Impromptu porch hang

Spontaneity is very valuable in that it is transformative, literally you are are changing your expectations of how you're spending your time and therefore spiritually refreshing in a time of rigid planning. This past summer and fall long aimless walks around my neighborhood or a sit in the park would occasionally end with a guest on the porch. Partially because Chicago doesn’t offer many public restrooms in my neighborhood and the other part because we wanted a snack and a glass. Previously this function was obviously met by cafes and restaurants filled with people working to care for you and your whims. That work then became part of my work, albeit smaller, more manageable, and also way less consistent. One of the (many) differences between my kitchen and a professional kitchen is that mine has foods I like and have already personally eaten some of. To serve someone a half consumed wedge of blue cheese isn’t the worst thing you can do obviously, but I would suggest that transforming it into something else is a gesture toward the loosening of your boundaries, opening up to the other. They’ve entered your little world and have necessarily changed it. Guaranteed to make your companion feel special and taken care of, who doesn’t want that? To be the carer or the cared for.

Richard Olney knows the value of spontaneous cooking and dedicates a few pages in Simple French Cooking to the style. He writes:

“It is true that there is nothing more amusing than to be caught empty-handed–faced with only dibs and dabs of leftovers and (hopefully) a few staples, and on the spur of the moment, to be obliged to transform these fragments into an acceptable meal. And the gratification of having been able, thanks to mere imagination, to formulate a few drab odds and ends into a bright, coherent, and often exciting statement is great.”

With much respect to Olney, who has captured the feeling of spontaneous cookery so well, the use of the word imagination is a cover for experience. Which for me, comes in the form of meandering research and curiosity about other people’s ideas expressed as recipes. An intellectual extension of the sentiment a chef I used to work for, “prep hard, easy pick up”. Or something like that. 

I like to approximate that experience by reading recipes for no immediate purpose, and I find Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer’s perspective especially nurturing. Formerly food magazine professionals, they began independently publishing recipe books for home cooks in 2009 and keeping a blog called Canal House Cooks Lunch in 2011. I like both, but the blog is free and recipe-less so it's easier to glean ideas rapidly without getting bogged down in details. Which is more in the spirit of what we’re talking about. The lunch blog sometimes has fancy spreads, but they often use leftovers or forget to plan ahead. It doesn’t really matter individually what anything is, in the moment of spontaneous cooking it all just turns to one mushy idea and maybe Richard Olney is in there too. It feels like it's from nowhere but it's from all these people and so I am shoving a wine in the freezer and making a salad with three stalks of forgotten celery, olives, and olive oil. I’m putting the 5 dates that I have left in my house next to that and some potato chips in a bowl, and maybe I remember that you can stretch a piece of blue cheese by adding butter as recommended by the Canal House.

Blue Cheese Butter with Black Pepper (from Canal House Cooking Volume No. 6 The Grocery Store)

Put your blue cheese and twice as much butter in a bowl or food processor with the amount of pepper you like. Mash or blend it until it comes together.

Lots of wines to drink cold in the shop, which are typically good with whatever's in your pantry and definitely good before sunset. Or let me know what you have hiding in your refrigerator's crisper and I can make a recommendation: rainbowwinechi@gmail.com / DM @rainbow_wines on Instagram.

-Emily

Squid from another world

    Before we make an inky risotto and drink some wine for a mercurial March, Chicago day, let’s take a little spring break trip to Playa de Vega on the Cantabrian sea (the southern part of the Bay of Biscay in Northern Spain).

 

    The water is 55 degrees, and the air may be 70 or so, so we could get wet suits and go surfing. We could take a walk along the water, or maybe roller skate on the coastal road. The goal is to work up an appetite for lunch at Güeyu Mar, a restaurant one hundred meters from the sea.

 

    Opened in 2007, Güeyu Mar is known as a temple to fish and shellfish. The seafood is tenderly touched under a wood fired grill by chef Abel Álvarez. We can sit at a table on the patio under an umbrella, next to the red snapper made out of plaster protruding from the restaurant’s stone façade. We can drink some sherry and Asturian natural wine.

