Outlet Radio Network

Jupiter’s Blood

Outlet Radio Network
May 8, 2005

Jupiter’s Blood

I’m getting ready to move. It’s a big move, leaving New York after nearly 23 years here. But I figure, I spent half my life so far in the midwest, half here in “the Big Apple”, I may as well split it in thirds and spend the next 23 years somewhere else. Then it’ll be time to go for splitting it in quarters, then fifths, then… I’m really hoping for some sort of cool longevity drug (as long as I get to keep my adorably cute looks).

Part of my move has been clearing a lot of, well, crap, out of my life. I sold off books that I never intend to read, or re-read. I sold furniture. I gave away things to friends and local charities. And then I had to confront my wine collection. Now, there’s no question I plan to keep some of it. But the idea of storing away and then carting cross-country or cross-planet (my future destination is a little murky at the moment) nearly 700 bottles of wine (yes, 700) was more than I wanted to contemplate.

A large percentage of what I had was made up of samples sent to me by various wine companies that I know I’ll never get around to trying before they go bad. I gave away those to a friend who holds casual parties and just needs cheap wine around. That left me with a little over 400 bottles. I auctioned off a whole bunch of them. Now down to about 240 bottles, it’s time to look at drinking a lot of them before I move. So, party time!

I suggested a Brunello party to a wine geek friend of mine (more about Brunello and what it is in a minute). He agreed, we decided to keep it casual, invite a bunch of friends, and order pizza. The pizza turned out to be just okay, but the wines, well, they certainly got us all talking and thinking.

I thought I’d take a look at the grape behind Brunello, Sangiovese, for this column. Sanguis Jovis, is the Latin that the varietal name comes from, literally meaning “blood of Jove” (an early name for the Roman god Jupiter). Believed to be indigenous to Tuscany, this grape has probably been growing there for nearly 2,000 years, though the first literary references to it don’t appear until the 1700s. The grape has been transplanted to various spots around the world, especially by early Italian immigrants to California, where it still forms part of the crop used in old “field blends” of red wine.

Probably the best known Sangiovese based wine is Chianti. Chianti is an area in Tuscany. Though the wine of the same name has been made there for centuries, it wasn’t until the late 19th Century that Baron Ricasoli (wines are still made from this estate and can be found in your local “bottle shops”) laid down the law and set out the “formula” for Chianti. Basically it involves roughly 70% Sangiovese with the blending of two local red grapes, Canaiolo and Colorino, and a white grape, Trebbiano. There have been changes made to the law since then, especially in the heart of the Chianti region, Chianti Classico, that allow for the use of the “international varietals”, Cabernet and Merlot.

Wine geeks will tell you that good Chianti tends to have flavors of black cherries and bacon fat or smoked salami, and that’s an apt description. It sounds strange in a wine, but indeed the flavors are there. Most of us think of Chianti as a classic match for red sauce pastas, and that shouldn’t be a surprise, since many of those come from the same region.

The two “big brothers” of Chianti in Tuscany are Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and Brunello di Montalcino. The former, the “noble wine” of Montepulciano (a town in Tuscany, not to be confused with the classic grape of the same name from Puglia in southern Italy), is a big, rustic wine that some might say combines the elegance of a good Chianti with the power of a Brunello. It is made from a specific clone of Sangiovese (there are 14 recognized clones) called Prugnolo Gentile.

Montepulciano is located in Southeast Tuscany. The flavor profile of a good Vino Nobile is much like that of Chianti, just with more depth and complexity. Vino Nobile traditionally was aged in chestnut casks rather than oak casks, and as the modern wine press began to push for bigger, richer, and oakier wines, Vino Nobile lost favor in the early 1980s. Many producers opted to switch to oak aging, and soon, unsurprisingly, many of them began to get good reviews from those who review. Personally, I like the different flavor profile that comes with the traditional style – if I want to drink Chianti or Brunello, I’ll get a bottle of one of those! There is a lighter, young, easy drinking style of wine from here called Rosso di Montepulciano as well.

Brunello di Montalcino is the true “big boy” of the Sangiovese world. From a town called Montalcino (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?), the Brunello clone produces the richest, darkest, and most complex of the Sangiovese based wines from Tuscany. Most of these wines require years of aging before they’re ready to drink, in fact, it can’t even be bottled, by law, until it has aged in cask for several years. Like Vino Nobile, there is a lighter, younger version called Rosso di Montalcino. Brunellos tend to be quite expensive!

Less well known is a wine called Morellino di Scansano. Another “kissing cousin” to Sangiovese, Morellino comes from the town of Scansano… another surprise, right? It is the local name for this particular clone. I tend to find that Morellinos have a touch more acidity to them than the rest of the Sangioveses, but at the same time have darker fruit flavors – although black cherry is still evident, there is more than a hint of black plum flavors and a bit more spiciness than the others. They are a bit harder to find, but as more folk discover them, the search is becoming easier.

