Today, even better 50 years later

David recently posted this picture on Facebook along with a line from the 1964 hit "Today" (New Christy Minstrels): "I'll taste your strawberries, I'll drink your sweet wine."

I love that song even more than I did fifty years ago, but for different reasons.

Back then it was a sweet love song for the uncommitted. I was 16, living away from home for the first time, falling in love every week (not that the lucky guys were aware of this), living on the edge (if hitchhiking in Italy counts), and thinking I might spend the rest of my life wandering the world. I had no trouble with the line from the second verse, "I'll be a dandy, and I'll be a rover..." As far as I was concerned, "Green, green, it's green, they say, / on the far side of the hill," and I was goin' away to where the grass was greener still.

"Today" is still a sweet love song, but if a million tomorrows haven't all passed away, 18 or 19 thousand have. Now I'd just as soon skip over that second verse and go right to the third:

Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine,
I'll taste your strawberries, I'll drink your sweet wine. 
I can't be contented with yesterday's glory; 
I can't live on promises, winter to spring. 
Today is my moment and now is my story. 
I'll laugh and I'll cry and I'll sing ... 

A few blossoms are still clinging, but people my age had better not live on promises of future springs. And if we're contented with yesterday's glory, we become awful bores. Today is our moment, and now is our story. Let me suggest a rewrite of verse 2 for those of us who came of age in the 60s:

Though now we're grandparents, we still can be lovers.
You’ll know who we are by the songs that we sing. 
You’ll feast at my table, I’ll steal all the covers, 
Who cares what tomorrow shall bring?

Or we can just sing another 60s song, one that hit the charts right about when David and I got engaged:

Let's talk about food ... and wine!

[Caravaggio, Bacchus, 1596]

A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine.

--Brillat-Savarin, or maybe an Italian proverb

 

I enjoy wine. But I readily acknowledge that some people should not drink wine: recovering alcoholics, of course; drinkers who don't realize they're alcoholics; people taking certain medications; people who are about to drive cars or pilot airplanes; children; and so on.

To be fair, there are people who shouldn't eat bread, either, though not as many.

Yes, wine can be dangerous. In scripture and other literature, it can indicate evil and punishment and terror.

In the Bible, wine sometimes accompanies wickedness and judgment. For example, the Psalmist writes that "in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed; he will pour a draught from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs" (Psalm 75:8).

St. John of Patmos says that Babylon--herself a symbol of corrupt governments and multinational corporations--"has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication" (Revelation 14:8; 18:3).

In "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," Julia Ward Howe uses wine production as a double symbol, evoking both the Last Judgment and the American Civil War: "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; / He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored."

But more often, wine brings to mind abundance and contentment and friendship.

Hear Moses' final blessing on his people: "So Israel lives in safety, untroubled is Jacob’s abode in a land of grain and wine, where the heavens drop down dew" (Deuteronomy 33:28).

And the Preacher's summary of a good life: "Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do" (Ecclesiastes 9:7).

And the delightful quatrain by Hilaire Belloc:

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino.

A drink that can evoke friendship and anger, blessing and corruption, joy and addiction, holiday relaxation and highway death, family harmony and family destruction--what a symbol!

In Prince Caspian, Book 2 of The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis describes the Pevensie girls' reaction to a wild party with river gods, forest goddesses, maenads, Silenus, and Bacchus himself:

"I wouldn't have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan," [said Susan].

"I should think not," said Lucy.

 ____________________________

This is part of a series of short posts especially for people who attend St Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, IL, where I'm leading conversations about food on September 22, September 29, and October 6. I'll post about food every weekday between September 16 and October 4.

Let's talk about food: The Bible says "Let's parteeee!"

[From the Schmalz Brewing Company]

If you are under the impression that the Bible recommends a life of dour deprivation--especially of good food and drink--read Deuteronomy 14:22-26 for comfort:

Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. But if, when the Lord your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the Lord your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the Lord your God will choose; spend the money for whatever you wish--oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together.

And the tradition continues in the New Testament. Remember the winemaker for the wedding at Cana!

[Andrea Boscoli, 16th century]

L'chaim!
_______________________________

This is part of a series of short posts especially for people who attend St Barnabas Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, IL, where I'll be leading conversations about food on September 22, September 29, and October 6. I'll post about food every weekday between September 16 and October 4.

Gazpacho!

Photo by Elaine Armstrong

Twelve more days of summer. Produce abounding in farmers' market and backyard. Vacation days used up: no time for labor-intensive food prep. What to do?

Make gazpacho!

I fell in love with gazpacho on a trip to Spain. It's a chilled red vegetable soup that's available everywhere in that country--and everywhere I ate, I ordered some. 

Each restaurant had its own way of making it. Some gazpachos were smooth as cream. Some were full of chunky vegetables. Most came with optional toppings served on the side: chopped herbs, diced veggies, crumbled hard-boiled eggs, even sliced avocadoes. All were good.

You can Google gazpacho and find any number of recipes, or you can play with the principal ingredients and make up your own. The only thing you must do is use fresh, ripe (but not overripe) ingredients. You can sometimes get away with dumping tired old veggies into a hot soup, but that will not work with gazpacho. The flavor depends entirely on the quality of the ingredients.

