New Age Mozz Stops Complaining about the West Coast

If you tire of detail, intricate narrative, or fascinating anecdotes easily, I recommend against eating amongst the anthropologists. However I find them to be the best of company, and hearken back to the cultural universality of manioc root on a weekly basis. This past week saw the divine summit of all things anthropological in San Francisco at the AAA conference, and your humble Mozzadrella was fortunate enough to attend.

I actually hadn’t been to the Bay Area—brace yourself for the geek quotient here—since high school, when I went to a Model United Nations conference in Berkeley, and THEN summer economics camp in Palo Alto. It’s a miracle I manage to dress myself, even though my style these days screams “professional kickball player.” At least that’s what the burlesque “ladies” at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge told me.

Though I really didn’t stray from the “Tenderloin” area where the conference was being held, the food impressed so much I will no longer vow to set all of California alight. I had been dreaming of Salt House, an industrial/rustic-chic haunt, and its braised short rib for three days. Though the cavernous interior amplified sound—we could barely converse with the people next to us—I had the most delicious cocktail I’d ever sampled. The “New London” features cold Hendrick’s Gin with a kaffir lime-ginger syrup, and a chili-cardamom salted rim. I swooned. I exalted. I had two.

I admired the sweet delicate quality of the roast beet salad, but the braised short rib with mustard crust sent me reeling. As you raised your fork to it, the meat fell apart like a warm savory bloom. As it was served atop brussels sprouts and fennel, my appetite waived away all sense of reason or discretion. In that moment I began to see the reasoning behind elastic pants.

After I recruited Tiny and Mark, I insisted upon Vietnamese food whilst in Pacific time. We went to Mangosteen, also in the Tenderloin area, where the quail was served table-side, flambé-style, the skin snapping with searing crispness. All of our fresh rolls were delicious, and will the Pho was a tad waxy, and the décor a little 7-Eleven, I’ll be thinking about that quail in the months to come.

I still find San Francisco strange—the constant smiling from strangers made me wonder if I was suffering from early-onset dementia—I did take squealing happiness in the Ice Cream Parlor/Laundromat down the way from our hotel. Genius!

Loving Lemon Pledge

The veneer between persuasive and pushy is both thin and permeable. On good hair days, when the back cowlick of my crown does not resemble Alfalfa from The Little Rascals, I fancy myself “persuasive”…but I do harbor a tendency to foist limoncello onto unsuspecting guests.

I introduce limoncello as highbrow, haute, and an acquired taste for an advanced palate. “Some believe limoncello tastes like lemon Pledge” I’ll condescendingly dismiss, “when it’s actually the nectar of the Sorrentine Peninsula, using the most choice Amalfi lemons.” (Some acquired tastes just need a little push toward the summit of appreciation).

Upon first imbibing, limoncello frequently meets with sour expressions. However, the “lemon pledge effect” wears off after 10 minutes or so, and I notice that deniers usually pour themselves a second splash: I’ve won another patron over to the cause.

For those who are unfamiliar, limoncello is an Italian liqueur that hails from coastal Italy, often Sicily, easily recognized from its arresting neon color and cloudy opacity. Served freezer-chilled in cordial glasses, the dense thickness coats the palate with a robust wallop of lemon flavor. And while I usually engineer the liqueur’s image as “delicacy,” the truth is somewhere closer to “bathtub punch” because of its simple list of ingredients and rustic production process. However, store-bought ‘cello tends to be too syrupy and a little waxy, so I thought I’d try my hand at Italian moonshine.

Ingredients:
6 lemons
1 fifth of high-proof vodka or grappa
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2 bottles (or mason jars)

Step One:

Peel the zest of all six lemons with a peeler or a box grater, ensuring that you skim only the skin and leave behind the bitter pith. Purists will use Sorrento or Eureka lemons—in our liberal arts version, we used lemons. From a plastic-mesh bag.



Step Two:
Go ahead and add the zest to the high-proof vodka—I used 100 proof Smirnoff—which will draw more of the lemon oil from the rind.

I’ll let Charles Perry from the LA Times do the math for you:

“Using 100-proof Smirnoff 57, the usual recipe will give you a limoncello with the same alcoholic content as commercial varieties: 60 proof. If you use the more common 80-proof vodka, on the other hand, you'll have to steep the peels longer to get as much flavor out of them, and the recipe will give you a 50-proof limoncello.”

