Beans and Memory

I went to the shop stall in the Ferry Building to buy a bottle. The man working there was talky, a little. We took a shine.

"I want to buy some dry minerally rosé," I said, even though it's spring and there was a "rosé event" in progress in the wine store at that very moment and he could already tell what I wanted for other reasons as well like I'm a mid-aged white lady and that's all we really want in life, most of us.

At the register, he accidentally found out about and then complimented me on my purchase of some very large white beans from the bean stall. He had been to Hungary once, where someone's grandmother had made him a stew with beans like that. He still dreamed about that stew, he said. And every time he saw white beans he thought to himself he should make the stew.

I like the Ferry Building a lot. So does this Shanley. In this picture we had just come back from a writing convention to find that the wine stall was closed. All the stalls were! We were forced to eat in a restaurant. That's the worst thing that can happen to you in the Ferry Building.

"That's funny," I said. "I got these because a long time ago someone made me a dish of beans with oil and then parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, and I never stopped thinking about it." It had been a woman I worked with at a bakery in the mid-1990s. She was fiftyish, pixie-ish, wide-eyed, sweet, and married for many years to her physical double and temperamental opposite, whose misnomer was Penny. She, Penny's wife, had been a stripper in the 1960s, which she wasn't at all shy about revealing, but she didn't seem to have found it very interesting, although she would giggle at the thought. When May Sarton died she was visibly upset. "Such a gentle soul," she said of the poet. I don't remember Penny's wife's name, but I remember she would dance around among the ovens and rolling tables and industrial loaf-rolling machines like a completely unselfconscious elf. I house-sat for them once and it was among the happiest times of my life; the place was cozy and wood-lined, full of trickling dark-stone fountains with mosses and succulents among the Buddhist sand puzzles. Cats, too, of course, at a time when I had none and was starved for love anyway.

The home of rosé is about remembering, while California is about reinvention, closely related to forgetting. As we get older, California will want to start remembering--already it's too hard for people to face Indian extermination; we're ginger with memory when it comes to the Missions but I don't think it can last. I'm not even sure why memory is so important to me, but it always has been, even if sometimes I'm French about it and remember everything wrong or just feelings. But I want to have a sense of building, not just the sense of inventing or even growing. I'm one of the last group of people on earth who will have expected to lose contact, and who will lose contact with the people in their past, who won't be able to use a search engine or online social networks to find people they worked with at a bakery twenty years ago even if they don't remember her name. I wonder what that will do for memory.

Buddy at the wine shop stall didn't register the Simon and Garfunkel reference in Penny's wife's bean dish, didn't know he himself was doing their bidding in a culinary sense, because when they sing "Preserve your memories/ They're all that's left you," don't they mean keep stew-dreaming? Wine-drinking? The bottle I bought from the bean fan was French, with a stupid name likely designed to appeal to Californian women, but I know they got it wrong; neither I nor Penny's wife want to be told we're "angels." Elves or poets or bakers, maybe.

As we grow to know ourselves and our rosé better, as our culture builds on itself after all that invention, look at what rosé has become in my neighborhood: the mostly empty bottle you find on the street on a weekend morning. Forgotten, forgettable, meaning less and far from precious. I like it.

  

Class Ware

     It happened again: Over an expensive dinner with friends, it was discovered that I do a blog about rosé wine. "Maybe you'll write about this dinner!" someone hinted. And OK, the characters were storyworthy, from the tall blonde with the penetrating stare I'd just met to the soignée brunette I've already had complicated times with. We were a staggeringly attractive crew and the restaurant was the kind of spare, warm, candlelit space well-to-do Bay Area grownups have, to be frank, grown dependent on. I know I have. I love that shit.
     Ideas were thrown around about new inspirations for my posts here; someone asked if I recommended any particular bottle for summer. It was a new inspiration for me to explain why I don't want to talk much if at all about bottles, or wineries, or varietals. 
     "You start down that road, and it demands the structure of the whole blog bend to it," I told the blonde. "You'd have to write about every bottle. And you'd feel obligated to know every new thing and keep up with trends on social media or whatever. I'm no sommelier, don’t care to be, and I don't write about food because I don't like most food writing, which goes double for wine writing. The industries are so powerful that if you start playing on their field, you have to play by their rules."