Fortunately, this time of year everything you need is abundant and cheap. Or free, if you have a generous neighbor with a green thumb (those are her veggies in the photo).

Here's what you need, to start:

• A blender or a food processor
• One or two medium-to-large tomatoes for each serving (you don't need to peel them)
• A cucumber or two (you don't need to peel them either, though I usually do)
• A clove of garlic or two (don't go hog wild here; I've found the garlic's flavor is enhanced if I soften the cloves for about 5 seconds in the microwave before adding them)
• Olive oil (just a dollop--or drizzle it on top of the soup just before serving)
• Something tangy: sherry vinegar, red wine vinegar, or lemon juice (start with about a teaspoon per serving)
• Salt and pepper (I use a pinch of red [cayenne])

Whiz it all in your blender or food processor. If it's too thick, add water. If it's too thin, tear up a slice of bread and blend it in. Taste it until you like it. You can do this in 5 minutes, once you get the hang of it. Prepare the soup before you leave for work, refrigerate it, and enjoy it with--or for--dinner.

You can make a meal of gazpacho by serving it with chewy bread and manchego, a sheep's-milk cheese from central Spain (available at a reasonable price from Trader Joe's). In Spain, you'd probably have it with a small glass of cold, dry sherry (fino or manzanilla, not the syrupy stuff). Or you might try a dry rosé or crisp white wine.

Variations:

• Add a red (not green!) bell pepper to the mix, or top the soup with finely diced yellow bell pepper
• Add a little onion to the mix, or top the soup with chopped scallion or green onions
• Add your favorite herbs to the mix, or top the soup with chopped herbs or a small sprig of basil leaves
• Add other fresh vegetables and see what happens.
• Vary the consistency. Spin it smooth in the blender, leave it coarse in the food processor. Or try this: spin the tomatoes and garlic in the blender until very smooth; then add the other ingredients and pulse to chop.
• If you forget to make the soup in the morning, you can spin it in the blender with a few ice cubes and eat it instantly when you get home. Not quite as good, but good enough!

A TOAST TO BARGAIN WINES by George M. Taber

I like good wine. I don’t like spending money. A Toast to Bargain Wines had me at the title.

George M. Taber likes good wine and knows quite a lot about it. The author of several books about wine including Judgment of Paris and To Cork or Not To Cork, he also knows how to write about wine in a companionable, informative way. His message: there’s a lot of good wine out there for less than $10 a bottle. His attitude (quoting Thomas George Shaw, who wrote in 1863): “In wine-tasting and wine-talk there is an enormous amount of humbug.”

An investigative journalist with a wry sense of humor, Taber debunks wine tastings, wine critics, wine fads, and wine medals (which are worth a lot to wine sellers, but not so much to consumers). Here’s one of my favorite stories. It's about Robin Goldstein, “a leading advocate of inexpensive wines” and founder of Fearless Critic Media:

In 2008, [Goldstein] paid a $250 fee to enter a fictitious Italian restaurant in the Wine Spectator’s Awards of Excellence program for eateries with outstanding wine lists…. He named his fictitious Milan restaurant Osteria l’Intrepido, which translates loosely as Fearless Restaurant. The wine list he submitted with his application included a reserve list consisting largely of wines the publication had previously panned, giving them scores as low as an insulting 58 points. Goldstein says that once the magazine collected his $250, he did not receive any communication from Wine Spectator, until someone from New York City called and left a message on an answering machine asking if he wanted to take out an advertisement in a forthcoming issue that would report on Osteria l’Intrepido’s winning an Award of Excellence.

But Bargain Wines goes way beyond debunking. In three fascinating chapters, Taber profiles the people behind California’s Two Buck Chuck, Australia’s [yellow tail] winery, and China’s first steps into the worldwide wine market. [Did you know that the family who brought us the wallaby label hails from Sicily?]

The first half of this book is the reason I checked it out of my public library: it’s a quick and pleasant read. The second half is the reason I then bought my own copy. Taber provides a 128-page guide to bargain wines that, I suspect, is going to come in very handy.

First he lists readily obtainable bargain wines by varietal, suggesting ten for $10 or less and two “splurge” wines for under $25. I immediately looked up one of my favorites, Sauvignon Blanc. Yes, Monkey Bay made the list, along with a number of others I haven’t tried yet.

Then he lists bargain brands by country or region. OK, let’s check Washington/Oregon. Chateau Ste. Michelle! Columbia Crest! Pacific Rim! and seven others! Plenty of opportunity for further research there.

Finally, he gives us his ten favorite box wines. Yup, you read that right. In fact, he has a whole chapter on box wines (“Thinking Outside the Bottle”) that may revolutionize your dinner hour.

In case you're starting to feel overwhelmed by the dazzling variety of bargain wines (or if you're feeling slightly fearful that the taste mavens won't approve your choices), he even provides a handy quiz. Are you sweet, hypersensitive, sensitive, or tolerant? The answer, it turns out, is in your genes. And--good news!--there's a subsection of bargain wines to match your phenotype.

