Posts Written OnDecember 06, 2012

Fork Finds: The Bloody Boar, North Fork Table and Inn, Southold, NY

I used to think a Bloody Mary was the brunch beverage for weak-stomached, hung over companions who couldn’t handle a bracing mimosa in their current state. I’d laugh and focus on the bottom of my champagne flute, mocking their delicate constitutions as I watched them nurse a drink that brought to mind an astringent-laced salsa. That was before I had the Bloody Boar at the North Fork Table and Inn. Happily ordered on a whim, the lure of drinkable pork products overcame the tiny, high-pitched voice chirping “but you don’t like Bloody Mary’s” in my brain. House-infused vodka captures the…

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The Strange Story of Syrah in the Finger Lakes

It’s easy to get confused about red wine in the Finger Lakes these days. Is there a ‘flagship’ red variety? Is it pinot in the hands of the right people? Is it cabernet franc, that workhorse that occasionally finds profundity? How about lemberger/blaufrankish? When did that bandwagon hit a massive pothole? And now here comes syrah. If you grew up on west coast syrah or Australian shiraz, syrah seems an unlikely choice for the Finger Lakes. But that ignores its happiest home, which happens to be the much cooler Northern Rhone. No, Cote-Rotie is not Seneca Lake, but nor is…

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