Proper Attire

I was doing the Park Slope in Brooklyn farmers market all summer. That was my plan anyway.
The first day I went down there I was operating on three hours sleep.
Fixing the tractor the day before, resetting vineyard posts all week, no time for a proper laundry, the entire house a disaster area, here I was launching my season,
all my hopes for 'southern exposure' (aka NYC presence) bundled up in boxes in back of a late model Dodge truck with front-end problems. It was Sunday. Laundry day had been Wednesday. I pulled a wrinkled shirt out of the dryer.
Fatal mistake.

I'm setting up the tent, it's slightly dirty, 'I can't do this, wait, I forgot the ice, where can I get ice
in Brooklyn? Do they have ice in Brooklyn? Don't be stupid. I grew up here. We had the Dodgers. We had ice. Of course they have ice.'

The redhead next to me has no tent at all. She his sitting there in a chair with an 'if you please' smile, a sun dress on and a Mexican hat, (not a sombrero, more like a Japanese style sugegasa). In front of her is a tray of what look bonsai gardens in square rock containers. They must weigh sixty pounds apiece. 'How is she going to sell these?' I wonder. 'Who wants to lug around a chunk of concrete all day?'
"Succulents?" I ask, perceptively.
She looks up smiling, as if I had just solved the Da Vinci code.
"Yes that's right, they're succulents."

The market manager is eying me. Not too friendly. More like an appraisal. Something about her is off. The feeling you get when you walk into a 'carny' tent and somehow you know you are just another 'mark'.

The park is a kids' park. Thirty-somethings with strollers. Mostly guys. Mostly white with a few old neighborhood Ricans sprinkled in who were probably there before the area was 'gentrified', whatever that means. All of them have five dollar coffees. Something about them screams, 'I can have everything', --and they do, for now. One hour. Haven't sold a thing. Two hours, still haven't sold a thing.

An attractive older brunette with a fashionable haircut sidles up to me. In a few minutes she's standing next to me, not in front of the table but next to me behind it. Maybe late fifties I'm thinking. The hands always tell, but nicely preserved. Good bones.
"You know, I don't mean to get personal but you know you're shirt is, well, I can't begin to tell you how many things are wrong with it, it's got a hole in it, fraying,
and stains on it."
"Yeah, I know, it's been a rough week. Laundry hasn't been one of my priorities."
"You are a good looking man, but that shirt. Really."
"I'm a what?" I hadn't heard the last part.
"Yeah, you are, you are a good looking man. I just had to say something. I'm a teacher at FIT. You know, it is just something that is in me. Had to say something"
"About me?"
"About the shirt."
"Do you want to maybe grab a coffee later."
"Well," she looks surprised, "Not today,--maybe next week."
"I get it, OK I'll buy a shirt by next week. Save you the embarrassment.
"I used to model you know."
I believe her,the bone structure again. OK, now, never in my life has a woman come up to me and told me I am good looking, and especially not one with good bone structure, (except of course my mother)
I'm driving route 17 back to Monroe.
"What the heck was that?" I wonder, shaking my head.

So the next day I send an email to the people running the market.
I'm not a happy camper. I'm selling the wine right by a kids park. Plus I'm shoved off on the side street, like week old bananas. Paying the same rent as the vendors on the avenue.
I offer to switch to another market. Two days later I get the reply.
"You have to develop a following. Maybe next year we will put you on the avenue. The market manager already told us you were poorly groomed."
Poorly groomed!? This is a farmer's market,-on the street, what do they want? A tuxedo!?
Then it clicks. The woman from FIT. She was a plant. A hundred ten pound bonsai. They had sent her over on the QT to work me. I was the mark.
Next email I send; "I won't be participating in any of your markets. Thanks for
everything."
My world view, restored.
Ahh, Brooklyn.

