Augieland

Cru 894 actuzillian stars

When I was a petulant, precocious young man, people loved to tell me little clichés about wisdom like knowledge is learning from your mistakes, wisdom is learning from others' mistakes. As an adult, the only times I feel I am truly being wise are when I am in a situation where I have some semblance of knowledge and experience, yet I choose to stay the hell out of the way of someone and let them show their brilliance.

Last night Helmet, The Bacchanals and I went to Cru and gave ourselves over to the restaurant's staff's whim for both our food and the wines to go with it. Five may be exactly the right number of people for dining at Cru; you can get a different bottle of wine per course and, three hours later, have had a pretty hedonistic evening at a bottle a person (unless your us, then figure two).

Of course it is fun to taste wines in a clean, well-lighted place, and to discuss the merits of one versus the other, but the true pleasure of wine is in how it plays with food. Wine is a part of food and food is a part of wine and when you separate the two you are left with cocktail wines completely lacking in depth, complexity, and nuance. Whatever food you put next to a fruit bomb is trampled and lost (this is why I chuckle at people that brand themselves hedonists, and only mean they like California cabernet with steak). Hedonism is a devotion to the pleasure of the senses, not a total abuse of your palate with wines that are so outsized and extracted that you'd lose a wild elk loin next to them. Understanding this is what puts Cru well above most of its competitors.

Yesterday afternoon I called Cru and asked them to choose what we would drink and eat for the night, within certain cost parameters. Robert Bohr (chief wine dude) and Shea Gallante (head kitchen maestro) got together and made a plan. Here is what we had. (In the interest of totally focusing on our hedonistic endeavor we skipped menus, so forgive some shady descriptions).

97 Billecart Salmon Brut Rose, Cuvee Elisabeth

Fresh, well-structured, tart red fruits, and cooked shrimp shells on the nose; crisp and angular on the palate. This was paired with three quick little tastes (all about the size of a quarter) -- a cubano sandwich, a pastry cup filled with pine nuts and robiolo that had been whipped with truffles, and a sweet potato arancini -- as well as an amuse bouche of sweet shrimp crudo with caviar (about the size of a silver dollar). The rich pork was cut by the wine's crispness, the sweet earthiness in the arancini brought out the yeast in the juice, the creaminess of the robiola accented the fruit, and the sweet little shrimp danced on the cleansing bubbles, while the salty caviar defined the wine's angles.

98 Albert Boxler Grand Cru Brand Riesling

No two good Rieslings are ever the same, yet somehow they all smell like Riesling. Minerals, spices, and tropical fruit on the nose, on the palate this was unctuous and oily with out being cloying. It was served a little warmer then cellar temp, which let it strut its depth. This came with tuna crudo topped with sea urchin. The saline freshness of the urchin brought out the lighter notes in the tuna, and together they pulled the spices to the front of the Riesling

81 Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondoina Rioja blanco gran reserva

This wine saw some oxygen in its life. It was golden in color with a very focused nose. It showed mostly minerals, with some dairy and a little green melon; on the palate it was quite linear, but a wide line. It painted its minerality down the center of your tongue, leaving just the edges to make sure you knew where it had been. This was paired with a seared mackerel that had the oily richness to sit squarely on the landing pad drawn by the wine.

93 Gevery Chambertin Lavaux St. Jacques Raphet

Cinnamon, smoke, roasted meats and barnyard all backed up a huge cherry nose. I have said it before and I will say it again: there is no red wine that goes with lobster. So imagine how upset I was to be enjoying how the mushrooms that accompanied the poached soft-shell lobster brought out goodness in this wine. I assured myself that a great chardonnay would still be better. Then I discovered the piece of pork crackling tucked under the tail meat of the lobster that tied it all up in a nice little package that could not be denied as very well-paired.

Still with this wine, we had a duo pasta course of bone-marrow tortellini in oxtail consommé, and cavatelli with a veal Bolognese. Both amazingly rich and savory in entirely different ways, but both good at drawing earth out of the burgundy.

90 Domain Marcoux CdP

When we came to this one it was a little tight, but as it opened it had all the harmony of great Chateauneuf -- soft mature tannin, black fruit, and a defined spine. It stood very resolutely next to a duck breast. The texture of meat at Cru is amazing. With this dish it is tempting to talk about gamey notes in both players, but the bringing together of textures was what this course ended up being about. The duck feels as if it would be better consumed by pressing it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue, rather than doing by anything as barbaric as chewing it, and the silky tannins of the wine are much the same.

90 Vietti Barolo lazzarito

This wine was all rose petals, chocolate, truffles, and dried fruits with a lingering finish that blended right into the veal tenderloin it was served with. The veal's richness played up the acidity of this

Vietti (an acidity that too many of today's more modern Barolos lack).

