flavors saved my life 3

I found this old notebook the other morning after spending the evening with my friend Kat, who I love that I don’t always get the time with. It has notes, quotes, or snippets rather, from Laura Marks’ book The Skin of the Film: Intercultural Cinema, Embodiment, and the Senses. Which I bought after graduating from school. We had read a chapter in the best class I ever took and I wanted to keep it with me. I don’t know where the book is, I think my friend used it once to prop up my air conditioner, so I just have these notes to riff on.

In the book Marks writes about an idea of hers, her most influential, called haptic visuality. She describes it as “a way of looking that does not isolate, master, or seek to identify what is beheld, but instead merges with it.” My notes help create a sense of what that image looks like: “close up -> soft fuzzy, familiar, does not require the close scrutiny of optical visuality.*”

Sight can be an ok analogy to taste if you can accept the idea that all senses are actually touch senses. I feel I came to this on my own in my life, inspired by this reading and some other things, but it’s something other people use too. Atsunori Satake, who I interviewed in May of last year also orients his work in this way. And once when I brought it up with a colleague who I thought might have something more to say about wine/touch/taste: not only does wine touch your tongue to perceive the heady taste response, it also goes inside of your body and touches you in a way that is harder to understand. In your throat and in your stomach and keeps going. He told me I should have a drink with his other friend, the winemaker Laureano Serres. And I hope to do that someday because we haven’t talked about it since.

Drinking something can be a close up. Seeing wine with your eye is limited. Seeing with your tongue is a possibility, but in the abstraction of sight you have a choice. Because the tongue is not a literal eye, the repeated experience of tasting shapes your relationship to your tongue and your perception of information. If a flavor is a signifier of a fact like a technique, terroir, variety, vintage, personality, or more likely the combination of all/some of those, how are you seeing them? Or does that alchemy produce something else to look at estranged from those facts? And then still what about the feelings that lack the immediacy or history of language, the touched gut and the gullet? We are also smelling. I tried to talk about it with a different winemaker who I respect, and he did not like the idea that all senses can be joined by touch. The senses are discreet, taste is taste and touch is touch. Which is useful because while I have a different perspective I think these approaches to understanding information derived from taste rely on each other. My only “take” is that there is perhaps an overemphasis on the approach that seems to model itself on optical visuality and the notion of achievement in this field is hinged on it.

Marks also references the writer Vivian Sobchack who calls this mode of seeing (for me a mode of tasting, for both of us a mode of touch) a volitional and deliberate vision. This is a choice, it can be considered an exercise and it doesn't always come easily. Practicing this both I and the object of my vision constitute each other, considered in this context intersubjective eroticism. The erotic lives in the merging between self and object in a way that shifts our power dynamic with what we are in relation to. Talking to a friend the other day he pulled a quote from Atsunori Satake that begins to help shape this practice:

“[My] philosophy of combining wine and vessels starts with the idea that ‘I am in the position of wine.’ The traditional method of serving wine has been "how people can enjoy wine". My philosophy is ‘how wine can enjoy’. If there is a correct answer to the taste of wine, I feel that it is there.

I think with something you consume it’s actually more direct than the film image, or like imagining how you consume images. Though you choose this I think sometimes, maybe with this in the back of your mind or with a bit of practice/the right “look”, the wine forces you to privilege the sensual knowledge over the intellectual. To really try to feel it all the way down, which maybe looks like letting go of the mouth entirely, what happens with the faculty of taste and the ability to speak to it. When you are left with, “not just the taste but also the feeling”.

To be honest, I find that notebook a lot. There are other things in it like old Cellar Door menu meeting notes, ideas for clay, and sketches for a tattoo I gave that says “GODBLESS” (for a long time on the arm it looked like “GOOBLESS”). In the past I’ve gently mourned the distance between my mind and that writing, the ability to read something like that also comes with practice. But the preface to it, the night with this Bugey Pinot Noir that neither of us (wine people) claimed to understand, was practice enough to connect. 

*Optical visuality is less intimate, a “distant view of complete subject associated with Renaissance perspective. Renders the image as a figure distinct from the ground. Viewers receive it from a distance.” This is commonly considered “being objective”.

the salad of winter, it's buttery, steamed greens

 The other title we considered for this blog is “Must love lids.” 

Frying greens

Roughage entered my life hard and heavy while cooking and eating in food cooperatives in college. I learned one way to prepare it, usually kale or swiss chard, which was to feed around 100 people at a time  - wash it, remove leaves from stalks, chop it. Heat some oil in a giant wok. Toss all your greens in there all at once, salt it, toss it with two huge spoons, keep tossing, reaching down into the wok like you’re scooping up a big pile of laundry from off the ground. There is some steaming involved in this method because the greens were always still wet from their wash. 

