Gonzo Gastronomy

The process of modern food distribution is a gas. If you walk into a supermarket in February with a wind-burned face, kicking slush off your boots, you’ll find yourself surrounded by mountains of tropical fruits and vegetables that show their sweet faces every different month of the year. At any given moment, as you sit at home watching shadows on the wall, someone in the hemisphere is picking the green beans we attribute to July, the peaches and sweet corn we relish in August, the apples we pick in October, the asparagus that sprouts in April or the cherries we devour in June. Logging in more travelling miles than a pharmaceuticals salesman, these waxed, polished and brilliantly lighted beauties beckon you like a lunatic’s dream of supernatural substance.

I realize complaining is futile. I realize that our ancestors staggered into spring on the edge of scurvy, sick of the half-rotted cabbages packed in sand in the root cellar. I realize that “local produce” is a romantic myth I cling to despite the fact that I’ll be the first one grabbing limes for my ceviche, even though I’m pretty damned sure there are no lime trees to be found in northern Jersey. But I miss the ritual of seasonal eating, when oysters needed a month with an “r”, bock beer needed April and the turkey was the grand master g of Thanksgiving and not a year-round source of cheap, bland, low-fat protein.

Having to wait is ceremonial. Waiting folds you into the orderly rhythms of life, much like baseball and football. There ought to be an intimate connection between food and time. Peaches taste like summer; summer tastes like peaches. Having eaten the peach, and wiped our chins, a proportion of our bodies becomes summer, too. A winter peach is meaningless–it’s Christmas in July. And besides, it tastes like the poor starved thing it is, without enough sunlight in its days, picked green in some unimaginably foreign climate and sent off to ripen during its journey. It puts us out of touch with our food.

We don’t have anough ceremonies in our lives as it is, and we can’t afford losing more. Eating a sweet cherry in June should be a sacred event, sucking its sweet juices and staining our fingers. And nothing is more decadent than a tomato you grow yourself, and eat at its appointed time, still warm from the day’s sunlight. The distributors, amazing as they are, still can’t quite bundle up the seasons and truck them around the country like a Phish tour. Sometimes seasons still travel under their own steam, carrying their own food, and it tastes more important for having been waited for.

You’d never know that I used to have a greeting card business if you were ever on the receiving end of my gift giving—I can’t stand most of the drivel out there, and hate blowing the money on something that gets tossed out with tomorrow’s junk mail. I inevitably either wind up making one (if I have the time, which I don’t), or standing up and reciting something off the cuff, doing my best to be both relevant and witty, and rhyme all at the same time. Similarly, if I’m bringing a gift of wine to someone, and I know they’re as big a dork as I am, I’ll usually say something to the effect of, “This is for you. Stash this in the deepest, darkest recesses of your home and drink it only when you are sure no one else will grab it from you unknowingly, pour half of it into their glass, take a sip, realize it’s not as good as their usual Sutter Home white zinfandel, and toss it into your kitchen sink while you weep silently, like an infant who has just had his pacifier taken away, ok?” And THAT is the equivalent of my greeting card, exchanged between two knowing people, with no more than a telling glance, who understand all too well the pain of watching the good juice get plundered like booty.

Anyhow, the mad geniuses over at Cerebral Itch have come up with the best imaginable way to kill all above birds with one stone—temporary wine labels that serve as the greeting card. These puppies are crack n’ peel labels that affix to your wine bottle and can later be removed WITHOUT damaging the actual wine’s label. Some of my favorites?

“This party better be worth the gas it took me to get here.”

“Don’t waste this wine on the uncultured palates of the other guests.”

“Let me tell you as you turn another year older, you could still do porn.”

“I’ll be damned if I know a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than drunkenly ravaging your nether regions.”

(The one pictured above, which any Christmas movie junky will know.)

And my absolute favorite: “Fuck the pretense. Let’s get hammered.”

