Archives for December 2009
Happy Knishmas, Everyone!
My gift to you this holiday season:
Snowshoe
1.5 oz. bourbon
1.5 oz. peppermint schnapps (I’m partial to Rumple Minze for its power to attract barbarian women riding polar bears)
Serve over ice.
I cadged this recipe from last December’s Imbibe (yet which I can’t find in their drink database) and man, is this an awesome wintertime drink — especially right after shoveling the driveway.
Enjoy and Merry Knishmas!
This Week in Bacon
It has been a busy week for our favorite crispy treat. Here are some bacon bits for you:
They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. So, start it off right with a “freakish but tasty” bacon and egg martini, made “with house-made bacon-infused vodka and garnished with a pickled quail egg.” [L.A. Times]
No more singed fingers or grease-splattered hands for you bacon-cookers. There’s a new invention out there, considered to be one of the “select few inventions that have changed the course of human history.” Bacon Tongs: “Set to Change the World.” [NBC]
In a side-by-side comparison, bacon is healthier AND tastes better than sausage. That’s not really news to us, though. [FitSugar]
Wrap-up for 2009. A “study” shows menu items with bacon are up 26.5 percent from 2005. Moreover, the number of bacon-topped sandwiches at surveyed restaurants has increased by 35.8%. Minyanville professor Ryan Krueger explains this recent surge in bacon consumption, describing bacon as the “recessionary version of the truffle.” [Minyanville]
Outlook for 2010. Bacon is determined to be one of the top five food trends for 2010. Other food trends for the new year? “[W]ine cocktails and a consumer backlash against ubiquitous nutritional claims by food manufacturers.” [Daily Dish]
Review of ‘Gallo Be Thy Name’
My review (download PDF) of Jerome Tuccille’s recent release Gallo Be Thy Name: The Inside Story of How One Family Rose to Dominate the U.S. Wine Market, appears in the newest issue of the Journal of Wine Economics, just released today.
Tuccille is a good writer, and neither fawns over his subject nor takes needless swipes. He and the Gallo boys definitely grabbed my attention from the beginning, and held it until the end. A background snip:
The “inside story” of the Gallo wine empire and its progenitors, brothers Ernest and Julio, Gallo Be Thy Name is an engaging and thoughtful look at the making of the world’s largest privately held, family-owned winemaker. Jerome Tuccille, author of more than two-dozen books—including respective biographies of Donald Trump and Alan Greenspan, four novels, and several how-to guides—mostly succeeds in the endeavor. While readers of true crime and celebrity tell-alls will no doubt revel in Tuccille’s tales of murder, familial rancor, deception, and mafia dealings, devotees of wine economics will appreciate Tuccille’s faithful recounting of the Gallo family’s saga as a story of two sons of an Italian-immigrant family rebuilding the American wine market, one jug at a time. From exposing the Gallo family’s well-guarded successes during Prohibition to its post-Prohibition expansion and subsequent boom as the result of savvy marketing and distribution decisions, Tuccille shows Ernest and Julio together possessed a unique ability to respond to the demands of the American wine consumer across more than seven turbulent decades.
[...]
Perhaps the most interesting competitive advantage Gallo Winery enjoyed was the result of familial competition between the brothers themselves. It’s a story of specialization Adam Smith himself would love. Ernest’s goal, writes Tuccille, was to sell more wine than Julio could produce, while Julio’s aim was to produce more than Ernest could sell. When Ernest outdid Julio in this respect, the brothers began to buy grapes from other Napa growers so that supply could keep up with demand. While Tuccille makes clear that Ernest was a businessman nonpareil, it’s possible Julio, the expert winemaker, lost the competition because his heart was elsewhere. From early on in their venture, Julio had hoped that the American wine palate—dulled by the strong liquor and sweet wine prevalent during Prohibition—might recover its senses so that he could make the dry, high-quality, varietal wines he preferred. Still, the market forced Julio for decades to produce a stable of cheap, sweet, nondescript reds and whites. Julio’s lifelong wish would not come to fruition until near the time of his death several decades later.
Buy the book here. Subscribe to the journal–which has published some really interesting research (this, for example)–here. And yes, in case you’re wondering, I have consistently had a succession of 1.5L jugs of Carlo Rossi Paisano on my kitchen countertop since I read the book, and question your sanity if you, too, do not do the same.
This Week in Bacon
Yes, it’s that time of year again. The time when you have to make a holiday gift list for your extended family, extended friends, extended co-workers, pets, neighbors, teachers, boyfriends, girlfriends, and the list goes on and on. After all, it’s the season to be generous and give. Well, don’t fret, because we know that on that long list of people who need presents, there are at least a few bacon lovers. And we’re here to help with a holiday gift guide for those baconphiles in your life. Thankfully, most of this stuff is easy on your wallet too. And don’t forget to get a little present for number one — that’s you!
For artistic bacon:
Etsy’s Bacon Christmas Tree Postcards
For sweet and savory bacon:
The Kitchn’s Bacon Caramels
J&D’s Bacon Popcorn or Bacon Ranch Dressing
Kiss My Bundt’s Maple Bacon Bundt Cake
Vosges’ Chocolate Bacon Bar (now with dark chocolate!)
For wearable bacon:
Etsy’s Hail Bacon T-shirt
For Baskets of Bacon:
Bacon Freak’s Bacon of the Month Club or class it up a little with the Swine and Wine Club.
For more bacon gift ideas, check out L.A. Times’ Daily Dish.
