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I love onions. I use them– in one form or another of the genus Allium– in just about everything I cook that isn’t dessert. Aside from putting tears in one’s eyes, onions put the soul in soul food, the rave in the gravy, and the comfort in comfort food. Like a great rock’n’roll bass line that lends power and depth to the drums and guitars without demanding our attention, the culinary contributions of onions often remain in the background and rarely perform solo. Shopping for onions can be a little confusing, so let’s sort them out– Another useful lift from THE SPRUCE EATS . YELLOW ONIONS, a.k.a. COOKING ONIONS, or just plain ONIONS, are the basic, go-to onions for general purposes– unless otherwise specified in more detail. They have a strong flavor and naturally-occurring tear gas that might even make your neighbors cry when you slice them. This is the onion that you will “caramelize” (more on that later.) WHITE ONIONS are milder than the yellow version, and thus better for eating raw, as in salads or chopped as a garnish for hot dogs and burgers. I slip them (lightly sautéed) between layers of potatoes in my Potatoes au Gratin Dauphinois . SWEET ONIONS (Spanish, Vidalia, Walla Walla, and others) have a higher sugar and water content than the basic yellow, and are also milder in flavor. Does that make them better? If you are eating them raw, yes; however, one gains little by cooking with them in place of the basic yellow. (It is easy to mistake the Spanish for the yellow, and your dish won’t noticeably suffer if you do.) The not-so-common BERMUDA ONION is another sweetie, though it must comprise its own sub-category because it comes in all colors (yellow, white, and red) and sports a distinctive flat shape. RED (or PURPLE) ONIONS are as powerfully flavored as the yellow, and yet they often appear in salads, perhaps because of their lovely hue. They cook nicely, but their vivid color turns dull in the process. I use them in a number of recipes, from Onion Jam to Beet & Orange Salad. SHALLOTS were bred as a variant of onion and have a sweeter, more sophisticated flavor. They are essential (though not indispensable– a fine line, I know) for Classical French sauce-making, from Sauce Beurre Blanc  to Sauce Bordelaise . Though rarely eaten raw, they appear as such in vinaigrettes and, in particular, Sauce Mignonette for oysters. LEEKS have long found favor in France and the British Isles as the most “vegetal” of the onion family and as a key component in all manner of soups. Slowly-simmered leeks make an elegant contribution to poached oyster dishes that would be overpowered by onions, shallots, or garlic. Please resist the temptation to use the green part for anything except the stock pot. Also, always wash leeks carefully after slicing them because sand is often trapped between their layers. SCALLIONS (a.k.a. GREEN ONIONS) are visually the close kin of LEEKS, but we use them quite differently. Scallions appear in all manner of Asian cuisine, and they seem to get on well with ginger and garlic to season a wide variety of meat and other dishes. Unlike leeks, the scallion is edible well up into its green stalk. I am old enough to recall when shallots were not widely available, and scallions were often used in substitution. CHIVES lack a useful bulb, so their culinary contribution is mostly confined to using crosswise snippings of their stems to garnish everything from the sour cream on our baked potatoes to rich, creamy soups. As such, chives are often considered (rightly or not) an herb. Though milder than all its relatives, chives can make a useful contribution to soups and stocks… especially if, like me, you have some growing wild on your property and you don’t feel like driving to the store. PEARL ONIONS are of mild flavor and come in all different colors. Because of their size, peeling them can be a chore, one made much easier by boiling them for two minutes and then letting them cool enough to handle. Pearl onions are often browned in butter, which makes them a great side dish for, say, Thanksgiving, or else a nice addition to dishes such as beef stew. They also lend themselves to pickling. Cipollini Onions The CIPOLLINI ONION is a relatively hard-to-find heirloom Italian variety characterized by its flat shape. Like pearl onions, they come in multiple colors and lend themselves to both pickling and browning. And Then, Of Course, There's GARLIC-- If you love GARLIC, then you haven’t smelled heaven until you’ve been passed by an open-bed garlic truck in Californian farm country. Since garlic is worthy of its own library (and certainly its rabid cult following) I won’t attempt to do proper justice to the “ stinking rose ” in a wee paragraph here; However, I’ll just add two quick points– One, be very careful not to burn it… add it later rather than early to a stir-fry or sauté; and Two, even if you refuse to spend the extra money for any other organic produce, reach for the organic garlic. In my experience it makes a significant difference.  * * * * * * * Exploding Two Myths About “Caramelizing” Onions: It Cannot Be Done Quickly. Recipe after recipe LIES about how long it takes. (This article  examines the issue beautifully.) Plan on 45 minutes to “caramelize” onions. And while you’re at it, you might as well make way more than you need and save them for next time. They keep well in the fridge. The Term “Caramelization” Isn’t Entirely Correct. We see it in recipes all the time… “caramelize onions.” However, there are two distinct types of non-enzymatic chemical reactions that result in browning– Caramelization  and the Maillard reaction . Caramelization occurs at higher temperatures (>300ºF) and involves the conversion of sugars into more complex molecules. The Maillard reaction involves the interaction of sugars and proteins and occurs at 284ºF. (When meat slowly roasts, it forms a knee-weakening aroma and an unbelievably delicious brown crust– both products of a Maillard reaction.) There is enough protein in onions to foster a Maillard reaction, and that accounts for much of the browning. The onion’s sugars will indeed caramelize, albeit toward the end of the cooking process. All in all, it would be more accurate to say that one is “browning” onions rather than “caramelizing” them. NOTES: " Cry, Baby, Cry " is a John Lennon-penned Beatles song from the White Album.

An Easy-To-Make Feast for an Autumn Gathering. A properly roasted boneless pork loin from THE SPRUCE EATS ; photo by Diana Chistruga Before we get cooking, let's cover some important points: PORK LOIN IS NOT THE SAME AS PORK TENDERLOIN. As with their beef equivalents, pork LOIN (top) is thicker, fattier, and more flavorful than pork TENDERLOIN. The loin roasts nicely, while the tenderloin requires special handling so it doesn't dry out. AND NO, THE LOIN ISN'T "PRIME RIB OF PORK." It's okay to think of it that way, because it is the same muscle and similarly delicious. Just don't call it that, and avoid butcher shops that do. And perhaps most importantly... THINK PINK! Out of fear of contracting trichinosis , my parents' generation was raised to cook pork beyond recognition to lumber toughness and sawdust dryness. But thanks to stricter agricultural regulations, trichinosis has long been largely eliminated, down to a dozen or so cases per year that are typically caused by eating under-cooked meat from wild game or home-raised pigs. And yet, here is what you get when the government tells us how to cook-- The party-poopers at the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (USDA) recommend cooking beef and pork to an internal temperature 145ºF... which would destroy Prime Rib as we know it (see HERE ) but actually works okay for Roasted Pork Loin. Prior to 2011 the USDA insisted on 165ºF for pork... okay for bacon and braised or smoked shoulder, but ruinous for a roasted loin. For my first Roast Pork Loin of this autumn season I proceeded as follows: After thawing a large Kurobuta/Berkshire boneless loin of pork, I trimmed off SOME of the fat and tied it up with cotton string to make it more round, which helps it cook evenly; I made a paste of brown sugar, garlic, mustard, and coco aminos (a great soy substitute) and rubbed it all over the roast and then wrapped it tightly with industrial-width (24") plastic wrap. 4 hours like this is plenty of time... do not season it like this overnight; I let the roast warm to room temperature before roasting, then removed the wrap, wiped off the excess paste, and put it on a roasting rack and then into a 475ºF oven for 12 minutes; I removed the roast and re-set the oven to 325ºF. The roast went back into the oven with a digital thermometer inserted into its thickest part. I roasted it to 140ºF internal temperature, removed it, and tented it with foil to rest. After 10 minutes of rest, we sliced and plated the perfectly roasted meat, which was the color of rose quartz-- Rose Quartz My kitchen helpers and I then topped each slice with onion-apple butter compote and a sautéed slice of apple. Even though autumn doesn't officially begin for another three weeks, it was a fantastic start to the cool-weather eating season. NOTES: One rarely finds Kurobuta/Berkshire pork in local grocery stores, but the suppliers we list in OUR FAVORITE THINGS   all sell great pork . "Onion-Apple Butter Compote" is simply gently browned onions cooked with apple cider, sugar, and apple cider vinegar, and then combined with a scoop of commercial apple butter. (See Cry, Baby, Cry for insights into onion cookery.) Much more so than beef, pork loves the company of herbs. The paste with which I coated the roast might well have included chopped fresh rosemary, thyme, and/or sage. If you love great Riesling, it makes a perfect pairing with pork dishes like this. Lighter reds (like Pinot Noir) work better than dark and powerful reds. We refer to the website THE SPRUCE EATS so often that they deserve a plug. Please check them out for a wide variety of great recipes, product reviews, and more.

Beef prices are through the roof. Here's the antidote for me & my fellow steak lovers. If you find yourself reflexively gagging over $36 Angus ribeyes, here's a treat for you-- a DRY-AGED CHUCK EYE STEAK from PORTER ROAD , one of our favorite online meat purveyors. And if you've given our previous essay about Prime Rib a read, you'll appreciate its provenence-- If you'll recall, the Rib Primal constitutes ribs # 6-12. The Chuck Primal-- generally considered less desirable by connoisseurs-- nonetheless bears some qualitative similarities to its immediate southern neighbor... particularly along ribs # 3,4, & 5, which include the north end of the precious loin muscle that makes Prime Rib so desirable. It is this section that yields the Chuck Eye Steak, only six per steer. Add to the mix Porter Road's commitment to responsible ranching, throw in the dry-aging, and you've got a wonderful three-quarter pound steak for only nineteen bucks... and it's currently on sale-- 15% off! If you've got the freezer space, I recommend loading up. I just ordered 8, which put me just over the threshold for cheap ($15) shipping. Happy Grilling!

