Bonds we forge with wine

 You may have noticed Rainbow was on vacation last week. Em is visiting wineries and vacationing in Greece and Italy. I am traveling in a beautiful place but one where there isn’t natural wine unless you bring it, and I finally got tired of hauling it here. I’m thinking of what i will taste when I get home. 

Some distance from friends, from my partner, from my pets and my city, Chicago, I am full of nostalgic wine thoughts today. Em wrote an eloquent and nuanced post about sentimentality and wine, one whose complexity I won’t attempt to match. Today I just want to talk about one wine we have in the shop right now. My mind wanders to this bottle, one I’m likely to open this weekend, one that I made memories with which, calling on them, makes me feel warm inside. This wine is kind of a pop star in the natural wine world, and like all pop stars, in my view, its popularity does not make it any less meaningful. 

 https://rainbow-wines.square.site/product/le-coste-litrozzo-rosato/115?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false

Em is in Lazio, the winemaking region nearest to the city of Rome, and hopes to visit Le Coste winery next week. The winemakers are Clem, who is French, and Gianmarco, who is Italian. Em’s and my shared feeling about what makes their wines so dynamic these days is the Franco-Italianese energy. They register on my palette like complimentary colors, French blues against orange rust earthtones, provencal lavendar against golden fennel buds. I have synastesia with them. 

The Litrozzo wines are unique from the rest of the bottlings - they are meant to be a little more direct, bottled in liter (litrozzo) for sharing and drinking liberally. The rosato is from the Aleatico grape, considered like the red grape version of Muscat, for its aromatic, floral ways. For a while we didn’t receive the rosato here in Chicago, and I became a little obsessed with having some to drink and sell on the third coast (those were the days when I just wanted things if I couldn’t have them, I’m on the journey of moving as far, far away from that as possible). My partner visited the east coast and drank a bottle of it, and I was so jealous. I saw it on instagram, I could almost smell the Aleatico through the images and my craving grew. 

When I finally had some to sell at Red & White, we sold it pretty quickly, and I didn’t really bond with it. I drank literally two sips of it. A few months later Em and I were having a rare shared night off, and decided to really go all out and each dinner out somewhere together. We went to Cafe Mairie Jeanne, a restaurant now closed that place I miss everyday.  It was winter by this time, and drinking Litrozzo rosato seemed iffy. We weren’t particularly thirsty, and we were going to eat roast chicken. But it was the wine we most wanted to drink abstracted from place and time, and maybe the best price too, so we had it. 

It was such a lovely companion at our table. French fries and juicy, roasted onion smoked chicken with the bold, saline wine, was a delight. Roast chicken dinner earns its revered reputation, and adding fries and a buoyant rose made it a feast. 

The wine at that time was pretty vertical in energy, acidic and very savory, a little nutty and less of the ‘direct’ quality I mentioned - less fruity, basically. This new vintage, by contrast is very freshly fruity and floral. It smells and tastes like tuberose and strawberry and also kind of like the beach, a bit of wet sand, a bit of spf. When we drove it our case of it back from Giambotta, we were in a very scary spot on I-90 where we had to slam on the brakes to prevent a multi-car pile up, and sadly, one of the bottles collided so much inside the case with another bottle that the glass smashed. It was kind of a happy accident, tragic as it was to loose a bottle. My car smelled like candied violet, roses, lilacs, white peaches and red berries for weeks. Now I am bonded with the wine, and the fabric of my car trunk is too. 

Litrozzo Rosato and bianco are both available in the store. We have lots of new wines from Australia - from Lucy Margaux (fresh, herbaceous Pinot Blanc, mineral, juicy Pinot Noir and Persepone Wines (vibrant Gamay and the gorgeous rose, Cuvee Simone, after Chateau Simone in southern France) that are also great for hot dog days of summer. DM @rainbow_wines or email us @rainbowwinechi@gmail.com anytime with wine questions - we love to hear from you. 

