Monthly Archives: May 2010
Gourmet Underground Detroit's content archives are organized by date and catalog the aggregated content of our Features pages as well as our blog.
The Month of May
May began for me at the stroke of midnight on the first with a gathering of friends, some new and some old, hosted by James Cadariu, the green coffee buyer and blender for Great Lakes Coffee. And it’s coming to an end shortly, likely with some sort of family gathering over Memorial Day. In between, it’s been a good time for all my gustatory habits.
James poured us a Romanian rosé from Davino that I believe is a blend of cab and merlot aged in stainless. It was delicious, semi-dry stuff with a tremendous amount of body and flavor.
Jared Gild at Western Market in Ferndale has spurred the brilliant addition of a natural meat freezer at the store. From it, I plucked a pound of frozen buffalo meat. It made delicious burgers, closer to a typical beef patty than anything else but much, much lighter feeling. Almost airy, if such a thing is possible.
I decided to play around one night, muddling rhubarb with just a bit of simple syrup and to it adding aquavit, sloe gin, limoncello, and lemon juice. The resulting drink tasted quite a bit like tart cranberry. Something in me likes the paradox in the name “European Cranberry” for the drink, but that’s a mouthful and a rather dull mouthful at that.
I went to Chicago for a wedding, arriving a few days early to sample some of the city’s culinary offerings. The Purple Pig on Michigan Avenue served me a nice glass of burgundy with this whipped goat cheese and roasted beet salad as well as a glass tub of pork rillettes accompanied by toast and preserved apricot.
Dinner that same evening was at Longman & Eagle, where I had a Zabuton of Dietzler Farms beef — essentially a steak prepared sous vide and then seared. It was served over asparagus, morels, and gnocchi with bone marrow on top and a black olive caramel to the side. Yes, black olive caramel. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.
I also drank a few cocktails, including a unique creation of the bartender, Derek, called the Carpathian that consisted of Aperol and Fernet Branca topped with birch beer over ice. It was too strange to pass up (much like the black olive caramel sauce) and too delicious to last more than 5 minutes sitting on the bar in front of me.
I could live entirely off of places within stumbling distance of the blue line of Chicago’s “L.” I wandered parallel to the tracks, down Milwaukee Avenue, until I hit The Whistler, a small cocktail bar serving lovely drinks. I haven’t tried to replicate them yet, but they were delicious. The “Slippery Slope” featured bourbon, Punt e Mes, Apricot Liqueur, some kind of amaro, and lemon juice. And the “Fig Leaf” was made from Carpano Antica, rum, lime juice, and bitters.
The Violet Hour was a highlight for me. Over two nights, I had nine drinks at this posh Bucktown/Wicker Park spot, but it was the first hour of the first night that really sticks out. In glancing at the menu, I noticed a drink that used Cherry Heering and egg yolk. Not white. Yolk. I understand that yolks played some role in early variants of a gin fizz among other things, but not in one of the 6 or 8 first-rate cocktail bars that I’ve visited had I seen a contemporary drink that made use of the generally discarded fatty cousin of the egg white. And Cherry Heering? Other than a singapore sling, who the hell uses that as an ingredient, let alone a primary ingredient? The beverage, termed “The Golden Age,” came to me in a tall glass with crushed ice and drank like a cherry milkshake. A few rounds of back and forth with the bartender over the various qualities of the drink, and I was hooked for the next three or four hours… and another two-and-a-half hours the next night. (The drink pictured is a Bitter Giuseppe, 1/3 Carpano and 2/3 Cynar with, I believe, a very gentle dose of citrus as well as the lemon peel garnish.)
Red & White is a small, brilliantly stocked wine shop several long blocks northwest of The Violet Hour. Natural wine and small production stuff from around the world, all generally priced from 15-50 dollars a bottle, is pretty much all they do — save for the occasional obscure spirit, like the bottle of Ransom Old Tom gin I bought. One of the proprietors, Nathan, took a few moments to chat, and I had to push my burgeoning sense of jealousy back into the pit of my stomach from whence it came. Several of the wines from Domaine de Briseau/Christian Chaussard were stocked, and I couldn’t resist purchasing a bottle of Patapon, made exclusively from Pineau d’Aunis. I want all of this in Detroit.
While at Longman & Eagle, I’d been alternating between conversations with the bartenders and other patrons and reading the most recent issue of The Art of Eating. The cover story was about Iowa pork. The first thing mentioned was the prosciutto-style ham aged by La Quercia. So when I visited the uber-popular restaurant The Publican the next night and saw La Quercia Rossa among their charcuterie offerings, I had to get it. Mild yet clear and focused, the flavor is outstanding. Very delicate. I’m not any sort of expert, but it’s certainly the best American-made product of this style that I’ve ever had. From what I gather, the ham is made not from the whole leg but only from the best part along the femur. The rest of the dinner was excellent as well, but the sheer coincidence (and the thinly sliced fatty goodness) made the ham memorable.
