Whole new kind of food porn
Sep. 29th, 2008 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quisletThis weekend, in the mid-Atlantic fantasy land of Revel Grove, we enjoyed the generosity of Hurricane Kyle's outer bands. It's nice when the hurricane decides to spare you the winds and go somewhere else (Farewell to Nova Scotia, you seabound coast!), but those regular 20-minute spirals of rain in the hurricane's wake can really do a number on a Ren Faire's performance schedule!
While the high point of Saturday (for me) was defiitely catching![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
skivee singing Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains" moments before cannon, Sunday hit an altogether new high water mark. There was plenty of carousing, shopping and flirting with beautiful women, even with the rain. I gave up on staying dry, hung up my pirate hat and jacket and just relied on the natural fiber fabrics in my garb to dry quickly between downpours. There were plenty of epicurean delights, too, starting with a fantastic duck, glazed in orange, ginger, horseradish and worchestershire. Mmmm...duck! Trinket's chocolate candied ginger made me do my happy foodie dance. I was hoping to show up with some of those humongous Chesapeake aquaculture oysters that I found a few weeks ago at farmers market, but this time I was sorely disappointed. I even came to Faire with shallot mignonette ingredients in hand, just in case! Oh well, I made do with baked goods. The Portuguese sweet bread was wonderful, a little like challah, and went well with the duck. The scones were sticky and messy, but delicious. Pear & pecan was my favorite, but the chocolate chip scones had a surprise inside: oreo cookies! They were brilliant. There was even one last pawpaw from Pennsylvania, like fruit made of banana-mango pudding. The true high point, though, was a tiny nibble of cheese and candy. My best foodie friend in the whole wide world truly outdid herself this time.
It was late in the day, just before pub sing, when she unveiled an amazing Swiss cheese. It was nutty and complex, like a gruyere but a touch softer and creamier, with lots of subtle complexities that rolled around on the tongue unveiling themselves for minutes. Honestly, it was the longest finish I've ever noticed in either cheese or wine. If you're not familiar with gruyere, it's like "swiss" cheese (what the Swiss call Emmentaler, the kind with big 60's polka-dot holes), but firmer and nuttier. There's more of that flavor that makes the cheese "swiss," and there aren't big, showy holes in gruyere. I forget the name of this one. It was something in French and ended with "Allemande," which is really just French for German.
The sweet was candied fennel, steeped in honey with some orange zest and a few subtle spices that I wasn't able to identify. Surprisingly, it wasn't licoricey at all, even though fennel is. In fact, if I hadn't known it was fennel, I never would have guessed. The honey was a very good one, rich and full of dark flavors. It tasted the way light disappears into a room full of wood furniture and hanging tapestries, somber and beautiful, chiaroscuro on your tongue. The finish on this was incredibly long, too, as if the honey itself grew ever spicier the longer you savored it.
So each of these tidbits was award-winning, phenomenal, well worthy of praise on its own. They were proffered as a pair, though, so together they needed to be tried: a flake of the cheese, a segment of the fennel, fastidiously stacked like an impromptu hors d'oeuvre. The cheese hit my tongue first, laying out a broad bass chord of that nuttiness and just the first hints of complexity. Frankly, the flavor reminds me of the very idea of civilization, a taste that starts in the field and then grows into something carefully cultured and raised to an art form. Then I bit down on the fennel, compressing each component into the other. The clouds parted. I'd quotedansr and ptpgrad to say it made me "happy in my pants," but this went well beyond that. There was no happy foodie dance. My face went slack, too transported even to smile. The combination of complexities writhed on my tongue like white-hot jazz making love to soul-rending blues. It was sadly beautiful, so stunningly Byzantine and intimate that I found myself a voyeur, ashamed to observe this love-making between cheese and candy and yet I could not turn my attention away. After some moments, the soundtrack of life at Faire slowly began to return and I realized I was leaning against the railing, having at some point just closed my eyes and shut out all senses other than those of my tongue. I wanted more, but it wasn't yet done. I tenderly sucked air over my tongue to feel the changes, to stoke the embers of culinary desire that lingered on my palate. I was breathless, almost tired, and yet the tenderly sensual dance of tastes remained, an afterglow of delicious, Lovecraftian mystery that whispered promises like the sun reflecting from Icarus' wings.
I needed more, but not yet on my tongue. I asked iflibberation had tried the pairing yet, knowing that I could watch these same sensations and emotions play out on her face and not have to re-compose myself enough to analyze my own reactions. She was fetched, and fed, and after that same moment of transport, exclaimed, "I believe the cheese and fennel just copulated in my mouth!" I had another taste, and was nearly exhausted by the experience. My senses cried out for cognac and a cigar, more time to savor and reflect. Feeling greedy, and after resting a bit, I had my third taste. The world faded into Roman bacchanalia, where food had been somehow mixed with the forbidden. When I returned, I simply couldn't face any more. It was too much. I had been somehow deflowered by the beauty and the mystery, and needed to recover. I tore myself away, stumbling a little, wanting to sip my cider, but still not wanting the afterglow to end. It was hours before the world felt right again.