I’m not going to get deeply into the world of “super-Tuscans” because, simply, they are not necessarily Sangiovese. The term super-Tuscan was coined by wine writers a few years back to refer to some of the truly special wines that were coming out of the Chianti area, were often in the writers’ opinions better than classic Chianti, but didn’t conform to the traditional blend and therefore couldn’t be called Chianti. They often were 100% Sangiovese, or included large percentages (or even completely) non-traditional grapes like Cabernet and Merlot. Some of them became quite famous – like Tignanello, Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Le Pergole Torte, and Massetto just to name a few. Unfortunately, the category has no standards, and now, anyone who makes a non-traditional blend feels like they have the right to call their wine a “super-Tuscan”, and many of those now produced are, basically, average swill.

Lastly, as I said earlier, Sangiovese was transplanted many moons ago to California. There are some fine ones produced there, though generally I find that they are too, shall we say, “California-ized”, i.e., too much time in new oak barrels, and too much extraction of flavor, resulting in what amounts to California Red Wine, indistinguishable from other varietals. There are also a few interesting Sangioveses coming out of Australia, though, often the suffer from the same problem.

So, order a good pizza or two, invite a few friends over, and get a line up of a few bottles of different Sangioveses to try. It’s a brave new world out there to explore beyond Cabernet, Merlot and Pinot Noir, but you can do it!


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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Silver Screen

Outlet Radio Network
March 20, 2005

Silver Screen

James Bond roars across Europe in an Aston-Martin and tens of thousands of people rush to their local car dealer demanding to purchase one just like the one he drove. No? Make that Dr. No and let him mention Dom Perignon ’53 (which he preferred to the doctor’s ’55), and the public rushed their local wineshops demanding the ’53. The same scene is basically repeated in Goldfinger; yet in Thunderball, he goes for the ’55, and in You Only Live Twice, the ’59. Marilyn Monroe was a big fan of the ’53. Various vintages of Bollinger champagne are featured as well… ’69, ’75, ’88, and ’90. The ’34, ’47, and ’55 Chateau Mouton Rothschilds from Bordeaux make their appearances as well. (I won’t get into all the rest, there’s [was, no longer in existence] a great site for James’ drinking habits at Make Mine a 007… I’m only using these to make a point… soon.)

Demi Moore offers Michael Douglas a bottle of ’91 Pahlmeyer Chardonnay in the film Disclosure. Sales of Pahlmeyer wines, and not just the ’91 Chardonnay, rocketed. It became “the” cult wine to get for a short time. Prices were raised.

And now, we have Miles in Sideways proferring pretentious wine advice on Pinot noir, Merlot, and what have you. Sales of Pinot noir have climbed, sales of Merlot have dropped. It will no doubt be temporary. But try getting your hands on the three featured wines in the film. Many retailers and restauranteurs (not to mention the wineries themselves) have raised prices or are doling them out in small quantities. Tourism in Santa Barbara has gone up (well it is beautiful).

I won’t go on and on, though it’s possible to, I’d rather get to my point. Starting back from my opening line, the point comes down to… hey folks, it’s a movie. Some scriptwriter wrote it. Some director directed it. Actors were given scripts and lines to say. In many cases some winery, or at least their marketing company, horror of horrors, shockingly, paid for the product placement!

Now, I’m not disparaging the tastebuds of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Demi Moore, Michael Douglas or Paul Giamatti, or anyone else who appears in a movie. I haven’t a clue. I haven’t gone out to dinner with any of them. Some of them might have amazing palates when it comes to wine. But here’s a little secret…

Dom Perignon 2265Sean Connery did not personally recommend to you that you go out and buy 1953 Dom Perignon. Really, he didn’t. Paul Giamatti may play the pretentious wine snob well, but he did not personally recommend that you run out and buy Hitching Post’s Highliner Pinot noir, Sea Smoke’s Botella Pinot Noir, or Fiddlehead Cellars’ Sauvignon Blanc. Really, he didn’t either. And without knowing their personal tastes, even if they had, why would you run out to buy it?

Nonetheless, “the herd instinct is strong,” as someone posted on one of the wine geek websites.

Now, I have to get back to explaining to my trekkie customers that the 2265 Dom Perignon (opening sequence of Star Trek VII: Generations) won’t be produced, if at all, for another 260 years… and no, I cannot get them a sample bottle…


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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BA

Outlet Radio Network
February 18, 2005

BA

I’ve just returned from a fantastic vacation in Buenos Aires! Two weeks of (mostly) good weather, an amazing city to explore, new friends met (including one quite special one), and all sorts of adventures to share. I’m going to try to encapsulate it, and include a proper dose of food and wine, in a few short paragraphs (which won’t remotely do it justice, but such is life).

Friends Pascal, Nestor and Tuomas chat over breakfast.

Friends Pascal, Nestor and Tuomas chat over breakfast.

It’s a long flight from New York, a solid ten hours, but I’ve done worse and I had two seats to myself, so being the petite sort, I curled up and went to sleep for most of the time. Arrival in Argentina, and ready to go. My guesthouse (more about which later, as I highly recommend it), had arranged a taxi to meet me, and so I was quickly whisked off to the neighborhood of San Telmo. As we pulled into the area, all I could think of was, I’m back home! It could have been the East Village/Lower East Side…there wasn’t even that much of an increase in signage in Spanish (which says more about the East Village than about Buenos Aires).

