Boxed In

O.K., I'm going to be the first to admit that I'm a guy who goes on jags. I get obsessed with something and milk it until I hate myself. For instance, this summer, I turned my tiny kitchen into a sauna making pizza several times a week. And gained several pounds. And increased my carbon footprint from overusing my stove. All because I fell in love with Pizzeria Mozza and became obsessed with making the perfect pizza. I failed miserably but it was a delicious fiasco. And just recently I came up with some new ideas that I'm sure will create a new spasm of pizzamania. Stay tuned. My current obsession is boxed wines; not great right now because I have a cold, but kinda great because I'm poor. In concept it's fantastic - two to four bottles of wine for a reasonable price stored in a vessel, i.e., plastic bag with a spigot, that doesn't allow external oxygen which degrades wine. You can store it for weeks on end, it stacks, you're not wasting glass, it's kinda cool looking. But in practice, I'm - to put it kindly - underwhelmed. I should start off by saying that I have a fairly good palate for wine. I have been lucky enough to have access to some fantastic wines and while I don't drink first growth Bordeaux every weekend, I taste a few hundred different wines a year, a couple of which one might consider hoity toity. So I know my Barolos from my Barberas d'Alba. But I'm also not a snob. Good wine is good wine. Which brings me to the box. My first real encounter with boxed wines was in Montreal, where their wine consumption per capita is probably much higher than ours. I remember being surprised at how tasty it was (it was a Frenchy wine). Boxed wine is popular overseas: in Australia (boozers) and Scandinavia, where the alcohol taxes are so high, bulk alcohol sells well. So with the increasing consumption of wine in the U.S., it's only natural that the boxes beyond Franzia should follow. Stateside, it comes in the likes of Black Box, Carmenet, Delicato and Target (via Trinchero). There are others - Hardy's in Australia and some California options, but I haven't gotten to them yet. Here are my impressions of the few I did taste: Target Pinot Noir California 2006 - Short finish, not quite tart, not quite soft. Just kinda there. Very little pinot character, very generic. Gets a C-. Target Pinot Grigio California 2006 - Candied and uninteresting, which was a surprise since a bunch of online reviews gave it high marks. It's like someone took a fair-to-middling Italian pinot grigio and dropped in a Brach's butterscotch. I drank it but I failed to see its charms. Target Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz California 2006 - Not bad in my congested state. Soft tannins, but not a pushover wine. A short, pleasant finish, good acidity. Perfect for a grill picnic with a bunch of people you don't care to impress with your wine generosity. Actually, the most quaffible of the bunch. Carmenet Vintner's Collection Merlot California 2003 - I got this at BevMo and was shocked to see it on sale for $9.99. For 3-liters. That's approaching 2 Buck Chuck territory. And back when this label was owned by the Chalone Wine Group, it was pretty respectable, so I was thinking it was going to be a score. In fact, it was a dud. Faded and old in an unpleasant way - but not corked. That doesn't happen with wine in a bag. Imagine the wine equivalent of finding a Kit Kat two years after the Halloween you first received it. It looks like a Kit Kat, it has many of the qualities of a Kit Kat - waxy chocolate, some sort of cookie inside, brown - but it's not at all palatable. But here I am, drinking it. Since the wine is four years old and on sale, I'm guessing that Carmenet is getting out of the boxed wine business and I'm witnessing first hand why. Black Box Wines Chardonnay Monterey County 2006 - This is the first box wine that really tried to set itself apart from the jug wine crowd by saying that it was a "premium wine," whatever that means. It's a tad pricier than the others and it's attached to a wine region, not just a state or country. It's actually a drinkable chard with a pleasant, buttery and slightly piney nose. On the palate, it's oaky and inoffensive with almost no finish and therefore characterless. That's harsh. It's somewhat characterless, but drinkable. __________________________________________ And I suppose that's what you want in a wine that you buy 4 bottles to the bag: Drinkable. I just wish there were more that were. But it's such a niche in the American wine world, I kinda understand. In trying to reach the wine box crowd, they're going medium fastball, straight over the plate. Nothing too acidic, nothing too tannin-y. Therefore nothing too interesting. These wines are the equivalent of Ragu in the early-80s. Here was a watery concoction that resembled spaghetti sauce in some abstract sense, but was engineered to appeal to the entire population. But unlike the presidency, we eaters can choose from a plethora of choices. We can pick plain, zesty, chunky, meaty and all combinations therein. This is fabulously illustrated in a Malcolm Gladwell lecture on taste expert, Howard Moskowitz. Winemakers like DTour are already taking the cue and making boxed wines for a more discerning crowd that still drinks in volume (Holla!). When they make it out west, I'll be sure to let you know how they taste.

The Best Show on TV

I’m currently waiting for my fourth meal of Thanksgiving leftovers to heat up in the toaster oven (Monday’s turkey tetrazzini, leftovers of leftovers) and I’m sipping on a dreadful zinfandel, a tart and bitter 2005 Beaulieu Vineyard (but I’m still drinking it). It’s about as far away as you can get from what I saw this morning on After Hours with Daniel, the best show on television these days. Sadly, the show is available only on the cable HD network, Mojo, but you can get the first season on DVD at Netflix.

