kitchen scraps #1
dispatches
Surprise!! I messed up sending this out on Tuesday, so here we are. Bet you thought I was slacking! Instead of not writing, I figured I would use this in-between week to experiment with a new format. Soft-launching a new mini-series?
My friends in real life will often joke about whether I’m going to put something in the newsletter. Maybe! But the real reason a lot of things don’t end up here is because it takes a lot of planning to make the visuals happen, and if I’m not diligent about photos, it’s game over! Hopefully this can be a place where more of those non-photogenic or fleeting yet funny moments are saved down.
I’m calling it kitchen scraps — an assortment of mini-stories and mini-takes from the weeks where there’s not enough for a full newsletter, but too much to pass over. If you have submissions, takes you want to air, fights you want to pick, let me know and we’ll add it to the list!
words that have never been used before
Sourdough wasn’t the only food-bro hobby I picked up during the pandemic. I fear I also became one of those coffee people who weigh out their beans to calculate the perfect water ratio before using my V60 pour-over and gooseneck kettle. But I contend that as with most things, it’s not that hard to care about the things we are making, to understand the framework of how good things come together.
That said, I have kind of rolled my eyes at the way tasting notes take on a life of their own when it comes to coffee and beer and wine. Notes of chocolate, berry and honey, sure. But can coffee beans really give hibiscus, lychee and muscat shine grape? Should my wines be vegetal? And I’ve asked this for years, but no one has given me a good answer — what on earth does it mean for a beer to be dank?
I said this once to a guy who worked at a wine shop, and he told me that only pretentious people lean into what’s right and what’s wrong. He pulled out a wheel of flavors, and told me to start in the middle and work my way out to more specifics. The whole point of it, he said, was to help drinkers put their experiences into words.
I recently asked some friends to taste test a few coffees for me. Coffees one and two were from a wholesaler that had bizarrely labeled bags with no roast date, and number three was from an Idaho-based roaster that I love. I was expecting that last one to be the winner, but it tied with number one as “pretty good.” The only loser was coffee number two. When I asked for what people thought, here were their tasting notes:
“sour, poopy”
“it tastes like how a landfill smells”
“is this what she meant by artisanal”
And largely, I agreed. I’m not sure why I even included that one, other than the fact that I had already bought it. If I were to describe it, I’d say its giving that moment you have a little reflex and your body knows you’ve had too many drinks. That’s my experience, put into words.
free-for-some
What is it about premium-seeming experiences with middling not-really-free-because-you-paid-for-access food that scratches an itch in the brain? I went to a Caps game this week, and because the tickets were ones my partner got through work, they included club access. Don’t get me wrong, I love not paying for concessions, but the food is fine at best and the beer selection is certainly not dank. And yet, people go a little crazy for it — my partner jokes that he’s there for the food, and I have to drag him away from the fruit platter because I’m there for the hockey. Same with airport lounges, and I’m guilty of this, writing from the Capital One lounge in Dulles! I guess the exclusivity and the cordoned-off experience is something. Maybe the mind yearns for class warfare.
and finally!
Nothing further, your honor!
xx,
Annie