After college my husband’s Mom bought us tickets to a cooking class in Brooklyn at Sunday Suppers. The class consisted of cooking a dinner together of seared and braised chicken thighs. We made kale to go with it. The method taught was to fry the kale. Heat a cast iron skillet, make it really hot, use a high heat neutral oil like canola in the pan. Put just a few greens at a time in, season heavily with salt, often. Don’t fuss with the greens a lot, let them crisp and pop and brown before you turn them just once. Again, you have to work in really small batches for this. Those greens were delicious but still really chewy, kind of sinewy. Over the years of repeating that method faithfully, they seemed to get more and more sinewy and less good. 

A Simple method 

Before this year, I experimented just a little. I’ve tried and failed at pan roasting (I don’t know what I was thinking but I wasn’t following a recipe. There’s probably a good way to do this, if you know please tell me). I’ve also occasionally sauteed in olive oil and white wine, again over medium-high heat in a skillet - the result is usually high in acid, usually too much. For a boiled dinner I once boiled the kale, too, which was interesting, and easy to chew, but a little zapped of flavor, and really very wet. 

Then this winter I came across a recipe in Canal House Cooks Every Day by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton. It is not singled out as its own recipe as much as a method included as part of a dinner of steak and french fries, and it is referred to as ‘buttered spinach.’

This recipe has been revolutionary for me because it allows you to walk away from the pan while getting the rest of your dinner ready. The silky, supple greens may not be as dynamic in texture as some hot-fried leaves, but I really don’t find this an issue. 

I was skeptical at first because I never use a lid. I was taught in cookery school to never use a lid with any hearty greens because the condensation on the inside of the lid can mute the color of the greens and turn them brown. This has not been my experience with this recipe. I love lids now. They give you control and keep things tidy. 

Salad time 

I come from a family that eats salad at the end of every dinner. I find it a beautiful marker of the passage of the meal, when it’s salad time. It is a decision that is made as a group, when to commence with the salad course. Actually now that I write that I’m realizing my Mom votes for us all. Usually my Dad is talking to, quite possibly arguing, with my sister or me, and so whichever one of us is less engaged in the dialogue, turns to my Mom and mouths, “salad?” soundlessly, propping up the bowl a little to make clear the pantomime, and she either nods yes or shakes her head no) Sometimes the pause for the simple survey presents an opportunity to raise a new topic for discussion, and to open another bottle of wine. Salad means we are all sitting here for a little while longer, let’s settle in again, but maybe we talked enough about (pick any hot topic) tonight. 

I have mostly continued my family’s salad after dinner always tradition, until recently.  In the summer I always make at least a little salad, but in the winter I’m finding a lack of energy to chop up a bunch of cold vegetables from the fridge and make a fresh vinaigrette for them. My hands are already cold, I don’t need to be peeling a 39 degree cucumber. 

I got to enjoying these greens so much that now I just make a big pile of them to eat like salad at the end of the meal. For instance, if I made pasta for dinner in the past there would be salad as a green veg but it’s very nice to have some hot steamed broccoli rabe in olive oil as an alternative. 

Greens 

Adapted from Canal House Cooks Every Day 

As suggested by Canal House, the greens are wonderful with a chewy steak. Notably, I’ve had them with seared short ribs and polenta, as well as lamb loin chops with potato puree. They are also wonderful with some nicely cooked beans, which have their own chew and pop. 

3 tablespoons butter 

2 tablespoons water 

½ pound washed, de-stemmed and chopped hearty greens, like spinach, kale, swiss chard, escarole or Broccoli rabe*

Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add the greens by handfuls, seasoning with salt, and turning with tongs to coat with butter as it wilts. Once all the greens are in, add the water, cover, and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook until the greens are very silky but not disintegrating, 8 - 12 min. (For those more fibrous greens, like kale, rabe, chard, lean towards the longer end of the cooking time. For escarole and spinach, make it more brief).  Remove from the heat. Keep covered until you are ready to serve. 

*If using escarole or broccoli rabe I prefer to substitute olive oil for the butter and to toss in a halved clove of garlic. 

And to drink:

We recently received a number of fuller-bodied red wines that can match the richness, tannin  and iron-density of something like spinach. In particular the Fior di Rosso from Nino Barraco works harmoniously here. 