I don't know what it is. I must have liked it. Where? When? This image was in my phone.

     I was lowballing. The truth is, I hate capitalism, and the intentional erosion of the wall between life and work makes me furious. Most of the food and wine writing I see is an amalgam of marketing and psychological manipulation, with a lot of aiming for "impressive." I'm opposed to it. I love Lucky Peach, but it’s not innocent, rather, baldly macho. Some of my companions at the table were -- of course! -- techbros, or “techbroae,” a term I invented intended to make them sound like spiders. It signifies rapacious moneymakers who think it their duty to compete, win, exterminate, and celebrate. All other activities are either tolerated with the tenderness of a benign totalitarian (charity) or done for by cold libertarian injection (historical precedents include the Ellis Act and charter schools). That we shared a table bothered me in an old familiar way; I'm used to it and I'm not innocent. Besides, techbroae undoubtedly suffer along like the rest of us, and the ones I hang with are usually nice. I have sliced some of these people out of my life, but not all.
     A different group of friends had split off after the reading we'd all been at; they went to the brewpub a block away. They were younger, and singler, less inclined to sit quietly and focus on a chronological conversation and ultimately simply not comfortable in a restaurant like this one. They were lower class, whether temporarily by age or by actual socioeconomics. We were higher class, at least in the dumb U.S. formulation of that term.
     So I was at the table, and I wished I had gone to the brewpub. I was having fun, and also rosé, sparkling, right where I was. I love my friends, like the human I am. But I suddenly resented the fussy plates, the thin goblets, the fear in the waiters' eyes -- fear of their bosses, fear of our potential disapproval, fear that some thoughtlessness of ours would cause them to have to stay late washing an unforeseen mountain of dishes. None of that stuff existed at the brewpub, I was sure. There, the plates would be thick, the glasses too, and the servers would be sassy, strong, and easy in the knowledge that they were more in control of things than any customer. I'm so much more at ease in this type of place.
     Know what, though? Brewpubs don't have rosé. I’m not innocent.
     Yet zero shame is felt by me on account of my upper-crust eating and drinking habits. Zero. I can't buy myself socks anywhere except the bulk bin, but I can drop three figures on a table for two without blinking any day of the week. In addition, I have the special ability to despise the economic forces behind and inside gentrifying, exploitative, racist restaurants, while loving their food. I myself work in a food shop that is none of those things, but it puts me close enough to the industry to see even more of the BS than you can see from your table. Maybe you don't know about the enforced drug abuse, the absolutely unchecked bigotry, or the way the system is set up to destroy bodies making it impossible to do this kind of work after age 35, at which time no restaurant worker has health insurance let alone savings. (Again, for the record, not at my place.) But boycotting anything that tastes good, the way a lot of activists I know are so proud of doing, solves nothing. Denying your desires is plain dangerous, while on the other hand, eating good food is a solid investment in your own health. So while I would have felt better there, they don't have rosé in the brewpub. I like both.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2014. Photo by Stefanie Kalem

[Note: I wrote this over a year ago.]

What I Drank on My Summer Vacation

"One car, two people, 22 states, 38 days, 8,053.1 miles, and a purely decorative wooden oar." To that summary of my summer, I'm pleased to add this photo. We took with us, distributed to our hosts, and in a continuing fit of self-abnegation drank not a drop of until the final day of this total trip -- a case of Unti rosé.

Hold a case of Unti in your hands someday. It feels this good.

We called it the "people, not places or things" tour of the USA, and we saw a lot of good friends and tiny family members. Still, of course we made time for the important things, such as wine. 