The practice of everyday rest & inspiration

Cub and I usually write our blog entries over a few days and give them a lot of thought and an edit or two, but this I am writing and publishing immediately. I am very tired, I find this frustrating because I feel a little disconnected from the reason for being tired. Like I am just being normal, not doing too much extra. A small survey of people that I know that do not know each other are in a similar position, suggesting that this is very common. So I would like to offer a passage from Luce Giard (in The Practice of Everyday Life Vol 2: Living and Cooking) brings me back to reality and a vision of normal. Though I’m not a 1980s French matriarch and our gestures differ a bit this mess of words that follows feels very lived in. 

And before you get to it (sorry) I do think about wine when I think about these words, the amount of errands and gestures and work that is work but also feels like busywork and perhaps isn’t even a winemaking technique that creates something that you experience. For instance, Brent Mayeaux who makes Stagiaire Wine wrote extensive notes about each cuvée we bought from him via Mac/EL Rancho Wine Co. Because of this Cub and I got to hear this story about Let’s Get Fizzical, a Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc pet nat he makes. And I will let Brent tell it: “The bottles were placed in cases upside down to allow the lees to settle to the cap for clean disgorging. In what was one of many frustrations this year, the caps started leaking. The cases got wet and were falling apart. And I was forced to do an early disgorging once my preferred caps arrived in the middle of harvest. That was just 2020.” And now Giard:

Inside: to the kitchen to prepare, from the kitchen to the dining room to serve and eat, getting up constantly to run and check the things on the grill or to fetch the mustard missing from the table; from the dining room to the kitchen to clear away the dishes; once again in the kitchen to wash and put things away. Outside: from the house to the market, to the grocery store, the bakery, the butcher shop, the wine shop, the back to the house, arms fun of shopping bags. On the way you pass a young woman even more heavily laden than you and who mumbles to no one is particular: “I’m just the family packhorse. all I do is carry, carry, carry” inside: to the kitchen to empty the bags, put away the groceries, wrap up the things to be put in the refrigerator, note down the expenses, check the change and the receipts. Sit down finally.

This whole book is available online, I will write about it again because it has influenced my work over the past ten years and I don’t know about that many things. The tired is not just from this doing referenced above, but also maybe a little tired of myself and that I am constantly going to refer to Luce Giard for perhaps the rest of my life.

I need a flush in my cheek and maybe a little extra blood pumping through my veins? I’ve been drinking less often, but only want red when going for a bottle. Maybe because it goes hand in hand with my favorite date in Chicago, burger and fries from Red Hot Ranch on their loud patio with something good. I had Ping Pong from Les Petite Mises the other night and it was perfect. I also would go for Les Valseuses Soul Makossa, anything from La Dernière Goutte, Lamoresca Nerocapitano, Mayga Gamay from Octavin, or L’Enchanteresse. Some extra guts or like a blood surrogate or something. I do wonder about all of the errands that made them happen, but instead I just drink with a little extra appreciation of the unknown. These are in the shop, I recommend sleep if you are physically tired but if you need a little inspiration a little wine can be nice.

Also, I would like to note that Cub & I will be closing the shop next weekend for rest (Aug 12-14) to reopen on the 19th.

dancer from zaza

“Labour is blossoming or dancing where

The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,

Nor beauty born out of its own despair,

Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.

O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,

Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance? “

-excerpt from Among School Children, WB Yeats

 I have trouble sitting still. At dinner with friends I need to stand up and sometimes try to escape to the kitchen to do the dishes because my hands feel too idle at rest. Part of this means it is very difficult for me to sit and read a book, especially for pleasure. I read non-fiction before bed, with a pen in my hand. I don’t love this about myself.

Years ago when I told my friend that I didn’t read many novels, he said, ‘but don’t you find reading fiction like the most relaxing thing?’ The answer was yes, but relaxation is hard for me to access. Even in drinking wine, something believed by our culture to be so relaxing there are throw pillows embroidered about it, has to be timed right for my mind and body in order to be calming. some days it’s not going to be relaxing at all.

Given my interest in wine, around that same time, I tried sipping some wine while reading. Adding wine made my attempt to sit still reading even harder. Alcohol was consciousness-altering in the wrong direction. Wine makes me want to chat, to dance, to cook, not usually to sit and read. It is a downer but often makes me even more restless.