I want more.
While the high point of Saturday (for me) was defiitely catching
skivee singing Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains" moments before cannon, Sunday hit an altogether new high water mark. There was plenty of carousing, shopping and flirting with beautiful women, even with the rain. I gave up on staying dry, hung up my pirate hat and jacket and just relied on the natural fiber fabrics in my garb to dry quickly between downpours. There were plenty of epicurean delights, too, starting with a fantastic duck, glazed in orange, ginger, horseradish and worchestershire. Mmmm...duck! Trinket's chocolate candied ginger made me do my happy foodie dance. I was hoping to show up with some of those humongous Chesapeake aquaculture oysters that I found a few weeks ago at farmers market, but this time I was sorely disappointed. I even came to Faire with shallot mignonette ingredients in hand, just in case! Oh well, I made do with baked goods. The Portuguese sweet bread was wonderful, a little like challah, and went well with the duck. The scones were sticky and messy, but delicious. Pear & pecan was my favorite, but the chocolate chip scones had a surprise inside: oreo cookies! They were brilliant. There was even one last pawpaw from Pennsylvania, like fruit made of banana-mango pudding. The true high point, though, was a tiny nibble of cheese and candy. My best foodie friend in the whole wide world truly outdid herself this time.It was late in the day, just before pub sing, when she unveiled an amazing Swiss cheese. It was nutty and complex, like a gruyere but a touch softer and creamier, with lots of subtle complexities that rolled around on the tongue unveiling themselves for minutes. Honestly, it was the longest finish I've ever noticed in either cheese or wine. If you're not familiar with gruyere, it's like "swiss" cheese (what the Swiss call Emmentaler, the kind with big 60's polka-dot holes), but firmer and nuttier. There's more of that flavor that makes the cheese "swiss," and there aren't big, showy holes in gruyere. I forget the name of this one. It was something in French and ended with "Allemande," which is really just French for German.
The sweet was candied fennel, steeped in honey with some orange zest and a few subtle spices that I wasn't able to identify. Surprisingly, it wasn't licoricey at all, even though fennel is. In fact, if I hadn't known it was fennel, I never would have guessed. The honey was a very good one, rich and full of dark flavors. It tasted the way light disappears into a room full of wood furniture and hanging tapestries, somber and beautiful, chiaroscuro on your tongue. The finish on this was incredibly long, too, as if the honey itself grew ever spicier the longer you savored it.
So each of these tidbits was award-winning, phenomenal, well worthy of praise on its own. They were proffered as a pair, though, so together they needed to be tried: a flake of the cheese, a segment of the fennel, fastidiously stacked like an impromptu hors d'oeuvre. The cheese hit my tongue first, laying out a broad bass chord of that nuttiness and just the first hints of complexity. Frankly, the flavor reminds me of the very idea of civilization, a taste that starts in the field and then grows into something carefully cultured and raised to an art form. Then I bit down on the fennel, compressing each component into the other. The clouds parted. I'd quote
dansr and ptpgrad to say it made me "happy in my pants," but this went well beyond that. There was no happy foodie dance. My face went slack, too transported even to smile. The combination of complexities writhed on my tongue like white-hot jazz making love to soul-rending blues. It was sadly beautiful, so stunningly Byzantine and intimate that I found myself a voyeur, ashamed to observe this love-making between cheese and candy and yet I could not turn my attention away. After some moments, the soundtrack of life at Faire slowly began to return and I realized I was leaning against the railing, having at some point just closed my eyes and shut out all senses other than those of my tongue. I wanted more, but it wasn't yet done. I tenderly sucked air over my tongue to feel the changes, to stoke the embers of culinary desire that lingered on my palate. I was breathless, almost tired, and yet the tenderly sensual dance of tastes remained, an afterglow of delicious, Lovecraftian mystery that whispered promises like the sun reflecting from Icarus' wings.I needed more, but not yet on my tongue. I asked if
libberation had tried the pairing yet, knowing that I could watch these same sensations and emotions play out on her face and not have to re-compose myself enough to analyze my own reactions. She was fetched, and fed, and after that same moment of transport, exclaimed, "I believe the cheese and fennel just copulated in my mouth!" I had another taste, and was nearly exhausted by the experience. My senses cried out for cognac and a cigar, more time to savor and reflect. Feeling greedy, and after resting a bit, I had my third taste. The world faded into Roman bacchanalia, where food had been somehow mixed with the forbidden. When I returned, I simply couldn't face any more. It was too much. I had been somehow deflowered by the beauty and the mystery, and needed to recover. I tore myself away, stumbling a little, wanting to sip my cider, but still not wanting the afterglow to end. It was hours before the world felt right again.I want more.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Goodness, gracious!
Date: 2008-09-29 06:21 pm (UTC)Two, why do we always miss the earth-shattering stuff!?! Pout. Though, I shouldn't complain as those little truffle things were pretty damn good.
Three, I think I need a cigarette. ::fanning herself wildly:: Is it hot in here or is it just me!?!? Gasp!