They normally run for about $4 each, but for the holidays I think they’re running a sale and they’re all 3 bucks a piece. This is honestly some of the funniest shit I’ve seen in the wine business in a VERY long time. Forget the cute little tote bags with beads, dump the foil bags with scissor-curled ribbons and destroy the Monet-covered gift bags with attached note cards, will ya? For the sake of all that is holy (and all that is not) get a fucking sense of humor, stop taking wine so seriously and slap one of these on your next gifted bottle. I promise it will go off better than the following:

“Congrats, you’re another year older.
They say age makes you wiser and bolder.
Had I known you would be
So hot at 53,
I’d have given my wife the cold shoulder.”

Ask people what their favorite holiday is, and the answer you are most likely to get is either Thanksgiving or Christmas. It’s usually followed by a litany of reasons why it tops their list of days to be unshackled from their office desk, including: I enjoy gathering with loved ones and sharing a meal, I have so much to be thankful for, I love giving much more than receiving, Christmas is all about the children, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam. I don’t like waiting for the federal government to tell me when I should roast a turkey or give a generous gift, and celebrating the year’s harvest at the end of November makes me wonder who was riding the short bus when they slated the damned feast fest. But the only thing I once detested more than scheduled merriment and scripted gift giving was the gastronomic Trojan horse known as the fruitcake. Dense enough to plug a leaking levee and sweet enough to cure an entire nation’s worth of hypoglycemia, the fruitcake truly was, in my mind, better to give than to receive.

In theory, what could be better than a spiced cake with dried fruit and nuts that has been doused so repeatedly with alcohol that it becomes a fire hazard? But any fruitcake I ever laid eyes on made my teeth hurt. And like a dolt I would try them anyway, green shiny cherries included—that whole morbid curiosity thing and all, I guess. Most friends dare each other to do simple shit like funnel a six of beer or moon a nun, but we used the fruitcake as the double-dog-dare ultimatum, which is pretty sad. In essence, it’s the ultimate fuck-you gift. The gift that says, “ I couldn’t be bothered. I loathe you. This is all you’re worth to me.” And from the recipient’s POV, it’s easily grounds for disownment, outcasting, excommunication or, at the very least, a session of Chinese water torture. Unfortunately, its cousin twice removed, the panettone, was equally as revolting and similarly maligned. But I am the bringer of redemption—the harbinger of taste—the savior of saveur. I have seen the promise land, and I tell you resolutely that it serves fruitcake.

How much would you love me if I gave you a recipe for fruitcake that beckoned loved ones to worship at your feet? And what if I gave you two recipes? What then? What would it be worth to walk into a party, hand the host a fruitcake completely without irony, and declare that the dessert has gotten a bum rap over the years, but YOU have single-handedly redeemed it? Hmmm? Take all the credit…go ahead, it’s OK, I don’t care. But if I hear you’ve been adding green candied cherries to these recipes, I’m sending the hounds out after you, got it?

Kick Ass Fruitcake
Kick Ass Chocolate Fruitcake

To completely experience a meal, one must engage all five of the senses. When you step into the kitchen, you can hear the sizzle of onions hitting a pan with olive oil; you can smell the veal shanks that have been slowly roasting in the oven for the last three hours; you are tantalized by the sight of beautifully shaped asparagus spears with shavings of parmigiano on them; you can feel the juicy, fibrous mango that dribbles its juices down your chin; and you can taste every last morsel and drop that passes through your lips. The only other human experience that a great meal can truly compare to is sex, for it is one of the few experiences (if not the only other) that engages ALL 5 of the senses…perhaps that is why we have an “appetite” for it.

Josephine Bonaparte carried a violet-scented cachet because she fully believed in the aphrodisiac power of that aroma. The emperor Montezuma drank cup after cup of hot chocolate on a daily basis, also because he believed it to be an aphrodisiac. Hell, even a simple glass or two of wine breeds a penchant for stripping off layers of clothing! Depending on the culture, anything from shark fins to bull’s testicles is claimed to be the ultimate food for inciting carnal love and piquing libidos. But my point here is not to run a litany of gastronomic aphrodisiacs that may or may not be based in any legitimate scientific proof. Instead, I offer up the idea that perhaps it is our approach to food and wine that can inspire and awaken the amorous being in each of us.

