People who don’t drink a lot of wine (that’s me) often wonder what to buy for cooking wine. For two reasons, I recommend buying six-ounce bottles of Australian wine, which come in four-packs for about $7.

The first reason is that, like most inexpensive Australian wine, it’s unexciting but not bad at all–perfect for cooking. And the small format means you won’t end up wasting any if you only need one glass to drink and one for the sauce.

The second reason is that the bottles have funny names. Usually I buy Hardy’s Stamp of Australia. They call their little bottles “Maties.” Today, however, they were out of the Hardy’s shiraz, so I bought Alice White.

Alice White’s bottles are called “Lil’ [sic] Joeys.” I can’t *wait* to say to Laurie, “Could you go to the QFC and pick me up some Lil’ Joeys?”

This month I’m co-teaching a food writing class to a group of young people aged 12 to 17 at [826 Seattle](http://www.826seattle.org/). We had our first class last night, and it went very well–much better than I’d feared. One exercise that was a hit: I brought in five weird fruits (kumquats were the most normal) and had the students describe them, then use their descriptions to write a paragraph extolling the virtues–or lack thereof–of the fruit. For example:

> The hideous cherimoya, or custard apple, has a disgustingly green skin and a mushy banana-like appearance on the inside. The soft middle is surprisingly sweet and juicy. It also has a banana smoothie smell.

Later we had the students write about a memorable meal, and got some great responses, which I hope to get permission to print next week. For now, here’s what I wrote. Thinking about it now, the chronology is probably somewhat off, but whatever.

> Things started looking up when I made it into the basement.

> When I was 11, my family moved into a house with a basement. Actually, the old house had a basement, too, but it was dank and terrifying, most notable for mold and furnace noises. The new basement had windows and wall-to-wall carpeting.

> But my room was upstairs. Pretty much every week I’d ask if I could move into the basement. Finally, when I was 16, my parents relented. Oh, the basement had one more thing: a door to the back yard. My first night in the basement, I snuck out and took the car. Destination: Taco Bell.

> The Taco Bell was ten minutes from home, and at the time they had my all-time favorite fast food product: the wild big beef taco. The “wild” part referred to a viscous bright-red hot sauce, and the Big Beef part meant that it was like a regular taco that had been pulled at each end until it doubled in length. They were 99 cents each, and I ordered three of them.

> I was worried that the guy at the drive-through would know that I was sneaking out, which was ridiculous, since at that time of night the drive-thru was a parade of pimply 16-year-old boys. If they were especially lucky, they might have a girl in the car with them. I was never so lucky. The girls always ordered bean burritos.

> I rushed home, turned on David Letterman, and tore open a taco like it was a Harvard acceptance letter. Crunch. Oh, yes. The basement was worth the wait.

> I still live ten minutes from a Taco Bell, but the Wild Big Beef Taco was discontinued long ago. It’s probably just as well. I don’t know if my wife would understand if I came home in the middle of the night stained with sauce.

I’m so used to frozen and canned foods having endless ingredient lists that it’s kind of a shock to see a short one. And you can’t get much shorter than the ingredient list for Trader Joe’s Chicken Perogi:

**Ingredients:** Ground chicken, flour, water, onions, corn oil, salt, black pepper.

And they’re pretty tasty, especially if you fry them in butter.

Scene from Matthew’s future:

*Location: The Pearly Gates*

**Matthew:** I got to heaven? Rock.

**St. Peter:** Not so fast. *[He flips open his PowerBook and logs into YouTube.]* Does this video look familiar?

> **Matthew:** I am not a yuppie!

**Matthew:** I may have said that.

**St. Peter:** Then how do you explain this Whole Foods shopping list from April 3, 2006, which includes such items as duck fat and an $8 chocolate bar?

**Matthew:** Uh.

**St. Peter:** Let me get the down button on this elevator for you.

It’s always a little scary to try a product like [Rancho Gordo](http://www.ranchogordo.com/) beans. Rancho Gordo (which is Spanish for “fat farm”) is in Napa Valley, and proprietor Steve Sando grows a stunning variety of beans, as well as some chiles and corn. My mom brought me back a pound of Gordo’s Red Nightfall beans from San Francisco, and I cooked them today.

It’s scary to try something like the Gordo beans not because they might be bad, but because they might be good. Probably I would have been better off never having tasted a Pralus chocolate bar, because they really are better than my usual Valrhona bars, and they’re three times the price.

Maybe this could be a diet strategy, though. If there’s something you feel you eat too much of, find a rare and exorbitantly priced gourmet version of it to put you off the regular stuff.

Anyway, the Gordo beans were delicious, and I look forward to ordering more. Red Nightfalls are a small, beautifully speckled bean, and when you cook them they turn the beans and sauce brick red. Laurie thought I’d put tomatoes in, but there were none, just mirepoix and beans. We ate them with pork chops. Iris wasn’t eating her bites of pork, so I offered her a bite of mine. She ate it and said, “Iris would like some more Dada’s pork chop.” I pointed out that she had some on her plate, and she made a face like, “I knew that,” and gobbled it.

Some of the leftover beans are going to turn into refried beans. I’ve never actually made homemade refried beans that I thought were any better than canned, but I have a feeling that this time might be the charm.