Food and Drink

Wednesday

Roger Kimball

Planning world domination, fueled by Burgundy

Just because you were born in a manger doesn’t mean you are a horse. I stumbled upon that bit of proverbial wisdom several times in the buildup to Christmas last year. It seems somehow applicable to a recent visit to Arizona where, despite the non-vinous-friendly environs, I had some amazing wines. On the Cabernet front, I finally had the opportunity to taste Alpha Omega. I mentioned this storied Napa Valley wine back in July when I wrote about the wines from its San Luis Obispo cousin, Tolosa Winery. I was with friends at an undisclosed, semi-secure venue, pursuing a plot for world conquest. As a result, my attention was not as focused on this excellent wine as it should have been.

burgundy

Tuesday

Philip Patrick

Japanese food is overrated

After twenty-three years in Japan, I have concluded that the much-lauded, worshipped even, cuisine is overrated. And I am getting a little tired of being told how awe-inspiringly wonderful Japanese food is, often by people whose only experience is high-end sushi or designer tempura in a showpiece Tribeca eatery, a world away from the standard fare available on the backstreets of Shibuya. Part of the problem is that much of what delights the Japanese about their food is unrelated to its actual taste.

Japanese
Chadwick Moore

The comfort of drinking at Lucy’s

Since I became a Republican, it seems my friends only want to drink at private clubs overlooking Central Park, where men are required to wear jackets and something called “slacks,” and the fur-clad old ladies have hairdos best described as architectural. I’ve never felt comfortable in these places and prefer the company of another old lady, the dowager of downtown and empress of the East Village: Ludwika “Lucy” Mickevicius. When I first started going to Lucy’s, she’d still let you smoke inside, if she liked you, and today the drop ceiling remains stained a hearty beef-stew brown, reminding you of freer, more reckless times.

lucy's
broadmoor hotel
Sean Thomas

Buried treasures of the Broadmoor

There are many reasons to visit the magnificently storied and illustrious Broadmoor Hotel, in the Rocky Mountain resort town of Colorado Springs. It has a glamorously luxe and gleaming spa. They will do you a superb dry martini with its own cute little carafe. Prince Harry once nipped into this pink-stone Italianate palace for a cheeky pint. But it’s the fantastical history of the Broadmoor that really compels, and which also tells us something possibly rather important about the relationship between politics and alcohol. The owner-founder of the Broadmoor was a failed-at-Harvard bon viveur by the name of Spencer Penrose.

bourbon
Rich Cromwell

The thrill of bourbon collecting is in the chase

There was once a time when a man would find a bourbon he liked and stick with it. Today, that is no longer sufficient. To enjoy bourbon, one must dive into the depths of bourbon hunting, scouring liquor stores for hard-to-come-by bottles, making friends with the staff so they’ll pull out one of the bottles from the secret stash and joining various social media groups in which fellow members share their tips and finds. My passion for actual bottle-hunting was short-lived, however. It takes too much time and effort and when opportunity costs are factored in, I’d rather pay a little over store price to those who are willing to go stand in line at 7:30 a.m. on a Tuesday morning waiting on the store’s latest shipment.

Émilion
Roger Kimball

Saintly succor

Since you’ll likely be reading this with what Wallace Stevens called “a mind of winter” (needful “to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow;... to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun”), I thought I would provide something warming to conjure with. I am eventually going to get to one of the world’s most spectacular wines, Château Cheval Blanc, a premier grand crus classé from St. Emilion, but first let’s indulge in a bit of lore. A friend introduced me to Michael Foley’s Drinking with the Saints: The Sinner’s Guide to a Holy Happy Hour (Regnery), a Catholic-heavy but light-hearted topper’s fasti.

Monday

Hannah Moore

A gingerbread house divided

To celebrate my birthday, which falls six days before Christmas, my mother used to make gingerbread houses for me and a dozen of my friends. Every December, she set to work baking sheet after sheet of gingerbread. The baking would take up the first week of the month, and in the second she would assemble the houses, laying their icing foundations and sealing the four walls with crisp white frosting. These would dry in the basement laundry room, taking up every available surface. After school, I would peep at the houses and dream about my party. On the big day, my mom set out each perfect house at the formal dining room table, and we convened to decorate them.

