The Omnivorous Fish

Had a nice little doodang tonight. Vegetable appetizers: Golden and Red beets (separately) salad with green beans, walnuts, blood oranges and walnut oil, celery root and radishes vinaigrette (possibly my signature dish) and onion marmalade with balsamic vinegar. These were all with bread and butter. I could have done toasts, but… I’m just one man.

Then we had a poached salmon with beurre blanc, potatoes anna and brussels sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta. Then a little salad, then a whole baked camembert in pastry. We drank a couple of really remarkable wines, too. With the salads we had a Cusumano Nero d’Avola, which is only the Sicilia IGT, but it’s a great wine nonetheless, and with the salmon we had a Collio from Livio Felluga, which is a Lombardese pinot grigio, one of the finest, and certainly my favorite of the region. I admit I am partial to the Alto Adige DOC wines, esp the ones from Tiefenbrunner, but I find pinot grigio behaves a lot better when treated like a german grape than when treated like an Italian one. I’m fascinated by that area of the world, Friuli and Alto Adige especially, and also Istria (where they speak Istrian; an Italianate derivative of Slovenian). I mean, these are Italian people, eating Speck and drinking austere whites that speak german… and are Italian. Of course, I grew up speaking a language that Turks can understand, eating pasta with preserved lemon, and I think I’m Italian, too, so go figure.

I realized that I really like cooking, and tasting, but I find the actual act of eating kind of lackluster. I thrive on the fellowship of a meal, yet the shoveling food in my face is among my least fave parts of it. The first taste of something followed by a sip of the perfect wine… then I kind of just want rice. It’s funny, when people just drop by for dinner or I cook for myself (very rare) I cook mostly vegetarian, almost vegan, really, minus cheese. The other night I had a friend by and I cooked a pilaf of bulgar wheat (which I absolutely adore) with raisins, steamed red russian kale with tamari and the world famous celery root and radish salad.

Holy shit, I’m rambling. I think I might post this. Don’t be offended.

Listening: Pepino D’agostino “Ancora Un Instante” Venus Over Venice