BAR DI TRISH

We hope you can join us tomorrow for a glass and some snacks at Cellar Door Provisions to raise funds for our dear friend, the wine maker Trish Nelson, on what looks to be a chilly Monday evening. 

It came as a total shock when we heard a month ago that her winery was partially destroyed by an accidental explosion caused by a gas leak that has left her and her partner Piero in a very difficult situation that warrants our support. 

“Trilli” and Piero make nourishing and delicious wines as La Gazzetta from the lakeside village of Bolsena north of Rome. They are seldom available in Chicago but perhaps some of you have been able to take the odd bottle home from Diversey Wine or have been recommended one for your meal at CDP.

Trish is Australian but has spent the last decade or so carving out a pastoral life in Italy. She began as a student at the Slow Food Institute in Turin to study sustainable agriculture which introduced her to a cohort of wine makers that applied the principles of growing organic food to grapes, and was hooked pretty quickly. After working with Cantina Giardino and Le Coste for several vintages she bought a small cottage in the hills overlooking lake Bolsena that came with two small parcels of vines she has worked tirelessly to revive. 

We will have wines from La Gazzetta and Cantina Giardino available to go and by-the-glass, and some vegetarian snacks inspired by many moments of pure hospitality in the warmth of her kitchen Trish has shown us over the years. All of the proceeds from the night will be donated to Trish directly. Please spread the word and invite your friends, it will be a joy to share a cozy moment with you all.

flavors saved my life iv

It’s one of our (Chicagoans) hobbies to make up seasons, my offering to the conversation is to suggest “Ribs by Lorde” as a specific time of year. Ribs by Lorde season is the one where you wistfully walk around thinking about stuff while Ribs by Lorde plays over your headphones. Typically this season overlaps with Fall, which is also a good season for reflection as days have been cut unceremoniously short and everything is decaying around you. This year, for me, it started before the equinox in September but I wasn’t aware of it really until after. When my friend Sara suggested she would make ribs for our friends. Marcella Hazan’s Spareribs Pan-Roasted with Sage and White Wine, Treviso Style. We opened a lot of wine and everything was good; some things might be better later but everyone’s been saying that too much and it’s gotten annoying to note.

You can purposely mishear the lyrics to the song if you’d like (I do like): I want ‘em back, The minds we had, The wines we had. At the restaurant where I work most of the wines we are pouring by the glass are newer vintages of wines poured by the glass when I worked at a different restaurant. A place that I was in love with actually. I think about BTG when I cross Ogden; I wonder if I’m being sentimental or nostalgic. One feels bad and one feels fine. Later I go to a party and talk with someone about her nighttime routine, she says she is very nostalgic. She looks at old pictures and imagines the little girl that she was and reminds herself that she still is. I asked her if that’s nostalgia or sentimentality. It is not a good conversation for a party with loud music especially since there might not really be a difference between the two.

We were drinking wine at the party because, as ushered in by the ribs dinner, Ribs by Lorde is the perfect time of year for wine. Slower minds and cooler temperatures are better for the fragile nature of what I like. And the fact that natural wine is a time keeper, a record of the time from growing season to cellar season; an archive of old fashioned technologies, grapes from “before”, other conventions that became unconventional. Wine is excellent at materializing the sensation of memory, as its reliably different in its moment of use. Always feels like a recollection, sometimes remembering for the first time.

The other day at lunch my friends ordered “ribs for the table” because “everyone wants a rib”. Our server is very young and he reminds me of an old crush. None of these people know that it’s Ribs by Lorde season yet. A season that pessimistically will just last through the weekend. Wine will be good after too, but the veil isn’t quite as thin. Something to be revisited in Spring.

boiled potato blog

 Lately I work nights in a restaurant, at least three and up to five a week. I usually come home to my boyfriend Mac making dinner for himself. Most likely just putting his potatoes to roast in the oven. He uses the Heston Blumenthal-inspired technique of boiling before roasting (some recipes will have you toss the potatoes around so they are craggier, this is not necessary). Potatoes take longer to boil than you think on our rental apartment stovetop. For me, this is my favorite time of day. I have a glass of wine with him, whatever he is drinking, it always feels perfect. Of our house, away from my wine job and I don’t have to imagine all of the ways someone else might interpret this wine. No teaching or convincing, it’s just the two of us. We catch up on our days, we talk about the wine, the potatoes come out of the oven. I sit with him for 20 more minutes during his meal and have another glass of wine and almost all of the potatoes. I’ll then eat his leftovers for lunch the next day.