Evita's tomb, at which flowers are left daily by fans

Evita’s tomb, at which flowers are left daily by fans

At the guesthouse, LugarGay (literally “gay place”), I was welcomed with open arms by Nestor (center in the pic) and Juan, the two owners, and the current temporary “houseboy”, Henry – about whom much more later! We stumbled along in my limited Spanish and Nestor’s somewhat better English, got me settled, and then I was promptly greeted by several of the current residents. LugarGay seems perfect for those who like to travel, comfortable rooms, a quiet atmosphere, and a relatively sophisticated clientele. I spent the afternoon on my own exploring the immediate neighborhood, and then found myself in the company of a charming man from Finland, Tuomas, on the right in the picture (who thankfully spoke impeccable English…and French…and Spanish…and Italian…and Dutch…and Finnish…), for dinner. We were joined by another man, originally from Canada, who had fallen in love with a local guy a few months earlier and decided to move, at least part-time, to “BA”.

Evita's tomb, at which flowers are left daily by fans

Evita’s tomb, at which flowers are left daily by fans

Dinner at a local, very gay friendly (as is most of Buenos Aires) restaurant, La Farmacia, and then a good night’s sleep. Breakfast with some of the guys in the house, at least those who had awakened, and I met yet another charmer, Pascal, from Paris. In fact, Pascal (left in the picture) and I spent a good portion of the next week exploring the city together.

People line up to get into favorite parrillas...

People line up to get into favorite parrillas

Like any big city, there are tons of things to do. Museums and galleries, parks, monuments, cemeteries (one has to pay homage to Evita’s tomb…), and loads of restaurants to sample. Argentinians, and especially porteños, as the denizens of BA refer to themselves, love to eat. And they eat a lot of red meat, especially beef. In fact, other than accompaniments of a bit of salad or the occasional sauteed green leaves, little shows up on plates other than slabs of beef. Argentinian beef is a bit leaner than what we see in the US, but I am still amazed that with the quantity (often a steak for both lunch and dinner) that is consumed, that porteños aren’t all a bit on the hefty side. Dinner at a parrilla can often consist of several courses of meat – what is referred to as an asado, or as we might call it, a barbecue. Innards are quite popular, and I tried several new things (seasoned and grilled intestines anyone?), and a lot of old faves. An afternoon lunch on the roof of La Farmacia. Meat is generally served with a sauce called chimichurri, a slightly spicy herb sauce, for which I’ve posted a recipe below. It’s quite delicious!

Porteños also eat late by our standards. Most restaurants, other than those catering to tourists, don’t open until 9 p.m. And no local would be caught in one before 10 – in fact, many folk go out to dinner at 11 or 12 at night, even on “school nights”. How they manage to eat so late, and often go out to a club or bar or coffeehouse afterwards, and still get up for work in the morning, is beyond me.

Argentinian wines are to be found everywhere, and there is little else to be had other than in some of the swankier wine shops. Some Chilean and the occasional Uruguayan wine (again, more later, as I spent a couple of days in Uruguay exploring as well), and maybe a high-end French or Italian wine. Prices, by the way, are extraordinarily low, mostly based on the current exchange rate – nearly 3:1 to the US dollar. But even with the exchange, markups just aren’t as ridiculous as they often are here. At fine restaurants, a bottle of a good reserve wine might go for 60-70 pesos, or about $25-30. The same bottle here might sell in a restaurant for $60-70, or more than double…trust me, import costs aren’t that high. And meals are also inexpensive – lunch is available fixed price at most restaurants and is almost always under 10 pesos – $3-4. Dinner might, in the finer restaurants, run you 60 pesos, but more than likely not. Generally we ate for about 40 pesos apiece, including wine.

Henry (right) and I (umm, left)...

Henry (right) and I (umm, left)…

And last, for this column, but by no means least, I return to the aforementioned “houseboy”, Henry. We hit it off immediately, and within a day of flirting we had quickly become an “item” around the guesthouse. He hails from Trujillo, Peru, and is adorable and my heart remains with him! We spent my entire vacation together, when he wasn’t working, and who knows what the future will bring!?


Chimichurri

½ cup oil
½ cup vinegar
½ cup white wine
1 teaspoon salt
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
1 scallion, chopped
1 small tomato, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1 small sweet pepper, finely chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon ground pepper (or chili powder if you want spicy)
½ teaspoon oregano leaves
2 bay leaves

Basically, mix all the ingredients together and let it steep for at least 12 hours before using. It should be used within a couple of days as the freshness of the flavors will fade quickly. This isn’t my recipe, but comes from a local chef, and I may play with it a bit and re-post a new one down the road…


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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Salsa!

Outlet Radio Network
January 12, 2005

Salsa!

Visions of whirling women in bright colored skirts, men dancing their way across the floor, dressed to the nines. Not that kind.

Salsa is simply a Spanish word for sauce. Now, in our nortamericano daily parlance, we usually use it to denote a somewhat fiery red or green sauce for dipping tortilla chips into. Often we see it on restaurant menus to refer to some chopped blend of vegetables, fruits and spices that accompany a dish. But we keep going back to that dipping sauce in our minds.

