It’s a rare film about haute cuisine that manages to come down to Earth and stir deep emotions, too; Big Night is an easy exception, but there are many more misses than hits in the ouevre. And great documentaries about food are rarer still. So I was pleased to see the excellent documentary LE CIRQUE: A TABLE IN HEAVEN on the schedule for HBO on Monday, December 29th. Completed in 2006, the film, which debuted at IFC’s Stranger Than Fiction series in April of 2007, documents the rise-and-fall-and-rise-again of restaurateur Sirio Maccioni and his famed eatery, Le Cirque, once the most celebrated restaurant in New York. Catering to celebrities, Presidents, and, famously—thanks to Sirio’s legendary hospitality—seemingly anyone who walked in the door, Le Cirque became a symbol of the good life, dreams achieved, abbondanza.
Who doesn’t love them? Here’s a gem by my old friend Kristy Athens, which, among other things, explains the range of bacon ordering doneness, from limp to “cook the sh*t out of it.” We used to be in a writing group together, which mainly consisted of eating and drinking for hours and hours with a few similarly-inclined pals, which is why I love this clip. Move over Scorsese, now there’s something meatier.
This week’s New Yorker features an unexpected treat by staff writer Burkhard Bilger. Call it the Barack Obama of beer articles: a ten-page analysis of the craft beer industry—and one of its provocateurs, Sam Calagione, of Dogfish Head Brewery—that sucker punches conventional wisdom. There’s much to savor here, with passages such as the following:
“Calagione strapped on a pair of safety glasses and peered into the oak and hickory embers. “If there are no second-degree burns, I’ll call this a success,” he said. Then he heaved in a rock, sending up a shower of sparks. “Let me know if they start to explode,” he told one of the cooks.”
Bilger’s description of Calagione’s unorthodox brewing methods, including the use of Palo Santo (a rare, aromatic Uruguayan wood three times harder than oak) to ferment a burly stout is riveting—and brings back a lot of fond journalistic memories.
My oft-beer-writing-partner-in-crime Seth Fletcher and I wrote about Calagione’s use of Palo Santo in the October issue of Men’s Journal in which we named the resulting beer one of the best in America, only after tasting it with Calagione while huddled at the tiny copper-topped bar of Dieu De Ciel, a brewpub in Montreal’s Plateau district. We’d ventured up for the Mondiale Du La Biere Festival, and arranged to meet Calagione, well armed with samples—including the Palo Santo-aged beer. Another interesting passage for me was Bilger’s on-site interview with Brasserie D’Orval brewmaster Jean Marie Rock, who I met, too, in 1997 while in Belgium on a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship doing research that would become the basis of my first published article, from the (now defunct) Brewing Techniques magazine (and an award-winner).
A toast to Burkhard, Sam, and beer drinkers everywhere who’ve been calling for full respect of the good stuff for a long time. I’ve got to sign off now, or I’ll be late for a tasting at Gramercy Tavern. On the menu? Beer, of course.
A positive side effect of the big, bad economic slowdown is a greater focus on value when it comes to wine. Most of us aren’t in the market for first-growth Bordeaux, anyway, right? On the cheap side, anyone can throw down $5 for a flabby syrah at Trader Joe’s, but it takes a little more creativity to really score a wine worth talking about. On that note, the good people over at Tasting Table point out a great deal on a Sardinian wine I heartily second: Argiolas Perdera, a robust red made with monica grapes, an ancient varietal found only on the Mediterranean isle that’s similar to Côtes du Rhône. And it’s only $15 bucks. I visited Argiolas during this year’s harvest for a day, touring the winery with a member of the Argiolas family, and managed to get lost in the cellar, of course. Bring one home for turkey day.
Here, some out takes from my too-short visit to Sardinia’s most noted producer, including crates of just-picked nasco, a white varietal that’s also unique to Sardinia.
Kenny Shopsin’s is a New York Institution; his 900-menu-item eatery, like the man and his city, is at once dauntingly big, brilliant, confusing, big-hearted, hard-edged, and singular. On my first visit, in addition to a sandwich that made me grin ear-to-ear, I had a conversation with Kenny and a friend that covered intricacies of Italian culture, the politics of my birthplace of Portland, Oregon and the love-it, hate-it, can’t-kick-the-habit-of-living-here New York jones that any seasoned local gets after venturing beyond a day’s drive of the Big Apple. Kenny’d decided he liked us, apparently (others aren’t so lucky) and we wiled away a memorable hour chatting during a heavy spring rainstorm. Now Kenny’s got his own book, capturing some of the man’s viewpoints: EAT ME: THE FOOD AND PHILOSOPHY OF KENNY SHOPSIN is out now, and I look forward to picking up a copy. But not as much as going back to Kenny’s place.
RELATED: VIDEO – Kenny shows Conan O’Brien on LATE NIGHT exactly how to make a Conan Burger, among other things. Disappointingly, the NBC censors did not have to work very hard on this one.
The sky may be falling on Wall Street, but we’ll always have beer. It makes us happy; it’s inexpensive; it’s readily available. What’s not to like? And fall is an especially good time to drink it. The Great American Beer Festivalis in just a few weeks; the traditional Oktoberfest in Munichstarted just two days ago—and will go for another 13—but there are plenty of reasons raise a glass of beer right now, and close to home instead.
For the last five years I’ve had the incredibly good fortune to join my friend Seth Fletcher in rating the best beers in the land (or sometimes the world) for MEN’S JOURNAL, a somber task we approach with monkish restraint (OK, we enjoy it mightily, but if we actually finished the hundreds of bottles we sample each summer the story would never happen. Much returns to Earth from whence it came. And we have notebooks, piles of them. We swear.)
