To Construct Wine Sentences, part uno.

i want this confidence in my wine choice. all. in.

"What kind of white do you like?"

Then I'll pause before answering the person who asked the question, often in a plaid shirt as is the current trend of servers at restaurants, and I'll search my brain files for words I've heard on podcasts that will make me sound informed but probably have little do with any actual enjoyment I get from drinking the wine.

I've said things like: "Minerally. Not too fruity and maybe a little dry. No Sauvignon Blanc."

Because, I've heard that fruity is for pansies and minerals are for the hardcore white wine drinker, and sweet wine? Go back to first grade. And, actually, I've hated most of the Sauvignon Blancs I've tried.

But, I forget if I liked the wine I just described. And thus, the ultimate inquiry of this most important of quests: what kind of white wine do I like?

I can pretend to act cool and invoke minerals into my diction, or I could learn. Essentially, I know a few things, but none are rooted in knowledge, as much as happenstance or recognition. Seeing a familiar sounding grape often confuses me into thinking I've liked it and then I order it. My nose and tongue and some part of my brain have only these memories to speak of: 

• the cat piss stench of Sauvignon Blanc isn't my thing; 
• the words Chenin Blanc flash from the menu because I've recently heard about it on America's Test Kitchen podcast and I bought a $12 bottle at Trader Joe's after hearing about it and I remember a feeling of satisfaction; 
• Chardonnay (from whence it came no one knows) feels reliable; 
• I've had too sweet Reislings and just right Reislings;
• Vino Verde left a good impression on my tongue, what with its little bubbles; 
• Gewurztraminer tangles my lips in knots cause it's very hard to say out loud (22 seconds, after the guy swivels in his chair) and maybe harder to spell, but is associated positively with a satisfying glass in Vienna, (Austria not Virginia);
• Viognier invokes local (Virginia and Maryland) vintners trying to make good wine but almost always falling a little bit short and therefore leaves me depressed.

ENTER: Winc.

Winc Wine: Wonderful.

I joined the wine club Winc in hopes of cementing my opinions or at least having real words to say that represent some semblance of truth to the plaid wrapped humans--words in a sentence, for me to say, which results in me drinking wine I like. 

First up: 2014 Wonderful Wine White Blend. I loved this rubik's cube of a wine. For $13 it was easy to drink but had like multidimensional flavors. Sometimes it was velvety and other times it was tangy; sometimes it was sweetish, but it was also zesty. It was smooth, but with pointy edges. At first I was worried: it was a mix of Sauvignon Blanc (mortal enemy), Muscat (I associate with sweet), Viognier (#depression), and Chenin Blanc (assumed lover).

Smitten, I re-read the description Winc gave me so I could begin thinking of a sentence to approximate the wine when I go out in public. This wine is described as medium body (and according to Winc, the following flavor notes provided by each grape): 

• fruity, zippy, bright, (SB)
• lush, and with notes of lychee, (Muscat)
• white flowers and honeysuckle. (V + CB) 

WINE SENTENCE THE FIRST: "I'd like a medium body white, something that's a mix of lychee and citrus, with some floral notes." 

If I use these words, can I approximate this wine? Will I feel like a douche bag? Will they ask follow up questions that will confuse the fuck out of me? Will I just repeat the sentence ad nauseam until they just bring me any old glass to shut me the fuck up? Will my fellow diners think to themselves: "phew! that's a lady who knows what she WANTS." <--effectively screaming wants in their head voice.

STAY TUNED.*

*This is a bigger cliff hanger than when Sarah Koenig told us something like: "next week we'll hear from Jay."

To Bring a Side to a Cookout: Bacon Potato Anxiety Salad Edition

This is essentially German potato salad, which if you're unfamiliar is a warm potato salad with a vinegar based dressing and some bacon. I'm mostly comfortable with making the recipe: boil the potatoes, fry some bacon, sautee some chopped onion in the bacon fat, make a dressing of vinegar, mustard & sugar. Let the taters soak it all in while they're warm. THAT is KEY. (I've still no idea how much vinegar mustard OR sugar, but I do know that you should drain more bacon fat than I did; because although bacon fat is absolutely the best thing in the world, it's hard to cut, even with apple cider vinegar.)