I would like to read more fiction all year round, but for now I read mostly in the summer on vacation, like lots of people.

This week Dave and I are in Michigan staying at a friend’s cottage. I was reading while he was out on an evening jog and decided to have a glass of wine. Something clicked into place. When Dave returned I said, ‘I don’t know what’s juicier, the book or the wine.’

I find myself analyzing — what was it about this scenario that made it so the wine seemed to make the book better, and the book seemed to make the wine better? How did I stumble on the allusive literature + wine pairing?

After considering all the possible factors surrounded this blissful harmony of wine and book, I found the answers kind of obvious though not easily replicated.

I’ve been drinking wines from Rainbow, wines that I feel very close to, more understanding of than perhaps any other wines that I ever worked with or drank. The bottles live in my house, in my basement. I write about each of them for the tasting notes on our site. I consider each of them deeply with my best friend and the other half of Rainbow, Em. I have been to visit most of the wineries where these are made, met the people who make them. I wonder if in the past, drinking wine with books was often wine I hadn't had before, or also, wine I didn’t care about at all. There was some uneven investment between book and wine. Maybe if I was having a novel wine while reading I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the story, as I’d be too distracted forming a narrative about the bottle.

And maybe I just found the right wine for the book. Maybe they hit the right tone. I’m curious if this is the case, and therefore, I am sharing with you this pairing.

The wine is Casot de Mailloles Rose de Zaza. The book is Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance, a gay literature classic I avoided for a while because I deemed it less relevant than other books in this category that reflect an experience not white and male. And also because I lost a friend many years ago whose voice I could hear in these pages. Dancer takes place in Manhattan and Fire Island, in the wild party scene of late 70s gay men and queens. The first glass I had with around 60 pages, the late first act of the story.

The second glass I had after dinner, my heart bleeding for a lonely, loveless character, before he finally embraces how much he loves men, and frankly, loves dick. 

 Something people seem to agree about this novel is it being funny and sad. My first glass was more funny, my second more sad.

This wine is sort of funny and sad. Not funny but sunny. Not sad but deep. 

Le Casot De Mailloles is a much-beloved, pioneering winery using natural methods since Alain Castex and Ghislaine Magnier made their first vintage in an old Citroen garage in the 1990s. The vineyard plots line the Mediterranean Sea in the coastal region of Banyuls, in the Roussillon in France. They are very steep, with walled terraces, and very difficult to access and to tend to, with fierce winds blowing off the Pyrenees mountains. The fruit for Rose de Zaza comes from a vineyard called Tarerach, nearer to the mountains than the sea. 

Alain is as a very influential natural winemaker. In 2015, there was an official changing of the guard, where Jordi Perez, a young Catalonian, made his first solo vintage for Le Casot. Alain and Jordi worked together proceeding this, Jordi deemed an excellent steward of the winery to continue it on. 

Things have been changing a little with the winery, as you’d expect with a fresh perspective. Jordi wanted to alter the label design, which many people adore, and got push back. When I tasted with him at La Dive Bouteille in 2019, I commented on how bold, fruity, confident and delicious the wines were. It’s a big generalization based also on my experience with cooler vintages, and therefore usually lighter-bodied wines, but especially with certain grapes like grenache, the wines had been more sheer, more delicate in my recollection. “The new Casot de Mailloles,” Jordi responded. 

It feels like the direction of the winery is more sun-soaked, ripe and full, if not because this is Jordi’s desire, at least due in part to the mandate of our warming earth. There are also a few new wines Jordi is making from sites further inland, like Zaza, and so my overall impression is shifting around those. 

So here we have a plummy, berry fruity, delicious wine, with some drama about labels, and a compelling notion of this changing of the guard. 

I have thought a lot about the characterization of these men, created narratives, imagined what the driving force of the new casot de mailloles is. I’m thinking about how conjecture plays into the enjoyment of these and other wines. 

One of the themes of Dancer from the Dance is gossip (The brilliant character Sutherland says at one point, “Even Thoreau went to town to gossip.”) The narrator sits inside the world of the story, although just on the cusp of the lives of the main characters. He considers these men, their style, their interior life. He is one of them. A critique of this book is that the narrative is a little superficial. I have been to Banyuls, and I’ve met Alain and Jordi both, but I worry I’m a shallow interpreter. There’s so much I still don’t know, spaces I’m left to fill in. 