Cooking so little these days, and having so little interest in thinking about food outside of thinking about food, I was imagining the good life. In the freezer: quart of beans, steak, loaf of bread. In the fridge: at least one good cheese, whole boiled potatoes.

The potato thing is newish for me, likely inspired by some sort of British locavore cosplay. In Jeremy Lee’s wonderful cookbook Cooking: Simply and Well, For One or Many he references almost 20 different potato varieties and what they are appropriate for. Under “steaming, boiling” he actually lists four and follows it with “all the other earlies”. Where I shop there are: yellow potatoes, red potatoes, Yukon Golds, Idahos, and then 2 different bags of potatoes which are just uniformly small. On Monday I stood there, thinking about the book, my desire for boiled potato not waning. I grabbed about 10 smallish yellows to serve that night with pork loin and salad.

When you’re hosting it’s nice to be able to cross something off a list. I remember a dinner party I threw at 25 where I cooked about 7 dishes and they *all* required a last minute sauce. We ate late that night. If you want to serve boiled potatoes you can make them any time. When i got home I just peeled them, plunged them in the bubbling water, and they were ready in about 20/25. Yes, I stuck a knife through to check. They cool and right before they hit the table (hours later) I cover them with olive oil or melted butter and the crunchy salt. But really they could be eaten tomorrow*, turned into potato salad, smashed in a pan or given to Mac to roast as a replacement for those that I ate the other night. Elegance for the working woman.

*Important to note that Tamar Adler says that potatoes don’t recover from time in the fridge and if your kitchen is cool enough should be left out overnight. This is probably true but if you are going to add vinegar, roast them, or are eating your first dinner at 11 PM should be fine.

vargo brothers ferments

 

Our Apéro Bar is back for a very special collaboration with Vargo Brothers Ferments this Sunday, 10/23. Taylor Hanna and Sebastian Vargo of Vargo Bros. will offer some beautiful snacks with their fermented products to accompany glasses of wine ideal for an autumn afternoon.

Both of our businesses began during the lockdown as a way to continue to foster our passions and to continue our careers in food production and in natural wine, respectively. 

It’s logical that locally-made fermented foods and natural wines should cohere. All fermented things we eat, including wine, present a rich cultural text and varied aesthetic domain. We first became acquainted with Vargo at a fundraiser for Oxbow. I introduced the wine selection from Rainbow, saying how natural wine offers ways to connect with others and with the land, to reflect on the seasons and to embrace the rhythms of life. 

It was clear when Sebastian and Taylor introduced the dish they had made for the fundraiser that all this rang true in their work as well.  Most of what they make is seasonal, much of it from what they grow in their backyard in Avondale. A range of food-historical references informs their work, with an intimate knowledge of eastern european foodways in their midwestern tributaries. 

Among the many things that makes Vargo unique is how they are chefs who also grow their food, which makes them like the paysan-vignerons of Chicago fermented foods. Sebastian and Taylor talk about live, cultured foods in a way that reminds me of the passion of a winemaker dedicated to working without additives. This work is a calling to craft.  

Getting to know Sebastian and Taylor means I get to ask them for help with my own giardino, in dealing with the victories and challenges, which they kindly provide. Yesterday, I finally broke down the tomato plants, fearing frost, and finally accepting that no, these were no longer going to ripen on the vine. Last year I tried ripening many in brown paper bags, but don’t seem to have a knack for it or maybe just not enough attention. I thought about the fermented green tomatoes Vargo will be featuring on Sunday, as well as a favorite food Em has showed me - the barrel fermented green tomatoes you can get at Kaufman’s in Skokie. 

Taylor and Sebastian generously offered the following advice for fermenting green tomatoes. 

We start with a 4% salt brine, it is very important to not use iodized salt, sea salt is best. We source ours from Joong Boo but any flakey salt will do. 

You can then add spices to the brine such as black pepper, mustard seed, Garlic, Spicey peppers if you want... no rules!

 

For the tomatoes you want to use a fork to poke holes in the top and bottom of the tomato. Go all the way through so the brine can get inside of the tomatoes. 