    A few years ago, Abel embarked on the process of tinning his fish, and has now perfected it. Canning allows him to employ his staff at this small, seasonal restaurant year round. The cannery is right next to the restaurant. All the canned fish is gently cooked over fire and conserved in Arbequina extra virgin olive oil. In Spain and Portugal, it’s often the freshest and finest quality seafood that gets preserved in tins, called conservas.

    Abel recommends gently heating the fish before serving. This suggestion, plus a recent night with little fresh food for dinner in the fridge, led me to make a risotto with the squid in our cupboard. 

    In Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella Hazan, whose basic risotto recipe I adapted here, expressed disdain for squid ink pasta. For her it seemed like a gimmick - adding color and nothing else to the noodle. I agree it adds color and little else - but color has impact (we wouldn't have called this Rainbow Wines if we thought differently). Plus, in the case of Güeyu Mar, the dark color is the sauce of not just ink but of onion, pepper and fish stock, according to the list of ingredients. 

 

    The squid ink sauce makes each grain of rice look more defined - giving the dish more dimension.

    « Risotto can be so frustrating, » as Em says. I made bad risotto for a long time. It was  always just like pilaf, in that it was thick and clumpy. I wanted it to be smooth and porridge-like, with a pourable consistency. With that in mind I offer: 

 

 

"general risotto lessons I have learned"

 

 

energy :

Risotto presents a very meditative time at the stove for the cook. You must embrace this, or else a foul mood might spoil the food. And because I put wine in the risotto, I am drinking some of the wine while calmly stirring the rice, and reflecting on the day, and considering whatever other thoughts drift into my risotto world.

 

heat & cook time :

Previously I always cooked the rice al dente (for about a total of 20 minutes) but I think the heat was too high -- or too low, and then cranked too high to compensate. Now I don’t really touch the dial from medium.

 

I cook the risotto longer, for about 28 minutes total (I know that’s a long time for aficionados, but arborio’s still got bite enough for me).

 

liquid:

 I also think I used too much rice and not enough liquid. I try to pay more attention to the ratio now of 1 cup of rice to 5 cups liquid. 

 

I use more stock than wine, usually adding the stock three times and the wine twice.

 

onion:

 I also use very little onion chopped very finely – only a tablespoon. For a while I was rough chopping at least half an onion, and I think that was also bulking up the texture.  I typically don’t use garlic. If using garlic, I grate it and add it later on in the cooking.

 

butter vs oil :

 I don’t cook the onion in olive oil, only butter, about 2-3 tablespoons, salted.

 

stock vs water :

For fish risotto, I use fish or crab stock if we have it in the freezer (which has been one time, one time in all of history) but, if we don’t, I go with the Hazan idea that water is better for fish risotto anyway. I just make sure to use good tasting water and have it warm on the stove like I would with a stock.

  

 

 Risotto Calamar de Otro Planeta (Squid Risotto from another planet) 

(adapted from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking)

3 – 4 entrée servings

 

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon finely chopped yellow onion

1 cup Arborio or Carnaroli rice

4  cups Fish or shellfish broth or Hot water

1 cup White or rosé wine 

(if shopping with us, I recommend any of the Italian whites or rosatos)

Chives or parsley to garnish (Nichols farm has stellar spring onion greens rn) 

 

Heat water or fish stock in a saucepan on a burner near a heavy bottomed pan.

Heat pan on medium high for a minute.

Melt butter in pan. Add onion. Cook until the onion is translucent, or a little less is fine, about 3 minutes. Add a pinch of salt.

Add rice. Stir the rice a little. You might want to start a 20 minute timer. Let it ‘toast’ in the pan for about 4 minutes. Turn heat to medium. 

Add 1 ⅓  cups broth and stir. Keep stirring until most of the liquid is absorbed. Add a pinch of salt.

