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Rabbit Cacciatore and Clos La Coutale

3 Nov

This is my attempt at “live blogging.”

5:50 pm
I am exhausted from nine hours at law school. With the exception of an hour-and-a-half gap in between for lunch and socialization, I was at it all day. With finals coming up, there is a distinct change in the atmosphere at school… people are definitely getting more stressed.

Nonetheless, I finished my civ pro assignment for tomorrow, put my books in my locker, and set for home.

on-burner6:15 pm
I am cutting vegetables I bought at Eastern Market yesterday. The rabbit recipe calls for two red bell peppers–I bought one red bell pepper that was streaked with green (yum!) and, for variety, two big sweet red peppers. (I cut those into pieces and, because they looked so good, ate a piece… SO delicious! I could almost eat those like fruit.) I bought a small onion. Some mushrooms. 16 kalamata olives. I had garlic at home, a big can of chopped tomatoes from Trader Joe’s… flour, check. Bay leaves, rosemary, thyme… check.

The rabbit is extremely meaty. It doesn’t look so tough, either–probably didn’t spend its days foraging on some lonesome meadow a la Watership Down. The butcher cut it into six pieces–two hindquarters, two midsections/ribs, and two forequarters.

Rabbit has been compared in taste to chicken… it seems that way, actually, although it has a certain characteristic of its own. I wouldn’t call it gamy, because it’s not. It’s just… well, I dunno… all I can say is that it’s the type of meat that would go well with dried herbs and rustic wines.

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Three Days of Wine

20 Sep

I’m listening to Cannonball Adderley’s rendition of “Autumn Leaves” (with Miles helping out on trumpet) with the window open–the air is fresh, the sky is blue and flecked with fast-moving clouds, and the temperature is a lovely 64 degrees.

Needless to say, I am pretty content right now.  Washington, DC is a great town, and I find myself enjoying law school much more than college.  One of the reasons for that is there are some good people here, and fun things to do.  Like drink.  And cook.  And drink and cook I did for three consecutive days.

Wednesday

My friend Adrian invited a few people over (all guys, regrettably) on Sunday for beef stew and poetry.  I brought over my “house red”–a bottle of Nero d’Avila from Trader Joe’s (retail: $4.99)–and we discussed Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” over steaming bowls of stew and sips of wine.  To repay the favor, I invited Adrian and two of our friends to my place on Wednesday for a meal of roast lamb, honey-rosemary potatoes, and roasted garlic asparagus.

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One Last Taste of Home

9 Aug

First, I must apologize to my readers (both of you!) for the long delay in posting.  I have moved to DC for my new life as a law student at the George Washington University Law School; thus, for the last two and a half weeks or so I’ve been busy getting ready to leave California, traveling to DC, and settling into DC life.

And settle in I have!  DC is a great place thus far–definitely more humid than I’m used to, and subject to strange liquor laws that prohibit my buying beer, wine, or liquor in markets or drug stores (what gives, DC?).  However, DC is home to a great deal of wine stores, bars, pubs, and restaurants with wonderful, wonderful happy hour bargains.  And I have met some good people here, both my future classmates and friends of my roommate, Alex, who works at a local think tank.

I’ve already been to a wine tasting and taken an unofficial tour of some of the wine shops in the area.  And I HAVE had a bit of wine, notably a 2006 Morgon beaujolais from Jean Descombes (Georges Duboeuf) that was tremendously thirst-quenching after a hot summer afternoon.  I also have a Julienas beaujolais–also from Duboeuf)–that arrived as a housewarming gift waiting in the fridge and a Rosso di Montepulciano from Avignonesi that I will be drinking tonight at a spaghetti dinner in Crystal City.

I wanted to talk about my last night in LA, however: maybe it’s the passage of years, but I am actually more homesick than I thought I would be.  I also miss my parents and family much more now as a 25-year-old than I did as a young naive 18-year-old shipping off to Berkeley.  It might be because I have a greater sense of mortality now given certain events in my life; it might be because my dad’s 65 and not getting any younger.  I find myself drawn back to California because that is where my family–and therefore my heart–is.

This last night we decided to open a bottle of Bordeaux my brother’s girlfriend had bought him when she visited the US.  It was a 2003 Chateau Talbot (from Saint-Julien), a fourth growth which consists chiefly of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, with smaller amounts of petit verdot and cabernet franc.