Rather than painstakingly restore all of our various Prime Rib essays, we've consolidated them right HERE. Simple & Attainable Perfection. You can do this. At home. Really! To most of America, Labor Day marks the opening week of the new NFL season. To your Grumpy Old Mansplainer, however, the earlier sunsets and crisp breezes betoken the advent of PRIME RIB SEASON! Before delving deeply into the details of preparing great Prime Rib at home, we can succinctly summarize the process (or rather, ONE of the processes) as follows: Formulate your general battle plan-- sourcing, kitchen equipment, etc. Buy the best roast you can afford. (Freeze it, if necessary.) If frozen, start thawing it the night before your dinner in a large pot of water. Starting early in the morning, do the "Score, Salt, & Fan" treatment for a few hours. Slather with tallow or oil, then briefly blast it in a very hot oven. Roast it slowly at a low temperature to 120ºF internal temperature (or as desired.) Slather again with tallow or oil, then blast it again in a very hot oven. Let it rest while you plate or present the side dishes. Slice your roast on a proper cutting board, capturing the juices. Serve it with an appropriate sauce, perhaps incorporating the captured juices. And then enjoy both your creation itself and the acclaim from friends and/or family. That being said, we now explore the particulars: I. Why Prime Rib? The short answer? Because Prime Rib is worth doing and eminently doable. The long answer? Read on. As soon as Thanksgiving dessert is finished, many a wise family chef is already contemplating the logistics of Christmas dinner. Unlike Thanksgiving, Christmas in America has no pre-ordained dinner menu; to wit, a good number of families will repeat Thanksgiving's roast turkey, while a small number, perhaps those with Continental traditions, will venture elsewhere in the avian realm and prepare capon or goose. For others, a juicy pork loin roast or a smoky ham works just fine. However, those intrepid kitchen warriors whose loved ones crave the incomparable deliciousness of juicy, slow-roasted beef will choose to tackle Prime Rib– the ultimate show-stopper of holiday feasts, and, to many, the apex of fine home cookery. Though most commonly associated with Christmas, roasted Prime Rib makes a perfectly suitable main course for a table-ful of family and/or friends whenever the weather is cool enough to sharpen our appetites for rich food. And Prime Rib is something of a staple in upscale American restaurants, often exclusively as a weekend evening special and served with a side of Yorkshire Pudding ( HERE is Gordon Ramsay's version ) along with a little extra panache and flourish. To the uninitiated, that perfect slab of delicious meat-- its juicy flesh a uniformly rosy pink, ringed by a bark-like crust and slathered with thin, dark sauce-- looks too magnificent to even consider attempting at home. Think again, Dear Reader. Here at DANNY'S TABLE we've been tinkering with Prime Rib cookery since our inception two years ago, testing many different meat sources and multiple cooking techniques. It has been a delicious ( and expensive ) learning curve, and now we can all reap the benefits of our efforts. With a combination of knowledgeable shopping and proven, scientifically-based preparation, the result of your efforts will be not only reliably successful, but also superior in quality to the prime rib served in most any restaurant... at least this side of a hundred bucks per serving. Please stay with me... this is going to take some lengthier-than-usual Grumpy Old Mansplaining, but I promise it will be worth it. II. What exactly IS Prime Rib? In (supposedly) plain English, the adjective "prime" can connote either "main," or "first," or sometimes "best"... and also, on occasion, some combination of these. In the realm of beef, the term "prime" is just such a multi-tasker, almost as if intentionally causing confusion. In beef's qualitative hierarchy, for instance, "Prime" is an official USDA grade, indicating the tops in flavor due to its highest fat content. Then again we see in the diagram below the word "primal" as in the "primal cuts" of beef, the octet of the initial ("first" and/or "main") subdivisions of a slaughtered steer-- Prime... primal... primary... primitive... don't worry-- we'll figure it all out. This map above is worth a moment of study, if only for increased general awareness about the food we eat. If this steer in its entirety were a nation, then these eight primal cuts would be the sovereign states, which are further divided into “sub-primal cuts” (counties) that, in turn, are divided into “portion cuts” (kind of like towns.) Thus the “Prime Rib” that we take such delight in roasting and eating is a portion cut  from the "Ribeye Roll" sub-primal cut, which in turn is taken   from the "Rib" primal cut . The upshot of all this? "Prime Rib" is the name of a cut of beef for us end users... albeit a cut that is not necessarily prime GRADE. For better or worse, FAT equals FLAVOR. SO... PRIME RIB ISN'T ACTUALLY “PRIME?” Maybe, but usually not. Only 2% of all beef sold in America-- including Prime Rib-- is graded "Prime." “Prime Rib” is the name of the portion cut in question, and “prime” is a UDSA-defined grade of beef as shown in the chart above. The grade of the Prime Rib roasts generally available for retail purchase can range from Select to Choice to Prime , denoting an increasing percentage of marbled fat and thus better flavor. "Prime" is the fattiest, and therefore tastiest and tenderest ( if not the healthiest .) Prime-grade Prime Rib also costs more, but in my experience it is well worth the extra money because the melting marbled fat luxuriously moisturizes the meat from within. And, worthy of noting-- I have yet to find a restaurant that actually serves prime-grade Prime Rib, which is one more reason why YOU can make this dish better at home. SO MUCH FOR "PRIME." WHAT ABOUT THE "RIB?" While we humans are blessed by our Creator with 12 pairs of ribs, Bovinae  (cattle) have 13 pairs. However, only pairs # 6 through # 12 ( counting from front to back ) constitute the rib primal. ( Ribs # 1-5 are considered part of the chuck primal, while rib # 13 is included in the loin primal. ) This leaves us with 7 ribs, which is exactly what comprises a full-sized Prime Rib portion cut that you might see in the meat case at Costco or The Restaurant Depot . And finally, one more map is in order-- that of a cross-section of Prime Rib, which, like its identical twin, the ribeye steak, has several somewhat distinct parts: The FILET ( Longissimus dorsi ) is the loin muscle, Prime Rib's prime raison d'être ; the TAIL is the deliciously fatty forkful that is sometimes trimmed away; and the crescent-shaped RIB CAP ( Spinalis dorsi , also known as the "DECKEL") is regarded by a great many beef lovers as the single most delicious morsel on the entire steer. So now, Dear Readers-- armed with all this knowledge, let's go shopping. III. How to Buy Prime Rib An artisan butcher friend once explained to me how every single portion cut of beef is unique, i.e., no two steaks are identical ( though they may be mirror copies, one from each side .) Accordingly, since the full 7-rib portion cut of Prime Rib is so big, it stands to reason that the meat associated with rib # 12 differs greatly from that of rib # 6… just as the last day of autumn is usually quite different from the first. And how  it differs is rather significant for our purposes here. The Chuck End (left) and the Loin End (right) from the same 7-rib section. The Loin End clearly contains WAY more of the delicious loin muscle, and only slightly less of the deckel. Because a whole 7-rib roast is too much meat for a typical nuclear family to cook and consume, the retail meat industry tends to divide the whole 7-rib section of Prime Rib in two-- one piece is comprised of the front-most 4 ribs (# 6 through # 9) and is known as the “second-cut” or the "chuck end," and the other piece is the rear-most 3-rib section (ribs # 10 through # 12) and is called the “first-cut” or "loin end." They differentiate these two sections for a very good reason– the second cut contains less of the highly desirable loin muscle than does the first cut , as seen in the photo above. Furthermore, you will NEVER see them actually labeled as "first cut" and "second cut;" nor, in my experience, will you ever find anyone working behind a meat counter who is even vaguely familiar with these terms. ( That's why you have ME. Just sayin .') So what shall we do about this "first cut" and "second cut" business? Well, for one thing, the savvy home chef might well consider feeding a large gathering by purchasing TWO first-cut roasts rather than ONE whole 7-rib roast because the result will be more uniform from portion to portion and also superior in flavor and texture. ( Some argue that the higher proportion of fat in the chuck end makes it juicier; we still prefer the loin end for its higher percentage of loin, noting all those luscious ribeye steaks that are cut from the loin end. In fact, if you ever find yourself with an extra Prime Rib loin-end roast, you can easily cut it into steaks and then wrap & freeze them individually for grilling season. That's what stores do. ) FEED AND BREED One often sees "Angus" and "Certified Angus" proudly indicated on supermarket beef packaging. “Angus” is a specific breed of beef cattle, first brought to America from Scotland in 1873. The name became a familiar marketing buzzword after the formation of the Certified Angus Beef Brand  in 1978. And yet, truth be told, 85% of American beef cattle have Angus bloodlines… and what matters far more than a particular steer’s genetics is how it is raised and what it is fed. Back when my bride Andrea & I were team-driving the entire USA, I was sometimes awakened during her driving shift by the overpoweringly acrid stench of a cattle feed lot some 10 miles ahead, with its suffering occupants confined knee-deep in their own excrement, fed a horrific diet, and shot full of powerful drugs ( e.g., antibiotics and hormones ) to keep them medically viable and their meat chemically tender until their trip to the slaughterhouse. This is how MOST supermarket beef is raised. DID SOMEONE MENTION "GRASS-FED?" While all weaned cattle spend their first few months on a diet of grasses, almost all of them are then "finished" on corn and/or other grains in order to quickly fatten them for slaughter a month before their first birthdays... a finishing process that usually takes place in a feedlot of some sort. Furthermore, while some cattle mature in far better conditions than others, the truth remains that cattle are not designed by nature to digest grains... and therefore ANY grain-finishing of cattle is, at the very least, sub-optimal on some level. I am personally a big fan of 100% grass-fed beef because it is not only healthier but also more flavorful-- if, perhaps, a tad less tender. In fact, one of my favorite go-to Prime Rib roasts is the Boneless 100% Grass-Fed Prime Grade Prime Rib from Holy Grail Steak Co . (Often out of stock, but keep a sharp eye for its return.) But the more assertive ( or, to be honest, often GAMEY ) flavor of grass-fed beef isn't to everyone's taste... so it's a good thing that there are several sources of somewhat responsibly grain-finished beef out there. Influenced, no doubt, by the scrumptious, fork-tender mouthfuls of perfectly roasted grain-finished Prime Rib that I've enjoyed in my lifetime, I've managed to make my peace with this particular conflict between healthy and tasty... life is short, after all, and we're all gonna die anyway, right? So I thoroughly enjoy my occasional high-quality and responsibly-raised grain-finished steaks, and I also use 100% grass-fed beef in my chili and braises. That makes me feel good ( or at least good enough ) about this issue. Whatever one's religious or spiritual beliefs, an important concept to absorb from this issue is that of balancing one's guilt and sense of altruism with our God-given right to the pursuit of happiness. WHAT ABOUT “DRY-AGED” PRIME RIB? Dry-aging makes for especially delicious beef by allowing the meat’s natural enzymatic activity to tenderize it while making the flavor more complex. One can also find dry-aged prime rib roasts, such as this  from Allen Brothers , a company I haven’t actually yet tried but one that enjoys a stellar reputation among people I fully trust. Now, dry-aging– as the name implies– does in fact make meat a little drier… which can be a bit of a problem with roasts, not the least of which is a comparatively paltry yield of delicious pan nectar for your au jus . All things considered, I don't recommend paying the exorbitant tariff for a dry-aged Prime Rib roast... unless you happen to find one on sale after the holidays that you can freeze and/or cut up for steaks. ...AND WAGYU BEEF? And then there’s Wagyu  beef. Contrary to popular (mis)perception, “Wagyu” is NOT a specific breed– indeed, the name translates to simply “Japanese cattle” and applies to four different Japanese breeds, which in turn are each a genetic mish-mash of stock imported from China nearly 2,000 years ago and those brought from Europe in the late 1800’s. That being said, in Japan as well as here in the US, the name “Wagyu” specifically connotes beef purposefully raised and fed to achieve superior tenderness as well a decadently high fat content, like this– The Japanese manage to get marbling like this. American Wagyu is beyond-prime rich, but never quite THIS rich. Needless to say, whether Japanese or American, with all that fat a little Wagyu goes a long way… and yes, Wagyu prime rib is available.  