For me, however, as a chef, I tend to think of salsas in terms of what a Mexican chef might call a salsa cruda. That is, a chopped blend of raw or barely cooked ingredients that is used as the sauce on a dish. And the couple of recipes I’m going to give you aren’t going to relate to Latin American cooking. They’re just a couple of my current favorites that I hope you’ll try out and enjoy!

I was reading my favorite cooking magazine, Australian Gourmet Traveller (one of the best written consumer food magazines out there, even if the vocabulary takes some getting used to), and came across a reference to a fascinating sounding veal dish. No recipe was provided, so I experimented and came up with this little gem that we all fell in love with.

Veal Scallops with Meyer Lemon Salsa
Serves 4

1½ pounds of thinly sliced veal scallopini
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large seedless cucumber
3 Meyer lemons (not regular lemons, Meyers are sweet lemons from Florida)
2 tablespoons of coarsely chopped fresh oregano
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel and dice the cucumber. Remove the peel from the lemons and carefully cut out the individual segments of the lemons, then cut each segment in half. Add the oregano and the extra virgin olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let it sit for at least an hour.

Season the veal scallops with salt and pepper. Saute them in a mix of the butter and olive oil (or just use one of the new “butter flavored” olive oil spreads), until lightly browned. Serve topped with the salsa, which can be left room temperature or slightly warmed. If you’re not into veal, this salsa works just as well on thinly pounded chicken breasts, or even a sauteed slice of tempeh!

Beef Fillet with Radish Salsa
Serves 4

Okay, it sounds strange, but it is oh, so good!

4 beef fillets, each about 6 ounces
2-3 limes
1 bunch of icicle radishes (these are pure white and sort of long and skinny radishes)
a dozen or so fresh mint leaves
2 serrano peppers
¼ cup olive oil
salt and pepper

Peel the limes and coarsely chop the peel. Mix the peel, the juice of the limes, and a bit of salt and pepper to make a marinade. Rub the beef all over with this and let it stand in the refrigerator, occasionally turning it to recoat, for at least 2 hours.

In a food processor, pulse the radishes (greens removed), the serranos (seeds and stems removed), and the mint leaves, until you have a coarse mixture. Add olive oil, and the salt and pepper to taste, and let sit for at least an hour.

In a very hot pan, sear the beef fillets on both sides, and then put the whole pan into a hot (500°F) oven. Let it cook for about 5-10 minutes depending on how done you like your beef. You can always stick the pan back in if you check a fillet and it isn’t done enough.

I like to serve this one by slicing the fillets and fanning them out on the plate and then topping with the salsa.

For the non-beef folk, try this one with portabello mushroom caps, just don’t over cook the caps in the oven, five minutes is usually plenty of time.


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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How Do You Like Dem Apples?

Outlet Radio Network
November 19, 2004

How Do You Like Dem Apples?

Just a short column to let you all know I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. Being in the food and wine biz this time of year gets a bit crazed. Out in the non-electronic world I’ve gotten several requests recently for good old-fashioned apple pie. Things like “what’s the world’s most amazing apple pie recipe?” and other easy demands to respond to like that.

Well, I’ll tell you. I haven’t a clue. There are probably a gazillion recipes out there for apple pies, and I’ve only tried a few of them. Truthfully, I tend to go about as simple as I can when I make an apple pie, which isn’t very often. You can use something basic from the Time-Life Good Cook series, or that long-famed kitchen staple, The Joy of Cooking. Or your mother’s recipe. Hey, if you think you’ve got the world’s best apple pie recipe, I’d love to hear about it and try it out.

What I do make pretty regularly with apples is an old Ukranian-Belarusian (somewhere out there) sort of apple pie-cake-crumbly kinda thingie. The recipe isn’t my own and it’s been reproduced in Eastern European cookbooks for eons, but damned if it isn’t really easy and really good! It’s usually referred to as something like “Guest at the Door Apple Cake”, for reasons that should be apparent from the name.

This comes out best if you use a 9″ springform pan, but any deep dish pie, tart, or cake pan will do. You can even do this in a cast iron skillet if you want!

Butter the inside of the pan and sprinkle with bread crumbs or flour to prevent the cake from sticking. Preheat oven to 350F.

Take six large, tart apples and peel, core, quarter and then slice them. Toss the apple segments with a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Put them in the buttered pan.

In a mixing bowl, whisk or beat together 3 large eggs and just under a cup of sugar (don’t ask me why, but a full cup makes it too sweet, so take out a heaping spoonful). Beat this until it is pale yellow and forms a ribbon when your whisk or beaters are lifted.

By the way, what that means is… if you lift the egg beater, or electric mixer, or hand whisk out of the mixture, it kind of drizzles off and leaves a ribbony looking trail that takes a moment or two to sink in, rather than just streaming off and disappearing into the bowl.