We resisted buying a lot of the regional wine which, in surprise #1 of this trip, has sprung up seemingly everywhere. Kansas has its own wine. Why shouldn't it? Kansas is a notoriously good place to grow plants. And many, many years from now, when Kansans have learned how to make wine without adding so much sugar and weird chemicals, let's drink some. I'm extrapolating, I admit it. Like I said, we didn't try any of the Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. product, not even the one simply titled "White Lady" wine. 

The hat equivalent of a Denver rosé tasting.

Surprise #2 of this trip: Everyone drinks rosé wine, all over the country, all the time. Look at Amendment 21 Wines in Denver. They have in-store rosé tastings. Unfortunately, those events, as illustrated by the store's website, are spastically heteronormative and pointlessly gendered, staffed by women in fuchsia dresses and cotton-candy pink feather boas. Those two things don't even not clash! Unsurprise #1: Americans neither have nor want any dignity, or any way to communicate with each other that doesn't involve tackily selling one another products on the flimsy platform of the very first stupid thing those products remind them of. Other countries are not always like this, USA.


Regardless of my opinions, this joint sells tons of good wine off the dedicated and illuminated rosé wall, and I myself bought a bunch. We had to drive through Utah after that, I was cornered, I had to. It was great! I got that super pale one toward the right, there, which I wanted to love for its iconoclasm, but really it was bland. It was French, just for the record.

Also, I had a rosé flight in Carrboro, North Carolina in a lovely, really beautiful restaurant. Unfortunately, all I remember about the experience is that my dinner partner, at whose house we stayed for three days, is amazing (She's an Anthropology professor at Duke University and she studies in Guatemala a lot which makes her very, very resilient on account of all the harsh death.) Also, we both agreed that the good one was the expensive one, and that it was of pinot noir.

And I was served rosé in Milwaukee by my wonderful hostess who remembered it was my favorite. She and her tugboat-captain husband went on to introduce us to mini-bowling, as well as the arms race that is Wisconsin bloody-mary decoration, which involves cheeseburgers and beerbacking.

Summer sausage, cheese, a prawn, and ... a slider. With the so-Wisconsin touch of a beer back, not shown.

 And in Cloverdale, Indiana, in the worst possible crap motel and accompanied by criminal pizza, I thanked myself for having provisioned us with the amazing, barely effervescent, rocky, fruity-juicy Biohof Pratsch rosé from Austria. You can drink this magical wine under better circumstances, I hope. Unsurprise #2: Do not for any reason eat pizza in Cloverdale, Indiana.

Next post: New York City, where the streets run pink.

What's Really Beyond the Thunderdome, Or, Everybody Gets A Rosé

Another quick moment to notice a rockstar drinking rosé ... um, and her friend, there. And how happy is that guy? He looks gratifyingly like he's about to fall over from the wonder of it all. I want to be that guy.

Mini-Post: We Are Now Officially A Rock Star Beverage

 NEWS FLASH -- KIM GORDON DRINKS ROSÉ

The actual news is that she's leaving Thurston Moore, which is too bad -- I guess? None of my beeswax, really. This women's magazine interview is not really my thing, as well. However:

"'We have all these books, records, and art and are getting it all assessed; that’s what is taking so long,' she says after ordering a glass of rosé. But both have moved on. Among her suitors are a restaurateur, an architect, and an actor. 'It’s just weird,' Gordon says of navigating new romance. 'I can’t tell what’s normal.'"

Who can, Kim? We wish you the best. 

I Fight Sweet

I know you can't read the writing in this photo, but the glow is so nice! Scroll down for legibility.