The book also goes with the wine because some parts are sexy, I think (some other parts have sex and are not so sexy) and Zaza is a sensual hug of a wine. They can both be very passionate. 

If you want to borrow my copy of Dancer from the Dance let me know. There’s nothing underlined. 🌈

And otherwise please let us know if you have any wine questions, concerns, needs. We are here for you always, via email at rainbowwinechi@gmail.com or on instagram dm @rainbow_wines 

Altoids tangerine sours from memory

Sometimes I get to reflect on how I am doing the only thing that I could be doing right now. Recently I was reminded that I was such a little acid head growing up. I ate mustard straight from the packet at camp. Put too much balsamic vinegar on my salad so I could drink it from the bowl after the salad was gone. Ate like half a barrel of gratis cornichon at a restaurant (the first time I had ever had them, I was 13). Around that time I spent a summer on the couch watching American Gladiators and only consuming Edy’s Lemonade popsicles. Also on deck, perhaps mostly obviously, was a somewhat large selection of sour candies, my memory of these is the dimmest of all just listed.

I wouldn’t have even really ranked them until my friend Olivia texted me a reminder a few weeks ago. The Youtube algorithm had taken her to a man who makes hard candies primarily using equipment from the Victorian era (and shares videos of the process) in Tallahassee, Florida named Greg. She sent the first video of his series trying to recreate Altoids Tangerine Sours. Have you had these? Greg has not. They were amazing and maintain a cult following to this day. I love this video, he uses the ingredients list, images, and crowd sourced feedback to recreate this iconic candy. What really got me was his commitment  to recreating flavors from stranger’s memories. I told Olivia that I thought it was so beautiful, she said she was struck by that too. What I didn’t mention to Olivia that I want to mention to you is that it reminds me that behind every taste and every feeling that taste produces there is a technique and a raw material. It can be hard to understand that in wine sometimes and while hard candy is not fermented grape juice maybe you can see where I am going with this. And approach your next glass as something that someone thought to make for you with some sort of end in mind. Reached or not. Anyway, here is the first video embedded below. I also like this one about Lime Sours the drink and why acidic beverages are thirst quenching.

One of the ways wine is potentially not like hard candy to me is expressed here, in one of my favorite quotations from M.C. Richards:

The creative spirit creates with whatever materials are present. With food, with children, with building blocks, with speech, with thought, with pigment, with an umbrella, or a wineglass, or a torch. We are not craftsmen only during studio hours. any more than a man is wise only in his library. Or devout only in church. The material is not the sign of the creative feelings for life: of the warmth and sympathy and reverence which foster being; techniques are not the sign; “art” is not the sign. The sign is the light that dwells within the act, whatever its nature or medium.

We have many new wines in the shop right now, we couldn’t help ourselves. Lamoresca Rosato finally rolled in for those who were waiting to pop it with their crush. Also if this has got you craving something that embraces acidity in the most beautiful exciting way may I recommend the Sonoma Mountain Winery Chardonnay? Tasting notes will be making their way on to the site but in the meantime email rainbowwinechi@gmail.com or DM @rainbow_wines with your questions. Ciao.

artichokes & wine

 been thinking a lot lately about artichokes, and how in 2015 i got to spend some time in sicily. i went to the anna tasca lanza school for a few days during that trip, to attend a cooking course with david tanis. 

I started thinking about Sicily because this Sunday we are pouring brand new exciting wines from young California winemakers at Giambotta. You should come!! Email dariogiambotta@gmail.com to make a reservation, anytime from 4 - 8. 

The connection to California through Sicily is not just sometimes a similar climate but that I travelled to Italy with Tanis, who is a food writer, cookbook author, and was for a longtime the chef at Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, CA. 

the first night we fried panelle, chickpea fritters, in olive oil, following the tradition of Palermo street food vendors. Olive oil has a lower flash point than many other fats and is not usually used for deep frying. Tanis explained how culturally important it was to use olive oil, and how, if you  keep careful watch on your heat, it’s safe and delicious. That was the first rule broken for me that trip, one of many to come. 