Poopy Pants Lane

"He ordered prank pizzas to 888 Poopy Pants Lane. Everyone knows Poopy Pants Lane ends in the 700 block." With this line Luigi condemns Bart Simpson most likely to
a life in prison or at the least a long spell in 'Juvie'.

Anyway, for some reason I couldn't get this line out of my head. Working in the vineyard, repetitive motions, tie, trim, repeat, move on, repetitive motions inspire repetitive thoughts, like mantras, perhaps it is meditative perhaps it is just stupid. Maybe in the sixties, if my Yoga mantra had been 'Poopy Pants Lane' rather than whatever it was (still not allowed to tell) I would be a much happier person today.


Maybe when we focus on the ridiculous operatic aspects of life we miss the real problems, maybe the real problem are much more mundane and logical. This is perhaps what Luigi is trying to tell us. What is it to be a winemaker? It is to be at once logical and conscious of the pranks of nature. It is mind numbing, humbling repetition, punctuated by the smile of someone who likes your wine, it is not living on the edge it is living beyond the edge, in a world of imaginary numbers on an imaginary street in Hilbert Space. 888 Poopy Pants Lane.

What is this ranting all about. I am trying to make some Peach Wine and I can tell you, it isn't going so well. The Pear Wine I made last year was excellent, (I can safely say that because it's all gone now) but, for some reason I can't get the Peach to behave, it is not cohering, something is not gelling. Was it ridiculous to believe that I could repeat that wonderful accident that produced the Pear Wine using another fruit entirely. I didn't believe so, but I was wrong. The fundamentals were not there; the wine is turning out acidic, sour like those straws of multi-colored powder we used to get in the candy store.
'How should I correct it. Add vanilla? No, that's a coward's way out, I need to work the wine, work the acid, not cover it with other flavors.' I tried adding Malolactic bacteria. This is the usual method used on grapes to flatten the acid profile. Then, the next day I read somewhere, Malolactic fermentation tends to mute the fruit flavors in fruit wines, sometimes you can even get a sauerkraut aroma profile, peaches and sauerkraut, I am shaking my head, I am going to end up with something more like a hot dog topping than a wine. Is this a prank? 55 gallons of Sauerkraut juice. Maybe I should have just waited, give the mantra of the wine time to work, time to sink in. Everybody knows Poopy Pants Lane ends in the 700 block. Maybe I should have just made the Pear Wine again, at the risk of repeating myself. Maybe repeating oneself isn't so bad. Maybe it is the slow death of creativity. Who knows. Maybe there is a reason. Maybe mindless repetition isn't so bad after all.
Maybe mindless repetition isn't so bad after all.
"Say, is this the bus that goes to Poopy Pants Lane?"

War, Memory and a Pack of Camels

Memorial Day is a unique holiday mostly perhaps because on it, we do something voluntarily that we most often either have to be forced to do or only engage in only when the ravages of physical debility and time have left us little other choice; remember.

Memory is both a funny thing and a powerful thing, jester and king in one. It not only honors the past and the sacrifices of the past but it can provide a powerful alternative perspective that shapes our future behavior. I first realized this when I tried to quit smoking. My theory was that the memory of the pleasurable association with cigarettes even more than the present physical need was what was making this task extraordinarily difficult. I am a very visually oriented person so it seemed evident to me that the continued presence of any visual association with cigarettes was inevitably going to send me into a tailspin of craving and cause me to eventually fail. I went through the house throwing out the empty cigarette packs thankfully bereft of their sweet cargo that had formerly summoned me to their altar, I scoured the ashtrays removing any trace of silky ash that I sift between my finger recalling the lost wonders of Shambala, I opened the windows, clearing the haze that had wafted through my living room like the morning mist on Dunis Moor, I threw out all my videotapes (yes videotapes) of pre-1975 movies, especially war movies depicting cigarettes as one of the few un-guilty (then) pleasures of the foxhole, and any movie with Molly Ringwold. I hid all my lighters and even made sure that all the plastic pull tabs on food items that were similar to the little golden seductive strip of promise at the top of the cigarette pack were pre-removed from any food items in the refrigerator. I knew this last was extreme and dangerous and might cause my Oscar Mayer bologna to go bad, but, I was determined! This was war!

