A blending session with Julian’s team followed by the smelling of the results.

Robin Goldstein conducted an experiment with a group of friends to see if they could tell the difference between paté and dog food; he pubilshed the findings in the Journal of Wine Economics. That and many other experiments in cognitive science have demonstrated that our perception of smell is conditioned by what we expect to smell. Our expectations are driven by our other senses: what we see (colour, label); what we hear (what ‘experts’ tell us we should find) and what we feel (a heavy bottle implies a more concentrated, expensive wine). Considering that consumers rarely get the opportunity to smell a wine before they purchase it, wine marketers need to send the right ’smell’ signals through our other senses.

So what is success for a wine producer? It depends, but I would say it must include a measure of financial profit and a measure of how close the producer comes to achieving the taste profile that he/she sought to achieve. The two don’t necessarily go hand in hand. How about for the consumer? Consumers might like to think they are getting a good deal, while social recognition might also influence their choice. However, the level of social recognition a bottle can deliver is related to its marketing budget, which works against the idea ofvalue for money if value = tasting pleasure. But if value = social recognition then the smell is irrelevant, it is simply the smell of money that matters.

For me, success tastes sweetest when I achieve maximum gain with minimal effort. So here is what I think could be a short cut to success for a wine producer like myself. Let’s assume success = customer satisfaction + financial reward for the producer. Over the last twelve years of making and selling my wines, I have made two observations on which this idea is based. First, a fair number of consumers like wines that for a professional’s palate are flawed. Secondly, skillful blending can turn inferior or flawed wines into something quite commercial. So if you went out and bought a whole bunch of flawed wines that producers were willing to sell at rock bottom prices and blended them skillfully and identified customers that found them pretty damn good to whom you would charge a fortune – to me that’s the sweet smell of success.

Actually, I was going to stop there but it just occurred to me that there is something else that makes success even sweeter: when everyone else tells you it is impossible and you prove them all wrong. In this case, scientists will tell you that it is impossible to identify such perfectly matching inferior wines that cancel out their respective flaws and somehow mutually blossom. You would need to turn the blending process into a science, something you could calculate… impossible! Sounds like a sweet challenge to me.

__________

Julian is based in Provence and is the man behind Jules wines. For more information visit www.jules-wines.com

Nothing stinks of success quite like French cooking. Conventionally viewed as being the creme de la creme of the culinary tradition, many British restaurants now include French terms on their menus to lend an air of je ne sais quoi to their establishment. How many times have we seen British home-grown beef dressed up in a red wine jus, or Scottish salmon encroute? This clearly makes the proprietor feel legitimate in cranking up the prices by a few pounds; if a customer has to ask for a translation of something on the menu, surely that’s a license to add an extra few pennies? Sadly, most of us are impressionable enough to believe that a veloute will actually be much more delicious than your standard ‘sauce’, and this is largely down to our perception of French cookery as being a more refined, higher form of art.

A smart French restaurant oozes almost as much self-satisfaction as it does butter from each and every dish.  To eat French is to eat sophistication, luxury, sumptuousness. The snobbery which often goes hand in hand with French haute cuisine even seems to fuel a large part of its appeal. Somehow you find yourself laughing off the impossibly rude waiter as being part and parcel to the whole experience. Why yes! Of course it’s an imposition for me, heathen that I am, to be eating in your fine establishment. Obviously I recognise that I’m simply wasting your time by dithering over my order. Nevertheless, I still find it difficult to surpress my excitement and awe when entering into a dazzling blaze of starched tablecloths, pressed napkins and the hushed appreciation of tinkling cutlery. Is this, just partly, because the whole room radiates bright, white, heavenly success?

Pate is perhaps the quintessential French entree. Seldom is a French restaurant without its own version, faite a maison, be it traditional, rustic, terrine, fromage a la tete or, the Prince of all, foie gras. Ironically, pate is often the result of an economical use of the less popular cuts of an animal and the offal. This is a recipe for a pate of chicken livers, pretty much the cheapest meat available. Somehow, when mashed, whizzed and blitzed, they become a delicacy, and one which is bound to impress even the frenchies among you.

Now comes the caveat. People always say, ‘No pain, no gain’. Quite. Even in this quick-fix age of liposuction and IKEA, this mantra still holds true. It’s all about outweighing the pain with the gain: resisting that slice of chocolate cake which is literally prostituting itself out to you so as not to burst out of your jeans; following the improbable instructions of the lycra-clad, head-set-sporting maniac at the front of an exercise class in order to get into said jeans after a chocolate cake accident; slogging away hour after hour, week after week for the big promotion; enduring childbirth. The same theory holds for making this recipe. The process is vile, noxious, nauseating and enough to put you off your dinner. I’m not generally a squeemish person, but this really pushed my limits. The best time to approach it might be, say, when you have a stinking cold and all of your olfactory senses are rendered defunct.