The issue with this wine was that, since it was relatively (much) more expensive than any of the wines I’ve bought for home, we couldn’t find any suitable occasion to drink it.  And we had it for over a year.  I figured that since we weren’t really capable of storing it properly for much longer we would just have to drink it.  Soon.

I wanted to take it to a restaurant, maybe have the staff decant it to beat up the youngish tannins, and have it with a nice, thick steak.  But alas, I was never in the mood to go out for a fancy meal for my last closing days, so we decided to open it up and drink it solo.

Man.  What a gorgeous wine.  Full and round, like a voluptuous, raven-haired woman.  Cherry and plum in the nose.  Subtle spice and tobacco were what I tasted.  But this wine wasn’t as much about the taste or aroma as it was about texture–just so smooth and yielding, so wonderfully structured.  It went down like a potion made of velvet, and once it got to the stomach it felt warm and soothing like a nice port.

And the finish?  Long, stretching out all the way from that moment, that evening, to the pages of memory.

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The Heritage of a Friendship

22 Jul

The second part of this post can be read here.

The author of Vinicultured has been my friend for six years. In counting all of the intersections of our lives, I’d have to say that this cross-post is the culmination of those years. If you think that’s insulting, then you either underestimate the power of food as a social anchor or overestimate my ability to maintain a decent friendship. In any case, one late night trip to Berkeley’s most infamously mediocre taqueria in 2003 has already proven you wrong.

Back then, I was abstinent, and Joon was drunk. I was turning my 20th year on planet Earth and doing a terrible job of it. Joon was trying hard not to start a fight with the neighboring fraternity and doing just as badly. We decided to settle our scores with burritos. That night ended with me playing the guitar and him rambling about life’s unsung battles in the tiniest bedroom on the most unforgiving slope Berkeley has to offer. After that year, I never set foot in a fraternity house again.

Wikipedia reveals the true colors of wine tasting!

Wikipedia reveals the true colors of wine tasting!

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Wine Tasting for Grad Students: How a $7.00 Tasting is Sometimes Better than a $7.00 Meal

9 Jul

I’ll be leaving for DC very, very soon–I’m flying out there on the evening of August 2. Thus, I’m trying to spend some quality time with SoCal friends before I do.

Jonathan L., my erstwhile LegalZoom co-worker, poet, historian, and future Columbia grad student, was in the neighborhood. We’re both fond of wine, so we decided to have a bit to drink together before we again went our separate ways.

Where else than Lou?

Now keep in mind that we’re both going to be grad students in the near future; not only that, we’re both going to be living in rather expensive metropolitan areas. Personally, I had enough money that day for wine tasting or dinner but not both. Oh well. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

We met up at Lou at around 7 pm. The place was dead. There were, including us, seven patrons at that time. No matter. We had a job to do.

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2006 Bodegas Enosur “Tierra Prometida” Malbec

7 Jul

My brother and I were going to cook a tenderloin roast yesterday for dinner. This called for a red.

Not just any red–something that could stand up to thyme and rosemary. Something that would accentuate the lovely rareness and juiciness of the meat.

I was thinking of something from the Cotes-du-Rhone, but bleh. I haven’t been impressed with any of my selections from that region lately. I was at a loss as to what to get.

Luckily, Chris at Mission Wines had the perfect wine: the 2006 Tierra Prometida malbec from Bodegas Enosur, which is located in Mendoza, Argentina.

This wine is a solid malbec, dense but silky, tasting of plum and chocolate and a whiff of tobacco. With the roast the wine revealed notes of herb and pepper… very good match with the thyme and rosemary combination. The medium tannins of the Tierra Prometida worked well to cut through the “fat” of the tenderloin. There’s not a lot of fat on a tenderloin, anyway, so any more tannic wine might have been too much.

I tried some of the leftover wine tonight with Korean food: rice, kimchi, kalbi, and even some raw crab pickled in soy sauce. Surprisingly, the malbec went well with the spices and strange textures of the Korean food. There was just enough umami for the crab, enough body to counteract the acidity of the kimchi, and enough fruit for the kalbi. My usual aversion towards mixing sticky rice and wine (in my stomach, NOT in a bowl, mind you!) was overcome, and I had a very enjoyable meal.

