TN: "This Pig is dead for nothing"
 

(title has nothing to do with the wine, just best line of movie, about
some substandard ham)

Last night was Betsy had a rare Saturday night off. She played a
matinee, then came home. She took a nap while I prepped for dinner,
then we watched the French film "D=E9calage horaire " (Jet Lag in
English). Cute but not great movie (I wished it had ended about 3
minutes sooner), but it includes a scene where Jean Reno makes Juliette
Bincohe a veal medallions dinner. Jcoultert had recommended the recipe
(available on the film's page at imdb.com), and indeed it was quite
good. Julienned squash, leeks, carrots, and tomatoes sauteed, then veal
flambeed with Armagnac. Betsy and I had fun preparing after the movie.

In the movie and in the recipe they went for Bordeaux ('96
Calon-Segur), I followed their lead and went with the 1999
Leoville-Poyferre. Opened (a small glass poured, but not decanted)
before the movie, it was smooth and ready by dinner time. Clean ripe
dark berry/cassis fruit, there's a bit of chocolately new oak but even
more Medoc earth. Graphite and smoke on the finish. More gracefully
powerful than muscular, there's enough tannin to make me think this
will be better in 5-10, but pretty nice now. I don't think it's an
especially good match - I'd make dish again, but with a lighter red or
a powerful white (not just the veal- the veggies were a bit like
ratatouille, and I need a white would do well). But a nice wine, one of
my favorite '99 Bdx. A-/B+

Grade disclaimer: I'm a very easy grader, basically A is an excellent
wine, B a good wine, C mediocre. Anything below C means I wouldn't
drink at a party where it was only choice. Furthermore, I offer no
promises of objectivity, accuracy, and certainly not of consistency

DaleW wrote on 18 Sep 2005 12:42:47 -0700:
in the recipe they went for Bordeaux ('96
D> Calon-Segur), I followed their lead and went with the 1999
D> Leoville-Poyferre. Opened (a small glass poured, but not
D> decanted) before the movie, it was smooth and ready by
D> dinner time. Clean ripe dark berry/cassis fruit, there's a
D> bit of chocolately new oak but even more Medoc earth.
D> Graphite and smoke on the finish.

Forgive me Dale but "graphite" is a new tasting term to me and,
as a chemist, I did not know it had one :-) Can you describe the
flavor another way, perhaps?

James Silverton.

In oups.com,
DaleW > typed:

> the French film "Décalage horaire " (Jet Lag in
> English). Cute but not great movie (I wished it had ended about
> 3
> minutes sooner), but it includes a scene where Jean Reno makes
> Juliette Bincohe a veal medallions dinner. Jcoultert had
> recommended
> the recipe (available on the film's page at imdb.com),


Dale, I just went to the film's page at imdb.com, but couldn't
find the recipe. Can you be more specific about exactly where it
is? Thanks.


--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup

Ken,
sorry, I forgot it took me a few minutes to find, under "crazy
credits":
http://imdb.com/title/tt0293116/crazycredits

The DVD (we watched the French with English subtitles selection) had
the English translation in credits. Unfortunately, since I was doing
prep earlier, I relied on my poor translation (with some Babelfish
help). In either version, not the most exact recipe. But turned out
well.

"DaleW" > wrote in news:1127074528.814097.319900
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> Ken,
> sorry, I forgot it took me a few minutes to find, under "crazy
> credits":
> http://imdb.com/title/tt0293116/crazycredits
>
> The DVD (we watched the French with English subtitles selection) had
> the English translation in credits. Unfortunately, since I was doing
> prep earlier, I relied on my poor translation (with some Babelfish
> help). In either version, not the most exact recipe. But turned out
> well.
>
>

Indeed. I felt that it called for a little too little cooking of the
vegetables so I started them 10 minutes sooner and cooked them covered
for about ten minutes so they would self steam a bit (I like the carrots
to be cooked) I also served with wild rice cooked in chicken stock with
sauteed portabello mushrooms added at the end. I though my St Emilion
was a match made in heaven (we went with the balsamic on the end)

--
Joseph Coulter
Cruises and Vacations
http://www.josephcoulter.com/

I tend to use graphite interchangably with "lead pencil". Of course,
describing flavors and aromas is always more "searching for best
analogy" than "this is it".

cheers,

In oups.com,
DaleW > typed:

> Ken,
> sorry, I forgot it took me a few minutes to find, under "crazy
> credits":
> http://imdb.com/title/tt0293116/crazycredits
>
> The DVD (we watched the French with English subtitles
> selection) had
> the English translation in credits. Unfortunately, since I was
> doing
> prep earlier, I relied on my poor translation (with some
> Babelfish
> help). In either version, not the most exact recipe. But turned
> out
> well.