Another day we went to the big fish market in Catania. I’ve never done a cooking tour with a pro like Tanis, and, in this instance, learned why it’s a good thing to try. David knew that one of the many bars lining the square and streets where the fish vendors were would allow you to buy fresh fish and eat it raw while you sat and had a drink. We all had a round of gin tonics and grabbed a few pounds of sweet shrimp. We shelled them and ate them raw. The cold gin and sweet succulent shrimp was amazing. I had just been in Ireland cooking and eating shellfish from very cold waters, and this Mediterranean shrimp was such a vivid contrast that placed me only in Sicily. A bohemian looking man in yellow tinged sunglasses and a shaggy suit stopped on his walk by us, and offered to curate some bites for us. He grabbed an orange from the bar inside, took a chocolate bar out of his pocket and made little spoons with the sweet shrimp, fresh orange juice and a little dark chocolate. He said something like, this taste is of a summer love, a boy and girl who go to the sea and feel it spray on their skin. ! I’m not making this up. The spoonful was strange and tasty. 

From the fish market that day we bought what the Catanese call spatula, a long, flat fish, with  metallic silver skin (flat and shiny like a spatula). Tanis prepared it that night roasted in a tomato and caper sauce. Again, I had just come from cooking school in Ireland, and my first thought eating this dish was how many bones it had and how difficult it was to eat. The cooking school part is relevant because you are so often thinking about restaurant service, and how a customer would approach a dish. Bony fish in a mess of delicious sauce? I made a remark to my Sicilian neighbor at the table, who said, sometimes it’s good to have to eat things slowly, and carefully. Scuola was in session. I had that ugly American feeling about what I said. But of course Tanis is American, albeit from California, who has travelled and grown in his cooking to know just how to challenge and how to comfort an eater. 

And towards the end of the trip we visited a goat dairy, where a family made ricotta. they served us warm fresh ricotta on toast with homemade white wine in little plastic cups like you get at the dentist. The wine was my favorite that I’d tasted all the trip. With respect due to the Tasca winery, where the school is located, the style did not speak to me like this white wine did. 

That evening, David was preparing artichokes, peeling off the tough outer leaves for a fritti. What sort of wine would you pair with artichokes? Artichokes are famously hard to pair wine with, they flatten flavors into a bitter base that is not harmonious. Before cooking school I worked in fine dining, and had sommelier training. To me, artichokes are a delicacy, something you don’t have everyday, so I said, vintage champagne. The bubbles might offer some fortitude to the pairing, and something with a little dosage might have a toffee mahogany richness to complement the bitterness of the choke. David did not like this idea. Why would you spend so much on a drink for a food that puts up so much resistance? He said, he would prefer the white wine in little cups from the farm. I was imaging you might be having it by the glass at a michelin restaurant. Like the spatula, with the artichoke I saw how much food and wine experience I located in the restaurant setting. My Mom loves artichokes, and I grew up eating them as a snack with ranch dressing to dip in on sunday evenings before dinner. Wine has certainly never a question, maybe she would be having a glass of Chardonnay, but who knows. But if you like a challenge like bony fish, you should consider artichokes with any of the tannic white wines we have in stock. As Em says, "I kind of like artichokes with tannic white wines bc there is still something left behind through the weird sweet softening effect." 

Nichols Farm has some rare Illinois grown artichokes for sale right now. The temptation to try to pair them with the wines on sunday is high. We are still thinking about how - you’ll have to come to try them. For now, here are two of my favorite artichoke recipes. The first entirely on the comforting side, with wines I know I love with them. Artichokes are a key ingredient but the flavors are many, and the marinating dulls their spice. The next is more difficult but extremely delicious and summery. 

Mrs Bush’s Pasta 

(by my family friend Barbara Bush Bunaes, circa 1995) 

serves 6 entree portions 

1 pound of pasta with a small shape, like penne, farfalle or orecchiette, cooked to your liking in salted water

olive oil 

1 clove garlic 

1 pound shelled shrimp 

1 jar sundried tomatoes 

1 jar marinated artichoke hearts 

Lots of parmesan cheese to garnish. 

