Punching up leftovers
Hey folks! Though summer is always the slowest time of the year on the wineseller’s calendar, somewhat oddly, I’ve been extra busy…Today’s topic is leftovers. Exciting right? Actually, I’m not kidding…Sometimes, maybe even most times, I think we all just pull out the Tupperware, dump the leavings on a plate, nuke it, and then eat the thing while fixing a thousand yard stare at the telephone. But why not try to make it interesting? Here’s how…Empty your refrigerator of the still “safe” edibles - the sauces, the meats, pastas, vegetables, etc. Now start thinking RECOMBINATION! Hmmmm…I’ve got this basic tomato sauce that I used to braise a piece of beef Saturday and there’s at least 3/4 lb. of the beef itself relaxing in the sauce, and (look, pick, look) I’ve got these peas that are still in fine shape, and there are an aging bunch of carrots that desperately need eating…hmmm…AHAH! Remove the beef from the sauce. Add the peas. Check the seasoning, boil up some pasta, and you’ve got a “new” first course. Now, shred up the braised beef in the food processor (pulse it), add an egg or two, some bread soaked in milk and then squeezed dry, a mixed handful of those bunches of slightly tired herbs that I KNOW you’ve got in the fridge, a chopped clove of garlic, and some S&P. Now, make up some hamburger-shaped patties (in Italian they’re called “polpette”), dust them with breadcrumbs that you made from your OWN stale bread (I HOPE - Why buy breadcrumbs? Stale bread will give them to you at no extra cost AND with better quality - just spin the crap out of some cubed-up HARD stale bread), and then fry them in a thin layer of olive oil. In the meantime, steam up the carrots, and grab that lemon from out of the bottom fridge drawer, slice it up, and serve it on the side of the polpette.
What I just outlined doesn’t even require you to leave the damned house, and sometimes, that’s just what you need, right? Now clearly, things are not always going to work out so swimmingly, and it also might take a few “misses” in recombination before you learn what goes with what, but that’s the point, right? LEARN how to eat frugally by being CREATIVE!
…A wine sidebar…Since I often match dishes with their regional wines, my wine selections are often clear and well planned. But, when one is just re-working leftovers, one often ends up with a result that is not clearly “Provencal” or “Tuscan” or “Hungarian”. So facing this set of facts often frees me up from sticking to the “rules”, giving me the opportunity to try some “unorthodox” pairings…
A friend of my wife’s recently told her that she doesn’t eat leftovers - that whatever her family doesn’t eat just goes into the garbage. To me, that’s shameful, but I can understand why eating 5 day old pork stew might not get you very exicted, but if you learn how to appetizingly “re-work” your leftovers, you’ll ease the burden considerably. Give it a try…
TOM CIOCCO
stand on more legs (and fins and wings and roots…)
Yesterday, Sunday, I cooked a rabbit. Rabbit is not in our weekly cooking rotation (quite upsettingly, price is a factor here, but that’s another story), but it is something I’ll pull out for weekend action from time to time. As some of you may remember, I’m quite an admirer of all things Basque, food in particular. I had laid in a bottle of Txakoli, and I still have the better part of a case of the exceedingly rare RED Txakoli made from 100 year-old Hondarribi Beltza (red Hondarribi) vines that I specially ordered for myself some months ago. So with these two wines as my guide to plan our dinner, I began poking through the pantry, the fridge, a pile of books, and then put in a half hour or so in front of the computer. So after a little back and forth with myself, I decided on a bonito tuna (line caught) salad with piquillo peppers, scallions, and thyme over Boston lettuce dressed with a sherry vinegar vinaigrette. The main course, as previously stated, was rabbit stewed in a walnut and chocolate sauce (apparently a very old recipe from Alava province). And, just to be cheeky, I served smothered carrots on the side. These are the details - now to the point…
Now I’m sure that very few of you give a toss about what I eat for dinner, but strangely, I care about what you eat…hmm… Without wasting any more of your time, my point here is, in two words, COMESTIBLE DIVERSIFICATION. Though this idea might be controversial amongst the hardcore vegetarian and vegen set, I’ve both heard and read that the lightest “footprint” that one can leave on Mother Nature is to eat EVERYTHING ORGANIC, and to me that makes good sense. Let me clarify this idea - the emphasis is on both words here. The “organic” part is fairly cut and dried. The “everything” part however is just as important, but perhaps not as self-explanatory. By “everything” we mean just that - things that fly, swim, slither, run, hop, AND grow from trees, shrubs, vines, plants, roots, even from under the sea - EVERYTHING!