gingerbread
Bill McMorris

Colony Grill’s culture remains

Nothing has done more damage to the watering hole than Bar Rescue. In each episode, the show’s protagonist swoops into some troubled landmark Toledo bar, guts its history in the name of “open concept,” installs some LED lighting to cut costs, adds some overpriced microbrew, and yells at the backwoods staff — his anger a thin disguise for his McKinsey consultant personality. As a finishing touch, he’ll add a crabcake to the menu. Rescue complete. This reverse-Road House consultant is why every bar in America looks the same: bland, bloodless, stocked with minimalist Ikea furniture, cut off from the past. Don’t let the “unique” seasonal IPA or over-sized Jenga fool you. You are staring at conformity.

colony
Calla Jones Corner

My smorgasbord of Christmas traditions

Like many American families with multicultural members, my own family incorporates traditions to reflect different ways to celebrate Christmas. I count seven besides American: Swedish, English, Scottish, German, French, Swiss, Belgian. The first five are in the family DNA. The remaining two reflect countries where we have lived and raised our children. Growing up with Swedish immigrant grandparents under the same roof, my Christmas took on many Swedish customs, starting on December 13 with the celebration of Santa Lucia. Legend has it that the fourth-century saint was a child-martyr who brought food and aid to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs. A young girl is dressed as the saint, in virginal white, sashed in red, representing a baptismal robe and the blood of martyrdom.

christmas
Roger Kimball

The Chablis complex

Chablis has the paradoxical distinction of being at once one of the most famous and least well known of French wines. Hugh Johnson opined that it is “one of the world’s most under-estimated treasures.” I agree. We say that Chablis is Burgundy, but, situated on the Serein River some 100 miles southeast of Paris, Chablis is nearly 100 miles north of Beaune. Perhaps we can say that it is the Hadrian’s Wall of Burgundy. Hadrian’s bit of Britain was part of the Roman Empire, but no one would confuse it with Rome. The climate in Chablis is markedly different from and less forgiving than that of the Côte-d’Or: chillier and windier. Think of Auden’s poem, “Roman Wall Blues”: “The rain comes pattering out of the sky, / I’m a Wall soldier, I don’t know why.

chablis

Saturday

Timothy Jacobson

Lucius Beebe knew how to live

There are some characters who infuse literature and life with disproportionate zest. The nature of their vocations is less relevant than the fervency they bring to the job, which is what makes them stand up off the page and sail through time. Lucius Beebe, who kept a Rolls-Royce and a Bentley, favored bowler hats and evening dress and wrote a column for the old New York Herald Tribune in the 1930s and then for Gourmet until his death in 1966, sits high up on my list of zestful characters who go the distance: militantly old-fashioned, never out-of-date. The association with the estimable, sadly deceased Gourmet justifies talking about Beebe under the food heading as much as any other, even though he did not always write about food as such.

beebe

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

My favorite Red Lion pub

The best bars are empty. And empty bars close, which is a shame. I used to like drinking Polish vodka in the Russia House, up from Dupont Circle, in Washington, DC. The site is currently shuttered because some over zealous internationally correct ideologues smashed it up after Russia invaded Ukraine and it hasn’t come back. The Russia House never seemed to be that popular. It had a sort of fake glamour and contrived shadiness that I liked. I could never afford the caviar, so the prostitutes left me alone. DC snobs would call it “basic” — but then DC snobs are basic, so who cares what they think? I hope it has reopened by the next time I’m in Washington. Spare a thought, too, dear Americans, for British pubs.

red lion
harvest
Mary Kate Skehan

Serving up a Half Baked Harvest feast

As one of eight children, I feel deep kinship with others who come from big families. Bunk beds, hand-me-down clothes, abject chaos at dinnertime — these are the staples of big-family life. Tieghan Gerard, the author of the food blog and cookbook series Half Baked Harvest, is one such kindred spirit. She comes from a family of ten, and began cooking as a tween to help with frenzied mealtimes. She soon started creating her own recipes for a food blog, which became three bestselling cookbooks and a four-million-follower Instagram. Her big-family backstory blends with her wholesome, rustic aesthetic: feeding a crowd, after all, involves creativity, resourcefulness and well-loved tools. I hoped I’d recognize some high-volume cooking tricks in Half Baked Harvest: Super Simple.

