BOOK:|:KITCHEN

Often I will feature a photographer whose images give pause, offering a contemplative moment related to the practice of everyday eating and cooking. Desiree Dolron is a Dutch photographer who worked in Cuba four months capturing the interior of homes. This kitchen is one from her series Te di todos mis suenos, 2002-2003 and is entitled cerca amistadt.

Check out Anthony Bourdain's "Watching Beirut Die" at Salon. Bourdain himself reported from the frontlines on eGullet. Other media outlets provided his whereabouts to the food world. Many people were (and still are) trapped in the crosshairs of this emotionally fraught dynamic: tourists, scholars, academics, artists, musicians, and most of all, innocent Beirutis. And over at megnut, Michael Ruhlman provides a somber reflection from the man himself.

^{Israeli Air Force bombing a series of bridges
and roads linking Beirut to Damascus.
Photo Taken by Walid Raad (the Atlas Group) on July 14.}

Antichi Vigneti di Cantalupo "il Mimo" 2005 is a rose made from Nebbiolo. Nebbiolo being Italy's most noble red varietal, it hails from Piemonte from a producer in Colline Novaresi in the town of Ghemme, where they also produce nice DOCG reds. The il Mimo label bears a resemblace to "Phantom of the Opera," and I've heard people in my local wine shop refer to it as the "Phantom" rose.  The way it sells out, the connection isn't so far off.

Exhibiting a glossy garnet with orange reflections, il Mimo is a crowd pleaser. The nose suggests raspberries with a slight cotton candy layer (very subtle). On the palate, the fruit again echoes the raspberry nose, with a bit of spice, be it white pepper with a touch of anise. Flavors are layered, expressing the depth of a medium-bodied red while bearing the bright acidity and crispness of a white, finishing long and bone dry. One friend joined it with a pastrami sandwich. I brought it along for the ride with some chicken from Dirty Bird to-go. Amazing how the acidity cut through the fat of my succulent buttermilk dipped free-range fried chicken.

I have a hunch il Mimo will stand up to most lighter, summer fare. Wine-Searcher will have locations in New York and around the country for availability. Sometimes I get it from PJ's. But they sell out. Fast. Reliably, I find it here for around 12 bucks.

The summer chorus of food magazine covers has been fairly reaching if not simply redundant, in my estimation. At a glance, and for the sake of brevity, let's take a quick gander:

Skewers. I love them. You love. We all love skewers. And we all love to skewer. Which brings me to this little theory:  some argue that cooking with fire began about 1.6 million years ago. Fire, thusly, is one of the original, if not first, methods of cooking. Especially meat. So, while grilling then would be nothing new, though perhaps only in name, no summer is complete without this ancient ritual. Here in NYC, where sometimes it seems everyone has a criteria for friendship that often involves varying levels of access to whatever or whomever, one of mine is the rooftop grill. It goes something like this: "Right on. Party in Redhook. Grilling? Roof? Yeap, that's how I roll. What train again?" Especially since I live in upstate Manhattan, trekking to lovely Brooklyn is like leaving the city altogether.

Nevertheless, the summer's covers, so far, don't possess that Kipling "wait-a-bit" thornbush dynamic, where once I'm in, I'm compelled to stay. Some covers can be deep drillers, your eye staying awhile and gradually, you turn the page. You are inside. Boom. Done. Bottomline: It's not necessarily novel that summer = grilling. It's not even news, as Cooking Light put it, that I can "Grill the whole dinner!"

Sara Dickerman at Slate has a slightly different take what I regard as the summer cover flu. Nice to see I am not alone on this one.