So, when I offered to bring a side dish to a cookout, you'd maybe think I'd just make the thing I know how to make. But, I don't follow that rule (sometimes to bad results) of "don't make something for a party unless you've tried it before!" because, while I appreciate the notion that Maggie from accounting always reliably brings her buffalo chicken dip to the party that everyone loves! I more appreciate a risk that hopefully pays off with everyone being like: OMG WHITNEY I LOVE YOU (and your cooking, etc etc). Often, the exercise ends in nothing like that happening and I'm riddled with anxiety as people try the foods I've been pouring over, because well, I've never gotten feedback on the dish except for this moment now when if they DO praise me I'll be convinced they're lying to not hurt my feelings. And, after the party they're like: "dude Whitney's salad was GROSS."

LIKE I DO: instead of just making the thing I've made before, I read about 6000 articles about what people usually bring to cook outs. [Googled: "BEST potato salad" "Orgasmic coleslaw" "BITCHES fucking LOVE this SIDE dish."] I learned, and this is not scientifically proven, but a lot of the peoples bring potato salads to parties. A lot of those fools put mayonnaise in their dressing and some do not think to add any green. To me, those are necessary components, or non-components to a good 'tater salad. In the end I ignored them, sort of.

Because nothing was SPEAKING to me, I was like FINE!!!!!!! I'll just make the potato salad that my mother makes. (Which is the weirdest sentence in the English language since my mother cooks once every decade.) BUT, I couldn't leave well enough alone,  and needed a signature addition, so I added pickled green beans cause of inspiration #1 and I roasted 1/2 the potatoes cause of inspiration #2. And, as always, as all the good bitches do, I added green onions to the top of the potato salad. As ALWAYS. People said it was good; they were probably just being nice.

To Remember which Recipes I've Used: Pasta Cookies Loaf Carrots Edition.

Recently I've made a few things that came out pretty well. And probably, I'll forget how I made them or which of the internet sites I got them from, much like I forgot to take pictures of them after I finished cooking...

I made spinach lasagna roll ups. I used a combination of two recipes: a stuffed shells one + a lasagna roll ups one. I was trying to use up some ricotta I had purchased, so I needed to use the stuffed shells filling, but used the roll ups technique. My filling was: 2 microplaned garlic cloves, 1 C ricotta, 1/3 C grated parmesan cheese, 1/2 egg, salt, pepper, crushed red peppers, 2 C frozen, thawed, chopped, squeezed-dry spinach. I covered it with sliced mozzarella cheese. So if that photo below were of the ones I made, there would be beautiful circles of cheese.

Photo from The Kitchn

There were these lavender shortbread cookies. Maybe they were a little crunchier than I would have liked, but I don't know if that was my fault or the recipe's. I used regular sugar and she called for turbindo sugar. I don't know what that is so I didn't have it in my house and therefore didn't use it. Maybe next time?

photo by Joy the Baker

Then, I made another loaf of whole wheat banana bread. I can't vouch for its flavoring because it was a gift, but I think it looked really swell if I do say so myself. Actually, it was a gift for a new mom. The idea of a breakfast snack ALSO came from The Kitchn. Roughly mine looked like (though my pan is not as cute. I would like a cute loaf pan):

Photo by The Kitchn

I also made some sweet roasted carrots with a yogurt-tahini sauce. The recipe calls for a 3/4 C of maple syrup, but I am not made of money, so I just use Turkish honey instead. This is one of those recipes that I would like to be able to recall randomly when someone is like: oh, what do you recommend I do with these leftover carrots? Or, I'd like to incorporate the sauce into my regime. Because, I don't use tahini naturally, I only use it when the recipe tells me to. It's funny how some ingredients (or flavors?) I can incorporate without thinking (paprika or cinnamon) but others are more challenging. ANYWAY, the mix of the sweeeeeeeet carrots and the savory yogurt were a really nice match. And duh, because it was a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe.

To Support Community Agriculture: Marriage & The Weekly Meal Plan Edition (Week 1)

Usually, our meal planning is willy nilly. I go to yoga a couple times a week, so that means Michael is in charge of cooking those nights, and the other nights I'll cook. Usually, we decide what to make the day of, maybe we talk about it, but usually it's a solo effort.