Close that mason jar or bottle and leave it out, at room temperature, for a week. (I gave it a little hustle routine about once a day to mix it up.)




Step 3:
Drain the lemon peels from the infused vodka, which should have a deep yellow color at this point. (Note: if you are not using a mason jar, have another receptacle ready for the last step—those lemon peels cling to their former home, and do not easily extract themselves from inside the bottle.)

Step 4:
Stir the sugar and water together over low heat to create the simple syrup, and reduce by half. Let the syrup cool to room temperature.

Step 5:
Pour the simple syrup and lemon infused vodka back into the mason jar or bottle, careful not to fill it to the brim, and stick it in the freezer. The liquid should grow cloudy after 8-9 hours in the ice box, but I left it there for another 4 days.

The result: a far more buoyant, crisp flavor than store-bought ‘cello, and a use for my beloved, physically-challenged cordial glasses.



You can also use different citrus fruit to customize your 'cello--I've seen limecello, orangecello, and I'm told tangelo, blood orange, and grapefruit all make zesty incarnations of this theme.

Photo credit: Shamballah

la donna e mobile: campari

I’ve always felt taunted and challenged by “acquired tastes”— the level of maturity required to appreciate the item, the implied elitism of the expression—I would learn to love artichokes, fish sauce and Catherine MacKinnon, just for spite. Campari remains a target to overcome. My aversion to Campari is a point of cultural shame, particularly in light of my enthusiasm for appertivo, or happy hour. I resolved: in October, as I approach 25th birthday, I would make a concerted effort to appreciate the liquor, and then bask in my enlightened standing.

It’s bitter, barky flavor has put my off for years, but I keep coming back for the alluring, vibrant red. Campari’s signature flame, I am told, comes from the natural pigment carmines, which are the dried remains of the cactus-dwelling insect, cochineals. The recipe for Campari is CocaCola-level secret (only one man in at Campari’s factory in Novi Ligure knows the details), but officials do confirm that wormwood and 59 other aromatics and herbs comprise the aperitif.

Campari is almost a fable, a continental version of Camelot—culturally it symbolizes the achievement of success, of a self-made man, but also tradition, of easing into mealtime after the workday. Gaspare Campari was born in Castelnuovo, Italy in 1828, and became “apprentice maitre licoriste” (barman extraordinaire) in Turin at the green age of 14. After futzing with the recipe for his bitter concoction over 20-some years, he officially founded the Gruppo Campari in Milan in 1860. Campari would only sell his product to outlets that displayed “Campari Bitters” posters, quickly establishing a brand identity outside Milan. The business plan was both sturdy and stellar: today, Campari grosses 33 million bottles in annual sales, about the same world-wide as Jack Daniels.

The iconography of Campari is as unique and recognizable as its color. Davide Campari, Gaspare’s son, commissioned ideas for the Campari posters from European artists with the following instructions: “Artists must clearly display the brand name; use uncomplicated color; and the brand should be incorporated naturally in the picture.” French poster art luminary Leonetto Cappiello responded with one of the most noteworthy works of the period: a clown dancing in an orange peel holding a bottle of Campari. Also patrons of progressive design, the Camparis contacted Futurist art superhero Fortunato Depero to create the bottle for CampariSoda, the premixed cocktail. The beaker-like final product combines forceful and urbane features, and appears just as modern as when Campari released it in 1932.



As glamorous and distinctive as its image came to be, the house of Campari contracted trenchfoot in the culture wars of the 1980s. In 1983, the Reverend Jerry Falwell brought a case against Hustler magazine for producing an ad which featured Falwell and his mother in a “drunken incestuous encounter in an outhouse.” The ad parodied a contemporary Campari advertising campaign in which celebrities described “their first time” drinking Campari, with obvious sexual innuendo. The Court ruled 8-0 in favor of Hustler, finding that public figures “must tolerate occasional false statements, lest there be an intolerable chilling effect on speech that does have constitutional value.”

Over the next week, I will sample Campari in various incarnations, I will sweet-talk and swindle my taste buds into submission, I will take down this feeble-minded aversion of mine!

I shall try each of the following drinks, report back on their flavors and my level of satisfaction with the cocktail, hopefully garnering some level of affection for the drink as the week goes on:

• Campari neat
• Campari and soda
• Negronis
• Campari and orange juice
• Americano