We finished these wines and had a yogurt and yuzu pre-dessert, and a dessert comprised of roasted apples and caramel. These were mostly impressive for their ability to stay light enough that they were fully consumed; in spite of the fact that we'd sworn we could eat not one bite more at this point.

Then it was on to the bar for:

64 Pio Cesare Barolo

A cool wine because when else are you going to see it? You are drinking what is left of a wine I am not even sure was great in its prime, but as a cheap study it is fun to taste the cranberries and the metallics and cinnamon holding on as this one fades. Only a place like Cru is going to afford you this opportunity.

93 Mazis Chambertin, Faiveley

I have tasted great burgundy and it is the best thing in the world. I will not say this is great burgundy but it is fantastic and is a lot like great burgundy. Quite fun to drink with notes of roasted salted meats, barnyard, cherries, smoke, and cinnamon. If it has a flaw, it is that the fruit is upfront and a little ahead of everything else. I wonder what will happen with time.

86 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo in magnum

This wine was all about red fruit. Even though it was twenty years old, I can't help but feel we were drinking it about thirty years too early. Big, red, and fruity is really all I can say.

99 Del Forno Vallpolicella (at Otto) green, young and tight, this is going on my hold list. I will revisit in ten or so years.

The biggest benefit of planning ahead is that the Cru team has the time to plan this well, which is evidenced by the fact that all these wines were served at the right temperature and pace.

If you want to go out and enjoy food and wine, rather than do some eating and drinking, go to Cru where they understand that, although simple and easy can be brilliant, care, thought and expertise are sublime, and they are very skilled at sharing this.

mercury, bycatch, and canned tuna. oh my

One of my all time favorite days in history was when Seabright showed up to a cookout that Woodsie was having with about a 4-pound section of a bluefin tuna he had caught that morning. Real North Atlantic bluefin, never frozen, the kind of thing you just accept you will never taste.

I was assigned the duty of preparing it for the crowd. Chopes, Wife and I ate it raw, while everyone else watched and waited for me to figure out how to cook it. Ultimately, I went the easy way: I sliced it into four steaks, threw it on the grill long enough to barely color it (so people could convince themselves it had been cooked) and splashed a little Kikoman soy on it.

It was amazing, fantastic; it was buttery and wonderful. Experiences like this keep me sidelined on fish issues. Yes, bluefin is being ridiculously over-fished, their average weight is down by something like 50%, and there are 90% less than there were in the '70s. I must also consider that long line fishing reeks havoc on all kinds of other sea life, and it is also easy to follow the reasoning that if bigger carnivorous fish contain the most mercury this is the fish most likely to make you stupid. I accept it is likely that, because of over-fishing, there will probably be no bluefin left pretty soon. As a result of knowing all this, I don't go out of my way looking for bluefin tuna.

The truth is, most of the fish I see on a day-to-day basis is a gassed, sub-par form of bluefin that should never have been killed anyway, so I find it as easy to walk on by as I do a Florida Tomato. I mean crap is crap. However, real, great bluefin tuna is magic, and I eat it when I get the chance. I reassure my self that by not eating the crap served in cheap sushi joints, or "grilled rare and put on top of our house ceaser salad," I am not supporting the market, and hopefully people will stop taking young tuna from the sea.

Over-fishing is a real concern for me; I hate the idea that, in order to catch fish we want, we kill an enormous amount of fish by happenstance, bycatch, and as a result I try to base my fish choices on some eco-friendly guidelines.

There is also the consideration that I disagree with some fish farming practices, Salmon, for example (if you need to dye it, it can't be good), and agree with others, mussels (they clean the water, and seldom compete with natural species).

Then there is the fact that the mercury residue of our industrial revolution has made most fish poisonous, to some degree or other.

Eating seafood is a conundrum I haven't fully wrapped my head around at this time. The way things are going the quality of fish is less good, less plentiful, and significantly less healthy, but Masa's toro is sublime. So whenever I see public discussion on these topics, I try to follow it. At the moment, the Chicago Tribune has brought mercury concerns of canned tuna to the forefront. Here is some of what I am reading:

"When the Food and Drug Administration updated its mercury warning last year, it arbitrarily classified canned light tuna as low in mercury to "keep market share at a reasonable level," one agency official told an FDA advisory panel, according to transcripts of the meeting."

"But theNational Academy of Sciences, the nation's leading scientific body, concluded in 2000 that a larger body of evidence shows mercury does cause harm and that exposure limits should be based on that research.
Tuna industry officials remain unconvinced, stressing that their product is one of the healthiest foods children and pregnant women can eat."