Snake River Farms offers a 3-Bone American Wagyu "Gold Label" Prime Rib Roast (10-12 lb.) for a whopping $449.00. After you’re done choking on your wine, consider that meat thus richly marbled would satisfy perhaps TEN normal appetites @ $45/person, and that at the Wagyu level of play the aforementioned distinction between chuck end and loin end becomes moot... and then check out what a decent restaurant charges for prime rib of less-than-transparent grade and origin. For example, my favorite local dining establishment commands $42 for prime rib as a banquet option and also as a weekend dinner special... not too far off from the Wagyu, really. And speaking of Snake River Farms , they've recently introduced a new line of products. SRF has long graded their Wagyu  beef as either Black ( significantly richer than prime-grade ) or Gold ( WAY richer than prime .) They now offer Wagyu "Silver," which is equivalent to prime grade in fat content and notably less expensive than Black and Gold. That means we can now get Wagyu flavor at a lower price ( $249 for a 5-lb. boneless roast ) with an arguably more roast-friendly fat content... Win-Win! ( For more detailed information on Wagyu beef, check out the  American Wagyu Association .) THEREIN LIES THE RIB (AS IN BONE-IN VS. BONELESS) Bone-in, or boneless? The experts are divided, with the majority of them suggesting that roasting Prime Rib with the bones in place is preferable. I disagree for several reasons: You pay full Prime Rib price-per-pound for bones that you cannot eat; The bones prevent you from evenly salting (and/or seasoning) your roast; A boneless Prime Rib roast cooks more quickly at any given temperature: A boneless Prime Rib roast cooks more evenly; A bone-in roast pretty much dictates one rib per person, which is usually way too much meat for all but the hungriest guests, unless you de-bone it AFTER roasting; De-boning AFTER roasting is a hot and messy procedure in a busy holiday kitchen; And finally, one can put those bones to MUCH better use in sauce-making. ( More on that later. ) This isn't supermodel plastic surgery, so don't over-think it... just cut the bones away from the rest of the roast, leaving as much meat as possible with the roast. You'll likely read and hear suggestions to tie the meat back to the bones for roasting. We suggest instead that you wrap and freeze them for a future batch of great beef stock. (More on that later.) So, I highly recommend looking for a boneless Prime Rib roast. If you find a bone-in roast that seems otherwise perfect, ask if the store butcher can remove them for you and then bring them home and freeze them. If you have to perform this surgery yourself, the procedure is not especially difficult. A boneless Prime Rib roast lends itself to elegantly thin slices... an especially good thing when serving an ultra-rich Wagyu Prime Rib. Armed with all the foregoing, let's finally get around to the actual shopping. And n ot to disparage anyone's favorite local supermarket, but it is definitely worth trusting something as special as top-quality, responsibly-raised Prime Rib to a company that specializes in exactly such things. Here are a few online Prime Rib sources that I've personally tried, and that I am happy to recommend: Snake River Farms A legendary premium meat supplier and American Wagyu pioneer, Snake River Farms  is an especially good source for Prime Rib and other holiday roasts.  Double R Ranch  is a sibling company ( accessible from Snake River's site ) that offers high-quality choice and prime beef. Holy Grail Steak Company A sibling company to the wine broker de Négoce , the Holy Grail Steak Company  offers fantastic steaks as well as other meats and even some seafoods. One of my go-to Prime Rib roasts comes from their grass-fed prime-grade portfolio, and their Mangalitsa ham is mouth-wateringly fantastic. Porter Road   Talk about role reversal— how about BEEF Bacon and PORK Brisket? We are proud to include Porter Road  among the small handful of online meat purveyors that we happily recommend. Whether beef, pork, or chicken, Porter Road has plenty of pasture-raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free options. Meat N’ Bone A Miami-based online butcher shop, Meat N' Bone  offers an affordable Wagyu-Angus crossbreed ribeye (AND a spendy-but-spectacular Wagyu-Angus Prime Rib) as part of a broad array of products ranging from elk roasts to alligator tenderloin. US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef  was founded in 2000 in Monticello, Missouri (pop. 98) by visionary farmers who saw that big-business cattle-raising practices were taking a toll on our animals and our health. By returning to rotational grazing practices that are both good for the planet and good for our cattle, they led the way in introducing a new generation to the unmatched taste, tenderness, and healthiness of grass-fed beef. US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef has become our go-to source for the Tasmanian-raised grass-fed beef rib bones that we use to make our " Faux Jus ." They are also a great company to deal with, one that can rightly boast customer service as great as the products they sell. Cattle ranching as it can be, from the Snake River Farms website. IV. How to Cook Prime Rib If you google Prime Rib recipes, you'll find a downright bewildering array of conflicting recommendations, including cooking temperatures all over the dial. I've already tried them all so you don't have to, keeping the good ideas and discarding the others. By the way, you will often see recommendations for roasting your Prime Rib for "X Minutes per Pound." DO NOT SLAVISHLY FOLLOW SUCH INSTRUCTIONS! For one thing, a full Prime Rib (7 ribs long) weighs a lot more than a 3-rib cut of the same diameter, yet they would require almost identical cooking times. To determine when your roast is done cooking, use your thermometer, not your clock. More on this point later. To start, let's get our equipment and supplies in order. INGREDIENTS: Boneless Prime Rib roast, tied with butcher's twine, if desired Kosher Salt Beef Tallow or Olive Oil ( Pure-grade, NOT Extra Virgin) Two essentials for proper Prime Rib cookery-- a stainless steel roasting pan & rack (by Hestan .) and a top-quality oven-safe digital monitoring thermometer (by Thermoworks .) COOKING EQUIPMENT: Stainless roasting pan w/ an elevated rack Oven-safe digital monitoring thermometer Large frying/sauté pan, preferably iron Large Tongs, Oven Mitts A wine glass with your favorite wine in it (optional) STEP 1-- The Thaw & The "Score, Salt, & Fan" If your roast is frozen, thaw it overnight in a large pot of water ( assuming, of course, that it is sealed in a waterproof plastic package; if not, you'll need to thaw it in your fridge for a couple of days .) If you are thawing it in your fridge, coat it with kosher salt. If you thaw it in the pot of water, then on the morning of your feast give it a cross-hatch of shallow slices with your sharpest knife ("scoring"), rub it with kosher salt, and then position the salted roast on an elevated roasting rack in front of a fan. This will accomplish several tasks-- it will help form a crust, it will warm the roast to room temperature, and the fan will keep your cat away. ( You're on your own with the family dog .) String Theory-- should you tie up your roast? It's not absolutely necessary, but it helps to keep gravity from flattening the roast in the early stages of cooking, and thus helps it cook a little more evenly. Just make sure you use real butcher's twine, not something that will melt in the heat. After the Score, Salt, & Fan Process, the exterior is dry, translucent, and a little tacky to the touch. STEP 2-- The First Sear Why sear the roast? NOT to "seal in the juices," as unscientific folklore often suggests, but rather to help form the delicious crust. As meat is roasting, its exterior undergoes what is known as the Maillard Reaction , a complex interaction of cellular sugars and proteins that begins at just under 300ºF and should NOT be confused with Caramelization , which involves sugars alone and occurs at a slightly higher temperature. The Maillard reaction yields not only a wonderful color and crunch to your prime rib’s exterior, it also produces the delicious yet hard-to-describe umami  flavors that we never realized how much we crave. ( The sauces Soy, Worcestershire, and Marinara are all umami bombs.)  That salted spell in front of the fan contributes mightily to the Maillard Reaction, which works much better on dry surfaces than on wet ones. That being said, we will be doing the long, slow roasting at a temperature well below 300ºF, so we'll need to assist the Maillard Reaction/crust formation with a little high heat. Some recipes call for searing your roast with high heat before the long, slow roasting, while others call for searing after roasting ( a.k.a. the REVERSE sear .) We recommend doing BOTH. And some recipes perplexingly call for searing the roast in a hot pan on the stove-top... something I've found geometrically impossible given the roughly cylindrical shape of the roast and the two-dimensional plane of the typical cooking pan. You can and should lightly sear the two flat ends of the roast in a hot pan ( an IRON pan is preferable for its thermal inertia ) but we'll then give the whole roast a brief browning in a very hot oven. If your oven has a convection option, this is the time to use it, set at475Fº. If not, just crank up your regular oven to 475ºF. When it reaches full temperature, scorch your roast 5 minutes, turn it over and give it 5 more, then turn off the oven and immediately remove the roast. STEP 3-- The Long, Slow Roast/ Double Blast (LSRDB) The lowest possible setting on my oven is 170ºF. Not only have I successfully roasted Prime Rib at this temperature, I also once performed an unusual experiment-- I wrapped a frozen-solid Prime Rib in foil and gave it an all-day at LSR at 170ºF until it reached 120ºF internal temperature. After a finishing hot blast it came out perfect. Our takeaway? As long as we roast Prime Rib at a temperature above 150ºF-- the average melting point of beef fat-- you can't go too low. However, roasting it a high temperature-- anything over 300ºF, as recommended by a surprising number of celebrity chefs and cooking websites-- has TWO drawbacks: Roasts continue cooking on the inside after being removed from the oven, and the higher your roasting temperature, the more the temperature will rise after removal... which makes over-cooking more of a risk; And worse-- the higher the roasting temperature, the more unevenly the meat cooks, as shown in the first two examples below: The first two roasts were cooked at a high temperature, resulting in a noticeably steep gradient of done-ness– from well-done gray on the outside to perfectly pink in the center. Their crust formation, however, is fantastic. The LSRDB example on the far right-- roasted at a mere 170ºF-- demonstrates perfectly even done-ness at the expense of a great crust. Now, to be fair, there are two ADVANTAGES to roasting at a temperature at or above 300ºF-- The aforementioned Maillard Reaction kicks into high gear above 300ºF, resulting in delicious crusting as in the above two examples; And, of course, roasting at a higher temperature will cook your Prime Rib faster. Furthermore, for some mysterious reason the prized deckel section of this cut doesn't seem to lose any of its deliciousness when cooked beyond pink. So-- if you like your meat pink but definitely not red in the middle... if you lust after great crust... and/or you are on a tight schedule to get dinner on the table, by all means feel free to roast at a higher temperature. Our recommended LSRDB oven temperature is 195ºF. ( Interestingly, the numerous recipes I studied for this essay suggested temperatures ranging from 180º to 250º for this low-and-slow phase. ) 195ºF is low enough to guarantee even cooking, yet high enough to allow some wiggle room if you need to speed up or slow down the cooking for your target temperature to coincide with your scheduled dinner time. After scorching both ends in the frying pan, position your Prime Rib on a roasting rack that affords generous air circulation all around it. Roast at 475ºF for 5 minutes, flip it over, and repeat. Remove the roast and re-set the oven temperature to 195ºF. ( You might want to leave the oven door open for a few minutes as the oven sufficiently cools .) Thrust the probe of your digital monitoring thermometer into the thick middle of the meat. Continue to cook ( at oven temperature of 195ºF ) until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 115ºF for rare or 120ºF for medium-rare. and then turn off the oven with the roast in it ( don't open the door! ) and allow the internal temperature to climb to 120º (for rare) or 125º for (medium-rare.) Remove from the oven and tent with foil for a few minutes. Now crank your oven back up to 475º, and then, only when you’ve hit 475º and not a minute before, slather the roast with oil or tallow and put it back in the oven for long enough to achieve your desired color. You might want even more crust, but maybe not at the expense of cooking the interior very far past your personal point of perfection. Tent it with foil for a few minutes before slicing. If you are pressed for time and/or favor a thick and crunchy crust over uniform done-ness, by all means roast your Prime Rib at a Maillard-friendly 300ºF as follows: THE "GENERAL CRUSTER" (GC) METHOD: You can give it a hot blast before and/or after the 300ºF roasting... or you can skip the blasts and simply roast your Prime Rib at 300ºF to an internal temperature of 110-115ºF and then remove it from the oven and tent with foil. The internal temperature will continue to rise. If this sounds simple, that's because it is. Note that we haven't even hinted at how much time it will take for your Prime Rib roast to reach the target cooking temperature. That's because the cooking time depends on way too many factors ( the diameter of the roast, your oven, etc. ) for a precise answer. However, HERE is a page from www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com that includes a chart purporting to correlate weights and cook times in a 350ºF oven. For the LSRDB Method (at 195ºF) you