Food, much like eroticism, begins with the eyes. Both entice us through appearance, inviting us to indulge. Taste and smell follow right behind, inseparably. The perfume of exquisite cooking can not only make us salivate, but it can also stir our desires. Scent, in fact, is so linked to sensuality, that in many languages the word “kiss” means “smell.” Likewise, the flavor of dark chocolate lingering in the recesses of our mouth is as alluring as the subtle taste of our lover’s skin.

Then, of course, there is what we hear. It may just as easily be the sound of a lover whispering in our ear, or the sound of a champagne cork being popped, and the gurgle of the bubbles hitting the glass. In the same moment, we can take notice of both the clink of silverware on a plate, and the soft murmur and tones of idle conversation carried over those very plates.

Lastly there is touch: the sensation of kneading bread with the entire weight of your body, or the curve of an egg coddled in the cup of your hand all induce a deep pleasure that commences in the core of our being. That sensation, not to be trivialized, is as primal as the caress that entangles two people. So whether it is an oyster slipping from its shell to your mouth, or someone engaging you in a kiss, the sensuality of food is what makes it a turn on, not its chemical properties. Once an amazing meal has been prepared, served and eaten, once the warmth of the wine and spices are pulsing in your blood, and once the anticipation of a kiss enters your soul, only then will you know that anything has the potential and capacity to become an aphrodisiac.

In a world where store shelves are dominated by chardonnay, merlot, cab and pinot noir, it’s next to impossible for consumers to find the likes of a scheurebe, a sagrantino or an erbaluce. And in that same world, these little-known wines are almost never reviewed in any of the major “drink what I drink” wine rags. Thus, lack of knowledge perpetuates lack of demand. That’s why I was stoked when I found out that this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday would be about Chilean wine (BTW, I only participate if it’s a topic I can groove on…otherwise, why push wine on you that I’m not excited about?). This one gave me a chance to showcase an often-overlooked grape that can make both some delicious inexpensive wines and some serious crap. I tiptoed through the landmines for you—I hope both your intact limbs and your palate are grateful!

Carmenere is Chile’s version of the “heartbreak grape.” It was originally planted in Bordeaux, where it was mainly used in blending, kinda like Petit Verdot. But it was such a pain in the ass in cold weather that they ripped out whatever wasn’t obliterated by phylloxera. It’s inherently low in acidity and has a tendency to develop high sugar levels before the tannins ripen, so making balanced wines is a tricky business. A lot of carmenere growers also tend to flood their vineyards with run-off from the mountains, which makes for a high yield, but it also makes for thin, bland, flaccid wines. Oh, and it often gets confused with merlot in Chile, so tread carefully. This wine is not only a kick-ass example of how great carmenere can be, but also what a value it is at anywhere from $11 – $14.

Viu Manent Carmenere Reserva 2006 – Huge FYI before I tell you about the wine…”Reserva” means absolutely nothing here because it has no legal definition in Chile, so keep that in mind when you shop! OK, the wine: Most carmeneres need to breathe a long ass time. This one is no exception. Open it, decant it, go plant a garden or something, and then come back to it. Even after a couple of hours, the smell of green bell pepper was undeniable, but very cool. It also had notes of bacon, cumin, chocolate and herbs. It’s got a nose like no other wine, which is part of its allure. A lot of dark chocolate in the mouth, too, with some leather/tobacco and sour cherries, but not overly “fruity.” The tannins are balanced but have enough moxie to carry this wine for a couple of years, and it had a great long finish. Complexity minus the pretentiousness. The alcohol on this puppy is 14.5% so for Christ’s sake don’t sip it all by its lonesome—serve it with a nice slab of Churrasco!