Thanks, Dale. My French isn't great, but it's best with food and
wine, so I think I can make out most of this.


--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup

We probably went more like 7-8 minutes with the veggies rather than the
5 they called for, but I think 5 would have been ok for the carrots (I
did a very fine julienne, and put the veggies in by order of hardest-
carrots, stir, zucchini, stir, leeks, stir, tomatoes).

We used white balsamic. Maybe if soy or regular balsamic the bigger red
would have done better.

>From your description, your St. Emilion wasn't as big as my St. Julien.


NOTE: SPOILER ALERT
Thanks for the lead, we enjoyed the movie (don't you think if they had
ended either with him at restaurant and her on plane, or with her
getting his message without making a clear decision, it would have been
less Hollywoody?).

DaleW wrote on 18 Sep 2005 13:25:28 -0700:

D> I tend to use graphite interchangably with "lead pencil". Of
D> course, describing flavors and aromas is always more
D> "searching for best analogy" than "this is it".

Sounds like it's more like the taste of cedar wood from a chewed
pencil !



James Silverton.

"DaleW" > wrote in news:1127077933.572832.152650
@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

> We probably went more like 7-8 minutes with the veggies rather than
the
> 5 they called for, but I think 5 would have been ok for the carrots (I
> did a very fine julienne, and put the veggies in by order of hardest-
> carrots, stir, zucchini, stir, leeks, stir, tomatoes).
>
> We used white balsamic. Maybe if soy or regular balsamic the bigger
red
> would have done better.
>
>>From your description, your St. Emilion wasn't as big as my St.
Julien.
>
>
> NOTE: SPOILER ALERT
> Thanks for the lead, we enjoyed the movie (don't you think if they had
> ended either with him at restaurant and her on plane, or with her
> getting his message without making a clear decision, it would have
been
> less Hollywoody?).
>
>

Well after al the hollywood ending talk earlier in the film Iwas sort of
prepared. but yes I would have liked her just to get to the airport and
pull out the phone


--
Joseph Coulter
Cruises and Vacations
http://www.josephcoulter.com/

"DaleW" > wrote in news:1127077933.572832.152650
@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:


>>From your description, your St. Emilion wasn't as big as my St. Julien.
>
Cab based wine just sounded too big, but I did briefly consider,
interesting enough, a Chateau Gloria St Julien.



--
Joseph Coulter
Cruises and Vacations
http://www.josephcoulter.com/

James Silverton wrote:
> DaleW wrote on 18 Sep 2005 12:42:47 -0700:
> in the recipe they went for Bordeaux ('96
> D> Calon-Segur), I followed their lead and went with the 1999
> D> Leoville-Poyferre. Opened (a small glass poured, but not
> D> decanted) before the movie, it was smooth and ready by
> D> dinner time. Clean ripe dark berry/cassis fruit, there's a
> D> bit of chocolately new oak but even more Medoc earth.
> D> Graphite and smoke on the finish.
>
> Forgive me Dale but "graphite" is a new tasting term to me and, as a
> chemist, I did not know it had one :-) Can you describe the flavor
> another way, perhaps?

Yes, this has been troubling me, too. It's used to describe the smell
of pencil shavings, a smell that is ingrained in those of us of a
certain age from our school daze. Parker has used "graphite"
interchangably (IMO) with "pencil shavings," perhaps to sound more
erudite or probably because he gets bored writing the same descriptors
over and over and ... Anyone who's ever used graphite to lubricate a
lock will know that it doesn't have much of a smell and doesn't at all
resemble pencil shavings, which as you point out smell of the dried red
cedar wood traditionally used to make the pencils (at least in the US).
This gets into a different semantic trap, though, because "cedar" is
also used as a descriptor, but I've always assumed that that refers to
the live tree, which smells quite differently from a pencil. Hopelessly
confusing, I realize *sigh*

Mark Lipton

p.s. To add even more confusion to the fire, I only recently learned
that all the "cedars" native to the US (red, white, incense and Alaska)
are *not* true cedars (genus Cedrus) but actually members of the same
family as Cypresses. Go figger...