The concept is: celebrity chef, Daniel Boulud, visits the kitchen of a snazzy restaurant and cooks a late night meal with the chef there for a star-studded guest list. It’s not a cooking show nor is it a true reality show. It’s more like a gustatory fantasy that encompasses all the best parts of eating: the preparation, the presentation and the company. It’s also a chance to see the best chefs in America “let their hair down” and really cook the things that they love and then talk about it. The first season combed the restaurants of Manhattan (WD-50, Daniel, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, Blue Ribbon Sushi, Maremma, Cru, BLT Prime, and Aquavit) and the second season delves into the blossoming LA scene.

In today’s episode, Daniel cooked with Nancy Silverton at Pizzeria Mozza and I just about died from empathic ecstasy. I should first mention that Pizzeria Mozza, a joint venture with Silverton, Mario Batali and Joseph Bastianich, is one of my favorite restaurants in Los Angeles. The pizza can be doughy around the edges, but otherwise it’s a fantastic thin crust pizza with lovely burnt bits. I happen to love extra crust to chew on and their toppings are unique. Pizza with wild nettles and finnochiona, pizza with squash blossoms and burrata, a pizzete with chanterelles, scallions and guanciale, etc. They change from season to season. But it’s the vegetable antipasti that are truly stunning. Brussels sprouts, broccoli rabe, cauliflower – they’re prepared simply in a way that’s transcendent. So Silverton brought all these dishes out while Daniel roasted a home-cured ham and a pork shoulder made from milk-fed Quebecois pigs. And for 30 minutes, the world disappeared.

To paraphrase celebrity guest, Phil Rosenthal, “A good meal is like a little vacation.” It’s so true. Each of my visits to Pizzeria Mozza has been a (semi-pricey, but not obscenely so) hourlong getaway from the mundanities of daily life. A perfect pizza al funghi with a little quartino of Soave will do more for the soul than any spa treatment or weekend getaway. But top it off with pork product from Daniel Boulud and you’re talking Fantasy Island-level vacation.

And this is what makes After Hours so good. You get to see the work of good chefs augmented by the presence of one of the world’s greatest chefs making the food that they love to eat. Daniel will make something like roasted pineapple stuffed with hand made pineapple ice cream and then declare apologetically that it's a dish too simple to serve at any of his restaurants. And it’s also interesting to see the difference between West Coast and East Coast chefs (represent!). The Manhattan chefs kind of do their things: Marcus Samuelsson makes his Swedish meatballs and Wylie Dufresne does his weird molecular gastronomy stuff. But in L.A., lesser known chefs like Ben Ford and Michael Cimarusti pull out all the stops to try to impress and challenge Chef Daniel.

The irony is that in the first episode, Daniel says that he is excited to come to L.A. to learn how to “cook simple.” He makes rustic foods like stuffed tripe or head cheese, while the upstarts serve Australian lobster sashimi and mojito spheres. Veterans like Nancy Silverton and Joachim Splichal tend to cook more confidently, while young guns like Sang Yoon and Quinn Hatfield seem like they have something to prove, which is great. Either way, the food looks fantastic and exciting. It’s a great time to be an L.A. diner.