I would highly recommend the Tierra Prometida. It might even be better than the Maipe malbec I love so much!

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Wine and Dine at Lou on Vine!

6 Jul

It’s funny how seemingly different things are related. For instance, it’s been well-documented on this blog that I love Intelligentsia Coffee. I was reading more about this specialty coffee roaster online when I came across this New York Times article on the interior design of Intelligentisa:

I really like the blue and white tile. (Thanks to the Times for the picture!)

At any rate, Intelligentsia’s space was designed by a woman named Barbara Bestor. I found that she had also designed the interior of a quirky wine bar / restaurant called Lou, which happens to be in a seedy strip mall–sandwiched between a Thai massage parlor and a 24-hour laundromat–off of Melrose and Vine in Hollywood.

I did some more reading on Lou and liked what I read: a fair-sized and eclectic wine selection? Check. Hip interior? Check. Good food? Check. All I needed was to actually go.

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A Triumphant Return!

3 Jul

After a long, involuntary hiatus from the drinking of alcohol I have again been getting my liver “wet”. I am ashamed to admit that my tolerance has gone way, way down–much too low for the amount of drinking that must needs take place in DC this fall.

I dipped in gingerly a few days ago, having a Firestone Double Barrel Ale after dinner. It got me legitimately “crunk” (keep in mind here, good readers, that I AM Asian, after all… my ancestors weren’t exactly quaffing tankards of beer around some round table in the forests), but it was a delightful feeling. The Double Barrel Ale is a good beer, moderately hoppy, somewhat sweet, a rich amber color. The only down thing about the DBA was that it had an off-putting aftertaste–more like an afterfeel… a bit syrupy, but not in a pleasant way. Oh well. It was a good beer, though not one I’d put into my standard rotation.

Today after work my co-workers and I opened a long-saved bottle of Joel Gott “815” cabernet sauvignon. (Named after the birth date of Gott’s daughter.) Four of us chipped in a few bucks each for the bottle back in MARCH, but there never was any real occasion or opportunity to open it up and enjoy. What better day than the day before the Fourth of July?

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How Getting Wisdom Teeth Pulled is Good for the Specialty Coffee Industry

24 Jun

I’ve written previously about my trip to Intelligentsia Coffee and how getting lost on the way prevented my good friend Jonathan from being mugged. I should also state that I recently had my bottom two wisdom teeth out (in three and two large pieces, respectively), which has prevented me from drinking alcohol. For the first two days, I couldn’t even drink coffee, which was a relative purgatory for me.

I had the opportunity recently to tour Intelligentsia’s new LA roasting facility in Glassell Park (near Glendale)–my family might be opening a coffee shop sometime soon, and we wanted to take a look at different coffee wholesalers. Let me tell you: it was awesome! The wine analogy would be like visiting a wine cellar–not the vineyard, where the grapes are grown, but the place where the wine is actually fermented and bottled.

Five thousand square feet of roasting machine, tasting equipment, office space, sacks and sacks of green coffee beans (which are extremely hard, odorless, and tasteless, actually), and bags and bags of freshly-roasted coffee. The air was permeated by a delightful warm coffee smell, as if I were in the middle of a perpetual breakfast. Intelligentsia’s pretty damn serious about their coffee.

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Grüner Veltliner: the Perfect Match for Seafood Pasta (and Father’s Day)

16 Jun

So the thermostat has been going up slowly but steadily–we now are in the high 80s here in SoCal. This means beer and white wine weather.

Yesterday, as we all know (or all now know) was Father’s Day. My family decided to stay at home and cook dinner instead of go out for some fancy affair. My brother decided upon angel hair pasta with a sauce of mussels, shrimp, basil, tomato (apparently from Canada and therefore 100% immune from salmonella), garlic, and white wine. He was in charge of buying the food: I, of course, was in charge of getting a wine to drink and with which to cook.

We found ourselves at Whole Foods, which apparently is the nation’s #1 wine retailer for 2007 or something. They do have a pretty good wine selection, and I spied a bottle of grüner veltliner, that spicy, peppery Austrian white that is one of the next big things in the wine world (though not according to David J. D. over at Horny for Food). It’s still relatively obscure–though almost cliché in some circles–so it’s a great bargain, especially given its quality. I picked up a bottle of velt.1 grüner for a cool $9.99. Excellent.

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