Food bullies

Back in the 70s, a little truck-stop restaurant in the wilds of Eastern Washington became locally famous because its French patronne did not mind insulting her clients. Order wrongly, and she would refuse to grant your request. Salt before tasting, and she would angrily remove the salt shaker from your table.

When Mr Neff and I finally worked up enough courage to go to her restaurant, which was reputed to have excellent food despite the neon Pepsi sign in its front window, I decided to hedge my bets by talking to the dragon lady en français, which I spoke rather well at the time. Predictably, she was thrilled - finally someone who might understand her cooking!

When it was time for dessert, we ordered the small cup of ice cream that came with our prix fixe meal. La patronne vehemently disagreed. "You must have the tarte aux framboises," she told us.

"Oh, but Madame," we protested, "the meal was so satisfying that we couldn't possibly. All we want is a small dessert."

"No," she insisted. "You must have the raspberry tart. The people in the booth behind you wanted it, and I told them they couldn't have it. There are only two pieces left, and they are yours."

We had no choice. She brought the tart.

I have never, before or since, eaten anything like it. Each slice was a perfect triangle of raspberries arranged like a dry-stone wall with no visible mortar. Each raspberry was small and bursting with flavor (I suspect the raspberries came out of her garden). The crust was light and sweet and perfect. The first bite was exquisite, and every subsequent mouthful was even better, pleasure layering on pleasure.

So I am somewhat sympathetic to the chefs I read about in Diane Cardwell's article, "Have It Your Way? Purist Chefs Won't Have It," in yesterday's New York Times:

New York has spawned a breed of hard-line restaurants and cafes that are saying no. No to pouring takeout espressos, or grinding more than a pound of coffee at a time. No to taming the intensity of a magma-spicy dish. And most of all, no to the 21st-century conviction that everything can be accessorized to the customer’s taste.

If you want excellent food, why mess with the recommendations of experts?

On the other hand, if you know what you like, why let experts bully you into eating or drinking what you don't want?

OK, there are several good reasons: (1) to learn to like something new (isn't this what we tell our children when we offer them, say, their first bite of avocado?), (2) to learn why we like what we like so we're more sure of getting it next time, (3) to discover that food we don't think we like, prepared brilliantly, is actually quite good ... well, all the reasons seem to come back to learning.

And learning is why I checked out Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's Drink This: Wine Made Simple when I saw it on the new-books shelves at the public library - and why, after reading a couple of chapters, I actually bought my own copy. Grumdahl is hilarious. She knows wine. She explains things well. She has devised a clever system to help wine novices have fun while learning much more than they're likely to learn from more exhaustive books.

And yet, bless her, she doesn't suffer bullies gladly. From her "Wine Drinker's Bill of Rights":

Your whole life has been one cumulative process adding up to your own taste. No person, critic, wine shop clerk, or anyone else has a right to disparage or discount it. If you want to drink Bordeaux with your oysters, Port with your burger, or Chardonnay with your fried chicken, it is no one's business but your own. No one lives with your taste buds but you, so no one really knows what you are experiencing except you. It's your taste!

Right on, Ms. Grumdahl. Life is too short to drink wine you don't like because it's popular or snobby or expensive, or even because the server raised one eyebrow when you started to order a different wine. In fact, despite wine's popularity, why drink it at all if you don't like it? As Grumdahl advises,

If wine can't provide happiness, it should get out of the way and let something else do it, like chocolate.

Or like that heavenly raspberry tart - even though I allowed a stubborn restauratrice to bully me into eating it.

What wine goes with ... beans?

Lentil patties ISO compatible wine ...

Forget the wisecracks - this is a serious question for would-be vegetarian wine-lovers. Cabernet sauvignon? Beef, of course. Pinot noir? Made for salmon. Sauvignon blanc and shellfish, chardonnay and chicken, zinfandel and grilled meats - what's a vegetarian to do?

Well, there's always slightly fizzy chilled mineral water flavored with a soupçon of orange or lemon. In fact, that's very refreshing some of the time.

Fortunately, however, Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, author of Drink This - a delightful wine guide I'm going to describe on The Neff Review just as soon as I finish reading every word of it - offers wine-pairing suggestions for vegetarians as well as omnivores. Here are some of her ideas:

• Sauvignon blanc: Vietnamese and Thai salads; pasta or risotto with walnut pesto; roast vegetables; fruit
• Riesling: Butternut squash risotto; Thai coconut milk curries
• Cabernet sauvignon: Grilled mushrooms; eggplant and pasta; polenta with parmigiano or reggiano cheese
• Syrah: Rich, smoky bean stew
• Chianti: Anything Italian with red tomato sauce; grilled vegetables
• Pinot noir: 95% of all foods, including truffles, mushrooms, grilled eggplant, grilled fennel, braised chard

As far as I know, there's still no book dedicated to matching wine with vegetarian foods (please correct me if I've missed it). Maybe the book isn't necessary, though - lots of inexpensive wines work well with a variety of vegetarian dishes.