I'm in a fight here -- a fight against sweetness. In the United States of America, the color pink is associated with qualities including softness, femininity, and artificial berry flavor. And I get it; flower petals are pink sometimes. And although I'm sort of skeeved out every time I see small girls wearing all pink, I get that too. It is a super pretty color for your t-shirt/pants/tutu/sparkle-tennies ensemble. Likewise, I love strawberry soda -- I live in this country and I grew up drinking strawberry soda, a fact that holds enormous meaning for good reasons as well as dumb ones. Back to wine:

Provence* rosés generally taste like steel, raw beef, and rocks. I'm avoiding "wine words" because I don't know very much about them, or else I don't like them. So: Metal, meat, and stone -- these are all heavy, hard things, the opposite of the pink I've just described. (Get Freudian if you want to; I don't want to.)

Great! Not sweet! But you're saying no, shaking your head, pretending to gag. You say those are disgusting flavors for summer wine. And they would be, if it weren't for the priceless alchemical genius of the vinting process, which takes all that clunk and turns it -- light. Rosé is light in color, light in "weight," and light in flavor, as opposed to a syrupy chardonnay, for example. The reason I love rosé so much is that I believe it to be supernatural, chaotic-good, because it lightens something heavy.

The result is unobvious. If the winemaking process lightened something already light -- something simple or sweet -- then it would just be silly like strawberry soda. (Unless it were idiotic, like white zinfandel.) But because something happens between yard and bottle that transforms those bossy, lumbering flavors into a floating wisp of a thing, the wine becomes both honest and interesting.

I was extremely fortunate and got to eat dinner this week at the Liberty Café in Bernal Heights, San Francisco, California. I had a glass of Henri Bourgeois rosé of Pinot Noir that inspired me to write on the tablecloth. (Paper, it was paper, I'm not awful.) But I couldn't work out what I wanted to say so I made a ... chart? Outline? Anyway they let me keep the tablepaper, which you see in situ above and legible below.

*This should say "Provence-style," because of course I'm talking about United Statesian as well as French bottles here. And I specify them, because the other ones, the rosés of syrah, the Italian and Italian-inspired rosés, and the Spanish and Spanish-inspired ones, those delicacies are for a future time.

Introductions: Two to Rosé and One to Me

The most important thing to know about rosé: 

Beautiful men drink bottles of it at sunset in the south of France. 

In fact, everyone drinks bottles of it at sunset in the south of France. For those wondering where I get my nerve, I'm an expert on rosé because I drink more than my fair share of the stuff, but also because I've been to Biarritz, where I took this photo. It's too bad you can't see Spain's Trois couronnes mountains just off Bruno's left shoulder there, but I was drinking bottles of wine at the time. Regardless, here is a photo of the wine's homeland as well as the ritualistic, ancient rites of rosé wine, birthright of anyone who wants to drink some.

The next most important thing to know about rosé wine is that it's dry. The word rosé itself means the wine will not be sweet; you are safe. I don't like sweet wine; I don't like vodka that tastes like marshmallows, either. I like wine that tastes like wine: fermented grapes, their dirt, and complications. My palate is debased, I admit it, and I tend to drink the cheapest wine I can -- often, in the wine-rich region of the San Francisco Bay Area, this means something worth far more than the $3.99 I often pay for it. But it always meets the specifications above, it's always real wine. Not "blush," not "white zinfandel," and although I recognize this may have once been a real thing, not moscato either. There are pink things that come in jugs. I don't know what they are, but I don't go for them either. (I'll drink the reds and the whites from a jug. Or I have, anyway. Oh, shoot. I have drank the pink jug too. No one's innocent.) All those products are dishonest attempts to "get" people, mainly women, to drink their sludge. Let's not be interested in any of that.

Now for me: I'm not a fan of pink wine because it's pink. I don't really like pink for pink's sake. Pink has a lot of problems. I don't wear pink. I wear black, and I'm not girly or sparkly or primped or polished. I truly love those who are! But in my world, those things mean you're a feminine gay man oftener than they mean you're a woman who thinks she's acting normal. That's what I mean by a black heart: To me dark is beautiful, losing weight is a tool of the man, and I'm not going to pretend I'm rich. I'm a writer by trade, trying to tell a truth, so you won't find marketing hype here either. Until next time, here's me wearing black and drinking pink in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.