Category: Cucina

QTN™: Buffalo Bill Pumpkin Ale

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these; seems like the seasonal beers are easier to make notes about. This is probably because a lot of seasonals, particularly winter beers but also some autumnal varieties, rely on a lot of spices to provide their flavor, and it’s easier to say “nutmeg up front” than “vague aromas of bananas.”

And Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale is definitely nutmeg up front. Big big taste of nutmeg with just a little cinnamon and allspice, that fades into a well balanced hop bitterness that fades into with a lot of malt behind. The pumpkin is there, but as anyone who’s tasted pumpkin in anything but pie would guess, it’s mostly providing malty balance rather than a distinct flavor. But it’s a better balanced pumpkin ale than most I’ve tried.

Yes, I’d like red-eye gravy with my prosciutto

New York Times: “Taste my prosciutto,” he said with a drawl. Southern country ham producers are waking up to the similarities between their products (selling at $4-5 a pound) and Italian prosciuttos (selling for $20-30 a pound). I always knew country ham was ambrosia, but I’ll have to find a way to try it thin cut to see if it really jumps across categories this way.

I know one thing: red-eye gravy and prosciutto di parma scares me a bit. Though, on days when I’m not watching my diet, a breakfast of a fried egg over a prosciutto slice is pretty damn ambrosial (making matters worse, you fry the prosciutto in butter). So maybe red eye gravy wouldn’t be such an odd addition.

Grilling lamb, and singeing the blogger

Four months after Julie Powell finished her lamb feast, I’m trying my own. Here it’s just me eating, but it’s a whole butterflied leg of lamb, rubbed with fresh rosemary, parsley, basil, and oregano from my garden, and done on the grill for (so claims The Joy of Cooking twelve minutes on a side. So for twenty-four minutes of non-rainy Seattle suburban bliss, I’m blogging from the patio on the new PowerBook, mint julep by my side…

…Sorry, I’m back. The fat on the back of the lamb had dripped down into the grill, which is a bit scary already, and so the grill was doing a reasonable imitation of The Towering Inferno. It was time to flip the lamb anyway, which I managed with something close to aplomb and something like 60% of the hairs on my hand intact. Mind, this is after the handy little spray bottle put out most of the flames. Man, it’s tough out here tonight.

(Twelve minutes later) The smaller portion of the lamb finished cooking in the prescribed 12 minutes a side, but the major part of the leg was about 15 degrees too cool. Hope this finishes in time to catch Alton Brown.

(After) Not bad, but would have been better with garlic. Still, it gives me hope that, through the magic of butterflying, everything can be grilled! Next up: wildebeest!

QTN™: Baltika Russian Original Dark Beer

A local distributor just started carrying a couple kinds of beer from a St. Petersburg brewery, Baltika (Russian site here). The Original Dark beer is dark, but only the way an amber or Newcastle is dark. But the flavor is great—a touch of caramel balanced by some hops, with a dark malty undercurrent. I might have to get another. But I have all their other flavors to try, plus some Polish varieties.

When cooking = depression…

Great meal tonight. After the iChat experience, I did some pork chops on the grill. Quick brush with garlic, black pepper, and soy sauce, grilled, and brushed with lemon juice, lemon zest, and chopped sage leaves.

And I thought about how I haven’t been eating so many vegetables lately, and decided to try a new green bean recipe from Marcella Hazan: steam the green beans, then toss them in butter and a quarter cup of grated parmigiano. Mmm, vegetables. —What? I figure that Julie Powell shouldn’t be the only one taking a cholesterol bullet for her readers. I do this for you, my friends.

And I thought about how when I cook elaborate meals and then sit on my ass and read the web and listen to music and drink a beer, and then go to bed feeling vaguely dissatisfied with myself…

…Wait a minute, I thought to myself. It’s like when you’re working when you’re depressed. And when have I had nights that haven’t been like that, when I’m cooking for myself while Lisa’s on the road? Man, I’ve got to find better things to do with myself.

QTN™: Mestreech’s Aajt

The beer club that I belong to is starting to cut corners. This is the second shipment that’s arrived without tasting notes. Which is unfortunate, because I know less than nothing about Mestreech’s Aajt, the magnificent Dutch beer I’m currently drinking, except that it’s outstanding.

It’s a brown ale with a very light head. The initial taste is a shocker—bracing, tart, and sharp with a slight note of sweet malt behind it. Very reminiscent of classic Rodenbach, which makes me wonder what it’s doing coming from Holland. A great, refreshing summer beer.

QTN™: MacTarnahan Black Watch Cream Porter

MacTarnahan’s Black Watch Cream Porter won as best porter in the 2001 Great American Beer Festival awards, and it’s easy to see why. Made (according to the website) with oatmeal as well as malted and unmalted grains, the beer is actually pretty light in mouthfeel, but the flavor is incredible. (This may have been enhanced by the fact that I was drinking the Limited Edition version, which conditions the porter in used bourbon casks!) It pours black, with a slightly brown-tinged head. The nose is slightly malty but subdued, but then the first taste: creamy sweetish, with a lingering hint of something. A couple of tastes later and it becomes clear: vanilla from the cask, with a faint overtone of the sweet bourbon. Anthem America thinks it’s a slightly “burnt” flavor; he might be right, but I think it’s more “toasted.”