We also have a restock on the Sonoma Mountain Winery Merlot, a new vintage of Rosso di Gaetano from Le Coste, an enigmatic and beautiful Tuscan white wine from Ranchelle called Roccolina, as well as a new red from Caleb Leisure. Lots of inspiring things to drink that work well with wintery dinners. 

escarole with cotechino, lentils and potatoes

chard with lamb loin chops 

mostly here (Chicago), a little there (NY/France)

I have just gotten another cookbook at the suggestion of my friend Sammie, one she has been talking about for months. The book is Pork & Sons by Stephané Reynaud, a French chef who comes from a family of butchers who have made their home in the Ardèche. I think she first came across it in a rented house last summer. This most recent mention clicked and I placed an order for the book, I use pork in our house more than most other meats, it seemed worth the exploration.

Flipping through a new cookbook is still fun for me, in a way that combing the internet is not. The finite possibilities, the fact that it’s someone’s world representing, in a way, the past few years of their life at least. Some great cookbooks are the sum of the author’s entire experience in the kitchen. Which is beautiful and can be alienating as much as it stokes curiosity. For instance, Stephané’s experience is in France and he tends to reference a lot of sausages unavailable at any butcher counter in the city. You look at them, think someday, and turn the page to something you can make and in this instance, it was a cabbage soup.

It’s actually a cabbage soup with pork belly, his soupe aux choux. I don’t usually cook with pork belly, for me it’s a casualty of the early 2000s New American restaurant obsession with the cut. Which isn’t fair and made this recipe all the more compelling.

Earlier, I was reading from a book quoting John Cage, “It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else. Here we are now.” He was not talking about Chicago winter and liking to be somewhere else holds a number of other options (emotionally, your social position, career, whatever) but maybe it was all of those things that drove me to make this cabbage soup. To need to make the soup. Cooking can be transportive but it can also make you feel like you are really where you are. I’m not sure where the ingredients I used came from, but I think you could source most of them locally. Potatoes, cabbage, onions, and celery root all store for a long time. Could get you through a winter, even though we don’t have to think about that at the grocer I think it is why they loan themselves to my “feeling”, which then becomes a craving.

I shared with Sammie my excitement and she immediately shared in it. We both set out to get the ingredients, to cook in different cities and share our process. Like recipe penpals. I had a headstart and already was fiddling with the guidelines, salting and spicing my pork a day early. The day we were set to cook was an aimless one for me, full for her. I started around 1 even though it was for dinner. With the head start, I chose to add to the cooking time in order to get the pork tender and bring extra harmony to the four ingredients in my pot. What’s nice is you don’t have to, I tried the pork after the recommended hour and it’s enjoyable in its chewier state and the soup itself eats a bit lighter, less intense as the belly keeps more of its characteristics to itself.

To serve I baked a little loaf of soda bread and made a salad of celery root. And already had opened the macerated Gewurztraminer from Jean Ginglinger so served that alongside. It was the perfect pairing because picking this wine out of the box I wanted it like I wanted this soup. I sent pictures to Sammie, she had a whole wheat boule and a radicchio salad with celery root. We have similar red enamel pots. It feels like we’re in class, completing an assignment, exploring the meaning of the soup. How to bring it to Chicago or New York. I do recommend this soup but mostly I recommend a cooking penpal, and you could start here.

Cabbage Soup inspired by, but different from Stephané Reynaud

You don't really have to season the pork ahead of time. This feeds like six people or, is enough to give some away in a to go container, share with one person at your house, and then for lunch for the next 3 days. I recommend this with some bread and a root vegetable salad.

Olive oil

1 cabbage (white/green), cored and shredded

¼ cup white wine

3 large potatoes, peeled and coarsely chopped

2 onions, coarsely chopped

Small to medium slab of pork belly (honestly depends how meaty you want your soup to be)

Fresh grated nutmeg

White pepper

Clove (optional)

Salt

1. The day before put salt, white pepper, and nutmeg over your slab of pork belly. Stud with cloves if you’d like. Loosely cover and leave in the fridge until you are ready to cook.

2. Take out your pork belly, remove cloves if using and cut into thick slices.

3. Heat 5 tbsps of olive oil in a big pot, large enough to fit the cabbage, onions, and potatoes. Add cabbage and cook until softened (not browned).

4. Add white wine, potatoes, onions, white pepper, salt and nutmeg. Cover with water.

5. Add pork slices and bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until you are satisfied with the flavor and texture. At least one hour.

6. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and set aside.

7. Transfer soup to a blender and blend until smooth.

8. When ready to serve make sure the soup is the temperature you like, the pork belly can appear on the side or in the soup up to you.