Gradually beat in one and a half cups of all purpose flour. The batter will get pretty thick. Pour the batter relatively evenly over the apples. Bake until it turns puffy and golden colored, about 50-60 minutes, depending on your oven, the pan, etc. Let cool for a little and serve with whatever you like to serve on appley things – whipped cream, ice cream…

On other apple topics, since I promised I’d throw in some booze sort of tasting notes, some drinking thoughts:

Apple cider. Not the stuff in big gallon jugs that’s brown and filled with sediment from apples and your parents made you and all that…

Traditional French, English or American (they’re the only ones I know who make the stuff) alcohol-type apple cider. There are lots of producers out there of these. Two favorites:

Farnum Hill apple ciders, from Lebanon, New Hampshire. Made in relatively dry styles, these, to me, taste like very delicately apple scented light beers. They are quite yummy, and well worth checking out. Farnum Hill distributes primarily in the northeast U.S., but you can hit their website at www.farnumhillciders.com and who knows, maybe you can score some!

Eric Bordelet produces amazing apple and pear ciders in France. They range from relatively dry to relatively sweet. My faves are the Argelette for the apple and the Granit for the pear, but they’re all worth seeking out and trying. Once you taste these you’ll be hooked!

I’m also a huge fan of calvados. This is brandy made from apple and pear wine rather than grape wine. You get all that warming fire that is what good brandy is all about, with a delicious touch of apple fruit. Not sweet! My favorite producer is Christian Drouhin who makes a regular “Selection” calvados and stunningly good vintage calvados under the Coeur du Lion label. The vintage ones make great gifts!


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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Why Can’t You Have Both?

Outlet Radio Network
October 22, 2004

Why Can’t You Have Both?

About 13 years ago I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with Craig Claiborne. For those who don’t know who he was, he was probably the most influential restaurant critic who has ever written in the United States. Why? Basically, he was the first true restaurant & food critic for a major newspaper. Not that others hadn’t written about such things, but he raised it to an art form, and, he worked for the New York Times. He was also openly gay. Craig died in 2000. There’s no particular reason for this column, which was written 13 years ago, to pop up now, except it was never published, and I ran across it while I was looking through some of my files. Re-reading it brought back the memory of a wonderful afternoon earlier in my career, and I thought I’d share it here. Parts of this interview, both what’s reproduced below and more, were used by Tom McNamee in his book The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance, which I’ve reviewed over on my SaltShaker blog.


I’ve been picked up in a lot of places by a lot of different people, in a lot of different ways. I never expected to be picked up at a bus stop, by Craig Claiborne, in a jeep. Then again, I never expected to be picked up by Craig Claiborne. Meeting the man who made it his career to open the doors of fine food to the American public is not the sort of thing a young chef and writer gets to do every day.

Comfortably ensconced in his East Hampton, New York home, a Michael Feinstein album playing in the background, Craig Claiborne talked explicitly about his life and loves. As he is fond of pointing out, his father taught him to always tell the truth. The interview is punctuated by a brief call from his lover of eleven years, calling to make sure I’d been safely collected at the station; by preparations for lunch (we made a pot of his famed corn and crab chowder), all concentration on the task at hand; romantic recollections of intimate encounters; and moments of misty-eyed sentiment as he reminisced about the men and women he has shared his life with.

Two stints in the Navy, bartending, and public relations for ABC, led Craig Claiborne to almost three decades at the New York Times. As the food news editor, he stirred the tastes of a public that hungered for food that hadn’t been scientifically prepared by home economists. Thousands of columns and articles, and a dozen or more books, fed kitchen hints, dining tips, and food facts to millions.

Scene. A youngster sits at the Chicago World’s Fair sampling his first food outside of the south. A bowl of jellied consomme with lemon juice and tabasco.

It was the best thing I ever ate in my life.

Shift scenes. Casablanca, World War II. A young man in uniform is invited by a handsome lieutenant to have a local home-cooked meal. Couscous, coriander, cumin.

One of the most important foods I ever ate was that couscous.

Shift again. The Ile de France, an ocean voyage. A young man, now out of uniform, tenderly bites into a Turbot a l’Infante.

I took one bite and my god, I was transmogrified. I decided, I’ve got to learn how to cook French.

From there life moved swiftly. Hotel school in Lausanne, Switzerland. A couple articles for Gourmet on tea and vodka. Pushing Fluffo, a butter substitute, led to contacts at the top restaurants in town, and more importantly, with Jane Nickerson, then the food editor for The New York Times. When Jane announced her retirement, Craig’s employers took her to lunch to celebrate.

Over a nice bottle of wine, Jane described her difficulty getting away from the newspaper. She said, “everybody in town has tried. If they can scramble an egg and type with two fingers they’ve applied for this job and The New York Times has refused to take anybody.” So after a couple glasses of wine I thought, why not little old me? So I went back to the office and, if you’ll pardon the expression, I closeted myself, and wrote a note to Jane Nickerson, saying, you know all about my background, do you think The New York Times would consider hiring a man as a food writer?

Two interviews, numerous phone calls, a tense vacation on Fire Island, and the job was his.

I went back out to the beach and then I started crying, uncontrollably, saying, I said, by god, what will you ever write a column about? I saw this guy hauling in a bluefish and I said, by god, I’ll write an article about bluefish.

In thirty-three years of writing four and five columns a week, did he ever write that article?

I never wrote a column on bluefish. I don’t like bluefish.

Every writer has those moments that he or she wishes they’d had a chance to write about, opportunities that happen once in a lifetime. Any regrets?