should double their time estimates; for the GC Method (at 300ºF) add half an hour. I recommend using this only as an approximate guide for planning purposes. Your digital thermometer should be the final judge of when your roast is done cooking. One more thing-- before attempting a full-blown Prime Rib dinner party, I highly recommend doing a practice version. You'll gain immeasurable confidence, and the leftovers will be delicious either re-heated or cold. V. Sauce for Prime Rib Matching sauces with a dish is like matching two people to form a good couple-- sometimes they seemingly have nothing in common and yet complement each other to great effect, while other couples seem to have so much overlap that they wear each other's shirts and finish each other's sentences. Accordingly, Sauce for Prime Rib generally takes two very different forms: for contrast, we have Horseradish Cream Sauce, and for close affinity we have " Au Jus" (literally " with juice ") usually ( but not always ) fashioned from the roasting pan drippings. Horseradish Sauce from The Spruce Eats , and Ultimate Au Jus from The Daring Gourmet . I prefer au jus, or at least a variation thereof that I fashion from (flourless) demi-glace. ( See The Demi-Glace Crisis . ) For some fabulous instruction on such sauce sorcery, please also check out the Sauce Bordelaise Recipe at a wonderful blog called THE JOHAN . VI. Serving Suggestions Make no mistake-- when Prime Rib is on the menu, everything else-- the appetizers, side dishes, dessert, and even the wine-- plays a minor supporting role. This makes sense for two reasons: ONE, no one is driving in from New Jersey for your mashed potatoes; and TWO, Prime Rib is sumptuously rich and also usually served in large portions, leaving little room or appetite for rich and/or complicated accompaniments. RECOMMENDED SIDE DISHES: Mashed Potatoes or Roasted Potatoes A Simply-Prepared Green Vegetable (broccoli and green beans are two favorites.) NOT RECOMMENDED: Scalloped Potatoes with Gruyère Green Bean & Cream of Mushroom Casserole Candied Yams or Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows Macaroni & Cheese You get the idea. WINE WITH PRIME RIB? Matching wine with Prime Rib is easy... any red wine you love should be perfectly fine. That being said, one should be mindful that the big, strapping Cabernet Sauvignon that boldly stands up to the sizzling char gracing a paleo-manly-man grilled ribeye might be a tad overpowering for Prime Rib's more subtle charms, as would anything with an alcohol content much in excess of 14.5%. BUT SINCE YOU'VE ASKED... Prime Rib is generally served at a good-sized gathering, so it follows that the wine you serve should be a crowd-pleaser... something that requires no explanation or geeky analysis to be appreciated. I like to pair Prime Rib with fruity and full-bodied Californian Pinot Noir because it is easy to love, even for folks who usually drink whites, and its light body plays well with the gentle flavors of slowly-cooked meat. And I really like ( gasp! ) MERLOT with Prime Rib, for a number of reasons: Merlot went way out of fashion among wine cognoscenti two decades ago due to The Sideways Effect , but some of the world's finest Merlot vineyards remain under cultivation by top California and Washington State wineries even as other varietal wines have overtaken it in popularity and sales. And because of this very market shift, great west coast, old-vine Merlot is available at reasonable prices while connoisseurs clamor for the triple-figure Cabs and low-production Pinots. ( Pro-tip: although Merlot is typically softer and earlier-maturing than Cabernet Sauvignon, really good versions thereof nonetheless benefit greatly from a day of aeration. We recently enjoyed a 2018 bottling from the Walla Walla region of Washington, and even with six years of barrel and bottle age it still tasted better on Day 2. ) For more on Merlot, please check out LISA, THE MERLOT GIRL ( The essay, not the girl. ) And if you've made it this far, Dear Reader, I thank you. Please feel free to contact me directly for some honest and free advice on your next Prime Rib dinner. Appreciatively, DannyM. dannym@dannystable.com NOTES: The best Prime Rib sauce I've ever made came from a Herculean effort-- I made super-concentrated veal stock from 50 lbs. of roasted veal bones and 5 gallons of spring water; I made super-concentrated beef stock from 30 lbs. of roasted ribs and spring water... those same bones that I recommended removing from a bone-in Prime Rib way above in this essay; and I made a batch of red wine beef stew from 6 lbs. of grass-fed beef chuck, carrots, celery, pre-browned onions, and two bottles of good red wine. I removed the beef from the beef stew for later use and roasted the remaining contents with a big smear of tomato paste. I then combined a quart each of the veal stock and beef stock and the roasted stew remains and simmered it with more red wine. I tweaked the final product with dashes of Worcestershire Sauce and coconut aminos, a good soy substitute. Both Pinot Noir and Merlot taste approximately twice as good if served about 10 degrees cooler than room temperature. This is easily accomplished by placing the bottle in a bucket of cold tap water for 10-15 minutes.

There is a story for every wine, and vice-versa. Smith College girls, 1948 After spending my entire pre-trucking adulthood engaged in the wine business one way or another, it was just during the past few years that I’ve come to accept that I really, really like Merlot... GOOD Merlot, that is. This is a big deal, because among the œnological cognoscenti, admitting you actually enjoy Merlot is akin to informing your co-workers that your psychiatric profile is uncannily consistent with that of a serial-murdering cannibal. But screw it… I’m a trucker now, and I’ll drink whatever I want. And one night not too long ago I was doing just that... sitting on the back deck to behold a glorious sunset with my bride Andrea, wine glasses in hands, when I casually mentioned, “ You know, I was always way ahead of the curve with Merlot. I liked it before most people ever heard of it, and I liked it after everyone got sick of it and moved on .” And right then a Merlot label from my distant past suddenly materialized in my brain, as did the long-buried story that accompanied it. * * * * * * * The Holy Trinity of red Bordeaux grapes are genetic kin— Cabernet Franc is a parent grape of Cabernet Sauvignon, which in turn is a parent to Merlot. They definitely demonstrate familial affinity— while other red varieties are permitted in the region, most of the famous reds of Bordeaux are blends of two or three of these varieties. And although Cabernet Franc and Merlot are the featured grapes in certain Bordelaise districts, Cabernet Sauvignon is generally considered superior to the other two when the climate affords full ripening. California— and Napa Valley in particular— proved to be perfect for maximizing its potential. When the Great American Wine Boom dawned in the early 1970’s, Cabernet Sauvignon had already been firmly established as the prevailing benchmark of high-quality Californian red wine. Meanwhile, fewer than 100 acres in California were planted to Merlot vines… but oh, how that would very soon change. * * * * * * * In the early 1980’s I was an aspiring young wine geek while still in college, well versed enough to at least be aware of Merlot’s existence. The notion of a Bordeaux-style red that is softer than Cabernet Sauvignon and more approachable in its youth intrigued me. Hungry (or thirsty) for more wine knowledge, one January between semesters at UMass/Amherst I took a special wine tasting course focusing on the red wines of Bordeaux, all from the halfway decent 1976 vintage. To my surprise as well as the teacher’s, I could identify by nose alone the wines of the main sub-regions — Pauillac, St. Estephe, Graves, St. Julien, St. Emillion, and Pomerol. (The latter two— my favorites of the bunch— are the “right bank” districts, where the soil and climate are more suited to Merlot cultivation than are the districts across the Gironde River, where Cabernet Sauvignon predominates.) Might I have a future in this business? Perhaps... but if my newly-discovered nose and taste memory suggested a career in the wine trade, I surely wasn’t going to be paying my bills with Merlot sales anytime soon. Hardly anyone had even heard of it. And yet, as the American wine boom gained traction, Merlot gradually got popular enough to make it a “thing,” albeit a minor one. For the Californian producers it was mainly about economics— Merlot is easier to grow than Cabernet Sauvignon, it ripens earlier, and it requires less barrel and cellar maturation before going to market. And yet everyone in the industry understood that Cabernet was the king of grapes and would likely remain so. After presenting my senior honors thesis (in environmental economics) that spring, I moved to Northampton and became a full-time restaurant rat while completing my remaining undergraduate courses part-time, riding the free buses back and forth to my UMass classes. One day that autumn I happened to catch the bus in downtown Amherst... and one of the few remaining seats was directly beside a strikingly attractive Smith student who was taking one of her courses at another college that semester. It is not difficult for a reasonably attractive female to catch the eye of a 23-year-old guy, whether she wants to or not. But oh, this Lisa— as if her long blond hair, reed-like frame, and blue eyes that crackled with intelligence weren’t enough, she spoke in a knee-buckling London accent. All in all, she was a beautiful, long-stemmed rose of a young lady... complete with especially sharp thorns to dissuade those who would try to hold her too tightly. I was so smitten that I figured out her class schedule and made sure that, going forward, I was on the bus with her. I made a point of having chocolate to share with her on the rides to Northampton. We hung out a few times. And then— almost out of the blue— she called me and invited me to go out drinking with her after an upcoming mid-term. Struck stupid with delight, I countered with a bold suggestion of my own— how about staying in and enjoying some nice wine? She liked the idea. I showed up with a bottle of 1979 Clos du Val Napa Valley Merlot. * * * * * * * The Clos du Val winery was established in 1972 by John and Henrietta Goelet, a couple with deep roots in the French wine trade and a taste for great Bordeaux. They hired a young French winemaker, Bernard Portet, whose father was the technical director at Château Lafite-Rothschild. Their ambition was to produce world-class Cabernet Sauvignon in the as-yet barely developed Stag’s Leap District of Napa Valley. (Spoiler alert: They picked the right spot. See Judgement in Paris .) With their shared Bordelaise sensibilities, the Goelets and Portet planted Merlot alongside their Cabernet Sauvignon just like the Bordeaux estates. American wine law requires that wine labeled by grape variety (“varietal wine”) contain at least 75% of the stated grape, which left considerable room for Portet’s cellar artistry, i.e., adding minor proportions of Merlot to soften and round out the muscular Cabernet like they've long done in Bordeaux. But Clos du Val soon found that their Merlot, ripened to fleshy fullness in the Californian warmth, was sturdy enough for a stand-alone varietal wine. * * * * * * * Lisa and I enjoyed a perfectly nice evening together, slowly sipping the delicious Merlot as we engaged in smart conversation about music and art and all kinds of stuff. Our minds seemed to mesh, and I dare say a spark or two flew. I optimistically foresaw us possibly becoming a regular item. But when it was time for me to go, just when I was about to inquire when I might see her again, she apologetically but matter-of-factly explained that she was very busy with her studies, and that she had this guy friend at Williams whom she saw every other weekend or so to round out that detail of her tightly-scheduled existence. And so that was that. It felt like a really long walk back to my side of the tracks. I last saw Lisa in person a couple of years later, shortly after she graduated from Smith. By then I had risen to the position of general manager at the fanciest restaurant in town, one that rightly boasted the finest wine list in the area code. Lisa was applying for a waitress job to keep her busy until she headed off somewhere in the fall, she explained. Delicious as this situation might sound ( for any number of reasons ) I brusquely sent her away... in part because I knew that, as an economically-privileged only child, she wouldn’t have “the right things wrong with her” so often found in good waitresses... like, for instance, a deep-seated eagerness to please total strangers. But I also sent her off because the restaurant was owned by a fast-living gangster who regularly preyed on women like her, and he and his Cognac & Blow cohorts weren’t accustomed to hearing “no” from the female objects of their unsolicited advances. I was already straining to shield several of the waitresses from such lechery by occasionally walking them home or other such brotherly gestures, and my capacity to extend such protection was nearing its limit. And also, truth be told, I knew I would have been privately crushed had Lisa— like a handful of her more adventurous Smith-mates— actually accepted an invitation to party on my boss’s 50-foot Nantucket-based yacht. Of course I couldn’t tell her any of this… she probably figured I was just being a total jerk. As I advanced in my restaurant career through the mid-1980’s and got more involved with wine, I noticed that when we catered an event there were twice as many white drinkers as red drinkers, and that they drank twice as much... a 4-to-1 white-to-red ratio that pretty much held true until 1991, when the entire wine universe suddenly shifted. A “60 Minutes” segment that year explored the “French