Pinot noir and chardonnay may be in your comfort zone, but please do yourself a favor and step outside it. In fact, I challenge you to try 10 little-known varietals in the coming year. After all, isn’t it that very intense feeling of novelty and inexperience that drove us to fall in love with wine in the first place? What fun is it to stand on solid ground when that ground doesn’t extend very far? I find it more tantalizing to step outside my comfort zone and dare these wines to make me love them. This is not to say that we should empty our wine racks and donate our collection of Bordeaux to the local food drive. But a great part of passion for wine is the passion for life, culture and spirit—and, how better to know the spirit of a country and its people, than to know the wines that are native to them? In them we can begin to know many different definitions of home.

Question: Exactly how much of a good thing do Americans have to have before they run it completely into the ground?

Answer: Apparently, about 8 – 10 oz.

If you stand anywhere in the heart of Manhattan (or any other major metropolis for that matter) and throw a lime wedge, you’re bound to hit a spa hawking “mojito manicures, pedicures and massages.” For a short-lived time we were also subjected to mojito-flavored chewing gum, not to mention the recent sightings of mojito beer, soda, energy drinks, cupcakes, jellybeans and ice cream. Then, of course, we have the inedibles: mojito lip balms, candles, body scrubs, bath salts, lotions and soaps. Are we really that quick to make a buck on culinary trends? I guess we should be thankful that there aren’t any short rib-scented candles as well, though I might be more apt to stick one of those in my bedroom instead. In fact, if the sense of smell is so damned powerful, perhaps they can come out with a line of food-scented candles for weight loss—put the fork down, light the candle, inhale deeply. Seriously, though, I have about as much desire to see a mojito listed in an Italian restaurant’s menu as I do to see my gynecologist at Back to School Night. I’m sure Papa Hemingway is retching in his grave at the mention of a mango mojito, a sake mojito, and a frozen mojito. Can’t we just leave a nice, refreshing, inoffensive cocktail the hell alone?!?

That being said, I think there’s some room for growth here for the wine industry. Wine-flavored jellybeans? Just think—you could mix and match the cab and merlot for a Bordeaux blend, perhaps with one or two petite verdots thrown in for good measure. Or just reach into the bag blindly and throw them all in your mouth at once for the equivalent of a Chateauneuf du Pape. Christ, they already have wine ice cream and chocolate….why not a partnership between Naked Winery and Just Born, Inc. for Naked Peeps?

I’m also game for some wine-flavored cough drops, toothpastes and dental fluoride treaments, so start taking notes. Any other products out there that would be better off being wine flavored? (In)edible panties, maybe? Hell, they already have Smirnoff mojitos (a contradiction in terms) so why not riesling-flavored vodka? Perhaps a little wine would actually give that shit a personality. Listen up wine makers, if the cocktail scene can sell out, so can you! Americans are just as good at running a BAD idea into the ground, so don’t be afraid—we promise we’ll bend over and let you shove that shiraz-flavored straw up our ass so you can suck us dry, too.

There are dozens of reasons to laud the French, but there are also dozens of reasons to chide them…The Hundred Years War and Beaujolais Nouveau being a couple. Every November, Parisians celebrate the release of that blasted banal grape juice, but thankfully there are other, more obscure, far older and much cooler gastronomic par-tays that go on as well.

I’m not usually for any type of organized religion and I’ve got no room in my life for blind faith. That being said, however, there is something beautiful to be found in the act of worship,…depending of course, on what it is you’re worshipping. Every year, on the third Sunday of November, nearly 1,000 “disciples” gather in the shadowy nave of a 368-year-old church, just across the street from where Les Halles (the legendary market) once stood. But they’re not there to worship Jesus or any of his sandal-wearing posse. They’re there to praise pork at the Messe du Souvenir des Charcutiers (Charcutiers Mass of Remembrance)! Forget everything you know about “Sunday Mass,” people. This one honors the nation’s sausage, ham and paté makers—an act of reverence I can definitely get behind. The scripture readings? “Succulent meats and sensuous wines, yadda yadda yadda…” (my French is rusty, but I’m sure you don’t hear the words succulent or sensuous in any other sermon delivered by a monotheist). And get this, they even have a procession that includes the Fraternity of the Knights of Saint Anthony, an organization named for the charcutiers’ patron saint!