Fresh stuff in the shop for tomorrow and cat calendars are IN STOCK! For the third year running Cub's put together 12 months of cats and natural wine. Something I always look forward to. See you later this week.

woty, just for fun

Has 2022 seemed off to you so far? Do you find yourself unsure of the day of the week, or of the date? If so, please consider purchasing a 2022 “Cats & Natural Wine” calendar from us! For each calendar sold we make a donation to PAWS and Treehouse Chicago. (https://rainbow-wines.square.site/product/2022-cats-wine-calendar/266?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false)

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Often people who are into wine, or work in wine, will post on social media about their WOTY, their pick for their wine of the year around this time. I think it used to be a bigger deal pre-pandemic - we keep time differently in confinement, the excitement and the finality of the end of the year have faded, as the days roll into days. Maybe? Or maybe this is optimistic thinking on my part, but also perhaps people are more cautious now about singling out one crowning wine, out of concern for it being totalizing and competitive. 

Em and I considered posting about this but kind of agreed the concept would need more editorializing. For starters, we wanted to define for ourselves just what qualifies as a WOTY. 

Is a WOTY a wine that you drank often throughout the year, or can it be a wine you had just once? Does it encapsulate the themes of the past year, or represent a departure from everyday life? Should it be a wine shared with others, part of a common experience, or something more private? 

My conclusion is -  any and all of the above. The point of the WOTY game is reflection and appreciation, and - fun! Sometimes it helps to make things more fun to make rules around them, but, this topic may be better left boundless, led by instinct alone. 

For both Em and I, Frizbee from Zumo Wines instantly came to mind as a WOTY. 

Zumo (juice in Spanish) is a project from couple Georgia Staples and Diego Luis Perez based in Richmond, California. Em went to visit them this fall. They work tirelessly to source quality fruit untouched by pesticides and herbicides. Diego works at Ordinaire, the wine bar and shop in Oakland, CA, for years, and knows a lot about natural wine. While the spirit of Zumo feels youthful, innovative and experimental, you can also see something of the earnest wine student in them - many of the wines are inspired by bottles Diego and Georgia most appreciate. Frizbee is Verdelho, foot stomped and macerated briefly before being pressed over sauvignon blanc skins. 

As soon as we got this wine in, which was bottled in 500 milliliter brown glass and topped with a green cap, Em and I both opened one at our respective homes. It was really affordable, and the size meant the commitment involved in opening one was low. Wow. We were freaking out about how much we loved it. Em and Mac I think opened a second one too. 

Instantly, I deemed this wine the song of summer 2021, I was thinking of Umbrella by Rhianna circa summer 2007. Adding to the magic of the wine - each bottle was a little different, some were more tannic and felt a little darker, and I started to believe they were mood rings that responded to the environment in which you opened them. We don’t have it any more in stock, but we do have two equally exciting wines from Georgia and Diego, Flower Variant and the Phew II. 

Then there is Sonoma Mountain Winery, a project which ceased in 2018. We have had some difficulty writing about these wines because they are complex and make me emotional There are a bunch of different cuvees we’ve had, all from the last stock at the winery - red and white co-ferments, red field blends, pinot noir, rosé, chardonnay, merlot. They are moment-making wines, moments I wish to have for life. In another difficult year, I feel grateful to drink from a winery that no longer exists, yet continues to move us. 

The winery was started by Niccolo Coturri in 2009. Tony, his Dad, is a visionary who reimagined viticulture and viniculture in California. Nic started his project using Tony’s vines and cellar, as well as his perspective as a winemaker. That meant embracing the sun and vibrancy of Sonoma. This approach makes for full wines, and that fullness can be difficult, as, for instance, it can take some time for the wines to mature. It is special to have a wine with this much age no matter its origin or style, but to have these wines from a California winery with nothing added and nothing taken away is particularly rare. They are old but still very much alive. 

In the store right now we have the Merlot 2011 from Sonoma Mtn, a recent addition, as well as Cuvée No 1 from 2012, a blend of Syrah, Barbera and Zinfandel. We have many other fresh wines in the store - invigorating scrubbing bubbles from Ca de Noci; rosé pet nat from Vignereuse; Gamay from Domaine de la Petite Soeur; Grenache and Clairette+Carignan from Domaine Mada; a trio of Muscats in one wine from Lambert Spielmann; bright orange and rosé wine from the Languedoc, from L’Èrba d’Agram; macerated Gewurz from Ginglinger; fruit pet nat from Sweden; and drinky Duras from Causse Marines. We will be out for deliveries all weekend. Any questions or thoughts, always feel free to email us at rainbowwinechi@gmail.com.