This year’s list is on newsstands now, and this time, the premise was deceptively simple: if you like ‘X’ mass beer, try ‘Y’ craft variation. Are you a Guinness drinker? Then try Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery Black Butte Porter, available in 19 states and counting. With an eye toward America’s smallest, most artisanal craft brewers—some with only a handful of employees—we dedicated ourselves to coming up with a list of exceptional American (and in one case, Quebecois) craft beers that are a bit harder to find, but so worth the effort. Many of these beers are available in NYC, on tap or in bottles at bars likeThe Blind Tiger, Bar Great Harry, DBA, Against The Grain, Spuyten Duyvil, The Diamond, the Brazen Head, and more. There’s also a mini-profile of beer provocateur Vinnie Cilurzo (of California’s Russian River Brewing Company). Enjoy!
Everyone has a preferred hangover helper (mine’s a steaming hot spicy bowl of pho noodle soup, aspirin, and ‘Rushmore‘). Others go for hair-of-the-dog, spa treatments, cheeseburgers, or, hell, all three at once. But such methods fail, a story in today’s Times points out, to address symptoms beyond the usual nausea and exhaustion—the much worse ones based in existential darkness, self-loathing, and regret. To a certain sort, such side effects from revelry require more than folk remedies (see Joan Acocella’s recent gem in The New Yorker, A Few Too Many) they require a good long read. One that takes you to a deeper, more despondent place, in fact, so your return to personhood can be felt even more satisfyingly. Enter ‘EVERYDAY DRINKING: The Distilled Kingsley Amis’ (Bloomsbury). Three of his long out-of-print books on the art of drinking have been compiled into a single volume with the added kick of an introduction by another legendary prude, Christopher Hitchens. Here’s a few choice excerpts thanks to Dwight Garner’s review, the first on diets:
“The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.” On why serious drinkers should own a separate refrigerator for their implements: “Wives and such are constantly filling up any refrigerator they have a claim on, even its ice-compartment, with irrelevant rubbish like food.” On the benefits of sangria: “You can drink a lot of it without falling down.”
Today’s Timeshas an interesting article on a fruit that alters one’s perception of taste to make virtually everything taste sweet–even vinegar and mustard. Of all the gems in this story about so-called Miracle Fruit, orSynsepalum dulcificum–not the least of which is that the main character, a lawyer named Franz Aliquo who calls himself ‘Supreme Commander’, throws “flavor-tripping” parties, or, in words from his blog, “Bacchanalian flavor smackdowns”–the best was this exchange:
“One woman wanted to see Mr. Aliquo eat a berry before she tried one. “What, you don’t trust me?” he said.
She replied, “Well, I just met you.”
Another guest said, “But you met him on the Internet, so it’s safe.”
Also interesting was the fact that a bar set to open in Portland, Oregon, the Beaker & Flask (you go, hometown) has experimented with miracle fruit foams in cocktails. The question is, how much miracle fruit is too much of a good thing? [Via NYT, and Thrillist]
A wise gentleman once declared, ‘A truce with thirst, a truce with hunger; they’re strong, but wine and meat are stronger’. Here on The Foggy Monocle, the evidence is surpassingly clear. That same wise man also added, ‘and a big fat salmon in the afternoon.’ In lieu of salmon, oysters do nicely. Enjoy this video of hungry and thirsty gentlemen in their element. Via The New York Times City Room Blog.
In this month’s issue of Outside Magazine (May), I got the chance to team up with some other thirsty writers to wax about the best things to drink when off — well and truly off — the beaten path. We did the painstaking research on where to find the best buzz-inducing drinks from Italy to Bourbon County. The question is, what’s more memorable in the Scottish Highlands — the highlands or the Scotch? Tough call. UPDATE: ASME, or the American Society of Magazine Editors, picked up this story for its Magazine Article Links of the Week.
A native Oregonian currently living in Brooklyn, I write about food, drink, travel, the environment, and current events for magazines and newspapers.
on the web: www.christiandebenedetti.com
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Everyone has a preferred hangover helper (mine’s a steaming hot spicy bowl of pho noodle soup, aspirin, and ‘Rushmore‘). Others go for hair-of-the-dog, spa treatments, cheeseburgers, or, hell, all three at once. But such methods fail, a story in today’s Times points out, to address symptoms beyond the usual nausea and exhaustion—the much worse ones based in existential darkness, self-loathing, and regret. To a certain sort, such side effects from revelry require more than folk remedies (see Joan Acocella’s recent gem in The New Yorker, A Few Too Many) they require a good long read. One that takes you to a deeper, more despondent place, in fact, so your return to personhood can be felt even more satisfyingly. Enter ‘EVERYDAY DRINKING: The Distilled Kingsley Amis’ (Bloomsbury). Three of his long out-of-print books on the art of drinking have been compiled into a single volume with the added kick of an introduction by another legendary prude, Christopher Hitchens. Here’s a few choice excerpts thanks to Dwight Garner’s review, the first on diets:
In this month’s issue of Outside Magazine (May), I got the chance to team up with some other thirsty writers to wax about the best things to drink when off — well and truly off — the beaten path. We did the painstaking research on where to find the best buzz-inducing drinks from Italy to Bourbon County. The question is, what’s more memorable in the Scottish Highlands — the highlands or the Scotch? Tough call. UPDATE: ASME, or the American Society of Magazine Editors, picked up this story for its Magazine Article Links of the Week. 
TASTEBUD 