 

Add the tomatoes to the brine, make sure they are fully submerged in the brine, you can take some additional brine and put it in in a ziploc baggie, remove all the air from the bag, this will create a weight on the top to help keep the tomatoes down. Putting the brine in the bag is great insurance in case the bag leeks, it won't water down your batch.

 

 

In a few weeks, I will update this blog to let you know how the project is going. In the meantime, we hope to see you Sunday! 

Also, if you can't make it Sunday, you can visit Vargo Brothers on instagram to place an order for delivery or pick up of their wonderful products, or find them in store at Local Foods, The Market at Orkenoy, Moonwalker Cafe and online with nationwide shipping at Here Here Market.

 

 

Apéro Bar at Tusk 

3205 W Armitage Ave 

Sunday, 10/23 from 2 - 7pm 

summer steak weather blog

 Obviously it has been summer for a while now. The openness of the season with its later sunset, free feeling of jacketless, pantless limbs, and the open hearts these encourage can make time feel like a blurred sprawl. Beautiful, heartbreaking, exhausting. Which is fine, August is often the time for a break, though not one observed in our culture. I think again about red wine season. About suggesting grolleau to our friend Kat at Rainbow’s post-storm party. Diagnosing our mutual craving for red fruit saying in simultaneity that the structure of the juice makes us feel contained and making a small gesture with our hands like we were holding the little box we hoped to put ourselves in. To wrangle that sprawl.

Some of my colleagues would be highly critical of this gesture. To suggest flatly that summer is the season for any wine. Most wines don’t really have a season and especially with delays on the shipping and logistics end of things it is wise to loosen expectations about what you’re drinking at what time. And more generously I think these detractors want people to be afforded maximum pleasure and that certain marketing campaigns can interfere with one’s grasp on the texture of the moment. This is obviously fair and it’s easy to react and decry “weather blogging” as a whole but I want to (gently!) suggest that it may be too heady to ignore the weather. That wine is for our bodies as well as our minds and our hearts.

To drink red wine in the summer can help you feel the heat of something sticky, rich, and a little sweet. Bring the heat in so you don’t feel such a contrast on your skin. Or with something like Kat and I crave, a tannin to press against your spirit. A flexible option, your choice guided by how much spine you need to borrow. Or gentler still red wine is sometimes rosé, offering refreshment with an occasional side of moodiness. No wonder it’s the summer staple. No matter the shade, I recommend to start your red wine too cold (but not so cold as to permanently deaden its energy), it will come to temp quickly enough and in the meantime you get to hold the bowl of the glass in your hand. It's a treat trust me.

This year too I will have some steak with this wine. When I have the energy to cook this is all I want. And it usually comes with the excuse to invite someone over. Someone who is likely also tired and craves a steak, because it is August and we are all tired. The time I had my sister over she helped term this craving and practice, “summer steak”. I like to cook steaks in a cast iron on my stove top, adding some aromatics halfway through; rosemary, thyme, garlic, shallot. Sometimes finished with butter but usually I forget, plus I think olive oil is more summer steak. I like to serve it with different things every time, different preparations of potatoes and a rotating cast of salads that could also double as sandwich toppings. Simple arugula, marinated pepper and eggplant, tomato herb, this green bean salad I made up a few years ago with a caper, almond, raisin dressing. Once I draped the thickest anchovies I could find in the city over the slices. Was perfect with some chewy grenache from Toni Sanchez-Ortiz in Priorat. One of the most Chicago wines which offered a rare moment of still for me and my friends. Bless the silence that falls upon a table of people enjoying a meal together.

raspberry cuvée

 i often remember a cab driver who said that milk turns to greenish black webbing in your stomach, slowly poisoning you. there was a treatment you could take to remove it that he recommended. he also told me a story about migrating to the US from czechia as a kid with his parents during the cold war. soon after they got settled, his Mom handed him a crescent moon shaped object. she demonstrated how to remove its yellow shell to find a softer, white interior, to break off a piece and to pop it in your mouth. he was apprehensive, but his mom insisted he try it.

“divine,” he said. and then again, “it…was…divine!” with such a vibrant timbre to his voice. 

banana. one of the reasons i like wine is because i like fruit so much. jam, like wine, offers access year-round to vibrant fruit flavors. sadly, most jam is too sweet. jenny sher, emily’s sister, makes jam that really tastes like fruit, and feels  more fresh than cooked. it is divine. 