Friday

Taki

Remembering Orsini’s

If Paris is cafés and London is pubs, New York is bars. Most of the legendary Big Bagel bars have been Irish: P.J. Clarke’s, still going strong, and the now-shut Elaine’s, where Woody Allen, Jackie Onassis, and Norman Mailer partied and gossiped protected by the formidable Elaine. But for me, although a regular at the above watering holes, there’s one that stands out because it was there where I cut my teeth as a young man about town, where I met Joan Collins, Janet Leigh, and Linda Christian — and debutantes and models galore. That was Orsini’s, at 43 West 56th Street, just off Fifth Avenue.

keto
Mary Kate Skehan

Keto no-no

I recently got engaged. After the celebratory Champagne and indulgent restaurant meals my fiancé and I enjoyed in our month of post-betrothal bliss, reality set in: soon I must fit into a wedding dress. Of course, dresses come in all shapes and sizes, just like brides. But have you seen the price of a wedding photographer lately? I’d like to look my best. These days, the main weight-loss food trend seems to be the ketogenic diet. Like the Paleo and Atkins diets, eating keto means cutting carbs. Unlike these other diets, keto isn’t high in protein; it’s high in fat. The idea is that depriving yourself of carbs and protein will cause your body to burn fat for energy — starting with the bacon and eggs you ate for breakfast and ending with your thighs.

Tuesday

Gus Carter

Are you man enough to eat raw offal?

The dominant wolf gets the liver, at least according to the podcaster Joe Rogan. In one episode, a bodybuilder called “CarnivoreMD” (real name Paul Saladino) tells him: “If you eat liver, you get to be an alpha male... or alpha female.” Offal has taken a markedly macho turn in recent years. No longer consigned to memories of the postwar school cafeteria, organs have become the preferred food of a certain type of gym bro. The word “offal” implies wastage — from the Middle Dutch for offcuts — but it can also be a delicacy. Foie gras is only the most obvious example. For the most part, though, the West has become squeamish about what was once called “variety meat.” But a new wave of offal-lovers is reviving an interest in organs.

offal
cake
Calla Jones Corner

Cake for a world turned upside down

My mother, although an excellent cook, never baked. She left that to her Swedish mother, Anna, who lived with my grandfather in an apartment my father built for them over our garage in Weston, Connecticut. Anna, as I’ve written before, was a gifted baker, especially when it came to Swedish breads. I can’t remember when my mother suggested I might make my father’s birthday cake. Or why the task had been handed down to me. I was only nine or ten, but my mother was well aware that I loved to watch Anna bake, and that my curiosity needed constant nourishment. Rural Weston had no bakery in its small-town center, nor did neighboring, cosmopolitan Westport. In the 1950s, powdered cake mixes came to Westport’s Gristedes supermarket.

zucchini
Jane Stannus

The postmodern horror of zucchini ‘apple’ crumble

There are some very bad people out there. Call me naive, but while I always vaguely knew this to be true, a chance discovery the other day really brought it home. I was scrolling idly through internet recipes and then, suddenly, stark and horrible, there it was — zucchini “apple” crumble, advertised as a method of successfully “tricking your family” into eating vegetables while conveniently using up overgrown zucchinis from the kitchen garden. “If they don’t see you making it, they’ll never know it’s not apple!” urged the author, evidently an agent of the dark side. My eyes widened with horror. My soul curled like a leaf in protest. But then the calming voice of reason intervened.

Tuesday

Teresa Mull

In praise of liquor stores

Pennsylvania’s liquor laws are... vintage. But not in a single-malt Scotch kind of way that means they improve with age. The state legislature did move the needle to the right side of draconian in 2016, but the Philadelphia Inquirer’s 1983 assessment of “Pennsylvania’s backwardness” being “a hangover from the administration of Republican governor Gifford Pinchot, who was elected on a ‘dry’ platform in 1930,” remains accurate. The Inquirer reported that after Prohibition was abolished in 1933, Pinchot led a special session to establish the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and “state stores” to make the purchase of alcoholic beverages “as inconvenient and expensive as possible.

liquor
Mary Kate Skehan

Eating well at a time of inflation

Inflation having topped 9 percent this summer, Americans are looking for ways to cut their spending. Rising prices at the grocery store are impossible to avoid, but we can learn to adjust. There’s no better inspiration than M.F.K. Fisher. Fisher, a food writer who hung around with Julia Child and James Beard during her lifetime, felt the pain of wartime rationing acutely. Her 1942 book How to Cook a Wolf addressed the problem of hunger — “the wolf on the doorstep” — with a few clever recipes and a great deal of philosophy. Survival of the crisis, she predicted, would require first and foremost an attitude of abundance. Fisher ascribes virtues like honesty, dignity and nobility to simply prepared foods.