The rule or philosophy in play here can be analogized to a heavy object, and how that object stands itself upright. If this object has only one leg, that one leg would HAVE TO be a spike that penetrated deeply into the earth to allow this object to stand. This analogy could be said to represent an olde schoole “beef and potatoes” uncle for example - you know, the guy who thinks that chicken is for sissies, lamb is for foreigners, and vegetables for rabbits. Now take the same “heavy object” analogy to the other extreme…support this same object with many different “legs” (read “foods”) - not only beef, but pork, chicken, lamb, goat, rabbit, frogs, fish, duck, pheasant, squid, octopus, snails, as well as every which kind of green, pulse, legume, fruit, and tuber etc., etc. When you support this “weight” with eighteen legs rather than one, each leg “penetrates” (read “damages”) MUCH less deeply into the earth, AND affords the eater with that many more different and interesting and tasty things to eat! Think about it a little more - goats like one type of terrain, food, etc., cattle another, and geese yet another. Potatoes can be grown in harsh, cold climates, while guavas need lots of heat and rain. If we eat EVERYTHING, we create the need for eighteen different farms (not just one), AND if all of these farms are organic, whatever damage is done from land clearing is notably reduced.
In the end we all eat what we like to eat, but when given a chance to try something new - animal, vegetable, or even mineral - give it a try - the land (and health) you save may be your own.
TOM CIOCCO
Palate Muscles
My colleagues and I taste a lot of wine week after week. A LOT. Whites, reds, roses, sparklers, New World, Old World, on and on…Typically, when I take appointments, I’m looking for something specific: I’ve got a spot for a new Alsace Riesling, or we need to bulk up our Greek section, or I’ll see that we have only one white from Puglia, so I’ll get a few suppliers together over a the course of the week to sample their wares with a view toward addressing a certain specific absence on our shelves.
And then there are the marathons. We may get together with a large supplier to look for some more “volumetric”, value items. These are often items that for whatever reason the supplier has had difficulty “disposing of”. Sometimes it’s a question of obscurity, sometimes it’s the case that the supplier payed too much for something, couldn’t sell it at that price, and is now “reducing to move”. In yet other cases, a distributor just needs some extra cash flow fast and is willing to sharpen the pencil on a few items to bolster his bank account.
It is most often in the preceeding situations that we sit down to a tableful of bottles (sometimes 50 or more!) and start ripping off capsules, pulling corks, splashing wine into glasses (and onto the table, the price lists, and a shirtsleeve or two as well). Sniff, visually examine, sip, swish, gurgle, spit…and again, and again, all the while the comments flying: “This smells like my new flip-flops” “Flabby” “If mandrills drank wine, this is what they’d love” “This wine rocks” “Which one is this again?” I know that this all sounds like some serious seat-of-the-pants flying, but we’re “pros”, and at the risk of sounding cocky, I think we get it right most of the time.
But the banter and the negotiation non-wine people can relate to. What truly baffles most folks is how we can discern ANYTHING at all after tasting about 10 or a dozen wines. I’m going to be very honest with you. In the beginning, the novice to beginner taster can’t. After the buyers make their decisions on what’s a keeper and what gets flung back into the deep blue sea of rejected wine, we taste EVERY staff member so they are very familiar with what they will be selling. And even when looking for that just one item to complete a section, we will solicit second and third opinions from the floor sales staff. We almost NEVER however ask these same wonderfully capable people to join us in our “marathon” tastings, and it comes down to just one thing: PALATE MUSCLES.
Now it’s not that some if not all of our staff couldn’t, after session after session of 5 ounce lifting, get their palates as buff and ripped as ours are, but if your not “there” yet, after a certain number of wines, you’re fundamentally useless - everything begins to run together and THAT’s how you make mistakes. Marathon greenhorns are often brought into these sessions without “voting rights” to begin the development…
So what actually happens? At what point CAN one accurately taste 50 wines in successsion? Well, it’s different for every person, and what actually happens in the palate/brain of that person is still a bit mysterious, but when you “arrive”, you know it. What once was a blur past “X” point, comes clearly into focus, and I must admit, it’s quite a gratifying feeling after a long period of hitting that wall. But let me also be perfectly clear here that at some point EVERYONE reaches palate fatigue - often the point at which you can swipe your finger across the inside of your cheek and roll off a later of mucous membrane that all those tannins have helped to liberate from the rest of your face…So the next time you’re feeling inclined to tell one of us “Hey, tough job” with tongue planted firmly in pampered cheek, think of this 
TOM CIOCCO-
The mixmaster
There are certain taboos pertaining to the consumption of wine: adding ice, saccharine or sugar, drinking from disposable plastic cups, etc. These are pretty clearly violent actions to take against our favorite drink, and most categorically reject them. But there are a few less commonly seen and less egregious wine taboos that might be worth revisiting…One such “taboo” is mixing different finished wines.