Paradox,” a generous interpretation of which might suggest that red wine was actually good for one’s health. Right past the Chardonnays and Rieslings the erstwhile white-swilling public hurriedly stampeded... right past the Cabernet Sauvignon, which they were afraid to mispronounce, or maybe thought too rich and heavy... right past everything until they got to the Merlot rack, whereupon they promptly emptied it. By the time I became the sommelier at a top Boston steakhouse in 1994, it was imperative that we served Merlot by the glass while we struggled to keep the printed wine list up-to-date... because our wholesalers kept running out of whatever Merlots we had listed. It was hard work, but also fun and profitable to have wines that so easily sold themselves. But all good things come to an end, often with scant warning. The end for Merlot came so suddenly that it shocked the industry even harder than the abrupt shift from whites to reds because of the French Paradox… and as ignominiously, perhaps, as the death of disco in 1979. The exact moment of Merlot’s implosion came in a 2004 buddy film set in Californian wine country—SIDEWAYS— when Miles, a lead character and insufferable wine geek, uttered a memorable and consequential line: “I am NOT drinking any f***ing Merlot! If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving!” The wine-drinking public had likely had its fill of Merlot by that point, and Miles’s rant perhaps crystalized their latent, simmering desire to move on to something new. And so— as with me and Lisa The Merlot Girl— quite abruptly that was that... end of story. Sales of Merlot instantly cratered... in part, I suspect, because an acceptable substitute, an especially shiny new object, was readily at hand and just emerging into long overdue prominence— Pinot Noir. The 20th century success of Californian winemakers with Cabernet Sauvignon was counterbalanced by their nearly complete inability to consistently cultivate Pinot Noir of equivalent quality. Compared to Cabernet Sauvignon, the Pinot Noir grape is thinner skinned, ripens earlier, and is more finicky in the vineyard regarding such variables as heat, sunshine, and water. And once harvested, Pinot Noir remains a problem child in the cellar, requiring more skill and close attention to successfully vinify. It wasn’t until the breakthrough 1990 vintage that quality, varietally-correct Californian Pinot Noir became regularly and widely available... in fact, SIDEWAYS featured Miles’s search from winery to winery in the Santa Ynez Valley for great versions of it. But through it all, good Merlot never stopped being good wine, and the greatest examples from California (and Washington State) are now at the top of my to-drink list. And while the prevailing anti-Merlot sentiment has motivated Napa Valley wineries to replant much of their precious acreage over to more profitable Cabernet Sauvignon, they’ve kept in place the finest parcels of Merlot vines, which yield some very good wine that generally sells for reasonable prices. I’ve got a cellar-ful of such gems reposing in various states of development. And so what ever became of Lisa, The Merlot Girl? Thanks to the age of instant connectivity in which we now live, a few quick keystrokes revealed that A.) a realtor with the exact same name had recently run for a school board seat in Nevada; and B.) Lisa herself has evidently enjoyed an utterly amazing post-college life, first as a freelance journalist in Brazil and then as the CEO of an international foundation dedicated to saving the ocean and its endangered inhabitants from the ravages of capitalism that would destroy them. She even addressed the United Nations about her work a few years ago. By any measure her life has been a smashing success, and I saw no point in even slightly disturbing it by reaching out to her. To paraphrase The Moody Blues, I seriously doubt that she ever thinks about me once upon a time in her wildest dreams … ...but maybe, just maybe, one day she’ll find herself sipping an especially delicious Napa Merlot and then she’ll pause as a long-buried wisp of a memory suddenly crosses her brow and inspires a wee smile.

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Red Tail Ridge Winery Another top-quality, cutting-edge Finger Lakes winery, Red Tail Ridge Winery  offers estate-bottled favorites such as Chardonnay and Riesling along with lesser-known Northern Italian varieties such as Teroldego and Lagrein. Their pure and precisely-made sparkling wines are among the very best in the region. ​ Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard “Hermann the German” established his eponymous winery in 1979 with an emphasis on Riesling. The Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard is famous for consistently excellent versions thereof, and their Burgundian-style Chardonnay and hand-crafted methode champenoise  sparkling wines are likewise superb. Weis Vineyards Founded on the eastern shore of Keuka Lake just seven years ago, Weis Vineyards wins high acclaim for producing compellingly delicious dry whites graced with perfectly balanced, varietally-correct flavors, recognizably European structure, and clean, racy acidity. Look for sharp, clean, and decidedly Germanic bottlings of Riesling, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, and more. Their tasting room's view of Keuka Lake is as spectacular as their wines. Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery The winery that pioneered the cultivation of Vitis vinifera-- a.k.a. REAL wine grapes-- in the Finger Lakes region, the Konstantin Frank Winery produces a wide range of excellent wines, from méthode champenoise bubbly to the ancient Georgian varieties Saperativ and Rkatsiteli to excellent, German-style Riesling (both sweet AND dry.) More to come! MORE WINE? de Négoce This is where you can buy $60 or even $80 wines online for only $20. de Négoce does this by purchasing surplus wine from super-premium wineries, signing an airtight non-disclosure agreement, and then selling it under their own label, passing tremendous savings along to us customers. ( See " HOW TO BUY $60 WINE FOR $20 " ) A separate and unaffiliated site (click HERE ) is dedicated to guessing the sources and sharing user reviews. Domaine Chandon Many French Champagne firms now produce bubbly in the US, but it was the bold experiment known as Domaine Chandon that blazed the trail. Established in 1973 by the venerable Möet et Chandon  Champagne house, Napa Valley-based Domaine Chandon successfully combines Old-World expertise and tradition with Californian sunshine and ripeness to produce a line of affordable and fabulous Champagne-style sparkling wines. Gruet Winery More bubbles? New Mexico has been making wine longer than California, and the Gruet family of French Champagne fame found the high altitude desert climate perfect for making their upright and serious style of American bubbly. The Gruet 100% Chardonnay Blanc de Blancs might well be the best value worldwide in its category. FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD! RESTAURANT DEPOT-- This is what we mean by "going BIG." Restaurant Depot “Where Restaurants Go To Shop.” Want to up your grocery game and shop with the pros? Stop by a Restaurant Depot  near you— they’ll issue you a Day Pass and turn you loose in Wholesale Foodie Heaven. (Maybe their motto should be “ Go Big Or Go Retail! ”) The Shadow Hill sugar house in February Shadow Hill Maple Syrup There’s “Table Syrup,” and then there’s REAL Maple Syrup… and there's absolutely no comparison. Likewise, there’s ordinary real Maple Syrup, and then there’s Shadow Hill Dark Amber-- DannyM.'s personal favorite! This fantastic artisanal production facility is also an owner-built architectural masterpiece that serves as one-of-a-kind wedding venue. Taylor Shellfish Farms Need an elegant nibble with your tea-time bubbly? Taylor Shellfish Farms is the go-to source for delicious, top-quality smoked Pacific oysters ( available in convenient 3 oz. cans ) and other tasty morsels from the sea, including the rare and highly prized geoduck clam. Pâté de Foie Gras en Croûte-- an old-school French classic from Dufour Gourmet. Dufour Gourmet Gotta hand it to the all-knowing Internet for bombarding me with ads for Dufour Gourmet , a great source for handmade, retro-French delicacies like country-style pâtés, duck foie gras terrine, porcelet ham, and more. --PRIME RIB, STEAK, AND OTHER MEATS-- Cattle ranching at its finest, from the Snake River Farms website. Snake River Farms A legendary premium meat supplier and Wagyu pioneer, Snake River Farms is an especially good source for holiday roasts.  Double R Ranch is a sibling company ( accessible from Snake River's site ) that offers responsibly-ranched choice and prime beef. Holy Grail Steak Company A sibling company to de Négoce , the Holy Grail Steak Company offers fantastic steaks as well as other meats and even some seafoods. My go-to prime rib comes from their grass-fed prime-grade portfolio, and their Mangalitsa ham is mouth-wateringly fantastic. Porter Road   Talk about role reversal— how about BEEF Bacon and PORK Brisket? We are proud to include Porter Road among the small handful of online meat purveyors that we happily recommend. Whether beef, pork, or chicken, Porter Road has plenty of pasture-raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free options. Meat N’ Bone A Miami-based online butcher shop, Meat N' Bone offers an affordable Wagyu-Angus crossbreed ribeye as part of a broad array of products ranging from elk roasts to alligator tenderloin. US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef was founded in 2000 in Monticello, Missouri (pop. 98) by visionary farmers who saw that big-business cattle-raising practices were taking a toll on our animals and our health. By returning to rotational grazing practices that are both good for the planet and good for our cattle, they led the way in introducing a new generation to the unmatched taste, tenderness, and healthiness of grass-fed beef. **UPDATE** US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef has become our go-to source for the grass-fed beef rib bones we use to make our " Faux Jus ." They are also a great company to deal with, one that can rightly boast customer service as great as the products they sell. --ARTISANAL DAIRY FARMS-- Serenity Meadows Certified Raw Milk (Weedsport, NY) Situated a couple of miles north of x40 on the NY Thruway, Serenity Meadows produces and sells what we call "the Wagyu of Milk"-- Mennonite-raised, 100% grass-fed, A2 milk from Jersey cows, sold raw. Jersey cows at Highlawn Farm in the Berkshires. High Lawn Farm (Lee, MA) Perched on a scenic hill in the heart of Berkshire County, High Lawn Farm offers a wide range of products from their Jersey herd-- milk, heavy cream, cheeses, and particularly wonderful ice cream. -- SPORTING GOODS -- The Sutton Company (Naples, NY) Manufacturers of the famous, hand-crafted Sutton Spoon, long the go-to lure for those who troll for Finger Lakes trout. The Sutton Company occupies a humble storefront in the gorgeous little downtown Naples, NY... a shop that's not just for fishermen. Look for the lazy cat in the window. The Excalibur Recurve Crossbow-- Simple, Reliable, and Effective. If necessary, you can actually change out the string in the wild. Excalibur Crossbows You wouldn't wear your fancy Swiss watch into the forest, right? In contrast to the complex and intricate actions of the super-expensive compound crossbows, Excalibur Crossbows are RECURVES, simple to use and maintain as well as incomparably sturdy and reliable. Multitudes of successful hunters can also attest that they are deadly accurate. Something special for one's inner cowboy (or COWGIRL!) A Henry Brass Sidegate in .30-30 with an octagonal barrel. Henry Repeating Arms Henry Repeating Arms is America's leading manufacturer of lever-action rifles. Their goal is to manufacture classic, well-crafted firearms that every enthusiast can afford. The passion, expertise, and dedication of their employees embody the company’s motto— “Made in America Or Not Made At All.” The Concept2 Rowing Ergometer is the worldwide gold standard. Concept2 Vermont-based oncept2 makes top-quality exercise equipment that gives you a great total-body workout in your home or gym. Check out the RowErg rowing machine, the SkiErg ski machine, or the BikeErg indoor exercise bike. Buying directly from the manufacturer saves you big money. ( See "BREAKING SEVEN: Training & Racing on the Concept2 Rowing Ergometer .) Beloved co-driver Mr. E, rocking the XXL TAG Safari jacket that DannyM. bought him for his annual trip to Africa. (For size reference, our model Mr. E has arms like legs, legs like people, and could probably change a truck tire without a jack.) TAG Safari Great safari jackets and other sporting wear for those of us who love to dress well for outdoor adventures. TAG Safari has a motto— “Helping Africa Through Trade, Not Aid”— that reflects their commitment to improving lives and conditions in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in Africa. ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ Andrea’s Foot Care & Nails With a winning combination of extensive training and a gentle touch, Andrea's Foot Care & Nails offers effective care for your precious feet, providing advanced foot care techniques based on German Podology in the comfort of your home. All implements are sterilized in a medical-grade autoclave. Win Herne Photography & Design A full-service graphic designer and web developer, Ms. Win Herne is the fabulous "webmistress" for Danny's Table. Hope Dealers BTC Inc. Webmistress extraordinaire Win Herne also runs Hope Dealers BTC Inc., an all-volunteer charity organization that helps people (and their friends and family) who suffer from substance use disorder, mental health issues, and homelessness. They are always accepting donations and volunteers. ( The "BTC" stands for "be the change." )  More to come...