Beyond the Burrito

Los Angeles is a culinary goldmine, especially when it comes to (cheap) ethnic cuisine. Vietnamese, Thai, Salvadoran, Armenian, etc. So it comes as a surprise that it is not known for their burritos. On the burrito front, Northern California comes out way ahead. I have fond memories 25 years ago of the burritos at Super Taqueria in San Jose or El Toro in San Francisco but the only remembrance I have of burritos here is the giant "Pregnant Burrito" at El Nopal in Palms. And not because it was good, but because it was the size of a Tonka truck. This doesn't mean that I haven't had good burritos in L.A. The carnitas burrito at Senor Fish is delicious, as is their scallop one. The vegetarian burrito at Chabelitas is scrumptious. Which brings me to my point: it's not that burritos in L.A. are inferior, but the rest of the Mexican cuisine here is so spectacular, no one cares about a tortilla sock stuffed with beans and meat. And for me to call a burrito Mexican is debatable. The multi-layered version we gringos know, with the beans, meat, cheese and salsa, is far more a California product than it is a Mexican creation. Its goal seems to be to overwhelm with quantity rather than quality. Taco Bell announces, "We've got a seven layer burrito!" Del Taco responds, "Oh, yeah? We've got an eight layer burrito!" But why get a burrito when you can get chuletas en pasilla at La Cabanita? Or the quesadilla con borrego at My Taco? Or the tacos al pastor at La Estrella? There's so much depth in Mexican cuisine, why would I settle for a pedestrian burrito? Case in point: Last week I was in a minimall with a friend when I saw a tiny hole-in-the-wall spot selling these huge sandwiches. Even though I had already had lunch, I wanted to try one and my friend, who's Mexican American, said, "Oh, these things are everywhere." But I had never seen them before. They're called cemitas poblanas and my friend was wrong. They're not everywhere. Essentially, it's a hard-ish sesame seed roll that's been heated up on a grill and stuffed with meat, avocado slices, panella cheese (a fresh Mexican cheese), sometimes onions and cilantro and finished with a slathering of either zingy jalapeño or a smoky chipotle salsa. So here's their story (according to the Internet and Jonathan Gold): it's basically a street food from the city of Puebla in the state of Puebla which is almost smack in the middle of Mexico. I guess there was an influx of Europeans in the 19th century, which may account for the use of bread, but according to lore, the term "cemitas" refers to the Lebanese, or Semites, who immigrated there. Traditionally, the sandwich meat used is milanesa, thin, pounded steak that's been dusted and deep fried. Stateside, cemitas are more popular in the Mexican neighborhoods of Chicago and Brooklyn, but there are a few places here that make them. The closest place to my house is El Ruby Cafe on San Fernando Road in Glendale. It's been around for awhile and they serve only one variant of the cemitas poblanas, with the milanesa. It was tasty and the salsa was just the right amount of hot, but the meat was stringy and tough and the bread (the most important part) was on the chewy side. A few minutes further south in East L.A. is Cemitas Poblanas Elvirita, which has a solid following. It's a box-shaped restaurant that looks like a small converted bingo hall. The rolls there is crisper than El Ruby's, but a bit on the thin side. The milanesa was more tender and flavorful. I also tried a cemita with barbacoa - long cooked meat, usually lamb - and it was a little oily and stringy. I'd read a fair amount about this place and was somewhat disappointed. I did enjoy a Mexican Coke there - much better than the American version which uses high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. I like it because it's less sweet, plus there's something about drinking Coke from a bottle. My favorite cemitas place was the first one I visited, Don Adrian, in Van Nuys. Though it was the smallest of the three, it had the largest menu. Pork, beef, ham, milanesa, head cheese, fried chicken, tongue, pickled tripe - they had it all. I opted for the barbacoa and it was just stunning. Piles of tender, juicy lamb on a fresh bun that was hard on the outside and soft like a memory foam pillow on the inside. The onion/cilantro relish they use on it cuts through the richness of the meat. Not bad for $5.50. The biggest and best of the sandwiches I tried, hands down. My two week romance with cemitas poblanas is still in its infancy. There is still much to explore - the taco truck that sells them outside the Smart and Final at Pico and Cotner, the place on Sherman Way and the other variants I have yet to try at Don Adrian. Who needs burritos?

Champagne Bottle Hits the Ship's Bow

I just went to a wine tasting in Venice, CA on behalf of a wine store my friends own where I feasted about delicious things and drank the wines of Languedoc. Languedoc, one of the most productive wine regions in the world; a region in southern France that produces more wine than the entire state of California. Suck it, Napa. But the wines were merely drinkable. Only three showed distinction, but what they were is not important for today's post. Today is about grocery shopping. I do most of my shopping at Trader Joe's and every so often, Costco, because I'm cheap. And every time I go - it's almost guaranteed - I will find either frozen food on an unrefrigerated shelf or refrigerated food stuffed into the freezer section. They're left by shoppers who either decide they don't need what they chose or they find, say, a more desirous frozen version of what they picked up in the fresh section, so they take it and leave the fresh version in the freezer. To me, this is no different than shoplifting. If you leave a bag of fresh spinach to crystallize in the freezer because you found the cheaper and less salmonella-filled frozen version, this renders the fresh spinach unsellable. It will be wilty and unappetizing. You have just stolen from Trader Joe's. Just because you couldn't walk three aisles over to put it back. You are a selfish dick. So the predicament then is: if I, as an innocent shopper, come across a (as in the case yesterday) a tub of spinach dip that some schmuck dumped in the freezer, do I take it out and put it on the nearby cracker shelf? If I do and no one puts back to be refrigerated, it will go bad. Or do I leave it where it is to freeze? Where it will also go bad, but in a less infectious way. Or do I truck it back to the fresh food section to put it back? Because I have the letters "S" "A" "P" tattooed on my forehead. Obviously, I do the latter. I'm a sap. I admit it. I'm the type of guy who will get dumped and then lend $100 to the girl who just dumped me even though I never got past second base with her. That's a true story. But I rescue this tub of spinach dip not because I want to save Trader Joe's a buck. It's the principle. Don't waste food. Preserve the world's resources. Do you know how many starving kids there are in China? I couldn't give a rat's ass about the economics of it. I'm the dick who, ten years ago, knowingly bought wine from Trader Joe's that was mispriced. It was priced at $12.49 when it retailed for $50. I bought three bottles, went home, re-checked the price on the Internet, then went back and bought the rest of the case. That's a 75% savings. My comeuppance came when every bottle of the wine I opened tasted unremarkable, if not mediocre. The moral of the story is, if you don't want the frozen peas, don't just dump them on the canned peas shelf. Because I will find you! I will make you feel shame! I will make you never forsake a frozen vegetable again in your life. Or let you freeze a fresh one. Walk the 100 feet to put it back, you lazy food waster.