Renaissance of Rum
The New York Times says these hard times deserve a return to hard rum — because rum is the Disney World of liquor:
Some major themes in fashionable bars lately: small, elegant, stemmed glassware; arm garters; house-made bitters; a seriousness that is hard to distinguish from humorlessness; gin.
Some major themes in the Night Marcher, a drink that one owner of the Tar Pit, a bar that will open in Los Angeles later this month, calls “our ambassador”: a large, grimacing tiki mug; bondage gear; store-bought Cholula hot sauce; a sense of humor that is hard to distinguish from weirdness; rum.
Yes — that’s what I said!
My fondness for rum is likewise a recent rediscovery. After college, I took a job at a travel agency thinking it would pay the bills while I fulfilled my ambition of becoming a travel writer. I did do some traveling (in which I learned it interfered with my greater ambition of laying about the house), including several trips to Jamaica. On one of these I picked up a duty-free pack of three 750 ml bottles of rum — gold, silver, and coconut — for the princely sum of $11. Soon after, the contents of all three bottles were consumed by four people in a single evening, resulting in one of those please-God-if-you-exist-strike-me-dead-now hangovers that put me off the stuff for over a decade.
But we’re all older and wiser now, right?
“Everybody still enjoyed rum,” said Audrey Saunders, who in 2005 founded the Pegu Club, an ambitious gin palace where roughly half the noteworthy young bartenders in Manhattan once worked. “But people kind of passed it over for things that were more challenging and difficult to work with.” Now that bartenders have tested their mettle by mixing drinks with the bitterest amaro, however, rum is getting a second look.
“We were all too snobby four years ago,” Ms. Saunders said. “Now it’s a different story. Now it’s like: ‘Oh, I miss that girlfriend. You know what? Those were fun times.’ ”
Thanksgiving Chicken?
International traveler Wagner Mauricio Linares Aragon was arrested on Friday at Dulles International Airport after trying to smuggle cocaine in a fully cooked chicken. Apparently, Customs and Border Patrol grew suspicious, not because Aragon was trying to carry a cooked chicken from Guatemala through Customs, but because chicken is not the proper Thanksgiving poultry:
“It’s the Thanksgiving holiday, and this guy is bringing in a chicken. You’d expect a turkey,” said Steve Sapp, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Officers grew suspicious. They unwrapped the aluminum foil surrounding the bird, pulling apart legs and wings, dark meat and white. Inside the chicken’s cavity, they found two small, clear plastic bags, Sapp said.
They were filled with a white powdery substance. It wasn’t stuffing.The substance tested positive for cocaine — 2.3 ounces worth, with an estimated street value of $4,300, Sapp said.
I guess Aragon was out of cluck, er…I mean luck. Americans clearly take their Thanksgiving meal seriously.
Quick Bites
AmEx is offering Dunkin’ Donuts chaahge caahd holdahs “a rewaaahd when they rechaahge the caahd.” [NRN]
Following the sale earlier this year of his L.A.-area eatery and now that of his NYC flagship, Gordon Ramsay owns as many American restaurants as I do. [Daily Mail]
Clever cereal eating decision tree (click image to maximize). [Eating the Road]
Ron Artest: NBA player, Hennessey drinker. Sometimes both at the same time. [TSN]
Adam Mahmoud–who’s got his “whole life ahead of [him and is] not going down in a sandwich shop”–is one badass sandwich maker/journalism student. [Bristol Press]
Freedom Nacho and Freedom Fries on a Single Freedom Tray
Meet the Freedom Tray:
According to the Freedom Tray website FAQ, it is both a “patriotic tray” (the largest print of the website proclaims “Made in America * Used Everywhere * GOD BLESS AMERICA) and “stadium friendly.” Alas, those other defenders of American freedom—stadium security guards—probably wouldn’t let the thing in.
The list of prohibited items at the Nationals ballpark, for instance, makes it pretty clear that there’s no way your hard plastic, 17″ freedom tray loaded with freedom fries and freedom nachos is getting past the freedom cavity search.
- Metal, plastic or glass containers of any kind (except for factory-sealed, plastic water bottles, no larger than 1 liter and juice boxes). Only one bottle of water per person will be permitted.
- Food items not in adherence to the following policy: All food items must be contained in single serving bags within a soft-sided container or cooler, that does not exceed 16″ x 16″ x 8″.
Which is too bad, because the concept is otherwise brilliant. More FAQ:
How much weight can the Freedom Tray hold?
Be assured that the Freedom Tray is designed to hold all you can load in it. The Freedom Tray can hold up to 75 lbs. of weight in the center of the tray, with the legs deployed. This is one tough tray!
God Bless America, indeed.
Via Garrett Quinn.
Cooking the Books
I
t is with great restraint that I have managed to not put a cookbook on my Christmas list. (Indeed it is with great restraint that I have managed to put one and only one BOOK on my Christmas list, but that is another story.)
I own a lot of cookbooks. Some days I’m not sure why I own so many. I hardly ever cook from most of them. Some I don’t even I like. When I moved I took all the cookbooks I use all the time, with a few totemic exceptions, and virtuously put them in the attic. I took the books I hardly ever use and put them on the shelf. This would, I virtuously told myself, force me to explore all of these other cookbooks. I would delve into their wonders and learn to appreciate their instruction and world view.
The result was of course that at 9 in the evening or 6 in the morning I could be found rooting through the attic in a headlamp looking for the cookbook that has that recipe that I love and cursing my stupidity….and now my shelf once again overflows with cookbooks
At least I’m not alone.
