Lawfully Loaded

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Coming Clean

I'm licking my plate and coming clean. Dinner's done and I'm in a food slump, a recipe recession, truant from the kitchen. Meals just don't mean as much to me as they did a few short weeks ago. I have so many notes waiting to be turned into posts: a Washington meritage wine tasting, a bottle of Cayuse and dinner with friends, food and cocktail notes on Spur, pizza and wine reviews of Delancey, the list goes on. I look at them and I think "Who cares? Not me. Not right now." Each experience seems absurdly long ago, almost as if lived by another person, as I eat a 4-minute meal of seared sashimi. 

Admittedly, It's quite good. I whisk warm sesame oil into a concoction of soy sauce, dijon mustard, sherry vinegar and brown sugar. I pour it over golden-on-the-outside-deep-pink-on-the-inside sushi-grade tuna, letting the sweet tangy sauce pool in my slightly curved plates. It keeps hunger at bay but something remains empty. Maybe the problem is that I don't fill up like I used to. 

Instead of laboring in the kitchen and then lingering over the table, I take off my workday and my to-do list and my worries about tomorrow and I take off my clothes and dance through the apartment. When tired and calm and ready, I bundle back up and sit down to write, feverishly filling pages in my journal and actually (YES!) returning to my broken-winged-bird of a novel. I'm feeding Alis and Eric, my beloved characters whose lives become intertwined as the world prepares for first contact with an alien race. It's a young adult sci-fi! And it feels more satisfying than a night spent making mushroom and truffle risotto or beef Bourguignon.  

As much as I love cooking, it doesn't seem a priority when the maitre d' checks the nightly ledger to find a single reservation. Party of one. The server reviews the night's specials and "Oh, yes," my one patron gushes. "The beans sound fabulous. What beer would you recommend? Oh, the Guinness that's been in the fridge since St. Patrick's Day? That's a lovely selection," my dear patron says, and I sit down beside her, simultaneously relishing the speedy satisfaction and chiding the consumption of easy processed foods, bought cheaply for lack of love and integrity. The criticisms, though, like the meal itself, are quickly eaten and cleaned, taken out with the trash.

Many weeknights it would take me the full 2 hours between arriving home and waiting for Bugs' arrival to prepare our dinner. Usually, though, I would cut down on that by spending at least a half day every weekend on meal planning, bookmarking recipes, shopping for ingredients I could double up, and sometimes (if I was really good or if entertaining was involved) doing prep work in advance. Nonetheless, food has been a commitment, a serious chunk of the pie chart.  

Now I sit at my computer or, better yet, dance. Those seem to be two things I can only do wholeheartedly when no one is watching. I go to bed early and wake up early, at Benjamin Franklin's suggestion, but I don't feel any wiser. At least I'm well rested and ready for work. Ready to approach the day as it approaches me, to sidle my toes up to it, braced in their new shoes, and either spit in it's face or laugh as the wind blows the spit right back into mine. 

Maybe I'm just hungry for a meal I can't yet cook or order at a restaurant. Yes, I think a grand meal awaits me, and in the meantime I'll keep eating and dancing and writing and waiting to be made full. 

Riesling Recess

I could play a montage in my head of last week. In fact, I have been. I've been letting the cool, occasionally rainy days parade back and forth in my head, then forward and back like a slideshow gone awry. Tuesday, one of the tamer nights, included a Riesling tasting at another couple's home. Bugs also wrote about the tasting at bottlevariation.blogspot.com, so visit his blog for another, perhaps more serious and studious viewpoint, but please note that he stole some of his best lines from my tasting notes. Harrumph. Ahem. Here we go. 

We were served poached salmon atop a salad of greens, strawberries, goat cheese, pecans and a delicate roasted garlic vinaigrette. To start, because that's what an evening is, the commencement of the night, we sipped on Chinook's 2008 Cabernet Franc Rose. The peppery, strawberry-driven nose complemented the salad, but the palate, with its tart zing and berry sweetness, wasn't quite subtle enough for the subdued salmon. We waited for others to show up to pour the Riesling, the bottles all brown bagged and numbered, waiting in a quiet queue to be sampled and spat. 

