Loos Family Pinot Noir on The Good Life Report

Chances are you're either on your way out of the office or counting down the minutes until you are: Whether it's Passover or Good Friday, today is a day of procrastination and little work getting done. With that in mind, then, I just wanted to post a quick link today to my recent column in The Good Life Report on the beautiful Loos Family Pinot Noir "Bohemian Vineyard" 2010. This one hits the sweet spot right between Russian River and Burgundy, and is a magnificent example of what California Pinot can do when it's shown respect and love in the vineyard and the winery.

[Note: Photo courtesy of Brad Loos.]

Some Chicken with Your Benadryl?

Add this one to your mental file marked "Why Big Ag Has Gone Crazy:" In today's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof writes about recently published studies that seem to imply that the majority of the chicken we eat in this country is contaminated with everything from arsenic to banned antibiotics to acetaminophen. The National Chicken Council has responded with this statement.

First "pink slime," now this. How is this not a major priority for our political leaders?

Actually, it is...kind of. The so-called "Beefstate Governors," at least, are fighting the (not-so-) good fight, as highlighted in this clip from The Colbert Report this week.

Cynical on their part? Absolutely. The result of our collective blind trust in the industrial food industry to do the right thing? Yep, that too.

Maybe this will be our wake-up call.

Dish of the Week: The Fried Chicken Sandwich at Son of a Gun, LA

Every once in a while, you’re lucky enough to taste a dish that changes the way you look at an ingredient that, before that first bite, had been relatively familiar. Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo, the wildly (and justifiably) popular Los Angeles restaurateurs, recently did this to me with nothing more exotic than fried chicken.

Battered-and-fried bird has seen a serious renaissance in recent years, and on both coasts of the country. From the shatteringly crisp crust of Korean bon chon to haute-comfort riffs on the country classic, the humble breast-leg-thigh trifecta has been given the kind of love that any one of the Kardashian sisters would kill for.

Shook and Dottolo have upped the ante. And in keeping with their M.O. at both Son of a Gun (8370 W. 3rd St., LA) and Animal (435 N. Fairfax Ave., LA), they’ve decided not so much to change up the essence of the fried chicken sandwich but, rather, to simply make it better.

They start with an unabashedly butter-rich brioche bun and build the beast out from there: Bread-and-butter pickle slaw; “Rooster” aioli with just enough punch to frame that slaw, yet not so much that it sets the tangle ablaze; and, the key to the whole operation’s success, the fried chicken, a deliriously moist, snowy-centered breast cocooned in a crust so nutty, so perfectly teeth-snappy, that, if you’re like me, you’ll actually fall into a deep depression a week later as the realization slowly dawns on you that you won’t be having it again until you hop on a plane and head on over to the Left Coast sometime in the future.

Of course, a depression spurred on by a catalyst this transformative--a sandwich this remarkable--is well worth falling into.

[Note: Photo from Yelp.]

Vodka, Cocktail Snobs, and Iceland

As the cocktail revolution has grown and evolved in America, vodka seems to have taken a bit of a hit, at least among the so-called spirits cognoscenti. Somehow, somewhere along the way, it became un-cool to offer and, in some cases, to even order a vodka-based drink in certain bars, as if the fact that a customer drinks vodka instead of gin were somehow indicative of greater character flaws, a kind of spirits-implied wishy-washiness similar to, say, admitting that you like the music of Top Gun-era Kenny Loggins or late-career Michael McDonald.

Paul Clarke, in an excellent 2010 article in Imbibe, succinctly traced vodka’s recent fall from grace: “For the last half-century, vodka has been an unstoppable force behind the bar, but in some corners of the drinks world, resentment has been building in recent years. Many mixology blogs and online forums dismiss vodka as flavorless; some sneeringly disdain the crystal-clear spirit, placing its epicurean value on par with that of a Hostess cupcake and its cultural contribution on the same level as a Jonas Brothers CD. Last April, these grumblings came to a head when the Wall Street Journal proclaimed in its spirits column, ‘Vodka is passé.’”

There was even a phase--and, sadly, it’s still going on; though it does seem to be running its course--when supposedly serious cocktail bars whose claims to such were perhaps inadvertently undermined by their bartenders’ insistence on arm-garters and handlebar mustaches, didn’t even stock vodka. The message was simple: We may be playing old-timey costume-drama here, but this is a bar for grown-ups only, and real men don’t drink vodka.

By this deliciously self-nullifying logic, James Bond and generations of Russian men are idiots.

Does anyone else see a problem here?

The good news is that vodka seems to be making a comeback, even among the most uppity, formerly judgmental circles of cocktail enthusiasts. In the opinion of one cocktail expert according to Clarke, much of the backlash against vodka is the result of its starring role in the technicolored, saccharine-sweet abominations that the post-college, bachelorette-party, and Jersey Shore crowds have fallen so in love with, those artificially-flavored and vodka-amped jet fuels whose only relationship to actual vodka martinis was the fact that they were served in the eponymous triangular glasses.

But just as you shouldn’t avoid exercise simply because The Situation is a gym-rat, so, too, should you not turn your nose up at vodka solely on the premise that it is occasionally used to achieve ill-conceived ends. As a version of the saying goes, vodka doesn’t make bad cocktails; people make bad cocktails.

It’s something that more and more mixologists and bar-owners are finally realizing. And as a result, not only is there a wider range of vodkas being stocked at serious cocktail bars, but the many benefits of well-crafted vodka drinks are being explored and exploited once again. According to the article in Imbibe, vodka can be used to “magnify” some flavors, to serve as “a stage for strong-flavored ingredients, such as bitter Italian amari or French herbal liqueurs,” or, as so many Russians and Eastern Europeans have known for a very long time indeed, to serve as an end in and of itself.

I bring all of this up because I’ve recently been receiving more samples of vodka than I ever have before--and much of it is serious stuff. Among my favorites is the Reyka Small Batch Vodka from Iceland. It’s deliciously crisp on its own and excellent in a cocktail. I had particular luck using it in a Vesper this past weekend, though its clean character and silky texture would benefit any number of cocktails. It is, I think, going to become a staple in my home bar. Because every right-thinking drinker needs a great bottle of it on hand, no matter what the spirits snobs tell you.

Reyka Small Batch Vodka, Iceland

Exceptionally clean nose, with just a hint of hay or grain on it, as well as something that reminds me of slate--a warm sense of minerality, perhaps. There’s nothing here to get in the way of the spirit itself, nothing forced: Just a beautiful, pristine embodiment of what might be called Platonic cleanliness. On the palate, a silky texture carries whisper-subtle flavors of fresh white peppercorn, licorice, and, as the chill starts to come off, something the slightest bit lactic. But like the nose, this is all about cleanliness. It’s a gorgeous vodka, whistle-clean and pure. And perfect for sipping and serious cocktails in equal measure.