Then I went out back to work on bottling my 2007 Merlot wine and take my mind off smoking. There was clearly something wrong; not perhaps with the wine but with my plan. Despite the fact that I had purged all visual cues to my unhealthy preoccupation I was still seized with an insatiable desire to run out and buy my next pack. Was my theory incorrect? Was the habit of smoking really more a physical than a psychological addiction? As I pondered this question my gaze fell onto the identifying label on the cartons of bottles I was using to bottle my Merlot. They were the dark burgundy style 750 ml. bottles of the sort that lend themselves to red wines. My mind traced over and over the line of numbering and lettering giving the capacity and color of the bottles, staring repetitively back at me from each stacked white carton on the skid, the black bold letters; "750 Smoke". "750 Smoke".

So on this Memorial Day I think it is important to remember a couple of things; first, that no matter how hard you try you cannot escape the past and second that memory can often be a tricky thing and that even pleasant memories are impossible to completely shut out, let alone unpleasant ones. So on this day when we consciously seek to remember the sacrifices made on our behalf by our brave soldiers, let the recollection of their selfless deeds be a spur and prompt us to seek a better future and not a reinforcement of habits causing us to repeat the mistakes of the past. Now where did I hide that lighter again?

Simple Gifts

Usually I have something funny to say. Today I don't. There's an Aaron Copland piece based on an old Shaker melody called 'Simple Gifts'. It and another piece calle 'Ashokan Farewell which was the title theme for Ken Burns mini-series called 'The Civil War' are two of my favorite pieces of music. There is something in the simplicity of these melodies that speaks to me, something beyond the notes or words, something quieter than laughter and louder than sorrow.

The bottom line is that we seem to have forgotten that complexity is somewhat over-rated. Things don't necessarily need to be complex to be good. When I was working as a computer programmer I had one motto 'KISS', 'Keep it simple stupid!" (Of course with apologies to Gene Simmons.) The idea was that if you kept the various parts of these highly convoluted and complicated programs simple, the whole would come out better, more functional and far more elegant.

So, when I finally got to taste some of Carlo DeVito's, from Hudson Chatham winery Paperbirch Raspberry I knew that whoever produced it also valued simplicity. Don't get me wrong, there was complexity if one cared to analyze it, but I realized almost immediately that I didn't really care, here was just something that was welcome and familiar, something that brought an instant sense of recognition and of ease, like a familiar simple melody that somehow has gotten in your bones and makes you smile, like a rocking chair that somehow has acquired the perfect shape for your ass, like an unexpected big wet kiss from your favorite cocker spaniel,
(OK, I could make a joke about Gene Simmons here but like I said, I'm just not in the mood.) That's about all I need to say about that.
Rock on Carlo!

Collagen Monkeys

I was supposed to have been a scientist. That much was clear to me since the age of nine when I got my first chemistry set. I don't know who gave it to me or why but I suspect it was a birthday present and like many birthday presents one that was intended to launch me on a path to a respectable profession or avocation. (Boys got chemistry sets, girls got dolls with sparkling blue eyes). I don't recall the precise contents of the set but I am certain it contained phenolphthalein solution, Sodium Hydroxide and Copper Sulfate the latter two being contained in squat squarish bottles and the former in a little round bottle with the eye dropper already in it. I am quite sure it did not come with a pair of safety glasses (but that was OK because by nine I was already wearing glasses and had long since stopped playing with dolls). I also recall the rather pungent and totally foreign odors that were associated with some of the contents of the set. (On reflection it seems to me that I probably should not have been sniffing them.)

