Monthly Archives: September 2015

Roasted Pork Shoulder with a Masala Rub

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Masala Pork Shoulder
My normal tendency with pork shoulder is to cube it and do something vaguely vindaloo’ish with it (see here and here). On Sunday, however, I was feeling too lazy to cut the shoulder up and didn’t really want to stand over the stove on another hot day. And so, I decided to marinate the whole thing and bung it into the fridge for a day and deal with it on Monday, forecast to be a much cooler day. I am happy to report that the weather did not play me false and that the improvized spice rub worked out really well. I did overcook it a little bit—I don’t do whole roasts very often and when I do, I don’t like pulling things out of the oven to stick meat thermometers into them; I play it by feel instead and sometimes it goes a little bit over. Not the end of the world, and the more capable roaster (such as yourself) will have no trouble getting that part of it fixed to your satisfaction.

Anyway, on to the pork!  Continue reading →

Highland Park 22, 1991 (SMWSA 4.191)

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Highland Park 22, 1991, SMWSA
Highland Park, as I have noted on many occasions, is one of my very favourite distilleries. And as I have doubtless also noted on many occasions, bourbon cask Highland Parks—which are rarely available from the distillery—always catch my eye. They’re obviously very different from the distillery’s usual fare: as Highland Park matures its spirit predominantly in sherry casks, bourbon casks are rare from even the independents. Unsurprisingly, they’re also quite different from the standard profile. While I don’t myself believe that it it’s in bourbon cask matured malt that a distillery’s true profile/character is revealed (this is because I don’t believe in “distillery character” as something separate from maturation*), it is true that it is from bourbon casks that you can most clearly get a sense of the nature of Highland Park’s peat, in particular. And the continuities between bourbon cask Highland Park and malt from distilleries like Clynelish and Springbank that I also like very much indeed are interesting as well.  Continue reading →

Tuna Ceviche with Avocado and Tomato

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Tuna Ceviche with Avocado and Tomato
This has been a very hot and humid week in southern Minnesota. And I spent altogether too much of it making vast amounts of tomato sauce to freeze for the winter (eating seasonally is for people in more temperate climes). So when the weekend rolled around the last thing I wanted to do was to be standing over a stove. Therefore our lunch today was both raw and cold. Last night I made gazpacho from Rohan Daft’s criminally under-appreciated Menu Del Dia and put it into the fridge and this afternoon I improvized a batch of tuna ceviche. I am confident that all those who had absolutely no interest in my last recipe involving raw tuna will be all over this one. Once again, I used frozen ahi tuna purchased from Costco. Some of my friends are a little alarmed by my eating this tuna raw, but I live on the edge*. Continue reading →

Glenfarclas 24, 1990 (for K&L)

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Glenfarclas 24, 1990
I thought this was going to be a return to my untimely reviewing ways but in checking out the details on this whisky after tasting it I was surprised to discover that K&L (whose distillery exclusive this is) seem to still have a large amount of it left. I guess there’s only so many whiskies even David Driscoll can convince every breathless whisky geek in the US to shell out for. Or maybe it’s because this isn’t a single cask and we tend to get—for no good reason—more excited about single casks. It’s also possible that people got spooked by K&L’s description of the acquisition of the casks, which suggests that they were casks the distillery was unwilling to release as (more expensive) singles. As per Sku, the source of this sample, this was a vatting of two casks. K&L’s own copy suggests more than two casks: they refer to it as a “multi-cask” vatting “from a sequential lot of first fill Oloroso sherry butts”. But I’m sure Sku’s information is from the horse’s mouth (or whichever wind-spewing orifice you think is more appropriate in this case).  Continue reading →

Chengdu Taste II (Los Angeles, July 2015)

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Chengdu Taste: Boiled Fish with Green Pepper Sauce
It’s been more than a month since I got back from Los Angeles but I still have a number of meal reports to go. After a string of sushi reports here now is a brief account of our return to Chengdu Taste in late July. Our lunch there was one of the highlights of our trip last summer; despite noting in the write-up of that meal that we’d be back on each trip, we unaccountably failed to go in December. Well, there was going to be no such error on this trip. Once again we escaped the long lines by going for lunch on a weekday, not too long after they opened. We still had to wait but not for very long. And this time we had our table to ourselves. While the restaurant was full throughout, it does appear that the opening of the new branches in Rosemead and Rowland Heights have eased the pressure somewhat (our meal was again at the original Alhambra location). Though I’m sure weekend lunches still draw the lines.

Continue reading →

Laphroaig 15, 200th Anniversary Edition

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Laphroaig 15, 200th Anniversary
The old Laphroaig 15, much beloved of many peat-loving whisky geeks, was discontinued in favour of the 18 yo a few years ago. I’ve marveled before at this circumstance, which seems unimaginable in our current whisky world: a major distillery discontinuing a 15 yo whisky in their core range in favour of one that’s three years older and at a higher strength (without the price moving very much—not in MN anyway). Now, of course, there are rumours that the 18 yo is on the way out too. I don’t know if these are true but I doubt very much that we’d get a regular issue and affordable 21 yo out of it. Anyway, as part of their 200th anniversary celebrations this year, Laphroaig brought back a special release of the 15 yo. Opinions have been mixed but there was little chance, frankly, given my love of Laphroaig that I would pass on a bottle. And this is the bottle I did not pass on. Let’s get to it.  Continue reading →

Coming Soon…

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Steichen
August was the first month since I published it that my post on Glendronach’s single cask shenanigans was not near the top of the most read posts list. It’s usually either the most read or in the top three. In August it seemed like it would be outside the top ten until someone linked to it at the end of the month and it made its way back in. While the post has had a very long afterlife, this might be an indication that awareness of the issue is now very widespread—it doesn’t seem to have had much actual effect though and the distillery has never felt the need/pressure to clarify its practices.

My most read post in August was my review of the Laphroaig Cairdeas, 2015. I guess a lot of people prefer when I review actually available whiskies. There were a number of those in August but that was largely accidental. The second most read post was a restaurant review: of Travail. This might have been the first time as well that one of my restaurant reviews was read so often. As for recipes, it’s quite clear that very few of you care about my jams, you bastards.  Continue reading →