Well, now that I’m gone [from The Times] I can think of things I’d like to do, but let me think… There were two interviews that didn’t work out… But off-hand I can’t really think of one.

He reflects a bit more and then suddenly remembers a writer’s worst nightmare. A trip through the provinces of China, hosted by the U.S. ambassador to Burma and his wife, Burt and Lily Lee Levin, and one of the top restauranteurs in China and Hong Kong, Jimmy Wu. He returned with stacks of 3 by 5 cards.

I spent three solid days writing about this trip to China, and the third morning… I pressed the wrong button. I erased the entire thing. About twenty seven pages. Gone… I couldn’t go back and rewrite, because the notes were all shuffled, I didn’t have them numbered. Gone, with the wind.

In all those weeks in China, what stood out as memorable? Two things. An awful mountain train trip from Chengdu to Chongqing in the Szechuan province, for some of the best food he had on the trip…

It was street food. Which we ate in the rain. They had marvelous, fantastic soups, and noodles, and Szechuan pickles.

and back in Chengdu…

They brought us the next little thing, about that long and that big. I pick it up with my chopsticks and I said, “what is this?” She says, “the penis [bull’s].” Well, I ate the goddamn thing, but it was so unappealing. Not because it was a penis, I’ve had enough of those in my mouth, but it was just so awful to eat.

Well, as long as the subject came up…

I’m not bragging, but I have never met someone, even a straight guy, who I haven’t been to bed with, who I couldn’t take. I mean, I don’t care how many children they have, you get anybody in the right situation, gain his confidence, and after a couple of drinks, if you’re kind, he will. That’s all.

Being gay prior to the ’80s has often been touted as a dark, furtive existence. Corporate life at ABC and The New York Times have never been noted as hotbeds of gay support. What was it like?

Everybody I’ve worked with knows I’m gay. All the people at the New York Times knows.

Did he ever find that it was a problem?

No. The funny thing is, that when my book [A Feast Made For Laughter] was published, Arthur Geld, who was the number two man at the time, it was his attitude to go into more detail about what it was like to be gay. It was never a problem.

And at ABC?

We had a boss named L. Henry. And once, after I’d been there about a year, I told L, I said, “L, you know, I’m gay.” And he shrugged his shoulders. The next day I told Dean [his roommate], and he said, “What did he do, give you a raise?”

You first came out publicly in your memoirs. Did you have any concerns about family, or “the public”?

I had a funny experience. When I was writing my memoirs, and the people I cared about, stating that I’m gay… I’ve never felt guilty about being gay, all my life. I’ve been through a lot of psychotherapy, but I can’t recall ever feeling guilty about homosexuality. And if anybody in the world wanted to know about my sexual persuasion, I’d tell them the truth. Why should I be ashamed, I didn’t ask for this… So, the only thing I cared about was my family, my niece and nephew, and my sister, I didn’t know if she cared or not. So I went down to Mississippi. We went to a restaurant. And I said, “The reason I came down, really, is to tell you that I’m writing my autobiography, and I’m going to talk about my homosexuality in it.” And so, nobody stopped eating, no dropped forks. So when I went to the men’s room, my niece turned to my sister and she said, “Did you hear what Craig said, that he’s going to tell people he’s gay?” And my sister said, “Look, my daddy always told him to tell the truth.”

Outside of being openly gay at work and in his memoirs, and socializing with friends, has he been active in the gay community?

I am not an active person. I get so tired of charities. I’m supposed to be writing the preface to an AIDS cookbook. God knows when it’ll ever come out. I wrote the preface. It’s done. I was host for a dinner, a gay dinner at God’s Love We Deliver… I got the New York Times to first cover AIDS. Larry Kramer mentioned that in his book.

Any “Life’s Most Embarrassing Moments?”

I was invited to a party at Harry Reasoner’s. A very private party. And I got drunk. And Richard Rogers was there. So, I got close to Richard Rogers, and I said, “Mr. Rogers, I’d give anything in the world just to tell somebody that you played the piano for me.” He shuffled along, he’s getting quite old, but he stood up and walked over to the piano, and I sang, with Richard Rogers playing the piano… My voice was terrible.

Forty some years of meeting chefs and restauranteurs from all over the world cannot help but leave an impression on a person. Who stands out as the most influential in Craig Claiborne’s life?

My favorite professor was Monsieur Tour. He had a great effect on me. He was a magnificent looking man, a great skier, extremely masculine. He was the head of table service… [sighs] I’m a very sentimental guy. I think Paul Bocuse [three-star chef in Lyon, France]. I just simply adore Paul Bocuse. He’s cold, a napoleon, that pose… Barry Wine [chef, The Quilted Giraffe, New York]. I love Barry. I think Pierre Franey. Because we worked together so long. Creating recipes together…

Anyone who stands out as the love of Craig Claiborne’s life?

Oh, I think my friend now. Jim. We met eleven years ago, the 3rd of July.

Favorite foods?

I have a passion for hot dogs. Once a month I sneak off and have a hot dog, with sauerkraut. I went to a restaurant called La Petite Tonkenoise [in Paris], vietnamese, and I was served the first course. I was devastated by it. It was a vietnamese spring roll, it’s called “cia gio”. I went to Saigon, in the middle of the war, just to learn to make that one dish.