This past weekend, jenny taught me how to make jam. i had tried before. at least it was just syrup and fruit, and another time it was too sweet. jenny taught me how to make my own jam, and make jam my own. 

making jam that’s not too sweet comes down to knowing your ratios, the ratio between the weight of the fruit and the weight of sugar. Different kinds of fruit require different amounts of sweetness for safe preservation and consistency. Jenny calculates her ratios by consulting various different recipes and cookbook authors who she trusts to not recommend something too sweet. Her jam style seems to be - keep it simple, as low in sugar as is safe, and feature the fruit, not other flavors. 

jenny's approach to jam was different from how I do mostly anything. first, she sat down with pencil and her journal. she consulted her notes from last summer, then read many different recipes, and at that point, decided on a course of action. she then weighed her fruit, calculated how much sugar she needed, weighed out the sugar, and then commenced the process. I probably would have started by lighting the stove. 

I definitely think Jenny's way of doing things is superior, in general, and extremely helpful for showing your friend how to do something. It made me think I might try doing things differently, with more planning and preparation. Em helped me find the thesis in my last blog post about herbs -- wine can show you something different about the world, something you wouldn't have thought of before. working on this jam making process with my friend helped me see a new way to approach a project. the last few days i've been trying to decide on just 2 or 3 things to accomplish, and considering the clear, thorough process of jenny making jam made this seem more possible. 

like jenny, the jam she makes is patient. you can’t rush jam. jenny teaches me patience, something i lack and seek a lesson in all time. 

raspberries jam 

this jam recipe turned out beautifully, even on the first time jenny or i had made this jam. we had the idea to combine the red and black raspberries when shopping at the farmer's market. the duo of the zippy red raspberries and the slightly more bass black raspberries makes it rich, juicy but bright. it reminds me a lot of the red wines made by Jordi Perez at Le Casot de Mailloles, unapologetically lush and deep wines from sun-drenched mediterranean fruit. 

this jam is seedy, and we like it that way. thanks so much to jenny for sharing this and for teaching me! 

*I recommend investing in a jam kit, most come with the tongs with the silicon tips, and a funnel, and a measuring stick/air bubble zapper plastic tool thingy. It keeps you safe from burns and keeps your jam safely packaged. 

By Ratio: 

100% Fruit 

     60% Red Raspberries 

     40% Black raspberries 

60% sugar 

(Plug in your fruit weight and work from there, for instance:

1 kilogram of fruit total (600 g red raspberries, and 400 g black raspberries) 

600 g of sugar )

3 - 4 oz lemon juice 

150 ml water 

Fill 2 high sided pots (like a stock pot) with water, and place metal jar rings around the base. This prevents the glass jars from touching the pot and bopping around. Bring the pots of water to a boil. Turn the heat down on one to keep it gently boiling. This will be used for sealing the jars. In the other pot, place your glass jars (no tops, just the empty jars) and return to a boil. This is to sanitize the jars. 

Place the fruit and water in a heavy bottomed, wide pot. The water is just so that the fruit doesn't burn right away, if you add too much at first you just have to wait longer for it to evaporate. It might seem like not enough water but the fruit will start releasing liquid soon after applying heat. Slowly bring water and fruit to a low boil, then add sugar and lemon juice. Continue cooking on medium-low until the jam is reduced, is no longer frothy but more glossy, and passes a set test. Seeing the jam go from whole fruit, to burst berries, to scummy and sudsy, to glossy and clear is wonderful to observe, and very much worth keeping an eye on, to make sure the process isn't happening too fast. Better to take it slow, you have more control that way. There's lots of information online about how to test jam for doneness, but I most prefer the method of chilling a plate in the freezer, pulling it out when cold, placing a dollop of jam on the plate, and moving it around to see how stiff it looks. I like to run my finger or a spoon through the jam on the plate and see if the line I made through it stays. Getting this part right so that the jam isn't too set but set enough is a skill. 

Remove the boiling hot glass jars from the first pot of water carefully, and fill with jam. Leave at least 1/4" of room at the top. Clean off the top of the glass so that the lids will form a clean seal. place lids on top, and loosely screw on ring tops. carefully lower jars of jam into the other pot of hot water. Set a timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the jars and set aside somewhere to cool. You will hear the seals popping. Check to make sure all the seals have popped - if any have not, try immersing them in the hot water bath again for 5 - 10 minutes. 