Oysters only in "R" months? Think again. OYSTERS CICERO-- don't bother googling the recipe... we made it up. Mary Frances Kennedy (“MFK”) Fisher (1908-1992) was one of the 20th Century’s most beloved and highly regarded food writers. Among her 27 books, CONSIDER THE OYSTER (Duell, Sloan and Pierce, 1941) is one of her best known works, a short but exquisitely-written treatise on the most regal of bivalves. Along with the history of oyster-eating, their morphology, physiology, and life cycle, Ms. Fisher also addresses the age-old question of whether one must confine oyster consumption to the colder (“R”) months. Ms. Fisher suggests that the “R” rule was foisted upon the oyster-eating public by the sea farmers who tended their estuary beds in exactly the manner as the Romans back in 100 BC. The breeding season for oysters stretches from May through August, when their waters exceed 70ºF… and which, quite coincidentally, is also the 4-month run of consecutive non-R months. A single female oyster produces some 20 million eggs in a given year, and since the oyster farmers needed to foster and preserve reproduction for the future, they were understandably loath to sacrifice tomorrow’s oyster population for today’s harvest. And so, Fisher contends, the oyster farmers created an excuse to suspend harvesting in the “R” months, a wholesale fabrication that would endure for two and a half millennia– the proposition that oyster consumption in the months May through August poses a risk to one’s health. Ms. Fisher was not alone in examining this issue and the origins of this culinary taboo. Author Mark Kurlansky, in THE BIG OYSTER: HISTORY ON THE HALF SHELL (Random House, 2006) offers the following on pages 78-79: “Although New Yorkers ate oysters all year long, it was believed that the oysters in the months without R’s– May, June, July, and August– were of inferior quality... and so they often waited for the (better) oysters to come in the fall. This is an ancient and somewhat mythological belief. In 1599, William Butler, a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote, ‘ It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that do not have R in them to eat oysters. ’ The myth has an element of truth in the case of New York. Oysters take their cue to begin spawning when the water warms up, which is in May, and it is true that spawning oysters tend to be thin, translucent, and generally less appealing. Some argued that letting the beds rest during spawning season was a good conservation measure. Summer oysters are, however, perfectly healthy unless spoiled in the market by summer heat.” And yet authors Fisher, Kurlansky, and Butler were preceded in this particular inquiry by two thousand years... as well as the Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC.) Cicero promulgated an explanation of the “R” Month prohibition, one quite different from those previously mentioned in this essay, in “ de Oestris ,” his treatise on oysters. ( Please contact us immediately if you can find a direct translation of this. We’ve looked everywhere. –DannyM.) At the risk of getting sued or at least provoking a Cease & Desist Order, I can do no better than re-post in its entirety this fabulous examination of this issue by Michael C. Hild on the company blog of ANDERSON’S NECK OYSTER COMPANY in Shacklefords, Virginia– Oysters in R months So getting back to the main topic, where did the adage of only eating oysters in the “R Months” originate? Ancient Rome is the answer. As you probably know, Romans loved their parties. Oysters were a great luxury, and they were served as a vivacious prelude to Roman feasts. The great Roman Chef Apicius is credited with finding a way to safely pack fresh oysters on their journey from the sea to the Emperor Trajan in Rome. So if oysters could be safely transported, why the aversion to oyster eating in the summer? The answer can be found by reading no other than the great works of Cicero himself. Cicero was obsessed with finding out why the R Month myth was so pervasive in his exhaustive treatise “De Ostreis”. The practice of avoiding oysters in the non-R months had been ingrained in Roman culture for over 400 years. He was perplexed by this practice because at one time it was commonplace for the lower class to safely eat oysters in the city of Rome year round. Cicero found a quite simple explanation and he uncovered the straightforward, yet disgusting answer to the mystery. As is often the case with human nature, unabated greed is the answer to the riddle. Because the freshest oysters could be packed and shipped inland where they would command top dollar, it is no surprise the best oysters found their way to Roman city markets and tables. These oysters were purchased in Rome year round. The lower class working Romans even ate oysters in the summer months with no iIl effects. However, the upper class Romans never ate oysters in months without an R as it was considered disgusting and unhealthy. But why the avoidance of the tasty bivalves by the wealthy Romans who could most easily afford the luxurious treats? Well, just like today, wealthy Romans often went to the beach during the summer to what they called “watering places.” These Pompeiian excursionists feasted on oysters while staying at the hotels at the waterfront. However, as described before, the best and freshest oysters were packed and shipped to Rome where they commanded the highest prices. Only the oysters of poorest quality remained at the waterfront where they invariably aged and anyone in the know would avoid them at all cost. That didn’t stop the beach hoteliers from trying to make a buck and sell these rancid oysters to their wealthy inland guests on their vacation stays. According to a 19th century New York Times article on Cicero’s oyster writings ( Sadly, no longer available in NYT archives– DM ) the taste of these oysters at the water were so bad that even in their best condition “it was impossible for the guest to tell by the taste whether the oysters eaten by him were fresh and wholesome or aged and unwholesome.” To make matters worse, the hotel owners would attempt to “freshen up their refuse oysters with sulphate of copper, a most objectionable condiment.” Unsurprisingly these wealthy Romans became violently sick when they ate oysters on their summer beach vacations. However, the lower class workers who could not afford summer trips to the beach were happily gorging away on the fresh oysters back in the city of Rome. This summer beach sickness caused by greedy hoteliers was not understood until 400 years later due to Cicero’s detective work. But by that time the damage was already done and could not be unwound, even by the great Cicero. The summer oyster sickness was so feared that oyster eating was banned across the board in non-R months and incorporated into Roman law. This falsely constructed R Rule went viral so to speak and was passed down through the centuries as an inherited best practice. It even survived in various forms in 19th and 20th century American state laws. What would have been more helpful, would have been a ban on selling rancid oysters. The lawmakers should have demanded that oysters were safely packed and stored. However, at that time, the lawmakers did not know what the shady hoteliers were doing. The Modern Oyster Season In modern days, very strict refrigeration and oyster handling requirements are mandated by both State and Federal agencies, especially in the hot summer months. Regulators now understand this relationship and govern oyster harvesting and transportation practices with very specific safety precautions. As a result, you are more likely to win the lottery than you are to eat a bad oyster. But modern refrigeration and strict regulatory oversight can not fully eradicate pervasive urban legends, especially those that have been around since the times of Ancient Rome. So the next time you hear someone mention the R rule for oysters, you are now fully equipped to mesmerize them with your vast knowledge of Cicero’s ancient writings and how he already debunked this urban oyster legend more than 2,000 years ago. * * * * * * * It is noteworthy, I think, that Cicero, MFK Fisher, and Mark Kurlansky all conclude that yes, you can eat fresh, raw oysters year-round, even though they arrived at the same conclusion by intriguingly different paths of facts, suppositions, and/or reasoning. Either way, go ahead and enjoy them! If and when you do, you might be inclined to enhance them with a simple squeeze of lemon, or you might dab them with a little cocktail sauce– heavy on the horseradish. Or… you can opt for something more sophisticated than either– a sprinkle of mignonette sauce, which couldn’t be much easier to make. Just finely mince a couple of shallots and add them to a 50-50 mix of sherry vinegar and red wine vinegar along with a generous grind or two of pepper. Let it sit for a day in your fridge before using. (That’s MY recipe. You might also consider these .) But raw is not the only way to eat oysters. An informal yet wonderful snack perfect for Friday afternoon tea-time is smoked oysters straight from the can (via toothpick) with some fancy crackers and a nicely chilled bottle of Gruet Blanc de Blancs ($14.99 @ Lisa’s Liquor Barn )– a perfect start to an excitement-packed weekend. Because oysters essentially come encased in their own cooking vessel, they can be cooked by any number of methods. We see them offered grilled, poached, fried, steamed, baked, you name it. “Consider the Oyster” contains a multitude of historically significant recipes, from basic oyster stew to Oysters Rockefeller. Here is MY cooked oyster recipe, essentially a pastiche of several oyster recipes from CONSIDER THE OYSTER . You might think of it as oyster stew on the half-shell. Since the name seems to be as yet unclaimed, We’ll call this… OYSTERS CICERO 1 Dozen good-looking live oysters 1 container shucked Chesapeake oysters 1 Bag Baby Spinach 1 Pint Heavy Cream 1 Stick (or more) Unsalted Butter, preferably high quality/high butterfat content A small bunch of Leeks (3 or so) 1 large shallot Champagne Vinegar (or white wine vinegar) Dry unoaked white wine (Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chablis, or Muscadet) White pepper Kosher salt 1 Lemon Dash of Pernod * * * * * * * THE EQUIPMENT Oyster forks, oyster plates, oyster shells. The forks and plates await you on eBay. THE SHELLS The live oysters are required just for the shells, so buy them well ahead of time. Steam them until they open, then remove the oysters and discard the flat halves of the shells. You can dip these oysters in melted butter for a decadent snack; you can add them to your next bowl of chowder; or for that matter, you can feed them to your cat. Clean and dry the shells for later use. (Why not just use these oysters for this dish? Because for our purposes these oysters are too small. As you’ll see, these shells are roomy enough for oysters twice this size… like the plump, pre-shucked Chesapeakes we’ll be using. The result is a much more filling and satisfying dish.) Pro Tip: Farmed oysters tend to have nicer-looking shells. THE SPINACH AND LEEKS You won’t be cooking them together, just simultaneously. Slice the white parts of the leeks crosswise about 1/8” thick. Gently simmer on low heat, covered, in just enough water with a splash of wine until quite soft. While that is happening, sauté the spinach and butter. Set the cooked leeks and spinach aside. THE SAUCE Sauce Beurre Blanc (white butter sauce) is a classic French sauce for seafood. It also works especially well with asparagus as a lighter but equally decadent alternative to hollandaise. Like hollandaise, it breaks easily and is therefore difficult to hold at an acceptable serving temperature. But unlike hollandaise, beurre blanc can benefit from a simple kitchen hack— adding the butter to a base of reduced cream. (A lot of fancy restaurants do this.) When you google “beurre blanc,” you’ll see recipes with and without cream. Click accordingly. To summarize, you cook the minced shallot in a bit of butter and then add the wine and vinegar. Cook it down until most of the liquid has evaporated, then add the cream. It will bubble and reduce; when it thickens significantly, whisk in the butter and add salt and pepper to taste. Add a few drops of Pernod liqueur, then hold the sauce in a saucepan with the burner off, stirring periodically. THE SHELLS, AGAIN Heat up the shells in a hot oven. This is no more complicated than it sounds. You can also steam them on your stovetop, or simply dip them in boiling water. Just get them hot. THE OYSTERS Look for a container of “Chesapeake Standard Oysters” at your local seafood department. These are fabulously plump raw shucked oysters– unworthy of eating raw, yet perfect for cooking. They are far superior to pre-cooked oysters in a can, which I wouldn’t even feed to a pet. (They usually come from TCTMATCC– The Country That Makes All That Cheap Crap– and for all we know are not oysters at all, but rather… well, use your imagination.) Empty the shucked oysters and their liquor into a small saucepan and gently cook the oysters until they fluff. Remove the oysters and set aside for a moment while you reduce the liquor and add it to the beurre blanc. THE CONSTRUCTION Add a generous tablespoon or so of kosher salt to each compartment of the oyster plate in order to stabilize each oyster shell. Nestle the hot shells atop the salt in each compartment. Add about a tong pinch of the spinach to each shell. Next come the oysters atop the spinach. Follow with a small pinch of leeks, and finally a scoop of the beurre blanc. If, at first bite, you adjudge the dish in need of salt, you need only reach beneath the shell for a pinch of the kosher flakes. Optional— To elevate this dish a quantum leap higher, consider garnishing each oyster with a small scoop of American sturgeon caviar. But then this dish would become Oysters Andrea , for this is the exact dish with which I wooed my bride-to-be on our fourth date some 32 years after our third… and inspired her to propose to me a week later on our 5th. WINE I used to spout a half-serious dictum for pairing wine with oysters— Muscadet for lunch, Chablis for dinner… and Champagne for breakfast! Muscadet, a light and perky sipper from the mouth of France’s Loire, is perfect with most any seafood. Chablis is the dry and crisp version of Chardonnay from the northernmost and chilliest vineyards of Burgundy. Typically vinified without oak, it bears no resemblance to its fleshy and ripe Californian cousins. As for Champagne or sparkling wine, avoid pink and go for a pale brut or “brut sauvage” (completely sugarless.) The above-referenced Gruet Blanc de blancs is perfect. * * * * * * * Do oysters, as widely rumored for time immemorial, act as some sort of sexual stimulant or aphrodisiac? The scientists say no, although they allow that the high zinc content of oysters doesn’t hurt. I am inclined to think that oysters– whether served raw or cooked– automatically betoken a special evening and all that naturally ensues. What else should one expect of the shared enjoyment of a rare treat, one simultaneously silky and rich, so elegantly and dramatically served in its own naturally-occurring crockery as it begs to be drowned in Champagne? Get a freaking room.