There were several experiments that you could do but by far the most gratifying was the acid titration test. In this test you took the solution of Phenolphthalein and using the provided eye dropper slowly dropped a solution of Sodium Hydroxide into the test tube and watched the liquid gradually turn pink. I remember the excitement when the first shy streamers of pink began suffusing themselves through the mixture. I didn't really know what it meant but it was fun. I never turned anything pink before (though I would many times after that). What was even more amazing was that as you continued to add the base solution the liquid turned clear again. This seemed beyond amazing to me. This was magic! Making something disappear like it never even happened. This, it seems, was sufficient to prepare me for a life of crime which was what I had intended before I got the set.

As a side note, I never followed through on either my scientific or criminal aptitudes and apart for a brief period in the late sixties I abandoned my inclinations to experiment with chemicals.

Making wine has finally forced me to revisit the chemistry set. Controlling and testing for acidity plays a critical part in the winemaking process. You cannot guess at it. Winemakers are told that wines with low acidity will not do well over time, that it is the acidity in part that protects against microbial spoilage. (I don't know if this is really true. Have you ever tasted Orange Juice that has been left out of the fridge for week?)

Acid it something like the wind blowing across your palate and controlling that acid in wine is like flying a kite, Too little wind and the kite sinks to the ground, too much and it tears to tatters or snaps the string and flies away. New York State winemakers are very familiar with the problem of too much acid in the wine which lends the wine a tart character (like sucking on a lime) whereas California winemakers on the other hand are more preoccupied with the problem of too little acid which can result in a flaccid wine (Whatever Man!). So, metaphorically speaking, the difference between a taut well structured aerodynamic system (metaphorically speaking) and a tattered hunk of plastic streamers stuck in a tree is quite simply the acid content. A big part of the reason for this is that acid tends to stimulate saliva flow (the body attempts to dilute any acids entering the system). Good saliva flow is essential to savoring the various components of a good wine in the proper balance. (Where is the Olympic Spitahlon event?).

There are three accepted methods for testing acid in wine, one is titration (known to me from my chemistry set days) the second is a digital pH meter, and the third is paper chromatography. The last and by far cheapest method is tasting it.

Just to complicate matters, there are no less than four organic acids in wine; tartaric, malic, lactic and citric. Tartaric, as its name suggests tends to precipitate out as tartrates and can leave a crust on the bottom of the bottle similar in appearance to what you find on your teeth if you have not visited the dentist, but different in chemical composition (potassium not calcium based). Malic acid tends to be sharp and spiky whereas Lactic Acid, which occurs in milk products tends to be rounded and milder. If you have tasted a sour apple, that is the taste of Malic Acid. If you have tasted sour buttermilk, that is the taste of lactic acid. (If you poach your apples in buttermilk you're on your own.)

Winemakers sometimes will intentionally introduce bacteria into some wines to convert Malic to Lactic Acid. This process also produces, in addition to CO2 and Lactic Acid something called diacetyl which is the flavor element of butter. When you taste a 'buttery' California Chardonnay this is almost certainly due to the presence of diacetyl. If you taste a 'buttery' Cabernet this is probably because some winemaker accidentally dropped a stick of butter in the tank. Diacetyl is also implicated in something called 'Popcorn Workers Lung'. When heated it tends to volatalize as a mist that will irritate your lungs. So, here's a hint, keep your wine out of the microwave and under no circumstances try to smoke it.

Citric acid is usually a minor component of wine but it can be introduced into sweeter wines to diminish the 'cloying' sensation that sugar produces. This is by the way why lemonade tastes so good.

Anyway, you may be asking at this point what this all has to do with Collagen or Monkeys. Well it turns out that scientist have been experimenting with something called a PLLA-braid, testing it of course on monkeys. They have found that PLLA which is a collagen/lactic acid hybrid provides a scaffold for the regeneration of muscle tissue. So, here's another sentence that should be added to the government warning on wine labels : Warning: Consumption of wine by people who have had collagen injections or plastic surgery may result in a rare condition known as 'Muscle Lip'. As for the monkeys, I have personally seen some of them pumping five pound weights with nothing but their lips and Monkeys exposed to both diacteyl and PLLA have been known to eject Popcorn Kernels a distance of fifty yards or more. OK, now I'm turning pink. I do that when I lie.