If you like white wines, it's hard to go wrong. Sauvignon blanc and dry or off-dry riesling, for example, work wonderfully with salads, green vegetables, Asian food, summer fruit and vegetables, winter vegetables, pastas with white sauce, risottos ...

Red wines are great with vegetables as long as the wines don't overpower them (some reds can get a bit pushy). Pinot noir works well with most plant-based foods. Red zinfandel is good with foods you'd serve with Coke or beer: pizza, tacos, chili, stuffed potatoes. Chianti and other red Italian wines, unsurprisingly, are made for pasta and tomato sauce.

So what wine goes with beans? Grumdahl recommends syrah (also called shiraz) for bean stew. I recommend  zinfandel (Gnarly Head is good) for vegetarian chili with onions and cheese. The lentil patties pictured above are begging for a glass of pinot noir. Or maybe it's pinot gris they're hankering for. Try both, and let me know!

Lent with Charlie Trotter

A funny thing happened back in 1981-82 when mortgage interest rates were 18% and inflation was rampant and we changed to lower-paying jobs and we ended up accidentally owning two houses. On a budget so tight that if I found a dollar I rushed out and bought potatoes, I began dreaming about dressing like Princess Diana.

With only a week to go in our Lenten Experiment, and with the automobile industry crashing and burning and unemployment soaring, I'm having a similar kind of dream. It's Friday afternoon, and I want to go out to dinner. Not to Adelle's or Pad Thai etc or Cafe Galicia, though I love them and can't afford them on this regime anyway.

No. I want to go to Charlie Trotter's.

In my dream, Mr Neff will have the Grand Menu and I will have the Vegetable Menu, or vice versa. We might as well share and taste everything. In addition, we will each order the Wine Accompaniment. The website avoids telling me how much this is all going to cost, but from readers' comments scattered across the internet, I gather that it will be at least $600, tip and tax included. In other words, more than my entire Lenten Experiment budget.

Maybe I can save money by borrowing one of Princess Diana's old dresses...

A fairly frugal feast with friends

This morning we met our frugal friends Janet and Ken at Caputo's Cheese Market in Melrose Park, just north of the intersection of North Avenue and 15th Avenue, in an industrial building bearing a huge "Wisconsin Cheese" sign. It's a great place not only for cheese (much of it made locally) but also for wine, pasta, deli meats, Italian canned goods, pastries ... all at very reasonable and sometimes unbelievably low prices.

Our plan was to buy whatever inspired us at the cheese market, then go to Caputo's Fresh Market in Elmwood Park for equally inspirational produce. If you click on the link, you'll understand how this could turn into an ecstatic experience. Baby Brussels sprouts at 79 cents a pound! Avocados at 79 cents each! A good-sized handful of fresh asparagus for 60 cents! Plum tomatoes at 49 cents a pound! Seven limes for a dollar!

Eventually we tore ourselves away and drove to Janet and Ken's condo in Chicago. There we sliced and diced and chopped and stirred and baked and boiled and poured and sipped, and this is what we came up with:

• Baguette rounds topped with caponata di melanzane (ready-made in a tin)
• Salad of baby spring lettuces, sliced pear, feta cheese, walnuts, and green onion
• Orrechiete with fava beans, ricotta, and shredded mint (we used canned beans, not fresh; you can see our actual concoction above)
• Assorted cheeses (Siciliano with walnuts, Eiffel Tower triple-cream, Fontinella, Cheddar, Gruyère)
• Individual ricotta cheesecakes, made spontaneously and with ingredients at hand. This time we added a little diced candied orange peel, a few chopped walnuts, and lemon zest (see picture below; you will notice that we couldn't wait to take that first bite)

It was a feast, but a fairly frugal one. All ingredients were wonderfully priced, and plenty of food was left over for future meals. We had wine with dinner, and that pushed us beyond our daily budget. Still, when you can buy a Chianti classico that usually costs between $15 and $20 for only $5.99, it seems sinful to pass it by. So we didn't.




Yesterday's fare
Fish tacos without the tortillas. Trader Joe's gave out samples of fish sticks a few days ago, and they were really quite nice. Such a classic choice for a Friday in Lent! Serve them on a bed of sautéed onion, red and green bell peppers, and garlic, surrounded by baby spinach leaves lightly sautéed in olive oil, top them with crumbled queso fresco and diced tomato, and there's no need to feel penitential.

Couscous salad and turkey legs

Last night we ate leftovers. They were good, but you don't want to read about them. Instead I'll tell you what Janet and Ken are up to. (I want them to move in with me and take over my kitchen.)

Report on our frugal meals
Saturday: couscous salad, one of our favorites. We used the cooked couscous left over from the chicken leg meal, and added chopped cuke, tomato, celery, onion, sweet pepper, lots of chopped Italian parsley, a little mint, and sautéed cubed chicken. (Jewel had a packet of 8 chicken tenderloins for less per lb. than any of the other chicken. I think they’re cheap because the tendon has to be removed).

