Foodie Guilt

I want to replace the word "foodie" with something else. First of all, adding a diminutive "-ie" to the end of anything used to describe adults makes me want to punch a panda. (Those things really don't want to live, anyway. Look it up.)
Secondly, to add "-ie" to any mundane noun that we all require for survival is just asinine.

I'm an airie! No one enjoys breathing more than I do. I can identify different types of air. This one is cold; this one is warm and thick -- ooh! This one reminds us of the air we breathed that one time in fucking ROME. Have you been to fucking ROME? You should go. You'll love the air.

Food is a sensual experience. It transcends the metabolic and becomes, like art and music, that which nourishes our imaginations, our aesthetics, the undefinable soul. You can eat a Big Mac and instantly be seven years old again, sitting across from your grandmother in those shiny plastic booths looking at a Mayor McCheese statue. You can bite a forkful of risotto and be in Piedmont on your first Europe trip, scared to death of your new lover and picking fights to make sure they aren't going to just leave you there when things get ugly.

I once took a bite of refried beans at this old-school Tex-Mex dive and cried a little. Of all the refried beans in town, these were the exact flavor of those found in a bean and cheese burrito I used to get every day before work in San Clemente, CA. It was right before my mom died. I was living in my car and on friends' couches. I was 22 and wrote and drew in a huge sketch book every day. I was free and my whole life was before me and I ate this damned burrito until it proclaimed itself the author of this whole period of my life. Surely you have a burrito like that.

Anyhow, I get it. You love food. But you want to distinguish yourself from the others who love food - you really love food. But you aren't a chef or anything. You might have read Jeffrey Steingarten, watch "Top Chef" religiously, cook from the Julia Childs cookbook. Have a subscription to Bon Appetit.

Or let's go a step higher, yes?

You took a cooking-class vacation in Emilia-Romagna; you went to Brooklyn to learn to take apart a pig. You wear a t-shirt that says "Offal sweet." You read everything you can get your hands on about food, cooking, even hunting.
You're committed (or rich).

Awesome. Terrific. Passion = good. Learning = good. You want to define it. Who you are, your commitment. You want to say Take me seriously, give me the good eats, because I ain't no plebian palate!

So "foodie." This is it. The moniker for both types, and everything in between. Maybe you hate it and want a better word, but you hesitate to come up with one because you tend to shirk such easy definitions of yourself. And "food snob" makes you insanely sick to your stomach (or should).

To you demoted souls, I feel you. Just remember, a person is defined by their actions. Order the tongue and I'll appreciate your foodieness. Mostly, order it without pomp or a weird affected accent (you wouldn't believe how often I get this when guys order, especially wine), or a sinister wink to your date (rettttch), and I'll appreciate that you Get It. That you are One of the Good Ones. You are a better lover, a better liver, and a better companion.

But show up in my section and make tortured, twisted faces when I suggest the lamb's tongue sautéed with wild-honey pan sauce, but announce that because you are such big "foodies," then you "should get it," and I will know you for the insecure, bandwagon-leaping imposters that you are.

And you are legion.

The Week in Wankers

There was this couple griping in German about the hostess; their server happened to speak and understand German. She held her tongue until they'd ordered, received their meal and were halfway through it, then asked - in perfect German - if it was good.

Ah, sweet Demütigung!

A nice old lady asked me for a bottle of "the Tuscan Chardonnay", a roasted chestnutty little thing by Felsina, one of the most respected producers in Tuscany. Then she asked me "Is it DRYYYYY?" (See Catastrophic Post-Modernist Nightmare) I asked her what she usually likes to drink. She said, "I hate to admit it, but Yellowtail."
"Trust me. You'll love this. It's infinitely more interesting, layered and subtle than that butterball."
"Fine," she said. "And could you bring a glass of ice with it?"

Later, her trashy little granddaughter showed up, in fake tan and stiletto boots, all of 21, 22. She loudly proclaimed to her grandmother that she ought to try one of her mussels. The grandmother said, "What are they like?"
"They're just like oysters," the girl replied loudly, obviously pleased with herself. "They taste like slimy fish."
Wrong three different ways in one breath. Most impressive.

A late table came in, about five minutes before closing. She was already drunk. He was enabling. She announced, with a boredom that still managed to sound zealous, that she used to run a wine bar. Then she slurred, "I don't like sweet. Nothing sweet."
(See For the Love of GAWD, people, stop saying you hate sweet wine cause you don't and you shouldn't anyway but it doesn't matter cause you DON'T...)
I described a Salice Salentino to her as a lush and juicy blueberry with peppery wood tannins and nice acidity to balance the fruit, and she said "Hellloo? I told you I don't like 'sweet'."
It took me a second to realize she meant the reference to blueberries.
"It's not a Jolly Rancher," I said. "But it is made from fruit, so..."

Ran a wine bar, my ass. More like ran BY a wine bar.
Once.
In Borneo.

"What does brown butter ice cream taste like?"
"And the creme fraiche?"

My favorite exchange of the week, though, was courtesy of my coworker, C___, whose deadpan deliveries are the kind of genetic superpower I might have had if I weren't conceived on hallucinogens.
After scanning the very short dessert menu for some time, a lady looked up at C____ and said,
"I like chocolate ice cream, what do you suggest?"
"Amy's," he answered, referring to our local ice cream chain.

Guess you had to be there.

The catastrophic postmodernist nightmare that is the discussion of the wine list

When was the last time communication was so bad between you and another person that it made your face actually come off, walk outside, and have a cigarette without you?