Add ½  c wine (it’s good if the wine isn’t freezing cold but it doesn’t have to be heated like the water) and stir a bit.

When most of the wine is absorbed add 1 ⅓ c broth, and repeat process.

 

When that 20 minute timer goes off, start tasting the rice for doneness. If it’s totally chalky, it needs some more time.

 

When you add the squid, it’s going to up the liquid, but you don’t want to reduce the ink sauce at all. So you’re going to want the risotto to be a little thicker at this point : about as thick as it can be while still being a somewhat pourable consistency. If you pick up your stirring spoon from the risotto, it should gradually fall off. 

 

If you need to add a little more hot water or broth to achieve this, do so.

 

Then when the rice is cooked to your taste, turn off the heat. Let rest for a minute, then stir in the squid and its ink sauce. Put in dishes right away, and garnish with some chives or any soft green herb. Chives are very nice for their crunch. You could also drizzle some nice olive oil on top, if you have some that is more bright than bitter.

You can order squid (and also the delicious sardine loins from Güeyu Mar) for delivery with us! 
We also have some great wines that would be nice with the risotto, like these: 

 

We would love to answer any questions you have about the recipe, our wines, or this or any other imaginary spring break trip. You can reach us via DM @rainbow_wines or email rainbowwinechi@gmail.com. 
 
-Cub

A soda bread recipe

I’ve written a lot of menus for our (now digital) bar, Rainbow Wine and Snack Bar, and bread is on all of them. It can make a collection of snacks into kind of a meal and is therefore essential to surviving and enjoying a night out. Many breads fit this bill, but I was imagining a workplace where anyone, including myself, could produce the loaves. Soda bread is made for this. It can be made in less than an hour and with a handful of ingredients, is inexpensive, and requires less equipment and technical skill than many yeast leavened or sourdough breads. Though my concept of soda bread comes from my high school cafeteria, the technique of mixing chemical leavener, in this case soda ash, into dough is attributed to Indigenous people of North America. It has been hard to find exactly what peoples practiced this method, if you have any insight please let me know I'm very curious. The bread that was served at my Chicago high school is a variation from the Irish cooking tradition sometimes referred to as spotted dog, which includes sugar and raisins, maybe you know it. The bread that is considered  “the bread” is not so fancy, it’s practical and economical, born after Nicolas Leblanc discovered how to produce sodium carbonate from the more common and inexpensive sodium chloride (salt). The methodology spread to other parts of Europe when Leblanc lost his factory in the French Revolution, influencing not just cookery but soap and glass production. What became sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) was cheaper than yeast and reacted with soured milk. Though the bread is designed to be simple using the inexpensive ingredients and something saved from the bin, the done up version from my teens made such an impression on me that I still crave some additions. In a bid for something distinct and hearty for the bar I searched for the recipe for a variation I had eaten at a fancy pub in England called The Sportsman a couple years ago. It was easily found, has a lot of ingredients and is a bit sweet from the addition of black treacle. After spending a week and a half gathering ingredients I baked it according to the chef, Stephen Harris’ recipe. It was pretty bland and dry which struck me as both funny and a bummer that you can follow an exact recipe from the literal chef and your craving is unsatisfied.

I brought my concern to Cub, my partner in this business and favorite/most Irish cook I know, and was sent many recipes from Tim Allen’s “The Ballymaloe Bread Book” as well as his notes on the genre. From him I learned that soda bread is more of an art than a science, in your hands and how you handle the dough. A light touch is required as to not overwork and toughen the bread, mix to just incorporate do not knead. In combining the breadth of this knowledge with my narrow idea of something good,  I have kind of gotten there. It turns out that it’s a sourcing issue, the wheat that grows in Ireland is soft. The climate in Ireland is not suited to grow the higher protein hard wheat, the island never gets the summer heat or winter cold that the crop needs. But the soft wheat grows in abundance. While my bread does have some soft wheat incorporated as part of the self raising flour blend the bulk of the mix comes from hard whole wheat flour that wants to toughen so badly. I still cook from the same recipe but compensate for the flour by adding more treacle than the original recipe calls for, up to 2 tablespoons. It doesn’t recreate the texture but it tastes very good and makes it feel closer to my taste memory. While you could pursue getting imported flour in this case I’ve chosen mostly to embrace what we’ve got around here, save the treacle, it feels practical and more suited to the spirit of the bread. If you cannot get oats, wheat bran, or wheat germ you can replace the weight of that ingredient with what you do have. Measured impracticalities for this sustaining treat.