For the salad dressing, Ken makes a socko blend of lemon juice, olive oil, and garlic. We really enjoy main dish salads with a lot of raw ingredients. Do you know Raw, Charlie Trotter’s cookbook featuring uncooked main dishes? Oh, and to finish this meal, since we're such copycats, Ken made chocolate panna cotta. We drank a Yellow Tail Riesling (shared 1/2 of a $10.99 1 ½ litre jug). It’s hard to figure out the cost of a meal like this, since it was composed of so many bits and pieces, but I know it was frugal.

Sunday night we indulged in our favorite red meat: turkey legs, oven roasted with aromatics. There are many bones, which I sometimes remove, serving the meat in the thickened pan juices, but last night we just used a bone plate. The two plump legs were plenty to eat and cost $4.00. We had boiled potatoes and sweet peas as accompaniment, Yellow Tail Shiraz Cabernet (same jug deal as the Riesling) to drink, more panna cotta for dessert.

Thanks for the inspiration, J & K! I'm now heading downstairs to see what further inspiration I can find in my refrigerator.

The frugal couple considers wine, part 4

Yesterday I went to Binny's and picked up the 2006 Vinos Sin Ley M4 Bullas that Roger recommended. Usual price, $11.99 to $15.99. Binny's sale price: $5.99. Not a beginner's wine--one blogger describes it as "a dark, bitter, catalonian anarchist"--but one with enough guts to stand up to red meat yet enough complexity to be enjoyed on its own.

Moral: It is possible to get a good house wine for $5.99 or less if you--or your friends--know where to find the bargains.

If, however, you are looking for something in the $6.99 to $9.99 range, here are a few suggestions from Estelle, LeAnn, Ron, and me. Note: Wine prices can vary by several dollars from store to store, and you may have to try several sources to find the under-$10 price. We're from the Chicago suburbs, but since these stores are chains, I'm assuming you can find similar deals just about everywhere in the U.S.

Whites
Clos du Bois Chardonnay, Costco
Clean Slate Riesling, Binny's, Sam's Wines
Monkey Bay Sauvignon Blanc, Binny's (now on sale for $8.99)

Reds
Folie à Deux "Menage à Trois" blend, SavWay, Binny's, Target
Columbia Crest Grand Estates Cabernet Sauvignon, Binny's (now on sale for $7.99)
Rex Goliath Cabernet Sauvignon, Binny's, Sam's Wines
Alamos Malbec, Fresh Market, Binny's, Sam's Wines
Tin Roof Merlot, Whole Foods, Sam's Wines
Bogle Petite Syrah, Costco, Fresh Market
Gnarly Head Zinfandel, Binny's, Sam's Wines

For the Wall Street Journal's wine writers, a budget wine's price ranges from $10 to $16, more or less. (Wall Street, it will be remembered, is in New York, where only 13.9% of metro area housing is affordable--up from 5.1% two years ago. Perhaps we define "budget" differently in Chicago.) If you're looking for wines in that price range, check out "Buying Wine on a Dime" by David Kesmodel, along with "Budget Wines," an annotated list of 25 under-$16 wines recommended by five experts.

The garage door just went up, and the dogs ran downstairs. Sounds like it's time to stop typing and start tasting.

The frugal couple considers wine, part 3

I asked some of my oenophilic friends to suggest drinkable wines that cost $5.99 or less. One friend responded, "I don't think you can get wine for $5.99 that you would really enjoy drinking. I'm not being snobbish, it's just that things have gotten so expensive that my favorite cheap wines now cost real money."

Another friend referred me to this depressing little article, now three years old, about cheap wines from Trader Joe's, in which the author spent $43.23 on 12 bottles of wines and invited 12 friends to a tasting party. Apart from "the evening's surprise, ... Portugal's sparkling-white Espiral ($3.99)"--"one sip of the soft, subtle effervescence was enough to convert a soda- and carbonation-hating panelist"--most wines drew dismal if hilarious comments. For example,

Bull's Blood, aka Hungary's Egri Bikaver ($3.99). Dark red, with a peppery, wet-skunk finish, the Bull's Blood smells like the crabapple tree in grandma's backyard, one panelist offered. Others were less charitable. Real bull's blood is probably nicer. This is like bull's blood boiled with piss and vinegar.

I refuse to be intimidated. If a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine, most of us would have to slog through a lot of foggy, gloomy meals if we refused to buy cheap wine. I'm looking for enjoyable house wines, not nectar of the gods. I like the attitude of Ron from Illinois: "I must admit you are challenging my wine snobbery by asking for recommendations under $6. But I can do this."

Yes we can!

I'll post some recommendations today, and more as they come in. Please let me know your favorites, and I'll post them too.

1. "Think Spain," advises Dennis from Maryland. Roger from Illinois suggests going to Binny's web site and looking for Vinos Sin Ley, especially M4 Bullas ($5.99). According to Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, "The name Vinos Sin-Ley means 'wines without laws.' ... These cuvees are produced by an array of serious winemakers who wish to have their own personal projects apart from those of their employers and to not be bound by the various D.O. regulations." Roger adds, "This Spanish label has not been around very long but has produced many inexpensive--$6 - $12--bottles that are very tasty and often highly rated. The best values are often snatched up quickly and more likely to be found on the vendor's web site. Worth seeking."