We did the wedding on Friday and Saturday, and that was a treat — including the seemingly non-stop parade of Indian food. After gorging myself for four days, I vowed to take it easy on Monday — until I remembered that we’d decided to meet my grandparents and dad at Slows BBQ in Detroit Monday evening. While some brisket was melting on my tongue, my grandmother told me she’d left a gift at my house for me. When I got home, I discovered Treasured Polish Recipes for Americans.
My grandma is the one who taught me how to make pierogi that my co-blogger saw fit to mention in the Metro Times, and she’s an eager proponent of the recipes contained within this Other Little Red Book. Someday, I hope to make Beggar’s Cake — a rich construction built from 40 eggs and 12 sticks of butter, among other things, that gets roasted on a wooden rod over open flame. Intense. For now, I’ll stick to pierogi, beets, cabbage, and maybe some tripe if I’m feeling “old country.”
Complaints? Not a one. Here’s to May.
Three Perfect Bottles of Wine: A Social Media Success Story
Thanks to the modern era and social networking, friends can easily share their mundane activities in real time. But occasionally, a photo like this flows into the data stream and immediately prompts salivation and subsequent impromptu drinking session a few days later.
After cappuccino and a Captain Handsome cocktail, we uncork the bottle that brought us together, Olivier Lemasson – Les Vins Contés 2007 Le P’tit Rouquin. It’s just as fresh and delicious as the first time I tasted it two years ago:
The sun is shining today. At the Detroit zoo, polar bears sleep in their meadow and peacocks brazenly display for peahens. Small children roar at lions and attempt to jump as far as a kangaroo. The breeze is cool enough to wear sleeves.
After an early supper of Delmonico grilled over hardwood and a brisk salad composed mostly of dandelion greens I motor down I-75 to Mexicantown where most of a bottle of Les Vins Contés 2007 Le P’tit Rouquin Vin de Pays du Loir-et-Cher waits for me.
Slanderous accusations are aimed at the aromas radiating from misty red wineglasses of this old-vines gamay. I do not understand. There is chalkboard (my old friend), berry-fruit salad, laughter and cinnamon red-hots. The floor appropriately thumps as I drain glass after glass and downstairs Steve Jarosz prepares for his weekly gig with Grupo Escobar at Sangria in downtown Royal Oak.
This is the kind of exceptionally drinkable red I want access to all summer — to pull from the cooler after a long day canoeing when the sun goes orange behind the trees of the northwoods or to splash into friend’s glasses on the front porch. In ways it reminds me of Emmanuel Houillon Poulsard, not necessarily in flavor, but disposition. I want a case of cases.
Desiring my contribution to this hedonistic conference to be at least as good as the gamay, earlier I braved the smartly dressed, middle-aged hooligans walking the sidewalks six abreast in Royal Oak to hit Elie Wine Co. for a bottle of 2005 François Cazin Cour-Cheverny Cuvée Renaissance.
Produced exclusively from the highly acidic ancient local grape Romorantin, the Cuvée Renaissance is only made in very ripe vintages and vinified to demi-sec for a fat drink of ripe tropical fruits. The nose is all grapes. We drink it easily and without pretense.
I alternate sips of Cour-Cheverny with great whiffs of the over-ripe mango that’s lying on the dining table next to me. It’s a fine pairing though I crave flaky pastry crust to wash it all down.
Not to be outdone by Loire Valley drinks, a Sicilian beauty, 2008 Occhipinti SP68 Rosso Vittoria, seduces us with aromas of cherry, blood and lush rainforest vegetation. We all pick out distinct aroma memories from our glasses – more often than not the mark of an unforgettable wine.
The brilliant red SP68 is a blend of Sicilian Frappato and Nero di Avola grapes, the former contributing light, fresh and tart fruitiness, the latter, sweet tannins, spice and plum. Together they make a pure wine that is both fleet and enduring and speaks of life and Earth.
Rarely does a gathering involve such a fine succession of wine. There is almost always disappointment, or at least indifference, from a bottle or two. But this is why we drink wine, or participate in any epicurean pastime, for the surprises and joys. Far from taking the place of these real life connections, the role of the internet and social media, when used efficiently, facilitates them.
Anri Carved Wood Bottle Stops
I can relate to people who are able to incorporate drinking adult beverages into their hobbies. So when Ferndale’s Doug and Tracey Iverson showed me their collection of amazing Italian carved-wood bottle stops I couldn’t help but snap a few photos to share.
The production of these stoppers was not limited; thousands were manufactured by Anri from 1912 through 1976 and sold in North America and Europe. They are not particularly uncommon nor do any but the rarest of them sell for much over $50. Nevertheless, as I went through the Iverson’s collection, I couldn’t help but be fascinated the human expression on some of these simple carved and painted figures.
The original carvings were actually caricatures of the villagers who carved them and no two are exactly alike. The most common models are kissing couples, hat tippers and drinkers, many including simple moving parts with internal connections.
Though these bottle stops aren’t exactly practical to use everyday they are definitely entertaining.
A stately figure
Doesn’t appear to be music that’s going through his mind
My favorite — the lecherous old man
This one had a molded plastic head. Apparently a newer model.
