Eating Dinosaurs with Old Friends

I belong to a prayer circle of women who I’ve known since Pink Panther popsicles and goomies. About five years ago, we formed the circle because we were grown-ass women who felt like overgrown teenagers.  Our gatherings are much like Blanche, Sofia, Dorothy, and Rose who shared their pangs, woes and pleasures over endless cheesecake pies. But our menus are slightly different; Tastee’s Jamaican patties, Syrian lamb skewers and spicy, red rice, vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and Publix Chocolate Trinity Ice Cream are among my favorites. I’m the wine girl, so I’m proud to say that I proselytized the gals out of White Zin. They’re into sparkling rosé, so I usually bring a bottle. But what’s most delicious are the endless bowls of laughter as we reminisce the past, gently or not-so-gently poking at each other’s strange phases (Back in the day, I dated a crazy DJ I named Mufasa). We laugh loud and hard and long, hoping our echoes will cling on until tomorrow. The last time we gathered, my friend, T, made a vegan lamb stew with sautéed dinosaur kale and steamed jasmine rice. None of us are vegan, but since she’s married to one, she’s mastered some delicious recipes. And this is definitely one of them. I adore Indian food and relished the cumin, coriander, fennel, and cinnamon aromas dancing from her pot. I used to think that dinosaur kale could only be enjoyed in a juice with bananas and apples because the leaf’s texture is tough, but when it’s cooked gently, it reminds me of a mix of calaloo and collard greens. It’s hearty and filling much like the time I spend with my sisters.    

   

     

Dining in the Natural Mystic

The best meal ever!

My Dear Gourmet Squatters, I missed you. I recently lost my granny and have been pretty sad. If you’ve been reading Gourmet Squatter for a while now, you know how much I love my granny. God blessed her with 104 chapters of life, but still my family and I weep and rejoice for the departure of our beloved matriarch. So I recently returned from granny’s send-off celebration, and Folks, you’re not ready. On the day before the funeral, the mountains burst with the smell of roasting goats’ heads for manish water and smoky boar’s flesh for jerk pork (I really hope none of you are vegans). My mother says the pork skin has the best flavor, and it does.  A large tent was set as the village cooks hung, cut, and seasoned. The meats were roasted on tree barks and aged pits as the men bickered and puffed themselves into lives they wished they had. Music seemed to grow from the ground—everything from Bob’s “Natural Mystic” to songs I had never heard before like, “One Woman Cannot Satisfy Me.” But I was satisfied as I watched children leap from steep hills and run around the curvaceous earth. My favorite meal was a plate of steamed white rice, steamed callaloo seasoned with gorgeously green, long scallion stalks, onion, salt, pepper, and the juice from the escovitch fish my mom purchased from Old Harbour Bay. The meal was an ode to Jamaican culture--spicy, sweet and fresh. When darkness finally draped the land, a live band arrived and white rum flowed from the clouds as we danced, cried and drank to granny.

The Price of P-Funk

If you’ve been reading Gourmet Squatter, you know I love my wines, funky. By funky, I mean I like my dry reds Virginia Woolf-deep, wines that provoke the androgynous mind, compelling you to take a second glance at the color, wines that make you stick your nose in the glass over and over again like a child at the beach, digging through the wet sand in search of treasure. You know you have arrived when you smell the earth at her most vulnerable. Some folks use words like wet cellar or wet leaves. But in my experience, these wines can smell like everything from stinky cheese and wet soil to armpit, sweaty socks and lovemaking. These wines possess Sly Stone-swag, your descriptors getting more and more creative as they unravel in the glass. When I think of the essence of grape funk, I think, Pinot Noir, and like all the things worth having, this grape is called the heartbreak grape as it is difficult to grow. It’s also difficult to find a really well-made bottle for under $25. Last year, when my budget took a boost, I bought several bottles between $20 and $35 mainly from Oregon and was really bored. The aromas were flat, vacant and uninspiring. Today I got off work ready for that good P-funk, so I told the wine dondadda at one of my favorite wine stores, that my budget was $30. He recommended the 2009 Soléna Grand Cuvée Oregon Pinot Noir as a supremely aromatic wine, but the bottle I had was aromatically dead. I tried and tried to smell something, but there was nothing there. A couple weeks ago I bought a bottle of 2009 Sonoma Cuvée Russian River Valley Pinot Noir for just over $20. P-funk jumped out of my glass along with aromas of braised short ribs and marionberries. On the palate, there were dark plum, stewed fig, clove and anise flavors that glided through the lush, cashmere body. I bought the ’08 vintage this evening which wasn’t as interesting, but sometimes, you have to hunt the P-funk.