I recently posted a nostalgic music video on our Class of '76 Facebook page. It drove Fewster to write THIS. RED KEDS by David Fewster Every year at the end of August mom and I would drive the 20-odd miles to the big city to buy me my "school clothes" for the term so I could look nice when they pried my broken body out of the rubble after the russkies had bombed us and all the survivors would know I had a mother who cared. Even though I was from the hick town of Ontario, NY, I felt I had an advantage over those idiot kids I saw on newsreels crouched under their desks in broad daylight totally exposed to deadly radiation--not us! WE were herded into the boiler room of the 1895 brick monstrosity that was Wayne Primary School to sit in the gloom with the spider webs & mouse turds & Norman Bates' dead mother, where, in our fortified comfort, we could totally see ourselves emerging unscathed from the blast and eager to begin recess on the newly-formed post-apocalyptic fields of nuclear rubble. But I digress. Trying on clothes was my least favorite thing in the world, but it was still exciting to be in the megalopolis  that was Rochester with its fancy JC Penney store, where, in the shoe department, a middle-aged guy in a white shirt and tie would come out  and wait on you even if you were 4 years-old and measure your foot with a silver and black contraption called the Brannock Device (invented in 1925), which looked so scientific and technical that you knew that the guy wielding such an instrument must be a highly-trained professional whose job you could only aspire to by working hard in your classes and being a Clean American Boy. Anyhow, for the last couple years running (or, about half my lifetime to that point) I had been begging mom to buy me a pair of Red Keds, easily the most aggressively advertised sneaker in the universe, strategically placed for my demographic as commercial breaks during the 8 Man cartoon show. The first half of this one-minute Madison Ave. classic featured Kedso, a creepy and annoying animated clown, who leads us in a sing-a-long of the company jingle ("If you want shoes with lots of pep / Get Keds, kids, Keds With bounce and zoom in every step /Get Keds, kids, Keds") followed, in a marvel of cinematic wizardry, by a live action/animation hybrid where Kedso is joined by two milk-fed freckle-faced apple-cheeked buzz-cutted fascists, obviously brothers, who enthused over the Ubermensch footwear which would enable them to run faster and jump further and get over-sized badges with the word "Champ" emblazoned in large letters. And Kedso wasn't just bullshitting us, nosireebob! He was totally transparent about the special features that produced these super powers, such as the "shock-proof arches" and being made of genuine "United States Rubber," the very stuff that had made us the greatest country in the world and gave us the edge over those commie kids whose gym shoes were made of folded-up copies of Pravda and used chewing gum. And yet, every year I would end up with an inferior, cheaper brand of sneaker that did absolutely nothing to enhance my natural abilities (which, to be frank, were nothing to write home about) until finally, just before the start of 3rd grade, mom was broken down by my incessant wheedling and plunked down a couple bucks over her carefully-wrought budget just to shut me up. For the entire trip home I cradled the shoebox on my lap, frequently lifting the lid to gaze at the splendor of the crimson canvas and admire the blue and white "US KEDS" logo at the heel (notice how they subtly incorporated the colors of the great flag of our nation in the design.) Arriving home, I made a beeline to our basement rec/family room to get some privacy, and, with tremblling fingers laced the stiff new shoes. Now, our basement had a cement floor covered with a thin, all-weather carpet meant for outdoor use (because of the seasonal flooding), the point being it was a hard floor, without any give. Gingerly, I stomped both feet on the ground--no noticeable difference. My eyes lit on the circular white naugahyde hassock, about 18" high, in the middle of the room (this was my favorite piece of furniture, which I would often tip on its side and drape myself over, rocking back and forth while watching tv and feeling strangely comforted in my prepubescent genital area in a manner recently brought back into fashion by JD Vance, (but again, I digress...) Leaping over the hassock easily, I hit the floor-- WHAM! BOING! Holy crap, it was like a trampoline! Shot like a bullet, I ran around the perimeter of the room, gathering momentum at such a fiendish pace that I was nothing but a blur with a red line at the bottom-- Just like the Flash! Centrifugal force soon had me running up the walls like Donald O'Connor in "Singing in the Rain" and thanks to the traction of US Rubber I was defying the physical laws of gravity and actually dancing on the ceiling like in that Fred Astaire movie that no one remembers the name of or watches except for the part where he dances on the ceiling. Returning to the floor in a somersault triple lutz toe loop double axel pirouette that I invented on the spot, I braced my legs to cushion the landing and knew I was ready for the first day of school tomorrow. So, Kedso, perhaps you could explain to me why I was STILL THE LAST KID CHOSEN WHEN THEY DREW UP SIDES FOR THE DODGEBALL TEAMS for yet another entire year ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ NOTES: See Kedso the Clown HERE . See "Tobar, the 8th Man" HERE and HERE . Oh, and that video that triggered Fewster? I'm hesitant to post a video directly from Facebook, but HERE is the ORIGINAL video; on Facebook it was deftly set to " More Than a Feeling ," the mega-hit from BOSTON's 1976 debut album... even though the song didn't actually hit the airwaves until September of that year.

Born in a short story, the fictitious CAYUGA LOUNGE is the embodiment of "retro-cuisine" from the era of Julia Child's cooking show and avocado-colored kitchen appliances. NOTE: We are still restoring the illustrations to many of these essays. Thank you for your patience. THE CA-LO SIGN (04/06/22) One of DannyM.'s rare forays into fiction, here is a twisty short story (with a mini-screenplay thrown in) set in upstate New York's Finger Lakes region. VONGOLE CASSINI (THE STORY) (06/22/22) The tale of one of the more significant Cayuga Lounge employees. VONGOLE CASSINI (THE RECIPE) (06/22/22) An Old-World take on Clams Casino. CHEF ASTOR'S AUTUMN MENU, PART ONE (08/24/22) CHEF ASTOR'S AUTUMN MENU, PART TWO (09/14/22) CHEF ASTOR'S AUTUMN MENU, PART THREE (09/27/22) --RECIPES-- (RE)CONSIDER THE OYSTER (01/05/22) In amongst all the history and lore sits a fantastic, old-school oyster recipe. POTATO HEAVEN (03/02/22) Pommes de Terre au Dauphinoise... a.k.a. Scalloped potatoes w/ cream, gruyére, & garlic. Nobody serves potatoes like this anymore... but you can make this at home. FRENCH ONION SOUP (06/21/22) My mother-in-law is a fantastic cook. This is her recipe. COQUILLES ST. JACQUES (07/13/22) A decadently rich preparation of sea scallops. TROUT WITH ALMONDS (07/25/22) Amandine? Almondine? It's delicious whatever one calls it. (MUCH more to come.)

NFL Quarterback Roman Gabriel (1940-2024) HERE is Roman Gabriel's NYT obituary. I entered 6th grade at the age of eleven, weighing 65 pounds and yet absolutely obsessed with somehow, someday playing organized football. In 1970 I wasn't anyone's idea of an athlete and way too light for Pop Warner League youth football, but I was already practicing for the day when I could finally be able to play. And although my path to the playing field would only be as a punter and kicker-- skills that even a non-athlete could hone through sheer force of will and endless practice-- my hero, my beacon, the force that beckoned me onward and upward-- was an NFL quarterback... Roman Gabriel of the Los Angeles Rams. I was never sure why Roman Gabriel captured my fancy when I was so young... maybe it was his professional wrestler-like name, or that he was such a noticeable presence on the NFL gridiron... who knows? I watched him every single autumn Sunday, living and dying on his wins and losses. His passing is very sad for me, because he changed the course of my life. Playing football-- even as a self-taught kicker and punter-- provided me the with one thing that made me feel good about myself as a teenager. I eventually became proficient enough to be a walk-on starter on an actual college football team, which gave me an immediate identity on campus-- I had teammates, a built-in social life, and entree into a fraternity. Although my preoccupation with all of that stuff in lieu of academics forestalled my entrance into what we think of as adulthood, in my particular circumstances it served me rather well. And so, from the bottom of my sad heart, I thank you, Mr. Roman Gabriel, for giving me so much and making such a difference in my life.