Who is the brains of this operation?
Down the hatch!
This guy looks German
Village doctor perhaps?
This dude has a sandwich. He knows how to lay a base before drinking
Brew Your Own
The desire usually starts with some kind of revelation. Mine was in the early ’90s at a tattoo parlor on Spain’s Costa del Sol, where an old, salty machinist with a bottlebrush moustache brought me a glass of roasty Guinness Extra Stout to sip on while I was being inked. He had hoped to make my face pucker with a shock of flavor unlike that of any mass-produced American beer I had been drinking up until then. The opposite happened.
Just like that, a vast world of beer appeared before my eyes — and I spent the next dozen years trying hundreds of diverse brands and styles of beer, everything I could get my hands on, the journey peaking with a half-liter hoist to the oompah band playing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” to an international crowd of thousands partying underneath the grandest beer tent in the world at Bavaria’s Oktoberfest.
The next natural step was to brew my own.
Ever since civilization’s founding members discovered that soggy grain would eventually ferment into an intoxicating gruel, man has been brewing beer at home. For millennia, brewing was mostly a domestic pursuit, first with the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, on to the Greeks and Romans, and eventually into medieval Europe, where alewives served thirsty villagers, and nearly everyone drank beer — because it was safer than water.
Homebrewing in the United States was fairly common in the colonial era until thousands of commercial breweries popped up during the Industrial Revolution. It saw a short gain in popularity again during Prohibition, when breweries were no longer able to sell beer, though some, like Detroit’s own Stroh’s Brewing Company, stayed alive in part by selling cans of hop-infused malt syrup for baking purposes (wink, wink).
In fact, homebrewing was illegal then and stayed illegal until Congress signed a bill in 1978 allowing states to drop restrictions on homebrewing. Today, most states permit households 100 gallons of beer per person for personal consumption, except, of course, Alabama.
About five years later, nuclear engineer Charlie Papazian would pen The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, for years the only mass-market volume to present detailed information on brewing small scale in your home and eventually known to fervent do-it-yourselfers as the “Homebrewing Bible.” Though not without its pages of technical charts and data, Papazian advocated a laid-back approach to brewing and, above all, to “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.” These days, there’s no shortage of books on the subject, but you’ll still find fans of Papazian’s tome crafting batches of “Goat Scrotum Ale” from the recipes section.
Through the ’80s and ’90s, tens of thousands of zealous homebrewers discovered that beer didn’t have to be the watery yellow swill the macrobreweries were pushing, and they promptly shouted this declaration to all their friends through a bullhorn. It wasn’t long before the demand for better, more flavorful beer spurred the craft brewing revolution. After all, homebrewers are also great consumers of beer, always looking to taste something new, perhaps with a clever name and a bit of history attached.
This was a time when scores of brewpubs and microbreweries were being started, many by homebrewers. Seriously passionate folks like Larry Bell, who founded Kalamazoo Brewing Company as a homebrewing supply shop in 1983. It’s now known as Bell’s Brewery and you can find a six-pack of Bell’s in just about every beer store in Michigan and gas stations too.
It doesn’t take much to become a homebrewer, other than a nagging desire to craft your own versions of the world’s best beers — and a few pieces of relatively inexpensive equipment. At the most elementary level, it’s possible to brew a batch of beer with only a large stockpot, a can of hopped malt syrup similar to what Stroh’s sold during Prohibition, a small packet of dried ale yeast and a plastic bucket to ferment it all in.
Most who catch the fever will be ever-expanding their equipment. It will start with minor things, like bottle-cappers and immense stir spoons that will have you looking like one of Macbeth’s witches at the cauldron. Six-gallon glass carboys with airlocks will reduce the risk of contamination by outside microfauna. An old cooler can easily be converted into a small “lauter tun” that will allow you to use cracked barley grains instead of malt syrup.
Once you move from malt syrups to an all-grain system of brewing, you can easily make quality, high-octane and tasty brews for a fraction of the cost of commercial beers. A little careful planning and it’s possible to bring costs down to around $2.50 per six-pack. Some brewers will even go as far as creating dispensing systems out of old refrigerators and soda kegs, foregoing the bottling stage altogether. These people always have ample supplies of homebrew and easily make good friends.
Homebrewing isn’t limited to just beer. Michigan grows apples aplenty; during harvest season it’s easy to find mills pressing unpreserved and unpasteurized juice, usually containing enough natural yeast to begin fermenting of its own accord and producing a dry, tasty cider. Fresh grape juice is a little harder to come by in this region, but homebrew supply shops sell a wide variety of concentrates, if making wine is more your speed. And then there is mead, or honeywine, the drink of Greek gods and Anglo-Saxon heroes. Honey is a near perfect vehicle to ferment with all sorts of fruits or spices.
There are so many reasons to brew your own: a deep connection to your ancestors, cost savings, the ability to tweak recipes to your taste or merely getting your friends drunk while bragging about your own skills. Is there a more righteous hobby? The only question is where and when your revelation will appear.
This article first appeared in the Metro Times