This week in the shop (click here to shop) we have 5 new wines: Domaine de la Petite Soeur Kumu, I Castagnucoli Quel che c’e, Dernière Goutte Tisane de Bois Tordu, Maisons Brulées R2L'O and Babass La Navine. Let us know if you have any questions: DM @rainbow_wines or email rainbowwinechi@gmail.com

Mostly Illinoisan Soda Bread (aka Stephen Harris's recipe for my oven):

64 g self raising flour

127.5 g whole wheat flour

64 g rolled oats (leave whole or blend depending on desired texture)

14 g wheat bran

28 g wheat germ

hearty pinch of salt

10 g baking soda

1-2 tbsp treacle*

1 1/4 cup buttermilk, kefir, or yogurt (not Greek)

Preheat oven to 450 F

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl and make a well

Add wet ingredients into the well and mix your bread by making your hand into a sort of claw, if it is very dry add a little water or milk, if very wet add a bit of flour

Coat the dough in flour and shape it into a loaf

Place on a lightly floured baking sheet and cut a few vents into the dough**

Place in oven and cook for 10 minutes then reduce heat to 400 and Bake for 20 more.

Flip the loaf over and cook it belly side up for five more minutes

You will know the loaf is done if it sounds hollow when tapped

*You can sub molasses for the treacle, I might add a little more salt if you’re using Grandma’s Molasses or a similar brand. Additionally my research on whether Tate & Lyle's black treacle has S02 is inconclusive.

**In Ireland soda bread is shaped as a circular loaf with a deep cross cut into the dough, serving both to bless the bread and allow the center to cook without drying out the outside. Darina Allen of Ballymaloe Cooking School also pokes each of the four corners of the bread to let the fairies out, placating the fairies is important so they don't cause mischief. I have been shaping mine into a longer loaf with angled vents which works too.

-Emily

Rainbow Wines is OPEN

Hi welcome to the blog for Rainbow Wines. Here you can find weekly updates on the wines we have on offer and a little something else. To order a wine DM @rainbow_wines your picks (or questions!) or shop in the online store. We make deliveries Wednesdays. If you place an order on Wednesday and want to receive it that same day please order before 2. Otherwise we’ll just schedule you for the next week. We ask that you have your ID ready when your delivery arrives. If you need something and it appears unavailable to you or if you have any questions DM us or email us rainbowwinechi@gmail.com. Cheers, ciao, and talk to you soon :*

Here are the new wines in the shop this week it’s long because it’s all of them:

Sparkling: Les Capriades Pet Sec

Ca’ de Noci Tre Dame

Podere Pradarolo Indocilis

White Wine: Le Temps des Cerises La Peur du Rouge

Nino Barraco Vignammare

Jerome Lambert Coule de Source

Vini Rabasco Cancellino

Orange Wine: Cantina Giardino Na

Le Coste Bianchetto

Domaine de la Petite Soeur Les Gâts

Red Wine: Zumo Flower Fiend

L’Octavin Elle Aime

Le Petit Domaine de Gimios Rouge Fruit

Le Coste Rosso di Gaetano

Cristiano Guttarolo Primitivo Anfora

Clos Fantine Cuvée Tradition

Matin Calme Bonica Marieta

We also have…sardines, squid, and olive oil.