But, when we signed up for our CSA we realized we'd have to switch it up, in order to ensure all of the goods were used. And, Michael said, we weren't just making stuff! We'd make new stuff! We'd make a but concerted effort to try new recipes. The bonus of our CSA is that it lets us choose our crops, but going into our first meal planning, we had no idea how much we would get of each item. Quantities unknown, eagerness nowhere in check, minds racing as if we had 20 minutes on the clock to impress Aaron Sanchez & Geoffrey with his glasses, we began.

Sitting together on the couch, we had dogeared magazines: 2 recent Bon Appetits, one Food & Wine. I had an inbox full of recipes I send myself to "remember." Michael had his imagination and a cookbook or two. We knew we'd be receiving:

• Strawberries
• Collard greens
• Pea shoots
• Lambs quarters
• Sautee greens (hearty mixed greens)
• Rainbow chard

We're homebodies, generally, but this week I had two work happy hours. So Michael would be on his own for two nights. How long would things last? What went with what? Would there be leftovers? Should we make separate lunches? What the f*** are lambs quarters? But, if I'm going out, and we're trying to save money, you should eat the greens! I might have said that. I might have suggested that I have all the fun and my husband should sit home by himself eating just the greens. EAT THE GREENS. 

Then, well, strawberries would be for lunch, an easy agreement. Collards, Michael's specialty, would be for dinner. But, wait, do we cook pea shoots? I have a recipe in my inbox for stuffed collards! But, I'm making collards. Rainbow chard is sort of like collards? Can I switch them out? [Googling: stuffed chard-- yes! Yes, okay.]

natural ombre.

Our marriage will survive meal planning, right? I asked. Maybe we should stop talking about this for now, I said. Then, I forgot about that BUT THANKFULLY remembered that there was a pea shoots recipe IN bon appetit! And, I could serve them with fish! Actually, not a bad idea. Things were coming together, and even though I was desperate to have the WHOLE. WEEK. PLANNED. Michael assured me we could go to the market again during the week and not just on Sunday and things would be okay. Spoiler alert: they were okay, great even! I mean, I did not make enough stuffed chards for the week because they were itty bitty. And we went to the grocery THREE times (compared with 5? 6?) But, we're alive to tell about it. In conclusion, Michael is planning this week alone. (It's not so dramatic; he has the week off of work, etc.)

So, here's what we ended up with:

the sautee greens are unaccounted for in photos too! michael sauteed them for me for friday lunch with my herby rice.

Monday: Roasted chicken & collard greens

Lunch for some of the days: Swiss chard stuffed with rice

including chard stems. + so many herbs. don't use basmati rice.

stuffed with this rice + made this way. next time, i'll insist on collards. unless the chard leaves are bigger.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday: Lambs Quarter Pesto Pasta

Friday: Crispy pea shoots with gremolata + hake.

shoots with garlic & shallots. gremolata with the same + mint + parsley + lemon zest. 

To Fondly Remember Being Hungover: Congee.

There was this one time, a couple summers ago, when I might have had too much to drink on a Saturday night, and woke up on a Sunday and decided to go to yoga, but first I would stop at the Farmer's Market, you see, but SOMEHOW time had flown by (surely nothing to do with my bleary eyes or slowed down brain), and I was impossibly late for yoga, and therefore the only thing I could reasonably do was to forsake exercising for brunch at the Thai food restaurant that was fatefully by my side at the exact witching hour I should have been anchoring into my sits bones, settling into my breath and joining my thumb and first finger. Despite the fact that it was 900 degrees and muggy at 11am in the beautiful summer that DC provides us, I ordered hot congee on that hot day and realized that hangover was the best thing that ever happened to me, because, it resulted in this steaming, salty, mushy bowl of mostly colorless broken rice which enveloped my whole innards with a big, welcome, and sultry hug.

ANYWAY. I wanted to make my own damn congee. I chose a recipe that had sausage and corn. I didn't have ginger on hand, and I wish I had used chicken or vegetable stock. I poached an egg and drizzled it with soy sauce. Yolk, as it does with everything, enriched the broth. IDK, this could have used more flavor. Or maybe I should have been hungover? It was good. I'll do better next time.

PRO TIP: Put your scallions in a jar with some water and watch them grow and re-grow as you use them!