For me, it happens almost nightly.
Come on, how bad can it be?
Try this exchange, which really for super-cereal real happened, about a week ago (for the purposes of added insight, the female guest shall be known as Shiraz-Seeker):

Shiraz-Seeker: (perusing list with a distinct look of utter confusion because it has no Shiraz on it) I want a red wine but I don't like a real dry wine.

Me: When you say "dry", do you mean you don't want something that feels very tannic?

Shiraz-Seeker: No, I don't mind tannins....

Me: You just want there to be a lot of body and fruit with it.

Shiraz-Seeker: Well I don't want anything sweet.

Me: It wouldn't be sweet. We're just talking fruit - and it's kind of lush. It's a Priorat we have that's got a nice full mouth of red fruit and some pepper...

Shiraz-Seeker: Pepper? So is it real dry?

Me: (face detaching itself and walking outside while flipping the bird) Who knows.

I highlighted the words: dry, sweet, tannins, lush, body, fruit, because these are words most often bandied about in wine reviews and discussion. They, and several other extrinsically worthless words like "mid-palate" and "finish" make up what the mass populace thinks of as the Impenetrable Lexicon of Wine. These words will do nothing to help you understand wine if you don't already have some inkling of it - if you haven't thought about the way it feels and smells and tastes. The words only give some semblance of structure to this otherwise catastrophic postmodernist nightmare that is the discussion of the wine list.

In other words: don't use borrowed words to to shop for anything. It's like when you try to parrot your knowledgeable brother-in-law when you are at your mechanic's so they will think you know what you are talking about and should, therefore, NOT be swindled out of a lot of money. I've been horribly guilty of this very thing. ("It's better to keep your mouth shut and have people think you a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." -- somebody smarter than I)

"Dry" to one person means a lot of tannins, which give your mouth the feeling of being pulled on or filled with tiny strands of wood. Think black tea.
"Dry" to someone else might mean a high alcohol content.
"Dry" to yet another person might mean, in white wine, a high natural acidity, which actually makes your mouth water, so is it dry or just wet-waiting-to-happen?

So next time you are at one of my tables, lost in the wilderness of names and varietals and vintages and regions, don't use these words. Just tell me some wines you usually like to drink that we don't have - or better yet, what you plan to eat - and then let me go from there. You describing what you want will yield no better results than if I just hurled glasses of different selections at you and let you choose by licking them off your shirt.

The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.
-- Kierkegaard

Oh, and here:

Let go of high school and drink this motherfucking rosé

Is it sweet?

She wrinkles her face. Her whole face. Like she’s really asking if it came out of a dog’s asshole. Is it sweeeet? The last word drawn out like a flat note on a horn, or a fart.

The wine being unduly subject to this girl’s ignorance, is Bellefon Salmon, a lovely pink Champagne. From, you know, Champagne. In France. Most people still refer to anything bubbling in their glass as Champagne, even if it didn’t come from anywhere near Champagne.

Since the Treaty of Madrid in 1891, wines could only be legally labeled "Champagne" if they came from there, and this was globally reaffirmed after WWI in the Treaty of Versailles. But because the U.S. Senate never ratified the Treaty (Wilson signed it, though), it claims it doesn't have to abide by these laws. To prevent a global tussle, the U.S. allowed that only certain California producers making sparkling wine before 2006 could label their wines "California Champagne."

America, fuck yeah.


Despite wanting to shoot her into outer space, I smile at the clueless girl and say, No, Darlin, it’s not sweet in the slightest.

Darlin is what I call people when my head has named them worse things. Sweetie, Honey, Sugar. If you hear me say it, it means I think you’re scum. The kind of reprehensible beast I blame for global warming, Robert Parker, ugly fashion trends and most of the music that came out of the 90s. Your inability to learn or think makes you an obedient drone of marketing execs and feeds their endless lust for kinky sex with the filthiest whores they can scrape up on craigslist.

No, Darlin, that Shiraz that I overheard you screeching about earlier with the big “94” printed on the tag is sweeter than this rosé.

She frowns and lets me pour her a taste. She sips it like it’s hemlock and I know what she’s going to say and I brace myself but it shreds me up anyway, makes all the blood run to my forearms, my hands, ready to throttle her to death.

Wow! That’s not sweet at all!

What she is thinking of is that Freshman Rape In A Bottle, Arbor Mist. Boone’s Farm's Strawberry Hill. This stuff is no more wine than I’m a ferret. It’s carbonated sugar – Fanta with 7.5% alcohol. The only thing it has in common with Champagne’s beautiful, strawberry and pebble-kissed dry dry Bellefon Salmon, is the color. And even that isn't similar enough to warrant suspicion. Rosés vary wildly in hue, from deep neon red to palest peach. The color comes from the brief contact the juice has with its red grape skins, and the longer the contact, the more tannins you can usually expect. A fleshy, savory fresh blood-colored ciliegiolo from Liguria can feel bigger in the mouth than a wispy, refreshing Provencal salmon number, but both find their flavors in the red berry spectrum: strawberries, raspberries and cherries. In better rosés, the mineral aspects give it structure - a sparkling brininess at the finish maybe, a chalky, pebbly weight as you drink. This is what keeps it from being just silly, stupid fruit drink.

If a server or bartender suggests “rosé” and you think they are talking about Arbor Mist, you have your head in your ass, which is right where the good folks at Fox News want it. No one – and let me repeat this with the greatest emphasis – no one in the wine or food industry will ever refer to Arbor Mist as a rosé. If they do, stand up and walk out right away. This is a kitchen that intentionally puts cockroaches in their food. They have rabies and sleep under a bridge and wipe their asses with their hands. They alternate which one, so you can't avoid it when you shake.

And heaven help you if you ask me if this is "blush."