Honestly, after tasting so many Belgians, I don’t really have words to describe how good this beer is. It’s a completely different flavor vocabulary. Highly recommended.

I enjoyed this one last night over grilled lamb and garlic sausages, which were found at A&J Meats and Seafood on Queen Anne. Thank God, finally found a butcher out here. They aren’t the same old school style as our Boston butcher, Frank (really Francesco), but their stuff is top notch. Their hot Italian sausage is pretty good too.

QTN™: Reinært Flemish Wild Ale

It’s been a while since I’ve done a QTN (Quick Tasting Note), but this Flemish ale drove me to it. The ale is a golden Belgian, 9% ABV (alcohol by volume), and pours with a thick creamy head that stays tall for at least ten minutes. Nose is, true to the name, wild, with hints of clove and peach. Taste is astonishing: sweet up front with more spice and fruit flavor, great bready yeast coming through, and a slightly bitter finish from the hops. Fabulous late spring or early summer beer, probably too heavy for a really hot day but refreshing on a mid-June cloudy 60° Seattle day.

Warmth and Brightness

One of the best photoblogs around, for my money, is 101-365. In addition to some stunning photography, Chris Heilman has posted several investigations into the color of wine, and postulates that you can uniquely describe the shape of a wine sample’s transmission spectrum with two parameters, warmth and brightness. (He also looks at absorption spectra.) The next question is, does knowing the shape of the spectral curve help predict the flavor?

Meeting the winemaker

Pike and Western held a tasting last night to sample the wines created by Ricardo Cotarella, the Italian winemaker behind Falesco, who helped lead a revolution in Italian viniculture by convincing grape growers to experiment with new grapes such as Merlot and improve old grapes like the Sicilian Nero d’Avola. Over the course of the evening (and seven wines from Sicily, Lazio, Umbria, and Tuscany), we learned quite a lot about the industry, such as the importance of decreasing plant yield to provide intense flavor.

Afterwards Lisa asked Cotarella if he had consulted at any Campagnian vineyards. “Yes, several,” he said. “Feudi…”

“Mastroberardino?” Lisa asked.

“No, no,” he replied, and held his hands apart palm up. “If you consult for Feudi, is no longer possible to work for Mastroberardino.” (The two winemakers split in a family feud about ten years ago.)

He told us that his favorite Campagnian varietal was probably Greco di Tufo. Lisa challenged him, asking about Fiano di Avellino, but he said he preferred Greco because while Fiano might be mistaken for other indigenous white wines such as Falenghina, Greco always was clearly Greco.

Improv

Lisa doesn’t come back from Boulder until about 9 tonight, so I was taking dinner solo. So I improvised. Sauteed onions in butter and olive oil; added broccoli florets, lima beans, and a pinch of salt. Added a splash more olive oil and two cups of arborio. Started stirring in the obligatory chicken broth a half cup at a time. About ten minutes in, added cubed chicken thigh meat, and at the same time started browning larger thigh chunks in a separate pan. Five minutes later: about 3/4 cup white Bordeaux. More broth. Lemon zest. Then, off the heat, stir in a touch more butter and grated Parmigiano Reggiano, and top with the browned chicken breasts.

What is it about cooking that makes me feel so competent? I guess it’s the eating.

Sammiches I have loved

In no particular order, great sammiches of all time:

  • Turkey-breast pastrami with gouda and special sauce on fresh-baked whole wheat from Take It Away (Charlottesville, VA)
  • Grilled cheese (cheddar and havarti) on thick “Texas toast” style white bread from the late Corner Grill (Charlottesville, VA)
  • Toss up: either fresh roast beef with horseradish and cheddar or freshly roasted turkey breast with lettuce and tomato, both on sourdough bread (a deli in Rosslyn, VA)
  • The chicken parm sandwich at Oreste’s: breaded chicken breast, cheese, sauce, a little hot pepper relish (Rosslyn and Fairfax, VA)
  • Dino Special: capicola, fresh mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, oil, and balsamic vinegar on a soft sub roll (Dino’s, Boston)
  • Italian sub: salami, capicola, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onion, hot peppers on a hard sub roll (Monica’s Pizza, Boston)
  • Lamb gyro with hot sauce from the Moishe’s Chicken truck at MIT (Cambridge, MA)

QTN™: Not all barleywines are gold

Tonight’s tasting experiment is LaConner Brewing Company’s Olde Curmudgeon Barleywine Style Ale. I’ve been waiting about a week to try this one, but I think my wait was in vain. This is a truly disappointing barleywine.

Pour: flat, no head. Taste: heavy, syrupy, sickly sweet, with a slightly chalky aftertaste. Smells of yeast, and not in a good way. It’s possible the bottle is old or was stored improperly, I suppose, but I don’t think so. It’s just unbalanced—needs way stronger hop to compensate for the sweetness and alcohol—and not very pleasant to taste. Down the drain.