The first, Australian Margaret River's 2006 Leeuwin Estate, greeted our glasses with a pale hay color, but the overwhelming smell of petrol made us shrink our noses. The attack was absurdly acidic, like warheads, but as the surprise wore off I picked up on green apples, sour peaches, a slight yeastiness and even a juiciness on the mid-palate. Overall, though, the $18 wine was too austere. I rated it a 6 and it received an average score of 5.2.

Next, Donnhoff's 2007 Riesling looked like diluted pineapple juice or an old metal shined up. It was sweet like honey and I found myself craving a bite of spicy Thai or Indian food to contradict and somehow satisfy the sweetness on my lips. I could drink a whole bottle of this stuff, but thankfully I limited myself to a glass. The tropical fruit, coconut and melon flavors were fun, but the fruit was subtle. Sweetness dominates this lick-your-lips wine. At $24 and 10% alcohol content, this wine was a worthy pleasure. I rated it a 7.5 and it received an average score of 6.6.

Substance's 2007 was a decent offering from Washington State, though it didn't induce the same level of mass-merriment as Germany's gift to the table. I picked up some fun citrus on the nose, but overall the wine was less expressive. Translucent in appearance, it tasted of tart kiwi, white grape juice, and had an orange and pineapple finish. Though beautifully balanced between sweet and acidic, it tasted cheap, cheaper than $18. I rated it a 6.5 and the group gave an average score of 5.5.

Mr Rigg's 2006 Watervale Riesling, another Australian number, smelled of petroleum and Haribo's raspberry candies. You know those ones with small wax and sugar dots stuck to the outside of a gummy berry? Yes, those! It tasted surprisingly of pineapple juice with vanilla vodka. I would know. We detected granny smith apple and sweet grass, but it was the hints of saline and oyster shell, as well as the firm acidity, that saved it from being cloying. I rated it a 7, the group a 5.5, and I think this is a good buy at only $12.

Domaine Marcel Deiss' 2007  Riesling from Alsace was floral and pretty, but somehow got stuck with the dreaded term "palatable." It smelled like a kitchen with bread rising on the counter and a pot of geraniums on the sill. Tart, with a slightly puckering attack, the pale wine revealed bright highnotes of apricot and pineapple. I rated the $25 wine a 6.5 and it received an average score of 5.8.

Lastly,  Maximin Grunhauser Abtsberg 2007 Spatlese Riesling from Mosel stole the show. Divvied out into our glasses, the syrupy wine shone a darker yellow than those previous, an opaque light gold, like sun reflecting on water. After the harshness of the Australian wines, we welcomed the mild petroleum nose (expect Bugs, who noted a disappointing small of sulphur). It only made the tropical fruit flavors, risidual sugar and fruit acidity more complex. Indeed, it had the best balance of all the wines, and a price point of $35 to prove it. The low 8.5% alcohol content surprised me, but I suppose that's how great wines are made. I licked my teeth, trying to savor it. 

Clearly, I need more Donnhoff and Mosel in my life, more sweet yellow sun colors, more acidic tropical fruit tastiness. I'd like to devour great quantities of these wines from large opulent goblets, but of course that would be terribly indulgent, too terrible to do unless I shared it with you. So, next time, perhaps? 

Next time, next time we all murmured as we embraced and beelined for the door, Bugs bellyaching and me trying to hurry him home. We took a taxi back to Capitol Hill and fell into our bed of routine, each of us careful to set alarms and be asleep by 11, careful to wake up on the right side of the bed and tip toe through another dream-like day. Careful to again eat and drink ourselves into a slumber of domesticity. I look back on Tuesday and wonder if I'll ever sleep in the same bed again.