The Bikerman Coefficient

I hate foam. I hate it with an irrational passion that is akin to my hatred and fear of snakes. I hate it in all its incarnations; sea water foam that collects in sickly yellow pools under piers, styrofoam that grates on my teeth with a high pitched dog whistle squeal, couch foam, foam fingers, the foam that exudes from various bodily orifices on episodes of 'House', dish detergent foam that invaded rivers and streams until Rachel Carson pointed the accusatory foam finger at it in 'Silent Spring'; I hate it all. The present fascination of haute cuisine with various types of foamed food is beyond inexplicable to me. The idea that any food could be made more appetizing with the addition of foam to me is a heresy perhaps exceeding that which resulted in the burning of the Czech Jan Hus at the stake in the 15th century.

Having said that, I must admit, there are two incarnations of foam that are not objectionable to me; that on top of beer or on cappuchinos. In both these cases I tolerate it. I suspect it is because I look at it not as real foam but as some kind of fizzy fashion accessory, such as is implied by the use of the word 'head' in relation to beer, (though most people don't look at a head as a fashion accessory, after a few beers it generally can be) and the prefix 'Cappu', implying, in Italian, 'hat'.

Obviously, being a winemaker, (I am told that is what I am now), the inevitable occurrence of foam at certain points in the winemaking process is both fascinating and horrifying to me. It appears at two distinct junctures in the process; first during what is the 'maceration' period of the primary fermentation, when the cap forms on top of the wine and secondly at bottling when a colloidal foam forms in the headspace of the bottle. In the first case the foam is far more pronounced and substantial (as measured by the Bikerman coefficient) in red wines, and in the second case moreso in white wines. The formation of the foam cap in the must of red wines is a welcome and well studied phenomena as well as an integral part of the winemaking process. The formation of foam at bottling is regarded as a mere nuisance and is generally regarded as having no effect whatsoever on the finished product.


Part of the task of the winemaker is to pay attention to things that you have been told not to pay attention to; I call this the 'Wizard of Oz' rule as this process of peeking behind the winemaking curtain is almost always immediately disheartening and only secondarily and eventually productive in helping you reach your goal. So, this week when I was bottling the Cayuga White I happened to notice that the foam produced in the bottle at filling seemed unusually durable and stable, I decided to attempt to yank the curtain aside, so hold on to your dog, Dorothy, it's about to get bumpy, again.

There were two possible culprits that immediately presented themselves; two components of wine that might produce sufficient heightened surface tension to noticeably affect persistence of bubbles, to result in foaming in the finished wine; fatty esters (not one of my relatives) and polysaccharides, both naturally occurring compounds, both also components of glycerine. I immediately dismissed fatty esters. My reasoning was as follows; since Cayuga White has a notoriously low finished alcohol content; this low alcohol content is probably due to the fact that fatty esters tend to break down into volatile ethanol and water (as opposed to fermentation which produces only alcohol). The assumption that it's low alcohol content was probably due in part to the increase in water content as these compounds broke down seemed reasonable. This left me with polysaccharides.


Polysaccharides are interesting little buggers and the fact that they are utilized as foaming agents in the pharmaceutical industry seemed to lend credence to my theory. As it turns out, since they are also the component of the yeast cell wall that when the yeast cells dies and breaks down producing foaming in the must, the fickle foam finger of fate seemed even more firmly fixed on their malfeasance and Occam's Razor further suggested it was at work in both instances of red and white wine.