As we transition from mid- to late summer, NFL teams are already well into preparations for the new season. Although we are still in the midst of the "Dog Days," the Buffalo Bills are in training camp at St. John Fisher University, just a few miles from our wine porch. Like it or not, the 2024-25 NFL Season is now underway. The thirty-two National Football League training camps are now open... not that they ever actually close in the ever-shrinking NFL off-season. And while Major League Baseball is steadily hemorrhaging fans (see WHY MODERN BASEBALL SUCKS ) the NFL has been growing in popularity for decades and appears poised to continue along that trajectory... unless they keep alienating us fans with occasionally stupid rule changes. A few decades ago, the run-oriented offenses lined up in tightly bunched formations, necessitating the defenses to respond in kind. (See HERE .) But now passing is king, thanks to a slew of enabling legislation that coddles quarterbacks and liberates fleet-footed wide receivers to navigate the defensive secondary with impunity. Hard tackling is discouraged, and any contact with the opposing passer is often met with penalties, automatic first downs, fines, ejections, and/or suspensions. Alas, the game that I and my fellow grumpy old men grew up loving has progressed from hard-nosed, run-dominant, black & blue slug-fests into what now seems like a human video game. Chicago Bears middle linebacker Dick Butkus, the widely feared, bone-rattling Anti-Christ of the NFL from 1965 to 1973. For better or worse, his dominant style of defensive play likely wouldn't have a place in today's game. (Click HERE for his highlight reel, complete with hilariously bombastic music.) The game of football has evolved as such for two major reasons: ONE-- through exercise science, diet, financial incentives, and sheer Darwinism, the NFL players keep getting bigger AND stronger AND faster, thereby altering the fundamental forces that dictate the flow of physicality on the field; and TWO-- the NFL tinkers with the rules every year in an effort to keep pace with the game's aforementioned evolution while accommodating what they assume to be the public's changing tastes. Their attempts at improvements often succeed, but this season's new rules are causing a lot of head-scratching; to wit-- THE NFL HAS CONCOCTED TWO COMPLETELY NEW KICKOFF RULES. Superstar kicker Harrison Butker of the World Champion Kansas City Chiefs steps into a kickoff. For the 2024 season, his ability to regularly boom the ball through the endzone for a nice, safe touchback will be curtailed by new rules. Everyone in the football universe agrees that because players are getting both bigger and faster, the traditional kickoff is the most dangerous play in football, a grossly disproportionate source of body and brain injuries from high-speed collisions... like on THIS play. In a related story, the onside kick is most often the ugliest, sloppiest play on any given Sunday in the otherwise precision-oriented game of football (see ONSIDE KICKS GONE WRONG . ) And so for the past decade or more the NFL has been groping for one or more solutions to the problems associated with kickoffs. And for this coming season, Dear Readers, the NFL has outdone itself in plumbing the depths of utter ridiculousness. HERE , courtesy of Madden 25, we can see how they've chosen to kill the traditional kickoff AND the surprise onside kick... both of which, I admit, needed some improvement. To me, a different and far better solution has long seemed glaringly obvious-- When Team A scores a touchdown or field goal, give them the ball at their own 25 yard line and make it 4th down with 15 yards to go for a first down... a first down that would allow Team A to retain possession and begin another potential scoring drive. In most cases Team A would play it safe and punt, transferring possession (just like a traditional kickoff) and often resulting in a potentially exciting punt return. This alternative to a traditional kickoff is known as "The Schiano Rule," although-- truth be told-- I, your Grumpy Old Mansplainer, personally proposed this exact idea on a call-in to the NFL's Sirius Radio channel 88 over a dozen years ago, well before former NFL and current Rutgers University head coach Greg Schiano ever publicly mentioned it. Whatever its origin, this rule would bring numerous benefits: It would simplify coaching by eliminating the need for teams to staff and coach a kickoff team, an onside kickoff team, a kickoff return team, and an onside kickoff return team, a.k.a. the "hands" team; It would be more exciting than a traditional kickoff, approximately three-quarters of which resulted in boring touchbacks in the 2023 season. Under the Schiano-DannyM. Rule, teams would almost certainly punt on 4th and 15 from their own 25... unless they are desperately trying to mount a comeback. Touchbacks are unlikely on punts from that far away, so there would be ample and potentially exciting punt returns, which produce fewer injuries than kickoff returns; For teams mounting a comeback in the fourth quarter, the Schiano-DannyM. Rule would replace the onside kick with something far more consistent with professional football as we know it-- if a team wishes to retain possession after a score, it would run either a fake punt or a regular offensive play from scrimmage in order to gain the necessary 15 yards for the first down... a low-probability play, but still way more likely to succeed than an onside kick. One version or another of the Schiano-DannyM. Rule is proposed every year at the off-season owner's meetings... and it is shot down every year, likely out of fear that eliminating kickoffs would constitute too long a leap from football's ancient origins. If that's the case, here is my proposed compromise-- start each half lining up as if for a traditional kickoff at the 20-yard line and PUNTING the ball to the opposition (just like the free kick after a safety) and use the Schiano-DannyM. Rule after touchdowns and field goals. ( BTW, moving those two kickoffs back to the 20 would mostly eliminate two yawn-inducing touchbacks. ) And while we're fantasizing about rule changes, I'll reiterate my suggestion from last year for improving overtime-- At the end of regulation, give each team alternating possessions beginning at the 50-yard line with 1:00 on the clock and two time-outs. ( Whichever team was on defense at the end of regulation goes first on offense. ) So, Team A starts a drive with a 1st and 10 at the 50, and will come away with either a touchdown, a field goal, or nothing. Then Team B goes on offense and has a chance to match or beat Team A's effort. If they match scores, they go to another round, and repeat the process until one team outscores the other in a round. I submit that this overtime format would be both more fair and more exciting than the NFL's current system for breaking ties. Meanwhile, on another topic that has recently become central to the NFL... FOOTBALL GAMBLING HAS GONE MAINSTREAM. I'm old enough to remember when the mafia monopolized the gaming industry, and publicly mentioning serious gambling and the NFL in the same sentence was taboo. Indeed, the NFL long endeavored to maintain at least the appearance of an impenetrable firewall between itself and Las Vegas... even while point spreads for every game were printed right in the sports pages for all to see. But in 2021 the NFL finally acknowledged reality, embracing gambling by entering into partnerships with the major sportsbook operators. (see HERE .) Considering legal sports gambling alongside the plethora of fantasy football leagues , a visitor from outer space might well conclude that football gambling is the primary purpose of American civilization for half of the annual lap around our sun. I am not-- nor have I ever been-- the slightest bit interested in gambling on football or any other sport. HOWEVER... I think I may have found a weakness in the system of NFL gambling as we know it... a weakness that might just provide an "investment opportunity." There are two ways to bet on NFL games-- point spread, and moneyline. (See HERE for a detailed explanation.) Now, I couldn't help but notice in the past few seasons that many of the Week 1 games resulted in outright upsets... in other words, the oddsmakers have seemed lack sufficiently accurate assessments of the 32 teams' strengths and weaknesses going into the first game of the regular season to pick actual winners, much less point spreads. This makes sense-- the ever-diminishing number of preseason games (3 this year, soon to be 2) are used primarily to assess the talents of untested rookies; furthermore, as of late the NFL greatly limits actual hitting in practice. "Football isn't a contact sport; it's a COLLISION sport. Dancing is a contact sport." (Coach Vince Lombardi, 5-time NFL champion and legendary hard-ass) SO-- how can one capitalize on this information deficit? Maybe... just maybe... by betting the moneyline and picking the underdog in every game of Week 1 this year. Mind you all, Dear Readers, that we are not encouraging you to gamble... we will conduct the experiment by hypothetically betting $100 on every moneyline underdog in Week 1, and we'll post our results for all to see. Stay tuned...

Another DavidF. Remembrance. We humans all live and die... beginning and ending approximately the same way... ashes to ashes. But along our very different paths from birth to mortal terminus, some approach their inevitable Point B with more interesting tales than others... tales that might well leave the rest of us happier for our own experiences, yet way richer for hearing them. On that note, here is another pithy piece from our poet friend DavidF.-- ANGEL DUST was the hip new drug in 1978. Well, maybe not for the haute couture set, who had their Fancy Dan “freebase”, but for us, the lumpen proles. I remember we (me & my roommates Doug & Brian) were at a party at Greg Ross’ place, overlooking the 405 freeway at Sepulveda and everything was always coated in black soot. If Charles Manson had a goofy, possibly less-murderous little brother, that could have been Greg. Doug had met him in jail a couple months back, when he got busted for drinking and being mouthy on Venice Boardwalk. (This is how we ‘social networked’ in our day.) Greg became our go-to dealer for acid, but the last shipment never came in, and Greg owed us front money. In lieu of the missing LSD, Greg offered to give equivalent value in the new Wonder High, Angel Dust. We figured we’d better take him up on his offer, it was probably our only hope of reimbursement. Taking us in the back bedroom, he laid out lines of a vile-looking brown powder (although not as vile as smoking it, I discovered, unless one has an acquired taste for dust-bunnies dipped in hot asphalt.) I made a point of snorting the lion’s share, as most of the money-owed was mine. After that, I remember two things. One is sitting in the corner, deprived of the power of speech, yet smiling like an idiot, looking around at the mix of bikers, burnt-out hippies, teen-age runaways & drunks an realizing if  someone grabbed a ball peen hammer and started beating me about the temples, I’d still be wearing this shit-eating grin as my brains oozed out over the carbon dust-covered floorboards. “This is ‘total derangement of the senses’?” I wondered. The other is standing alone in the kitchen, because I apparently got the munchies, but the only foodstuff was a jar of peanut butter which I was eating with a fork when Brian walked in, went “Well. Ok!” and walked right out. The rest of the night I only know second-hand: blacking-out, foaming at the mouth, comatose, to the point that our friend, who was nicknamed “The Walking Scab with Boots” (not to his face however— he worked at a chemical plant and was usually covered with ulcerous lesions) felt impelled to give me mouth-to-mouth (which made me a tad disgusted when I found out later, but, to be fair, he probably wasn’t too thrilled about the whole thing either) before depositing my prone form in the back of his pickup and carrying it back to our apartment in the neighborhood east of Venice known as “Little Tijuana.” So, anyhow, there I lay on my ratty sofa bed in the front room/kitchenette area of our squalid, motel-style complex (Brian had the other sofa bed, Doug, being the elder, got the bedroom--$240 a month, which broke down to 80 bucks each), my roomies’ drug-addled brains no doubt vaguely worried by the thought that I might up and croak on them, when finally in the pre-dawn hour I found voice and moaned “Where am I?” “Home,” replied Doug. “HHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMEEE?!” I cried out, in such a long drawn-out syllable of relief & joy given our sordid circumstances that Doug and Brian burst out in laughter that was some time dissipating. In fact, my little verbal ejaculation became something of a private catch-phrase for a bit, a joke both mocking and acknowledging a deep existential longing for us & our ilk— strangers, hundred or thousands of miles from our points of origin, randomly thrown together, united in our burning desire to wander the streets of the City of Dreams. I believe it took the better part of a month for my brain to feel normal after this adventure. Also, in case there is some perceived ambivalence, these are what are fondly recalled as ‘the good times’— We were 19, 20, & 21. --David F. ( Shamelessly lifted by DannyM. without anyone's freaking permission from some site called FIVE WILLOWS LITERARY REVIEW . Sue me. )