Mark wrote on Mon, 19 Sep 2005 04:21:59 GMT:

ML> James Silverton wrote:
??>> DaleW wrote on 18 Sep 2005 12:42:47 -0700:
??>> in the recipe they went for Bordeaux ('96
D>>> Calon-Segur), I followed their lead and went with the 1999
D>>> Leoville-Poyferre. Opened (a small glass poured, but not
D>>> decanted) before the movie, it was smooth and ready by
D>>> dinner time. Clean ripe dark berry/cassis fruit, there's a
D>>> bit of chocolately new oak but even more Medoc earth.
D>>> Graphite and smoke on the finish.
??>>
??>> Forgive me Dale but "graphite" is a new tasting term to me
??>> and, as a chemist, I did not know it had one :-) Can you
??>> describe the flavor another way, perhaps?

ML> Yes, this has been troubling me, too. It's used to
ML> describe the smell of pencil shavings, a smell that is
ML> ingrained in those of us of a certain age from our school
ML> daze. Parker has used "graphite" interchangably (IMO) with
ML> "pencil shavings,"

I guess, I should not be too worried about a term used in wine
tasting but, now that you mention it, "pencil shavings" does
rather accurately describe an odor that I remember from several
tastings and does differentiate from the very different cedar
smell! I suppose a purist might wonder if pencils are made from
cedar wood in places other than the US :-)

James Silverton.

I'll disagree here. Take a soft good-quality pencil (a 1 or 2) and
taste the sharpened end - there's a distinct taste there, and that's
what I'm referencing (don't use a hard pencil or mechanical pencil
lead, there's too much filler). That's a very distinctly different
creature than the aroma of pencil shavings,which is much more
wood-driven.

I'm not familiar enough with Parker's notes to say whether he uses
pencil-lead/graphite interchangeably with pencil shavings, but I don't.
The former (to me)has a distinctly mineral note, more taste than aroma,
the latter is aromatically woody.

Mark Lipton wrote:
> James Silverton wrote:
> > DaleW wrote on 18 Sep 2005 12:42:47 -0700:
> > in the recipe they went for Bordeaux ('96
> > D> Calon-Segur), I followed their lead and went with the 1999
> > D> Leoville-Poyferre. Opened (a small glass poured, but not
> > D> decanted) before the movie, it was smooth and ready by
> > D> dinner time. Clean ripe dark berry/cassis fruit, there's a
> > D> bit of chocolately new oak but even more Medoc earth.
> > D> Graphite and smoke on the finish.
> >
> > Forgive me Dale but "graphite" is a new tasting term to me and, as a
> > chemist, I did not know it had one :-) Can you describe the flavor
> > another way, perhaps?
>
> Yes, this has been troubling me, too. It's used to describe the smell
> of pencil shavings, a smell that is ingrained in those of us of a
> certain age from our school daze. Parker has used "graphite"
> interchangably (IMO) with "pencil shavings," perhaps to sound more
> erudite or probably because he gets bored writing the same descriptors
> over and over and ... Anyone who's ever used graphite to lubricate a
> lock will know that it doesn't have much of a smell and doesn't at all
> resemble pencil shavings, which as you point out smell of the dried red
> cedar wood traditionally used to make the pencils (at least in the US).
> This gets into a different semantic trap, though, because "cedar" is
> also used as a descriptor, but I've always assumed that that refers to
> the live tree, which smells quite differently from a pencil. Hopelessly
> confusing, I realize *sigh*
>
> Mark Lipton
>
> p.s. To add even more confusion to the fire, I only recently learned
> that all the "cedars" native to the US (red, white, incense and Alaska)
> are *not* true cedars (genus Cedrus) but actually members of the same
> family as Cypresses. Go figger...