This led to the secondary question as to why, since the byproducts in the degradation of yeast eventually precipitate out, why would the polysaccharides in the Cayuga White remain in suspension. The answer I have come up with is this: Cayuga White is a particularly cold hardy variety and polysaccharides are implicated in the production of the natural anti-freeze that protects grapes in winter hence it is reasonable to assume the must has a higher concentration of these. The addition of sulphur in the form of Potassium Metabisulfite in the winemaking process causes the formation of sulphuric esters of the polysaccharides in suspension which is more pronounced in Cayuga White because of the higher polysaccharide content. These long chains of sugar-like compounds that are bound together by a fatty ester produce durable foam. QED. Whew! Too much technical jargon but here's the kicker.

Certain polysaccharides, particularly the Sulphuric Esters of Polysaccharides also have a very specific effect on the human circulatory system called 'Brakykinin'. In essence they are powerful vaso-dilators, i.e. they have the tendency to lower your blood pressure. Hence, it seemed that the very effect which was raising my own blood pressure as I bottled the wine and cursed the foam, contained the antidote for that very condition. Ironic! Do you see now how insidious foam is! So, the next time you are at a baseball or football game waving that foam finger in the air, it would behoove you to think how treacherous and tricky foam can be, and to consider the possibility that foam based fashion accessories may in fact produce the opposite of the intended effects and cause your team to lose instead. Just something to consider. And for all you chefs out there intent of finding new uses for foam in the culinary arts, a cautinary word, 'beware of the nefarious mousse!' Now, where is my cappuchino?

Dodgeball

There is a moment in dodgeball that everyone experiences, the point where one has no perceived advantage in going left or going right, the instinct to avoid the ball is short circuited, one remains frozen in place for what seems like forever,the nervous system's fight or flight reaction disconnected from the musculo-skeletal structure, ripped out like the spiky backbone of a juicy sea bass,
or a jockey stripped from the double harness, the twin trotters of time and space, hurtling along like a funky sulky on autopilot curled round and round the knife edge of indecision like a cocoon,--OK enough metaphors.
What we have been dodging lately are bubbles not balls,--the principle is the same though, we stand frozen like deer in the headlights waiting for the inevitable call of 'yer out', sometimes for seconds, sometimes months, sometimes for years on end, we are frozen, transfixed and yet can not get out of the way, one bubble after another hurtling toward us penetrating our sussurated, semioperable, synaptic, stupefaction,

the tech bubble --bam! you're out,

the housing bubble--bam!--you're out,
.
the investment bubble--bam! you're out,--BAM, BAM, BAM,

wake up, we're not in Kansas anymore we're in the Emeril City, or Dodge City BAM!
All these bubbles! All these balls to dodge.

You know what it reminds me of? Something else that recently seems to have no real center no real essence just a reflection of expanding expectations --strawberries,--yeah, you heard me, strawberries.

What do strawberries have to do with bubbles and dodgeball? They too seem caught in this same uncontrollable soulless expansion. They are huge, and they have no centers and what is more they seem to have lost the essence of what they were, they
have lost their 'strawberriness'. They are gorgeous shimmering replicas of their former more compact selves, expansive gargantuanly irrelevant superficialities, like us, like the bubbles, --BAM!

Why do I like winemaking so much? It always encourages the contrarian in me. Turns the bubbles inside out. It's always about focusing on the opposite; bubbles do not signify the end of a process; they signal the beginning; the surge and ferment that helps us emerge better, more essential, more cogent, more
connected to our teeter-tottering, trotting neural networks, more, not less, --yes that is what is nice about
wine,-- and bubbles,--while there are still a million talking heads talking about the one current bubble, there are a million bubbles that will be worth talking about it in maybe a year or two years when the wine calms down, when this one head calms down enough to drink that wine, recalling bubbles and balls we dodged, then it is our turn, and the bubbles that come hurtling at us one after the other are full of promise that energizes rather than tasteless emptiness that enervates us and surprises us with it's vapid non-essentialness. They say 'wine is life', well
not the life we have been living maybe, but maybe the life we should have been living, instead of trying to avoid. Tiny bubbles, getting bigger.