What’s next on the horizon for Craig Claiborne?

Death. [laughs] That’s the only thing left for me. No, I don’t know. Well, having Jim as a friend. That’s what I live for. To be with him. We’re going to Scotland. And he’s planning a trip next year taking a European train, somewhere. But, that’s all I want. It’s an incredible experience.

As we parted ways back at the bus station, one anecdote kept running through my head.

I had a party once, a lot of TV people. And Harry Reasoner came up to me, from 60 Minutes, and said, “Craig,” he says, we’ve known each other for so many years, you are so obsessed with sex and with food, which do you prefer?” And I said, “Harry, why can’t you have both at the same time?”


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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Pop My Cherry

Outlet Radio Network
October 13, 2004

Pop My Cherry

Sorry, that was just to get your attention.

I’m on a bit of a mission. It’s somewhat casual, I can’t say I’m devoting a huge amount of time to it. But nonetheless, it’s a mission. I want to bring back the popularity of Maraschino. The liqueur, not the cherry. In fact, I find no excuse for the cherry.

That’s not entirely true. There is an excuse for the cherry, but that’s all it is, an excuse. Originally, maraschino cherries were made from various wild European sour cherries. They were steeped in Maraschino liqueur for days on end, much like brandied cherries are now. Packed in jars, they were shipped off to the wilds of gay Paree, where, in the late nineteenth century, they were all the rage.

Then came Prohibition. Another example of our country carrying a joke too far, something, as I keep reminding you, we’re quite good at. Somehow these wonderful, wild, sour, European cherries that had spent their days lazily floating about in liqueur were converted into what is, simply, an abomination. Some minion of evil, unknown to me, took sweet cherries, pickled them overnight in salt, sugar and alum to bleach them, then soaked them in red food coloring and a sugar solution to produce the vivid vermillion balls we now find sunken in our drinks. So that’s the excuse.

To finish off with the cherries themselves. Try making your drinks with brandied cherries, which are readily available in fine food shops. You’ll be surprised at how much more interesting they are. Even better, if you’re making drinks at home, make your own. It’s not that hard to put a bunch of cherries in a jar and fill it with brandy… or better yet, the original, Maraschino liqueur, and let them soak for a few weeks.

Which brings us back to my mission. It was a serendipitous find, this liqueur. Well, sort of. You see, I was reading a novel of historical fiction – a fascinating book, Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. The details of the book are irrelevant, but there was a passage in the book where two of the characters pop open a tin of caviar. A discussion ensues in which one asserts that the typical vodka or champagne accompaniments are just plain wrong, and that the original drink that the czars of Russia imbibed with good caviar, was a good shot of chilled Maraschino.

I had to try it. My friends and I were stunned at how well the two went together. The slightly bitter, slightly sweet, intensely cherry flavored liqueur balanced perfectly against the briny, crunchy sturgeon roe. It was a match made in heaven. Not that I eat much in the way of caviar on my budget, but I doubt I’ll ever have anything else with caviar again.

Which led me to explore this liqueur. Again, once wildly popular, it has for the most part become one of those bottles on the back bar, or even hidden away, or even non-existent, at most drinking establishments. To the best of my knowledge only two brands are currently imported to the United States, though they are by no means the only ones made. Luxardo and Stock. The former is probably the most recognizable – coming in a thin green glass bottle, the lower two-thirds covered in wicker. The Stock is slightly sweeter, and has a less interesting bottle. The Luxardo has a touch more of that bitter note.

Maraschino is a clear liqueur made from marasca cherries. These are grown throughout the Dalmatian coast area, i.e., Croatia and Istria. The liqueur is made from both the juice of the cherries and the essence of the crushed cherry pits, which is where the hint of bitterness comes from.

There are dozens upon dozens of old cocktail recipes (and here and there new ones) that make use of this spirit. Any good bar book will direct you to several, the top bartending websites like Webtender and DrinksMixer list, respectively, 49 and 117 cocktail recipes that make use of it. I recommend it. I urge you to try it. Oh just go out and buy a bottle, throw it in the freezer, buy a tin of good caviar, and serve shots alongside. You won’t be disappointed.

Boomerang

2 ounces of dry gin
½ ounce of dry vermouth
2 dashes of bitters
½ ounce of Maraschino

Shake these ingredients with ice. Strain into a martini glass where you will delight to the beautiful soft peach color. Garnish with a proper cocktail cherry, i.e., either a homemade Maraschino cherry as discussed above, or a brandied cherry.

Wine picks for this column:

Cantina Nalles & Magre Niclara Pinot Bianco, 2003

Pinot Bianco, or Pinot Blanc, is one of my favorite white grapes. In the hands of a skilled winemaker it somehow seems to combine the steeliness and dryness of a good Pinot Grigio with the delicious aromatics of a Pinot Noir. Not surprising, since all three come from the same family of grapes. This is one of those delicious examples. My only disappointment – the wine in former vintages used to come in a bottle with a beautiful label adorned with a Venetian print, and was called “Lucia”. Now it comes with a somewhat ordinary label with a little countryside scene, reminiscent of a dozen other producers’ wines from the Alto Adige area of Italy. Still, the wine is a find. Pair this up with spicy preparations of seafood, vegetarian dishes or lighter meats. From Village Wine Imports, 212-673-1056. Around $10.