 

Sipping the Winemaker

So I have a confession. I love wine. You know that. But more than I love sipping wine, I love sipping the winemakers. I love reading about the adventures of those who dare trade their nine-to-five gigs for the long shot, the jagged dream of making money as grape juice hustlers. These aren’t descendants of centuries-old wine families. They are everyday people who stumbled into a bottle that inspired them in the same way that music inspired Aretha and poetry inspired Plath. Helen Turley is the winemaker behind labels like Marcassin, Bryant, Colgin and Peter Michael. Wine Spectator Senior Editor—James Laube wrote in a 2010 article that Turley is a native of Augusta, Ga., where she grew up Southern Baptist raised on a diet of fried chicken and meatloaf. Not exactly a foie gras-Sauternes background, is it? In 1968, Turley and her man drove a VW bus cross-country, hippie-style, ending in California. It was a 1980 Sea Ridge Pinot Noir that changed her life. Mac McDonald came from a family of Texas moonshine makers. Laube wrote in a 2004 Wine Spectator article that MacDonald’s mother, Elbessie, along with her brother and sister, made sweet wine from apples and cherries. But that didn't pique Mac's interest. It was a 1952 red Burgundy that changed his life. When he was a teen, a group of doctors hired his father to take them hunting, and one guest left Mac with that '52 Burgundy. About eight years ago I met the Michael Duncan look-alike in downtown Brooklyn where he rose from the Lafayette Avenue subway stop wearing overalls and a straw hat. I got goosebumps when he explained that he aged his Pinot in Hungarian oak. Are your dreams aging? I know sometimes it feels like mine are. Afraid to take that long shot? Maybe it’s not that long. But are we willing to do the work, pick the grapes and see what ends up in the bottle?

 

Shiraz Sexy

Wow. What a week, right? Yesterday I had a bizarre encounter with two sad women who reminded me that while things aren’t perfect, at least day-old whiskey isn’t oozing from my pores. It’s not that bad, Guys. You’re not waking up to streets ravaged by torn limbs and smoky eyeballs. And if you are, I’m praying for you. Aaaaah. It’s nice to be snuggling up against a breezy, sun-rich Saturday, the week’s events fading into a yummy glass of Malbec. What I love most about South American wine is that many labels offer so much fierce complexity for your dollar. But this post isn’t about the Malbec I’m sipping. It’s about my wine pimp—Michel, who gave me a swig of a single vineyard, Aussie Shiraz that truly widened my perception of the ubiquitous grape. When I think of everyday, Australian shiraz, I think pop music on your palate. But this was Maria Callas or Beyoncé when she’s Aretha’s age. It was an ’05 vintage, grapes picked from one vineyard and the bottle had been decanted five hours before it touched my tongue. The 2005 Elderton Command Single Vineyard Shiraz Cellar Release had aromas and flavors of braised figs, prunes and raisins, and these characteristics were synchronized by seductive tannins. It was amazing to me how firm the tannins were despite the age. So if you think Aussie Shiraz can’t be deep, you’re wrong. On that note, the wine is $80, so I'll be sticking to my humble Malbec lol

Gruet: Pink on the Inside

Pink was never my color. It’s not that I’m not a girly-girl. I just never connected to its implications—female conformity, tears and babies. But today I had a pink-moment. I had a student who arrived in my class today in a wheelchair. He was in his mid-20s, and there was a bloody box around his foot. It’s not that I’ve never had wheelchair-bound students in my class before, but this young man moved me for some reason. My classroom set-up isn’t ADA-compliant, yet this man navigated through the tight space like he had wings. He was so determined to learn--raising his hands and answering questions despite the eyes that were crawling up and down his leg. I later learned that he had kidney failure, and each time I looked in his eyes I became soft like the Gruet Brut Rosé. It’s rusty pink color reminds me of how I feel sometimes—weary, hard and longing. Its strawberry, raspberry aromas and Shirley Temple-esque flavors remind me of that girly-girl who wants so desperately to run through tight spaces then fly. P.S. I spent $10 for the half-bottle.

Cab Slow

So it’s a brilliantly dull Saturday evening. I was supposed to work overtime today, but I declined. It wasn’t easy to pass up the time and a half-money, but when one starts looking like a Chia Pet, it’s time to, as my colleague, Adrienne, would say, “Tighten up.” Right now I’ve got the Zen music channel on while I sip the 2009 Les Piliers Cabernet Sauvignon I picked up last night. I have to work hard at being still these days. There’s always something to do and somewhere to be. What is intimacy if you cannot be intimate with yourself? Lately, I’ve been craving sweet spice aromas from my wine experiences. I think it’s a reaction to being indoors most of the time. I spent the last week immersed in cubicle culture—a land of jarringly big screens, hard, square shaped-booty chairs and the smell of spirits that would rather be elsewhere. This cab is an escape. On the label is an image of the Les Piliers vineyard. I imagine being there picking Cabernet Sauvignon, songs like Fragile State’s “Every Day a Story,” and Bob Marley’s “Natural Mystic,” blowing through my iPod. It’s velvety, full-body tricks my palate into thinking it’s bathing in a warm vanilla spring.   There are aromas and flavors of black cherry, Madagascar vanilla, milk chocolate and in the back drop, there’s a rare filet mignon-funk. You know how much I love that funk. And guess what Gourmet Squatters? It's just $16-something with tax.