James Silverton wrote:

> I guess, I should not be too worried about a term used in wine tasting
> but, now that you mention it, "pencil shavings" does rather accurately
> describe an odor that I remember from several tastings and does
> differentiate from the very different cedar smell! I suppose a purist
> might wonder if pencils are made from cedar wood in places other than
> the US :-)

Yes, I get the smell of pencil shavings quite often in youngish red
wines, although most recently with the '97 Antinori Chianti I opened
last week. It's somewhat similar (to me) to the "minerality" I often
pick up in white wines. And, I too wondered whether our Euro contingent
would have the same organoleptic association, since our pencils are made
from the incense cedar, which AFAIK is native to N. America.

Mark Lipton

In article <H1rXe.341319$x96.299895@attbi_s72>,
Mark Lipton > wrote:
>
[snip!]
>
>Anyone who's ever used graphite to lubricate a lock will know that it doesn't
>have much of a smell and doesn't at all resemble pencil shavings, which as
>you point out smell of the dried red cedar wood traditionally used to make
>the pencils (at least in the US).


Graphite may not smell, but it does have a metallic taste to it. I always
assumed 'pencil lead' referred to a flavor and not a scent.


Dimitri

D. wrote on Mon, 19 Sep 2005 20:34:27 +0000 (UTC):

DG> In article <H1rXe.341319$x96.299895@attbi_s72>,
DG> Mark Lipton > wrote:
??>>
DG> [snip!]
??>>
??>> Anyone who's ever used graphite to lubricate a lock will
??>> know that it doesn't have much of a smell and doesn't at
??>> all resemble pencil shavings, which as you point out smell
??>> of the dried red cedar wood traditionally used to make the
??>> pencils (at least in the US).

DG> Graphite may not smell, but it does have a metallic taste
DG> to it. I always assumed 'pencil lead' referred to a flavor
DG> and not a scent.

I tried rolling a mechanical pencil lead around in my mouth but
could not detect any taste at all. That's not to deny that
others might taste something and pencil leads are not pure
graphite, anyway. They contain varying amounts of binder that
change the "hardness" of the lead. I think the binder was
originally clay but other materials are used these days.
However, I think I am satisfied that I now know what "graphite"
means if a taster uses the term.


James Silverton.

As I noted . com) you
can't use a mechanical pencil lead. They're hardened with fillers to
stand alone. It needs to be a #2 or better a #1 (might I suggest the
Mirado line,I think it's the Black Warrior that Betsy uses to mark
parts). There is a distinct minerally (almost metallic, as Dmitri says)
taste. If I use lead pencil or graphite I'm do not mean pencil
shavings. :)

DaleW wrote:
> I'll disagree here. Take a soft good-quality pencil (a 1 or 2) and
> taste the sharpened end - there's a distinct taste there, and that's
> what I'm referencing (don't use a hard pencil or mechanical pencil
> lead, there's too much filler). That's a very distinctly different
> creature than the aroma of pencil shavings,which is much more
> wood-driven.

Hmmm... I'm clearly going to have to do some research, Dale. I suspect
that we're talking about the same flavor/smell, but that remains to be
seen. I agree that the smell of an unsharpened pencil is definitely
*not* what I'm talking about, but honestly it's been so long since I've
sharpened a pencil that I'll have to track down a sharpener tomorrow
just to refresh my memory.

>
> I'm not familiar enough with Parker's notes to say whether he uses
> pencil-lead/graphite interchangeably with pencil shavings, but I don't.
> The former (to me)has a distinctly mineral note, more taste than aroma,
> the latter is aromatically woody.

OK. More on this later...

Mark Lipton

Salut/Hi Mark Lipton,

le/on Tue, 20 Sep 2005 05:07:55 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

>DaleW wrote:
>> I'll disagree here. Take a soft good-quality pencil (a 1 or 2) and
>> taste the sharpened end - there's a distinct taste there, and that's
>> what I'm referencing (don't use a hard pencil or mechanical pencil
>> lead, there's too much filler). That's a very distinctly different
>> creature than the aroma of pencil shavings,which is much more
>> wood-driven.

And to be more specific, cedar wood. It's a fairly well known characteristic
of red bordeaux - I remember first being _really_ struck by it when Ch Cos
d'Estournel 1970 hit full maturity. I tend not to use the "lead pencil"
descriptive as I find it less evocative (to me) than cedar (cigar box).

--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
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