Now I guess that it’s pretty easy to understand why certain WINEMAKERS might take some umbrage at combining his or her “baby” with somebody else’s, but even among garden variety drinkers, albeit the more “snobby” ones, mixing two different wines is an abomination - lots of nattering on about obliterating terroir, the muddying of the characters of the wines, etc. Now fundamentally, I agree - in most cases, mixing two or more wines is an exercise in rapidly diminishing returns. In fact, I remember reading some years ago about a study that involved blending wine “at the table”, and the results obtained therefrom. The long and the short of the study (I actually can’t really remember the “long” part) is that when blending in perfectly equal proportions two different wines, “lesser” wines make “better” wines taste worse, and conversely, “better” wines did not significantly improve the “lesser” ones. Further, the sins committed by crap wines are actually more powerful than the graces bestowed on the drinker by better ones. So, even the blending of “better” wines in higher proportions with lower proportions of the “lesser” ones still does not allow the better wine to hide the flaws of the lesser one.
This being said, I have found occasions in which a couple of wines could indeed be “bartendered” together to positive effect. For example, two simple reds, one of which is too thin, the other of which is too flabby, when combined, can produce a more “balanced” though probably not strictly “better” drink. And, when one is entertaining the notion of doing the same with white wines, the task actually gets less problematic, though I’m not quite sure why. In fact, there is a wonderfully conceived wine called Vino della Pace (”The Wine of Peace, by the way - the link is to the homepage of the “producer” - click on “I Vini” - it’s all in Italian however…) that in the interest of promoting world peace, international brotherhood, and cooperation, combines scores of different white grape varieties from all over the world. The blend changes every year.
Now I’m going to let you in on a BIG secret - there are LOADS of “negociant” wines that most people assume are made from separately puchased lots of must (juice) that are vinified separately and then blended that are in fact just blends of FINISHED WINE! No joke. Now I’m not suggesting that you run out and pick up three or four bottles of your favorite wines with a view toward making your own personal “perfect” blend - it probably won’t come out that way - but in certain controlled or particular non-critical drinking situations, if you find yourself pouring a bit of Muscadet into a partial bottle of flabby Cali. Chard. to punch up the acid a notch, don’t sweat it. Even the “pros” do it.
TOM CIOCCO
Mercury up? Alcohol, down!
Man, it’s hot - nearly 100 degrees here in New Jersey today, and possibly even hotter where you are. And when you’re really parched there’s nothing more satisfying and healthy than cool water. But once you’ve fully hydrated your body, alcoholic beverages, drunk in moderate quantities, actually cool the body more efficiently than just plain water can…
I’m sure that no one has forgotten that beer and wine contain alcohol. And surely we all know the various effects that alcoholic beverages can have on the human body depending on the body in question, the beverage consumed, the amount of said beverage, etc. So aside from the more apparent and well documented effects of euphoria, drunkenness, and hangover, alcohol consumption has some lesser known, and less “visible” effects on the body. One of these is blood thinning. Drinking an alcoholic beverage actually has the effect of reducing the viscosity of the blood which has a mild overall cooling effect on the human body. Further, alcohol is also a vasodilator (a substance that causes the expansion of blood vessels), so as the relative volume of every blood vessel in the body expands slightly, this marginally but clearly increases their surface areas, thereby allowing that much more efficient wicking of heat away from the body. Finally, alcohol is not only metabolized and excreted via the urine but via the sweat glands as well, so the higher levels of alcohol (which evaporates more quickly and readily) in the the sweat also helps to cool the body.
So if all of these cooling effects are directly and proportionally related to the level of alcohol in a beverage, why not unscrew the governor and drink tumblers-full of vodka or even pure grain alcohol? Well, aside from the rapid and profound inebriation this would bestow on the subject, one countervailing action to the cooling effects that alcohol carries is dehydration. Basically, drinking too much alcohol in very hot weather erases all of the substance’s cooling effects by markedly dehydrating the drinker’s body. And clearly since water management is mother nature’s main cooling mechanism for the human body, neutralizing it is just stealing from Peter to pay Paul at best.
So here’s my drinky R/x for scorching Summer weather: First and foremost, drink plenty of water. But, if you want to drink alcoholic beverages stick with “light” things - beer, vinho verde, Txakoli, Prosecco, Sekt, dryish German rieslings, etc. Trying to keep the alcohol levels to 12%, or less is best. If you choose the right wine or beer, and you respect reasonable recommendations for quantities to be consumed, wine can play a small but notable role in keeping you cool in extremely hot weather.
TOM CIOCCO