Gift, bake with and otherwise enjoy your jam! 

notes on hospitality at home

A couple weeks ago I posted an Instagram story asking if people would be interested in taking a short survey about hosting. The questions were modeled off of Sheila Heti’s sketch for what would shape the book Women In Clothes.

The Emily Post in me has always wanted to write about etiquette for hosts and guests so here is a much less serious version of that from a small but shared perspective. This is based on ten responses, the intention isn’t to be comprehensive but in reading them I felt my perspective both validated and shaken so hoping to share that feeling with you.

In asking people to define personal hosting rules I came across a lot of good advice and commonality. Two people really emphasized cleaning, two not trying something new, two people prefer to have the food basically finished while one respondent prefers to cook while guests are present. An influential chant that my friend and collaborator Kim heard from her father, “Fill the house with delicious smells, ply them with liquor, make them wait” while I also read “respect people’s time” in the interest of keeping a tight timeline. This is the first time I’ve been able to appreciate that the act of hosting mirrors one of my favorite things about wine: its ability to hold and further define two things that at first glance seem contradictory. The other night I was served dinner at 10:30 though the invitation was for 8, it was right on time. I would never do this.

My co-worker & friend Bridget set the tone for hosting rules everyone should follow, “making sure your guests are comfortable” which was set up to be unpacked by the respondents that followed. It is essential to: have enough food and places to sit, be aware of food allergies, make a good playlight, having the table set in advance (with candles please!), let people know what they can bring so it takes the strain off guessing (also let people bring things), and prioritize being with your guests. Cub, of course, recommends to pop a bottle right when people arrive and have the first drink together, it “feels like the special moment that the evening is now in motion.” A small ritual that makes everyone feel included right away, helping define that your attention is on your guests. Including this here is a way of editorializing this piece and suggesting that I think everyone should do this even if it is not alcohol.

While a lot of people continue to take inspiration from true hospo icons like Ina Garten and Martha Stewart, I think this nod to considering time with others as essential to hosting is in response to how consuming Stewart’s world can be. A starting off point for many, but people referenced fictional characters Jay Gatsby and Mrs. Dalloway, art world hosts Elsa Maxwell, Marie Helene de Rothschild, and the Bloomsbury Group, some cooks like Anna Stockwell and Yotam Ottolenghi. Unsurprisingly Moms, Dads, and friends are the strongest inspiration for most and I guess a reason you would host is to continue making this impact on the people in your life. Passing along what has imprinted on you like an intangible heirloom. 

That is not what anyone said in response to number eight, the question of “What is hosting about, for you?” I’ve been thinking about my friend Tim’s response a lot, to no conclusion, so wanted to share it here (it has been shortened): “I think a lot of writing about hosting is fundamentally bullshit because it does not acknowledge that there is a part that is about control and having things your way and being the center of something. Which is ok! It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person.” Hoping always to be less bullshit.

We have a lot of party wine in the shop (magnums), fresh pet nats from Martin Worner and Alanna Lagamba you can have on the ready for when people walk in the door, and olive oil from Cantina Giardino which does a lot of heavy lifting so you can hang.

Thank you to Bridget Barry, Pat McMahon, Desmond Taylor, Cubby Dimling, Noël Morical, Tim Mazurek, Chuck Cruz, Joe Borgese, Mackenzie Beyer, Kim Upstill for contributing.

In the interest of brevity and readability I focused on responses to questions one, two, and four with some light inspiration from others. If you feel like taking it I’d still love to read it, email your answers to rainbowwinechi@gmail.com.

Host Survey

Based on Sheila Heti’s first questions for a dressing survey written in 2012

1. What are some hosting rules that you have for yourself that you wouldn’t recommend to other people necessarily, but which you follow?

2. What are some hosting rules that you think everyone should follow?

3. What are the preparation rituals you follow? Ex: are you always gathering recipes? Do you buy food for company even if you don’t know if you will have any? Do you burn incense before guests arrive?

4. What people from culture, past and present, do you admire or have you admired, in menu making and party throwing? Are there any people you took as models who you tried to emulate, even if only in details, not the whole?

5. Are you a fan of certain food writers, and if so who (does not have to be contemporary)?

6. How considered is your table setting? Is this a big part of it for you?

7. How do you conceive of your menu?

8. What is hosting about, for you? What are you trying to do and achieve by having people over?

9. What is the last meal you cooked for guests?