El Chaparral de Vega Sindoa, 2002

Spain, and the Navarra area in particular, is the current source of many of the new, hot wines hitting the market these days. It is worth your time and effort to explore as many of these as you can. This particular gem has been a favorite vintage after vintage, and the new release of the 2002 is no exception. Made from old vine Garnacha (Grenache) grapes, this is a concentrated flavors of raspberries and slightly sour cherries, peppery, simply stunning glass of wine. This is a great wine to go with grilled and smoked foods, or just to have on its own. From Jorge Ordonez’ Fine Estates from Spain, 781-461-5767. Around $12.


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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Read All About It

Outlet Radio Network
September 29, 2004

Read All About It

I confess. I am a packrat. Not your traditional packrat who collects bits and pieces of everything under the sun and sticks it somewhere. I don’t have piles of old newspapers laying about the house. I have cookbooks. I like to think that I’m a collector, and I may claim that in my stronger moments, but in truth, any cookbook will do. And, I read them. Cover to cover.

Every year a few cookbooks come out that are dedicated to a specific ingredient. Sometimes that ingredient is loosely defined – books on cooking mushrooms, cooking with olive oils, cheese primers, different sorts of eggs, etc. But the most fascinating to me are those that focus in on something specific and, preferably, exotic. One such book arrived from the publisher recently and I thought I’d share it.

The Breadfruit Cookbook : The Ulu Cookbook
Fae Hirayama

It is the rare person in most of our circles who knows what Ulu is. We might perhaps know it as breadfruit, but even there it is likely to be something we’ve only heard about and never tried. Fae Hirayama wants us to know more. She has packed together an amazing collection of recipes that use breadfruit in ways traditional and modern in this spiral-bound softcover. The Breadfruit Cookbook includes 115 recipes and several pages of information on how to prepare ulu.

Fae has also thrown in tidbits about breadfruit, and a bit of history of its use, and the tiniest soupçon of information on her family’s use of this ingredient. Her website (www.ulucookbook.com) does much the same and includes links to scientific and nutritional references on this useful and delicious fruit. In the end, it is a delightful collection of recipes, and useful for that. The few recipes that I tried were well written and produced the promised results.

I do wish it was a more “readable” book. There is little in it about Fae herself, or her family, something that would have made it a more interesting read. All in all, however, it is worth the price ($17.95) for the lover of the unusual and exotic. It appears to be self-published, and for that she must be commended. Copies are available via the website listed above.

The Dancing Gourmet: Recipes to Keep You on Your Toes!
Linda Hymes

There are dancers out there whose bodies I look at and think “wow”! There are others who are so emaciated they could pass for refugees from some famine-wracked region. Linda Hymes, a dancer herself, claims that dancers who are thin are thin because they exercise. Not their diet.

To bolster her point she has written a cookbook based on her own personal menus, and the book, at least, certainly doesn’t reflect a weight loss regimen. Ranging far and wide, The Dancing Gourmet has recipes from snacks to desserts and every course in between, with selections that cover the globe.

Hymes certainly has the quailifications to write this book. She spent fifteen years as a professional dancer and then attended and graduated the culinary program at Le Cordon Bleu in London. She is clearly a talented writer, and I enjoyed reading through passages that cover snippets of a dancer’s life as well as her creative process in the kitchen. The book is also beautifully illustrated with photographs, both food and dance related.

While definitely not a “diet” book, as pointed out, the cuisine is oriented towards the healthy end of the spectrum. The recipes are easy to follow and for the most part simple to prepare. All-in-all this is a winning book, even if the cover price of $26 is a bit steep for the length and content.

The Renaissance Guide to Wine and Food Pairing
Tony DiDio & Amy Zavatto

One of my favorite people in the wine business, not to mention a good friend, is the co-author of a new book just out on my favorite topic, food and wine pairing. I’m always delighted to see people offer good advice on the subject, especially when they do it well. Renaissance Guide to Wine & Food Pairing fits the bill admirably.

Now, I’m not just saying this because I actually rated an entire paragraph in the book (page 63). In fact my billing as some sort of master of the Grrranimals approach to food and wine gave me pause for a moment. But I think it’s a good thing.

This book is a great read for anyone interested in wine, especially if they plan to actually drink it with meals. It is a series of interviews with top chefs and sommeliers from around New York City and some wonderful winemakers. These are interwoven with an in-depth look at the basics of how to approach matching food and wine, how to taste wine, and basic shopping advice for both wine shops and restaurants.

Tony DiDio and Amy Zavatto have written a book that is easy to follow and covers the field without becoming pedantic or serious. It makes the topic fun and interesting, and makes it clear that the entire field is a matter of opinion, and this particular book is one man’s opinion, but welcomes readers to form their own.


I started writing food & wine columns for the Outlet Radio Network, an online radio station in December 2003. They went out of business in June 2005.

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