Heat two tablespoons olive oil in the biggest skillet or pan you have. Add one clove chopped garlic and sauté until tender. Fry the shrimp, cooking about 2 minutes per side. Turn the heat off and toss in the jars to coat. Add the pasta and toss with some cheese and olive oil. Serve in bowls topped with parmesan. 

Delicious with Cantina Giardino Paski, in the store now. 

Artichoke Salad 

Serves 2 

1 large or 2-3 baby artichokes 

1/4 lb Parmesan 

cup of Olive oil 

2 Lemons 

Maybe some arugula or greens if you want to serve over a bed of greens 

Prepare a bowl of cold water with a squeeze Peel the outer leaves from the artichoke. Using a mandoline or sharp knife, shave thin pieces of artichoke across the base. To keep them from oxidizing as you work, add the artichoke shavings to the water. Make many shavings of parmesan as well. Juice a lemon then slowly pour in olive olive to emulsify into a vinaigrette. Add salt to taste. When ready to serve, dry the artichoke shavings thoroughly, and top with vinaigrette. Add parmesan curls and more vinaigrette to taste. 

Try with Matassa Coume d'Olla blanc. 

Exciting new wines in store this week. Any questions, wine or food related, email us at rainbowwinechi@gmail.com or DM @rainbow_wines. See you soon! 

moments 4 life

Since it’s been warm I’ve been walking to my job at a flower shop, it’s my main time to myself and I mostly use it to totally unspool before doing customer service. I let my heart open and melt over the smallest things. At least half the time I listen to Nicki Minaj’s hit “Moment 4 Life”. The chicory growing underneath the train tracks at Wabansia & Leavitt. While chicory is not really a Chicago only thing, it does feel like a beautiful Chicago thing to me. Seeing the bluish purple mass of buds at the beginning of day fills me with energy while also grounding me. It is summer it is the morning.  By the time I walk home the flowers are closed, there will be new ones tomorrow.

Treated as a roadside weed in the city, Cichorium intybus (related to but distinct from one of my other favorites Cichorium endivia) was regarded as a symbol of its perseverance because of its long flowering season. Blue wild flowers are somewhat rarified and eye catching, which is likely while they catch my eye, and in the Middle Ages through 17th century were considered a source of apotropaic magic. From Greek meaning to ward off, apotropaic symbols and gestures help ward off evill You also may be familiar with chicory root as a coffee additive (like in Cafe du Monde blend coffee) or substitute. When chicory root is roasted inulin in the plant is converted to hydoxymethyl furfol, giving it a taste similar to a roasted coffee bean. A small trick for the brain when one cannot afford coffee and needs to also persevere through their day.*

chicory under the tracks

I wish that I could have this moment for life

For life, for life

'Cause in this moment, I just feel so alive

Alive, alive

Last Monday I helped my friend Mike cook a paella he had been thinking about. We invited a handful of friends over to eat it along with some snacks and drink some wine. Mike covered a bottle with a sock and poured out a liquid that fell between dark pink and light red. Everyone immediately knew what it was, in the sense knew that they knew it but couldn’t speak it. I saw the cork when Mike opened it so I couldn’t play in the traditional way but I didn’t want to be left out of the game. Mike’s roommate Kat, maybe the best/my favorite wine professional in Chicago, was really on the verge. I gave her a bad clue, a story from my life. The first time I had had this wine.

I was at Red & White Wine Bar with my friends Rebecca and Ari, we were making a pit stop before going to Rainbo Club for some other reason, I can’t remember. We asked Kat to pick our wine for us, “please”. Kat walked me into the store and we did a lap together before she picked up a bottle of something and said, “Have you had this? It is the best wine.” So it was that for us. The 2017 vintage was very watermelon juicy and shot immediately to your heart and to your brain. We drank it fast, the three of us were almost finished with the bottle (we were crushing it) when my crush walked in the bar. We were leaving and it was so hard to leave the opportunity to spend spontaneous time together (Cub and I were talking recently about how “stolen time” is so important in why we like natural wine which we can save for a future blog).

