not merely Americans mind you) manage to rally together and help those in need when disaster strikes. The overall misconception is that somehow, if disaster hasn’t stricken, they don’t need our help. Haitians need our help now more than ever, sure, but let’s not kid ourselves—they’ve needed our help for a very long time. We’re great at raising a flag and saying, “hey, look how caring I am, I’m donating to the cause” when the cameras are on us, but when the red light goes off and the cameras move on, we are quick to retreat to an “all is well” mentality. All is not, in any way, shape or form, well. Nonetheless, help in time of tragedy is better than none at all, alas:

PALATE PRESS: The Online Wine Magazine and Brother, Can You Spare a Bottle? are teaming up to help people turn their love of wine into money for Haitian earthquake relief, with Wine for Haiti. The idea is simple…wine lovers contribute a bottle from their cellar, then bid on the mixed cases. Some tremendous bottles have already been offered, from 1976 Dr. Loosen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Beerenauslese to a Methuselah (6.0 Liter bottle) of 2005 Rodney Strong Rockaway Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. The generous contributions of wine lovers will all be turned directly into money for disaster relief. PALATE PRESS: The Online Wine Magazine will pay shipping and handling costs to deliver wines to the auction winners.

For more information please read Wine for Haiti at PALATE PRESS: The Online Wine Magazine.

 

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY – “Inspiration’s what you are to me, inspiration, look, see…”