The service concludes with a tasting of dry-cured hams and other mouth-watering delights, which are no doubt chased down with wines that do NOT include beaujolais nouveau. I consider myself a spiritual person, but seldom do I step foot inside a house of worship unless there’s a REALLY good reason for it. Honoring the art of charcuterie would definitely be reason enough for me. In the words of the church’s pastor, “It’s not just about taking care of an organic need of the human body, but, more important, about providing what responds to our desire for conviviality, for sharing, for good taste, for beauty.” A-friggin-men.

Did you ever REALLY want to hate someone but just couldn’t? A time when every logical cell in your brain told you nothing good could possibly come of this, and the gloves were off without hesitation, only to have those fists gently pushed down? I had one of those last night. Suffice it to say that I wasn’t coaxed into LOVE, but at the very least pulled far away from LOATHING.

Most of you know how much I detest what the Food Network has become. Save for a couple of shows that hang on precariously by the strings of their aprons, most of the programming sucks….and I say that in the most professionally profound way I can. One of the few shows that is still in my DVRing radar is Iron Chef America. But when I heard that a product called Iron Chef Wine was being unveiled I nearly choked on my lunch. I was offered the opportunity to go to a wine tasting last night that introduced these wines to the industry, and couldn’t resist the chance to go and then (in my warped little mind) rake these wines over the coals on this blog. Now I find myself in the unique position of not wanting to do that—mind you these wines didn’t blow me away, and I’ve got some issues with it all, but let’s just say that going in expecting the worst was probably a good thing because there was plenty of room for elevation.

Understand, first, that the American Iron Chefs have absolutely NOTHING to do with these wines. They don’t back them in any way, and weren’t there to promote them. These wines were born out of a partnership between an Italian wine importer, Fuji Television (the guys who own the rights to Iron Chef) and the actual winemakers. So even though everyone will associate these wines with the show, they have no tie to it at all other than licensing rights to the name. The labels (which need improvement if they are going to appear as if they merit the $15 price tag) state “Chef Selected” and though that may be true enough, my guess is they’re hoping you ASSUME it’s one of the Iron Chefs, and not some random guy in whites they plucked from a kitchen.

The wines themselves were surprisingly OK, and they’re all estate bottled, which definitely helped. I’m not much of a fan of pinot grigio in general, but it tasted like the ubiquitous sipper that it’s supposed to be. On the other hand, the unoaked chardonnay I kinda dug, which surprised me because we’re talking Italian chardonnay—not a common shelf item. The tropical fruits were able to shine through the wine without the buttered lumber monster getting in the way. The merlot was a little soft and flabby, but had a nice chocolate nose and something most average mass-merlot consumers will be happy with. The Chianti was probably the best of the bunch. Nothing that would soak my shorts, but not flawed in any way, either. Other than not having the bouquet I so much love in a Chianti, it was good, and you have no idea how it pains me to say that because I really wanted to hate these wines if only for what appeared to be a gimmick.

Is it worth the price tag? No way. I can name a shit load of wines at and under the $15 price point that are a WAY better QPR. And the fact that the wine label looks like it was put together on PowerPoint by a design student doesn’t help it speak of quality. However, let me state emphatically that NONE of this will stop the brand from selling like patchouli at a Grateful Dead show. The kindest compliment I could possibly give these wines is that they are far from the worst wines I’ve ever tasted, and I was SOOOOO hoping they would be, because this post would have been much more fun to write!