In the middle of repeating this I thought that maybe it’s not really a helpful story to Kat, it was actually just another night of service and there are many wines for her that are the best wine. She though did guess Lamoresca Rosato, which was the subject of the story and the sock covered bottle in question. Every time I drink that wine I remember the butterflies at the pit of my stomach. It makes me a bad wine professional because the personal attachment I have toward the wine prevents me from approaching it subjectively even though it changes in the bottle over time and between vintages. It makes me a good wine professional because I will do my part to make sure Fillippo Rizzo gets paid for his vintage, not that he really needs me in particular. The wine is very good.

All of my favorite wines have a mundane life story attached, that’s how they became my favorite. Every time they are revisited my memory opens up, my memories attached to the bottles combine with the present and offer a strand of connection, a narrative that is nice to attach to. About my friends, about the person who I usually don’t know who made this possible. The memory is summoned and it is changed by the present, connected to the new experience. It’s easy to accept nothing is the same but you can have a trace of feeling back. A lot of times I try to open something my friend and I have had in the past even if they can’t remember. And then I tell them about the last time so we can have that moment for life:)

                                                                     wines I left on Cub's porch for my crush

This is my moment, I waited all my life

I can tell it's time

Drifting away, I'm one with the sunsets

I have become alive

We are waiting on some Lamoresca Rosato right now and hope to have that along with a few bottles of olive oil and a mystery selection of new bottles in the shop for the weekend. If you’d like us to reserve you a bottle, let me know: rainbowwinechi@gmail.com

*My main source for this is this short article from the Journal for Experimental Botany 

this is also on my walk to work

Pesto!

 

Tomb 

In the dark of confinement this past winter, some of our friends created a game (kind of) called Tomb, in which you must choose 5 things in certain categories to take with you into the afterlife. For instance, you have 5 beverages you can have for all of time - and you can only have those beverages - what do you choose? If you are like 4 out of 7 of us, one of these is a keg of Pacifico. 

Two of the categories were “herbs” and “noodle dishes.” I listed Trofie al pesto as a noodle dish in my top 5. My herbs were parsley, chive, mint, thyme and marjoram. The rules of the game became confusing when Em pointed out that one couldn’t have pesto without basil. My retort to her was that you can have pesto without basil. Em said she never had that. I said yes, you did have it, at my house last summer. 

That was a fib. I made pesto with lots of mint, thyme and just some basil. This blog post is my confession to Em. 

Massimo Bottura 

At that time I had just watched Massimo Bottura’s MasterClass. I’m kind of embarrassed to say that I shelled out $180 to watch instructional/inspirational videos ranging widely in quality. It was spring 2020, a difficult and uncertain time. I watched all the chef Thomas Keller videos, which were really well-made and full of helpful insights, but involved making a lot of rich French food that made me feel sick. 

When I got to Bottura I was delighted. He is the man behind Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, and the author of Never Trust a Skinny Italian Chef. In the MasterClass videos, his Japanese sous chef Taka Kondo plays the straight man to his court jester, and it’s clear they just had a ball throwing a few of these classes together. There’s also lots of wisdom to be gleaned - from Bottura’s commitment to fighting food waste to his aphorisms like, “water is truth.” There is an episode on pesto, called, “an evolution of pesto,” called so because Bottura says, “we have always to be critic and not nostalgic” - not resting on the exact same way things have been done, when maybe those old ways are less practical, more wasteful, or simply don’t feel right in the moment. 

After he picks the herbs, he takes the bare stems and puts them into the boiling pasta water. When you watch classy chefs like Bottura or Keller you think about gesture, how they are placing things in things with such intention. 

He describes a scenario where you are making pesto, but you don’t have pine nuts, so you consider an alternative. Bottura settles on one of his favorite things - and one of his grandmother’s too - breadcrumbs - as a substitute. This is very useful since pine nuts are expensive and go bad quickly. 

Then, he says, maybe you don’t have so much basil. What do you use instead? I really appreciate this consideration, because I never seem to have enough basil. Even when we are growing it in the summer, mine often goes strong for a little but the leaves turn pale and fragile, and it often bolts if I don’t pay enough attention. By comparison, mint spreads and grows quickly. Thyme is heartier and easier to cultivate, or, if store-bought- stays fresh a little longer. Ideally for this type of recipe you are using herbs you just picked from your window box. 