2. "Try Caputo's," says Ken from Illinois. Billing itself as a cheese market, it also carries an interesting range of imported groceries, fresh baked goods, and wines at astounding prices. He swears he found a Fattoria Poggiopiano Chianti Classico 2001, which usually sells for $15.99 or more, for only $4.99 or $5.99, as well as a Rosade Furlane Colli Orientali del Friuli Pinot Grigio, hard to find in the U.S. at any price but running about £10 in the U.K., for perhaps a dollar more. "Caputo's is home to several more superbly priced, decent drinks, including a reasonable Dolcetto and a Rosso di Toscana," Ken writes.

3. Go for reliable cheap labels, many friends suggest. Some recommendations:

• Trader Joe's Charles Schwab Chardonnay, $2.99 ("has won some decent awards")
  
• Trader Joe's French Market Sauvignon Blanc, $4.99 ("slightly citrussy")
  
• Trader Joe's Honey Moon Viognier, $5.99 ("goes well with Asian food")
• Napa River Chardonnay, $5.99 ("quite good")
• Jacob's Creek Chardonnay, $5.99 if you know where to look
  
• Yellow Tail varietals, $4.99 - $5.99 ("uniformly drinkable")

4. Drink more whites. At the grocery store as in restaurants, white wines often cost less than reds for comparable quality. But if you want reds, you can always...

5. Watch for bargains... Trader Joe claims not to have sales, but they occasionally buy a winery's last few cases and sell the bottles for amazing prices. Or they promote something quirky like Oreana's Question Mark (pictured above), a spicy blend of syrah and cabernet sauvignon that belies its $5.99 price tag.

6. ... especially online. This morning I ordered six bottles of Roger's recommended Vinos Sin Ley M4 Bullas from Binny's website. It should be available for pickup tomorrow, no shipping charge. Binny's posts weekly specials, and this week one of our favorites, Gnarly Head Zinfandel, is $7.99 instead of the usual $8.99. Sam's Wine is featuring wines under $10.

7. Get a handsome carafe, like this one from Crate & Barrel ($19.95). Serve your favorite cheap house wine along with your favorite comfort food (pasta! stew! pizza!), and enjoy.

De gustibus non est disputandum.

The frugal couple considers wine, part 2

So, I'm asking myself, can I do the Lenten Experiment and still buy wine?

• Maybe, since really poor people--even in America, even with food stamps--can't afford wine, I shouldn't buy any either.
• Maybe I should allow myself to buy some wine if I can manage to include it in the $6/day per person food budget (and still eat a balanced diet, of course).
• Maybe this experiment is about food, not wine--it's not about housing or clothing or medical care either, and I'm not cutting back on any of those--and I should buy wine if I feel like it.

A British friend commented, "At least we with more disposable income can buy fairly traded wine to give a better deal for the growers." A great idea, especially in Europe where a selection of such wines has been available in many supermarkets for at least five years.

It's considerably harder to do in the U.S., though the headline of a recent story in the Boston Herald proclaimed: Fair Trade Wine Now Available in US Stores. The stores in question are Whole Foods, Publix, Target, and Sam's Clubs, and each chain is said to carry one or two fair-trade wines. When I searched the wine racks at the local Whole Foods this afternoon, however, I didn't find any.

Why does wine need to be fairly traded, Mr Neff asked. Aren't California growers treating their staff kindly?

Probably "fair trade" doesn't apply to domestic wines: the label is usually applied to wines coming from South Africa, Chile, and Argentina. According to the Boston Herald article,

A Fair Trade Certified product means TransFair has determined that farmers got fair prices, workers got decent wages and the product was produced in an environmentally responsible manner.

Importers and retailers pay a premium - the wine premium is 10 cents per bottle - that is earmarked for community improvement, such as a new water system or educational scholarships.

Fair trade wine generally costs between $10 and $12 a bottle, a bit steep for the thrifty food plan. But noble.

I'm thinking I'll probably buy some wine during Lent, maybe for Sundays or for when we have guests. Potential guests, be warned: it will be inexpensive. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I've polled some knowledgeable friends and now have a short list of pretty good wines for $5.99 or less. I'll post the list soon. I'd welcome your recommendations!

The frugal couple considers wine, part 1

Ash Wednesday--the day we're going to start our Lenten Experiment of eating on a food-stamp budget--is less than two weeks away, and every trip to a grocery store has become a consciousness-raising experience.

If I really had only $12 a day to spend on food for two adults, would I have spent $3.49 on four small avocados? $2.99 for a box of blackberries? $2.49 for a bag of wild arugula? $3.49 for two organic zucchini?

Well, maybe. It would probably depend on what else was on the menu. The large russet potato for $1.17 wasn't bad. The $0.30 sweet potato was a steal. The pound of dried lentils cost only $1.15, and it lasted much longer than I expected--or even wanted.