Having said that, the results really are sublime.

Ingredients:

300g butter – YES. That’s right. That’s more than one packet of butter. Perhaps the recipe should come with a health warning – “30% LARD”. It’s obviously well in line with any carefully monitored, calory controlled diet. In fact, you can use less butter if you like, for a slightly stronger flavour and less of a saturated fat feast.

450g chicken livers, de-veined – As testament to the liver’s crucial bodily function, it is host to a number of veins and capillaries, acting as intravenous spaghetti junctions for corporeal rushhour traffic. They look white and stringy, and should be removed with a small, sharp knife, ideally without breaking up too much of the whole structure. Our attempts acheived varying levels of success. Before long, through a combination of clumsiness, impatience and nausea (can you smell it yet?), we descended into an inelegant and bloodthirsty hands-on technique. This resulted in a noxious, amorphous blob of animal matter, not dissimilar to how I might imagine a placenta to look and feel. What’s more, our hands certainly looked as if we’d just emerged from the delivery room.

1 onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons armagnac or similar 1 tablespoon honey An 8oz serving dish

Slowly fry the onion in a large frying pan with 225g of the butter (if you want to use less butter overall, reduce the total quantity to 250g, and use 175g at this point). Once the onion is soft, remove it and nearly all of the melted butter from the pan and set aside (you just need to leave a coating in the pan).

After patting dry the de-veined livers with a paper towel, fry them in the same pan until cooked through. This should take about five minutes.

Add the alcohol and honey to the pan and fry for a further two minutes. Combine the livers with the butter and onion mixture in a blender until smooth. Now, this is where you really need to put your head down and KEEP GOING. You will imagine that there is some sort of septic leak in your kitchen. You will constantly be surpressing a gag reflex. You will be reluctant to put this faecal mixture into your serving dish. Have faith in miracles.

All that is left to be done now, (aside from the washing up – is there anyone hanging around who you can rope into this at the last moment, by promising rewards of delicious treats? If not, for goodness sake put everything in the dishwasher immediately and close the door) is to make the clarified butter. Slowly melt the remaing 75g butter in a small pan. As it melts, skim of the hard, white particles which will rise to the top using a spoon. Don’t worry too much if you’re not a complete perfectionist over this. You won’t notice a few lumps once the butter has set.

Finally, pour your clarified butter over the pate to create a protective sealant. Refrigerate for at least four hours. It’s recommended to wait at least twenty-four hours before attempting to enjoy your creation. By that time, hopefully, the nausea will have passed.

Bon apetit

Red Success: slightly scented.

Dorothy Feaver

The sweet smell or come-hither eyes?

Nat Pimlott

hmmm…

Dorothy Feaver

(both?)

D.F.

the Prince of darkness

Nat Pimlott

for some there is a simple criterion for success

Dorothy Feaver

while others fear failure

Nat Pimlott

Pietro Longhi, Fainting (c. 1744)

]]> http://www.murdofleur.org/post-its/post-it-notes/smelling-salts/feed 0 http://www.murdofleur.org/post-its/post-it-notes/a-violet-sky http://www.murdofleur.org/post-its/post-it-notes/a-violet-sky#comments Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:25:19 +0000 Robert Gallagher http://www.murdofleur.org/?p=5766

Graham Robertson was also called in, and suggested a violet sky. ‘A violet sky,’ said Wilde. ‘Yes, I never thought of that. Certainly a violet sky and then, in place of an orchestra, braziers of perfume. Think – the scented clouds rising and partly veiling the stage from time to time – a new perfume for each emotion.’ Robertson pointed out that the theatre could not be aired between each emotion. Sarah Bernhardt, who was paying, decided to borrow a set from Irving.

Richard Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (1987)

Chandler Burr (man of letters and professional scent critic), Self Service 27 (2007)

Elizabeth I, who had her own still-room for the making of perfumes, invented a fragrance of her own, the principle constituents of which were apple blossom and the fat of a young dog.

Steven Connor, The Book of Skin (2004)

The main goal is to try and bring together all the people that like big noses in a friendly environment of communication.  So if you have the same appreciation for the nose that I do, please let me know.

The Big Nose Appreciation Page (2003)

Please see the sexy nose of the yesteryear actress Mumtaz. She became popular because of her very beautiful Nose. See the Nose of Sharmila Tagore and it is excellent. Come down to south. Observe the Noses of these cine actress Devayani, Aswini Nachappa, Priyamani, Gopika, Asin, Sameera Reddy, Shobhana, Bharathi, Sandhya, Namitha. Namitha’s Nose is one of the most beautiful one and even men of 70 years feel very sexy when they see Namitha with her big bouncing beautiful breasts with uppish Nose etc.

(Anonymous)

nosefetish (http://community.livejournal.com/nosefetish/11718.html) (2010)