Food, Wine, Good (and Evil) Spirits

You heard me. This wine, which is made from the muscat grape in a frizzante-style (mildly bubbly) in the Piedmont region of Italy, is one you should get to know. Even though I drink a lot of wine – from sparkling to port – it's easy to forget about Moscato. Mostly because I don't often get the opportunity to drink it. I'm the only person I know who loves dessert wine, so it's hard to justify opening a bottle to drink all by myself. I have, it's just not something one should make a habit of. Usually I have to quench my cravings for this delicate, fizzy confection when I'm out to dinner. While everyone else digs into the chocolate cake or bread pudding, I satisfy my sweet tooth by sipping. All the pleasure, none of the fat.

Yes, muscat grapes make super-ripe, overtly-fruity, wildly-perfumed wines, but that's why they are so good with dessert. This family of grapes is grown all over the world and is one of the oldest recorded varietals, yet it fails to get any respect.  Sure there are bad versions out there, but that's true with every grape. What I fail to understand is the complaints that it's too sweet…even versions that are fermented dry. A criticism I find fairly hollow coming from the mouths of people who drink soda, juice and sugar-laden caramel frappuccinos. 

“The Long Goodnight” 

Lady Restylane was a carnivore, a notorious coquette who left lipstick marks like business cards. But when men followed up, expecting the innuendos to lead to escapades, their calls were seldom returned. To Lady Restylane, it was all about the dance. Genuine intimacy scared the hell out of her.

There were times when her game left her so exhausted that she’d give anything just to have a normal evening. Just to have dinner with a friend. And on one ill-fated night in the City of Angels, I was that friend.

We made plans to meet at the Bicycle Shop Café, a Westside eatery that had bicycles hanging on the walls. Not exactly artwork, unless you prefer Schwinn to van Gogh.

It was half past fashionably late when Lady Restylane arrived, wearing a little black dress and stilettos that could have doubled as steak knives. She said she wanted to leave the act at home, but she couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t do it. As soon as she made her entrance, she went on a flirting binge – targeting two guys at the bar, the bartender and our waitress. After that, I stopped counting.

Last Sunday evening, in an apartment on the Upper West Side, I turned off the burner, dropped a knob of butter into the pan, and swirled it into the red wine, caramelized shallots, chicken stock, and filet drippings. This is my favorite moment in cooking. It’s called “mounting” (a great technique deserves a great name) and is the final thickening of a sauce by adding butter.

Everything becomes richer at that point. Every taste becomes a million times more delicious. It’s magic. I held my breath as I plated the roasted rosemary potatoes, sugar snap peas/ snow peas/ pea shoots in lemon sauté, beef tenderloin, and spooned the sauce on top. These were new clients I was cooking for and, yes, I still get nervous.

I was suddenly transported back to a client I hadn’t thought of in years. He was some bigwig but not famous producer whose name I don’t recall. It must have been a decade ago in Beverly Hills. I had just made the decision to leave the acting profession and pursue a career in the cooking industry. I had been cooking off and on for years but never really thought of myself as a chef. This was that moment of leaping and hoping a net would appear. I enrolled in a cooking school to make sure I knew what I was talking about and started working professionally about a month after class had begun. Thank you, net.

“He would like for you to come in next Tuesday to cook his dinner. This will be a test run. He’s been through a lot of chefs.” The client’s personal assistant had found my name and number through another chef, Monica, that I worked with in a busy Los Angeles catering company. Monica had tried and failed to satisfy him – a fact which terrified me, as she was much more experienced than I. She had said one thing to me, “He has a very rich appetite. Be prepared for anything.” I didn’t know if that meant he was wealthy or liked fattening things, so I assumed both were true.

In Italy, digestivos are commonly drunk after the meal and when we were in Sicily, we certainly had our share of Averna after meals. But this digestive is drunk in the Venetian region of Italy and is bright, fresh and clean. A sgroppino is made by whipping together Italian Prosecco, lemon sorbet and vodka. Sgroppino means "to untie" as in, to "untie your stomach" after a meal. So you have a great excuse to make these after dinner! But hey, these are so refreshing we drink them on a hot summer day before dinner.

Some versions of this drink use gelato but most use sorbet, which has no dairy. When you make this drink, don't use a blender – whisk in the sorbet by hand so that it retains some of its texture. You don't want it too thick, but you don't want it real thin, either.