"The drafts were tested on consumer focus groups, and during one session the parent of a 15-month-old child asked about the risks of canned tuna. Alan Levy, chief of the FDA's consumer studies branch, answered: "It would be, you know, prudent to cut back if he's eating more than a can-and-a-half a week," according to transcripts of the meeting.
Addressing another focus group, Levy acknowledged that the agency's mercury limit in fish--since relaxed from 0.5 to 1 part per million--was not low enough to protect fetuses" Chicago Tribune Dec 13 '05

"That decision had implications far beyond tuna. Once the FDA defined canned light tuna as low, all other kinds of seafood with comparable levels of mercury, such as cod, also had to be listed as low.
When asked in an interview why officials arbitrarily chose the low mercury level instead of employing scientific calculations, Acheson said: "It was a perfectly appropriate scientific decision to choose that value compared to any other value. You could certainly move it up, you could move it down, and you might get a different result."

Industry officials are fighting the suit, and they have an unlikely ally: the FDA. The agency said the federal warning issued last year--the same one that misleads consumers about the levels of mercury in fish--is the best way to advise the public Chicago Tribune Dec 13 '05

The fact that one tuna species--yellowfin--may contain slightly higher amounts of mercury than some other species is a meaningless fact, especially since the fish intended for tuna steaks is not used in canned tuna and the yellowfin used in our products was confirmed by the Chicago Tribune's own tests to contain very low levels of mercury Chicago Tribune Dec 22 '05

In recent years the tuna industry, fearing class-action lawsuits and a drop in sales, has opposed government efforts to warn consumers about mercury in tuna, federal records show. The industry is especially concerned about warnings regarding canned light tuna, which accounts for 65 percent of all cans of tuna sold. Albacore makes up 35 percent.
Since the Tribune series was published, the Tuna Foundation has defended the use of yellowfin in light tuna.
In an interview, Burney, the foundation director, said gourmet canned tuna is not light tuna but rather "a completely different product."
But gourmet cans prominently say "light tuna" on the labels Chicago Tribune Dec 31 '05

The Tribune series reported that about 180 million cans of light tuna are made with yellowfin each year. Half of those cans are marketed as a gourmet product. StarKist calls its product "Gourmet's Choice," Chicken of the Sea markets a "Tonno" product under the Genova label and Bumble Bee offers a "Tonno in olive oil" variety. Of those, only Genova identifies its product as yellowfin Chicago Tribune Dec 31 '05

Make of these what you will, I just hate feeling like the only guy that knows this is going on.

this is why i didn't post on the first

95 Dom Perignon

96 Tattinger Comte de Champagne in magnum

88 Bollinger "RD" in magnum

88 Billecart Salmon blanc de blanc in magnum

NV Billecart Salmon Rose in magnum

NV Krug brut rose

76 Dom Perignon Onoteque

75 d'Yquem

86 d'Yquem ½ bottle

86 Penfolds Grange Hermitage

Bread 4

In the food processor, with a metal blade, this time I put:

1 ¼  cups King Arthur bread flour (4g protein per ¼ cup)
1 ½  cup Arrow Head Mills pastry flour flour (4g protein per ¼ cup)
¾  cup Arrow Head Mills organic Kamut flour (5g protein per ¼ cup)
1 ¾ tsp Morton Coarse Kosher salt
1 ¼ tsp saf-instant dry yeast
1 ½ cup NYC tap water

I gave it a quick whiz in the food processor, and then placed it in a large metal bowl to rise. The dough itself was very moist and loose. I assume this has something to do with the use of pastry flour. I laid the protective plastic-wrap across the top of the bowl, letting it lay inside the bowl close to the dough.

3 hours later I turned it out of the bowl, punched it down, divided it into 3 balls and let it rest under a floured side towel.

The 3 balls proofed for 1 hour. I then rolled them out, folded them into thirds, and rested them between two floured towels for ½ hour.

I slashed the top of each loaf and put them in an oven that had preheated to 425 for ½ an hour and cooked them for 30 minutes, plus five minutes (see notes on this below).

This time I:
1.    Accidentally had set the oven to 375 as opposed to 425 so I added 5 minutes with the oven on 500 to the end.
2.    Tossed 6 ice cubes in the gap between the stone and the oven floor when I put the bread in, and then again 5 minutes into the cycle.
3.    Divided the bread into 3 loaves (last time the center didn’t seem to cook all the way through).

Notes on bread 4:
1.    Hard to judge because of the mistake in oven temp.
2.    Crust was nice
3.    Crumb again seemed under-cooked
4.    Color more yellow, probably as a result of more kamut.
5.    The salt was noticeably missing.

Well there is always bread 5.