To Cook All Weekend: #MDW Edition

Before Memorial Day came around we decided there all kinds of things we wanted to make. After all, with three days to muck about, why not?

ya, fine. i bought bowls that day just for the soup.

Michael made bouillabaisse. Once upon a time, we went to Marseilles and didn't get to eat bouillabaisse because we didn't know you had to make reservations. So, it's been on the to cook list for a while. We went to the Maine Ave Fish Market (a cement pier settled into the Potomac with 5 or so huge stalls of fishmongers selling fish) and bought clams, shrimp, red snapper & monk fish (probably, one of my favorite fishes).

Maine Avenue Fish Market

Sunday, we went to a picnic with some friends. I had a need to make fried chicken. We had made it before at a class and then tried it one weekend in Boston. This instance was the best we've ever made. I think it was the boneless, skinless thighs chopped into 2-bite sized nuggets that did the trick. We used Roses Luxury's brine recipe (sort of... I forgot to boil the brine; it was 6am before coffee on a Sunday), and then used the technique from our cooking class: flour (seasoned with S&P, cayenne, paprika), buttermilk, flour then fry. And again per Roses, we drizzled the fried chicken with honey & sesame seeds. SO GOOD. Best thing we've ever made. Probably.

asparagus, shrooms & onions.

I also grilled up some veggies for the picnic. That's been a spring time go to. (Grilled on a pan, since we live in an apartment with no real grill access :(

For a Monday morning treat, Michael made buttermilk biscuits to have a fried chicken "sandwich". I had that with a side of fried chicken nuggets. I couldn't stop eating them. I drizzle almost everything with turkish honey these days.

I also made strawberry rhubarb bars & whole wheat banana bread for breakfast for the week. Speaking of honey (like 2 sentence ago)!  Instead of maple syrup in the banana bread recipe, I used honey. Other tips I learned that I should remember: don't put banana bread on the bottom rack; the bottom of the oven is too hot! and if your bananas aren't ripe enough, just go ahead and roast 'em, skin on for 10 mins.

All that + 6 movies made for a stuffed weekend.

To Make Frozen Yogurt: Mint Edition

We have a few great gelato places in DC, but there's no good spots (that I've found) to eat some frozen yogurt. Maybe those don't generally exist? Is frozen yogurt stupid? TCBY? Ugh.

Anyway, I didn't want to make the swirly kind of frozen yogurt. That's all sugary. I wanted a frozen version of the full fat, plain yogurt I eat for breakfast. When done right, that kind of yogurt brings me back to the first time I tried French plain yogurt: sour, thick, creamy, and fluffy all at once. I topped it with raspberry jam. And I sat on a balcony overlooking the lake in Annecy pretty much feeling like I'd never be that happy again. I was that happy again, but it was 14 years ago and I can see myself there, making that discovery. Profound yogurt experience.

SOOO. Back to the present and the frozen plain yogurt. I had this idea that I could make mint yogurt. Not mint chocolate chip. Not mint made from phony flavors. But, real minted frozen yogurt. When I read about the perils of freezing yogurt, lots of people said it can get too icy. And a lot of people just used mint extract. And some people put heavy cream in theirs, which is fine, but I really want to do my best to have the focus be the yogurt. So, I followed the Kitchn's recipe + 101 Cookbooks and took some tips from the Internet at large (add vodka; strain the yogurt to reduce water content) and came up with something that I think is pretttttty decent. Don't make this expecting the creaminess of ice cream or gelato. It's NOT that. But, it's something you could eat a little bit of every night as a snack and feel pretty good about.

I brought 1/2 can coconut milk to a simmer with a package of mint leaves. I pressed on the mint leaves to extract flavor. I let that set for 30 minutes off the heat. I mixed together 2 cups of full fat plain yogurt (that I had strained for 2-3 hours; not much water came out, but some did) + 1/4 cup sugar + 1 tablespoon of vodka + 1 tsp vanilla + the coconut milk minus the mint leaves + ~40 drops of mint bitters. Then, I put it in the ice cream machine until the magic happened. (I tried making it without the ice cream machine, and it was WAY too icy. It was okay to eat if I let it set out for 1/2 hour before eating...but the texture was not perfect.)