Wine, however--even cheap(ish) wine--suddenly looks like a major budgetary commitment. A bottle of wine contains about five servings, so let's say our frugal couple is following AMA guidelines and making a bottle last two days. Total food budget for two people for two days: $24. Cost of La Loggia Barbera d'Alba at Trader Joe's (quite nice), $6.99: 29% of food budget. Oh dear.

Food stamps can't be used for alcohol, of course, so our frugal couple would have to buy wine out of the rest of their income. So let's see how much income they'd be able to spend if they qualified for the full food-stamp benefit in Illinois--which, by the way, is only $323 a month, or $11 a day, not the generous $12 a day we're allowing for this experiment (because the USDA thinks the frugal couple actually need more than $323 a month to eat healthfully).

Using this calculator, I described the pair as elderly (which, according to the government, means 60 or older--never mind that this hypothetical couple is still too young for Medicare), with a monthly rent of $500, taxes and insurance of $100, and medical expenses of $50.

In order to receive the full $323 benefit, the most our frugal couple can earn is $698 a month. Before taxes.

Do the math: after the listed expenses, the frugal couple has $48 to spend on transportation, clothing, utilities not included in the rent, telephone, household furnishings, supplementary food...

Looks like there's no three-buck Chuck for them. Not even on Valentine's Day.

I'm glad it isn't Ash Wednesday yet for us. I'm sad to think that it's always Ash Wednesday for so many people.
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World Hunger Map (U.N. World Food Programme)
Hunger in the United States (Bread for the World)

That necessary measure of irrationality

"Homer may have been blind, but his taste buds were alive to wine, and he reserved his richest adjectives for it: heady, mellow, ruddy, shining, glowing, seasoned, hearty, honeyed, glistening, heart-warming, and, of course, irresistible." So writes English teacher Alexander Nazaryan in "The Tipsy Hero," an op ed piece in this morning's New York Times.

Nazaryn, noting the extensive role of wine in ancient literature, admires "how open the Greeks were about to the role of alcohol in their society (unsurprising, perhaps, for a people whose highest ideal was 'the examined life')." Moderation was in, debauchery was out--but unrelieved sobriety was also out.

"Today," Nazaryn writes, "'irrational exuberance' means bankruptcies and foreclosures; for the Greeks, a measure of irrationality checked the rule of reason."

Buy a box, save the planet

In today's New York Times, op-ed writer Tyler Colman suggests that we Drink Outside the Box--by which he means, it's time to join much of the rest of the wine-drinking world and get our everyday wines from boxes, not bottles.

According to Ryan Sproule, the founder of Black Box Wines, over half the wine drunk in Australia comes from a box. A quick Google search indicates that Scandinavians and Brits are approaching that percentage; the French are gradually being won over; and just last week the Italian minister of agriculture announced that certain of Italy's DOC (but not DOGC) wines may now be packaged in a box. That is, the highest quality wines must be bottled (because they require aging, and aging requires bottles), but good wines--two steps above ordinary table wine--can now be boxed.

Why drink boxed wines? Price, for one thing. Delicato, an award-winning California winery, offers its cabernet sauvignon in the standard 0.75 liter bottle for $5.99 at Sam's Wine. In the 3-liter box, the identical wine costs $15.99, or just $4.00 per bottle equivalent.

Long-lasting quality is another advantage of boxed wine. Use the Vacu Vinpump, and your opened bottle will stay reasonably good for another day or two. Your opened box of wine, by contrast, will stay good as new for nearly a month, thanks to the interior collapsing bag that keeps oxygen away from the wine.

Another excellent reason to choose box over bottle, as Colman points out, is environmental:

Switching to wine in a box for the 97 percent of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars.

Check today's post in Colman's blog for a few suggested labels--although I guess boxes don't have labels, do they. Brands, then?

[A word about statistics: you'll find websites saying that half of the wine drunk in Northern Europe is poured out of a box, and you'll find other websites giving much lower percentages. My interpretation: half of the volume drunk comes from a box. But because boxed wine costs less than bottled wine, and because higher-end wines must be bottled (boxed wines can't be aged), the percentage of money spent on boxed wine is still way under 50.]

Indaba to the rescue

About 3/4 of the world's Anglican bishops are meeting in Lambeth (England) this week for their decennial state-of-the-church confab. The elephant in the living room this time is the 1/4 of the world's Anglican bishops who are pointedly staying away, having already met in Jerusalem to complain about the direction the Western church is heading.

Reporter Douglas LeBlanc explains how the Lambeth bishops hope to keep the peace: "Instead of meeting in plenary session, bishops will gather in 'indaba' groups (this Zulu word, the conference website explains, 'refers to a small group that gathers, without time pressures and constraints, to 'chew over' important issues')."

As the sun sets on the British empire, perhaps the bishops should note that Indaba is also the name of a South African winery. If the Church of England isn't one's cup of tea, one need only recall that "Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine, / There's music and laughter and good red wine . . . "

Poetasters

Last week some friends gave us a bottle of Red Guitar, a Spanish blend of tempranillo (55%) and garnacha (45%). To get an idea of what foods to serve it with, I consulted Google. Soon, food pairings forgotten, I was reveling in wine tasters’ lyricism.