The nostalgic pesto of my childhood 

I also admire how Bottura approaches garlic in pesto - an ingredient domineering in my early memories of the sauce. The pesto I had growing up was thick with chunks of muddy green, oxidized basil, bitter garlic and tons of parmesan. The oil and the paste separated easily. 

It was always delicious but a different creature altogether from Bottura’s creamy, bright green pesto. Fair warning: making pesto is both easy and a project. I definitely respect and understand buying it from a jar. It takes a little time calibrating your proportions of oil, water and herbs, and requires you to stop and mix up the blender contents repeatedly. Sometimes I find it pretty irritating, and a little messy. It requires a lot of herbs - I won’t mince words there. That can be expensive. But it also smells delicious in your kitchen and feels so much like summer. 

My friend Mac explained how every Italian household has its own pesto, its own preferred texture and palette of flavors. I love this idea. You can make your pesto as piecey or smooth as you like. It’s fun to play around with. 

The noodle

In the video, Massimo and Taka just use a nice dried fusilli. Trofie is a shape traditional to Liguria, the land of pesto. It is usually served with quarters of boiled potatoes. Both fusilli and trofie have ridges that trap pasta and sauce together. It’s special to make Trofie by hand. It’s a small shape that is time consuming to produce much of, perhaps the most time-consuming i have ever made. They are little delicate whispers of a noodle.

“Cooking is an act of love, and you do it for yourself” Bottura says. With that spirit to guide you, you can choose what pasta is best, dried or handmade. 

Trofie al Pesto 

A part of me wishes I could offer precise quantities, but pesto is more of an art than a science. I apologize in advance if this frustrates you - it has frustrated me too. Make sure you have lots of herbs on hand, at least 5 big handfuls full, after picking. 

For the Pesto: 

Makes about 1 cup 

Garlic bulb, halved 

“Garlic is very aggressive in taste,” Bottura says. He slices a bulb in half and gently rubs it once around the blender pitcher, that’s it. 

Herbs that don’t trample each other’s flavors, like Mint, Nasturtium, Thyme, Basil, maybe some oregano 

Extra Virgin Olive oil, about ½ cup 

Parmigiano Reggiano or another aged cheese, like a pecorino, or aged goat cheese, grated thinly (optional - can use more breadcrumbs instead) about ¼ cup

Breadcrumbs, about ½ c 

Salt to taste 

Swipe the garlic bulb cut side around the inside of your blender. Taka puts olive oil into the basin of the blender first. Then he adds your leafy herbs. Then add your cheese if using. Add more olive oil, but not so much as to saturate the herbs - you should still have big leafy pieces. Mix up, then add cool, good tasting water, slowly, incorporating as you go. You will probably have to stop and start the blender a few times to get all the pieces smooth. If you want a creamy texture, you will need more cold water and patience to run the blender for a longer time. Taste as you go, adding salt when needed. 

For the Pasta:  

To make the pasta dough, consult Em’s semolina + water dough blog post. 

To shape the trofie, roll your dough into long, thin (about ¼”) logs. Using a knife or a bench scraper, slice short segments of the dough on a sharp diagonal bias. Take the flat of the knife or bench scrape and apply pressure while rolling the piece along the edge. You will get a curly little flute shape. Toss prepared noodles with semolina in a baking sheet and keep a dampish towel over them, storing in a cool place while you work on the others. 

Boil noodles for about 45 seconds. They will float to the surface when they are ready. Keep some pasta water. Toss the noodles in the pesto sauce, being generous. Add a little extra virgin olive oil for some shine. Add a little pasta water for some creaminess. Serve right away. 

Keeping in mind Bottura’s freedom of exploration and experimentation, I would suggest a nontraditional pairing. The fresh, vibrant Le Puits from Les Vin Contes. It’s a chardonnay and sauvignon blanc blend that is crisp but delicate, and won’t overwhelm the flavors of the herbal green sauce. 

you can put some nasturium leaves if you have them!