My favorite moment in Sideways is when Paul Giamatti’s character, Miles Raymond, demonstrates the art of wine evaluation: “... passion fruit... [puts hand up to ear] ... and, oh, there's just like the faintest soupçon of like asparagus and just a flutter of a, like a, nutty Edam cheese...”

Mr. Raymond had nothing on the Red Guitar poetasters.

The wine I was about to pour smelled of “luscious cherries with a hint of sweet tobacco and wood smoke,” or perhaps “cherries and red berries, underscored with some subtle earth, chocolate and juniper berries,” though one writer suggested “smoky, musty cellar” and another approvingly likened it to “menthol and road tar” (yum!).

Take a sip. What do you taste? “Sour cherry and grape, a bit candy-like, with dried fruit notes and hints of spicy vanilla”? “Very tart cherry, briary almost like tree bark”? “Cranberries giv[ing] way quickly to bright jammy cherry fruit cola”? “Blueberry syrup on pancakes”? “Plum, graphite and tomato”? “Chocolate”?

As T.S. Eliot noted in “Burnt Norton,”

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

Hey, Red Guitar is a delightful, inexpensive, fruity red wine. It goes well with chili and corn chips, hamburgers, barbecued chicken.

It's OK to drink it in silence.

Putting wine in context

"Wine's Pleasures: Are They All in Your Head?" asks Eric Asimov in yesterday's New York Times, reporting on a forthcoming book, The Wine Trials: 100 Everyday Wines Under $15 that Beat $50 to $150 Wines in Brown-Bag Blind Tastings. Even if a lot of wine drinkers prefer Two Buck Chuck to Dom Perignon, Asimov writes, there are some flaws in the book's approach. More significant is another study he mentions, "in which presumably sober researchers at the California Institute of Technology and the Stanford Business School demonstrated that the more expensive consumers think a wine is, the more pleasure they are apt to take in it."

I was interested in the article because I'd been carrying on my own unscientific study. A few weeks ago I went to the semiannual Wine Thing, a 100-bottle tasting offered by the Cabernet & Co. wine shop in nearby Glen Ellyn. I approach a wine-tasting as an educational experience: I pick a theme (a grape, a region) and see what I can learn. This time I focused on sauvignon blanc.

I rarely meet a sauvignon blanc I don't love. I'm especially fond of Marlborough wines from New Zealand, but I like Californian and South African versions too, and the cheap Chilean from Trader Joe's is delightful. It had occurred to me that I am insufficiently snobbish about sauvignons, and perhaps I should educate my palate.

So I sniffed and swirled and contemplated and discussed, and yes, the wines varied in complexity and interest; but at the end of the hour I liked them all. As the CIT researchers would have predicted, some of the more expensive bottles seemed to have a je ne sais quoi that the cheaper bottles lacked--but would those whiffs of gooseberry and licorice even be discernible once the wine was paired with food?

I decided to find out. I bought two bottles of sauvignon blanc: a Viñas Chilenas 2007 from Trader Joe's ($3.99) and a Mulderbosch 2006 from Binny's ($17.99). I put them both in the refrigerator at the same time so they would be equally chilled. I served them with a goat cheese and pear and spring greens salad, followed by tilapia baked in buttered panko and asparagus on the side.

My wine panel consisted of four non-experts who appreciate good food: male, 60; female, 59; female, 35; female, 21. Result: we all liked both wines.

The youngest panelist preferred the TJ. The other three found the Mulderbosch more interesting. The practical old guy suggested serving the more expensive wine to our more discerning friends but sticking with TJ for everyone else (when you come to dinner, you'll know what we think of your palate ...).

As research, our evening was fatally flawed by the fact that all four of us knew what we were drinking, and how much it cost. We discussed the wines among ourselves and no doubt influenced each other's opinions. None of us is a wine expert, nor can we afford to be.

But as an evening among friends, we had a great time. We told stories, we laughed, we enjoyed good food. And ultimately, says Asimov, "the food, the company, the environment" are more important than a wine's price or rating. "Context," he writes, "may be the most underrated aspect of enjoying wine."

Asimov quotes Tyler Colman, a wine writer whose new book A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairings, Great Buys, and What to Sip for Each Season is scheduled for a November release: “'The mood and the food and the context really matters,' he said. 'It’s the neglected pairing.'”
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"You shall delight in rich fare"

Tonight for the Easter Vigil at St. Mike’s, I’ll be reading from Isaiah 55, a stirring proclamation of God’s generosity and bounty, a fitting end to dreary Lent, and a call to the Easter feast! Here are excerpts:

Thus says the Lord:
All you who are thirsty,
come to the water!
You who have no money,
come, receive grain and eat;
come, without paying and without cost,
drink wine and milk!
Why spend your money for what is not bread,
your wages for what fails to satisfy?
Heed me, and you shall eat well,
you shall delight in rich fare. . . .

For just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
and do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
so shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
my word shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.

—Isaiah 55:1–2, 10–11

Therefore let us celebrate the feast!

—1 Corinthians 5:8