Lightly roasted local rock cod, carrot hummus, piperade, a chickpea salad with fermented Corno di Toro peppers, and grilled asparagus with fresh Corno di Toro. Peppers three ways.

Poured the 2019 Bott Frigyes Muzsla with it. Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Blanc off a hill above the Danube in southern Slovakia. Six days in open vats with what they call the hamburger method (layers of foot-trodden whole clusters and whole berries, semi-carbonic), then 18 months on the lees in old barrels, bottled unfiltered.

Golden in the glass, showing its age. Dried stone fruit, pear sliding into apple, dried flowers on the nose. Soft and round on the palate, but the acid is high and keeps pulling you back for another sip. The lees are what tie the nose and the palate together.

Here's what I keep thinking about. A dish and a pairing get built the same way. Half of it is planned, half of it is decided in the moment.

The fermented peppers were a call I made weeks ago. You can't rush a ferment. You set it up right and you wait. Same with a bottle like this. Someone decided years ago this wine would sit 18 months on its lees, and time did the rest. Fun part, 2019 was only the second vintage of Muzsla. The family took years working out their style before they made it.

But the char on the asparagus, how much lemon goes on the cod, how heavy the hummus goes down, that all happens at the stove, tasting as you go. And that's where the pairing actually lands. The acid cuts through the ferment and the lemon, the lees texture sits right on the hummus, the dried fruit meets the sweetness of the roasted peppers.

Plan for the long game, then stay present enough to adjust when it's right in front of you. Works in the kitchen. Works with Bitcoin too.

Low time preference, but you still taste as you go.

Nobody sees the hours on this plate.

Tri-tip sat in red wine and aromatics just long enough to season it through and not a minute longer. Under-marinate and it's just wet. Over-marinate and the acid starts eating the edges. You learn where that line is by crossing it a few times.

Every parsley leaf picked off the stem by hand.

Shallot and red onion diced fine and macerated in Meyer lemon and my own red wine vinegar until the acid softens them, so they land delicate instead of punchy. A touch of garlic, árbol, Aleppo.

Then the part that makes it mine. Crispy garlic. Peel every clove, slice each one on the mandoline, fry the chips in tallow I've been saving from trim. Give it your full attention or it goes bitter and you start over.

Then you have to know the cut well enough to season it, grill it, and rest it the way it deserves. And build a sauce that lifts the beef instead of burying what the grass put into that muscle and fat.

None of this is a recipe you follow. It's technique, the kind you only build over years in a kitchen, and it has to be right every single time. Twenty-three years in and I'm still sharpening it. Patience is as much the craft as the knowledge. And patience is how knowledge turns into wisdom.

Bitcoin taught me the same lesson. Low time preference shows up in what you're willing to wait for. You can't fake proof of work. You stack, you hold, you sit through the cycles, and one day you understand things no amount of reading could have handed you. One block every ten minutes. Nobody rushes it.

That tallow is the same idea. Saved a little at a time from every trim until there's enough to do something great with it.

Shoutout to every Bitcoiner who loves a good steak. You already get it.

Somewhere, someone is issuing perpetual preferreds to get synthetic steak exposure at 2x mNAV. I just bought the tri-tip. 🥩

#steakstr #foodstr

Carrots can be cool again right?

Family Style.
Sesame Roasted Nantes Carrots cooked in Wadaman White Sesame Oil from Osaka, Japan. Saffron carrot hummus with Meyer lemon, parsley and cilantro. Finished with Wadaman dark roasted golden sesame oil and burnt lemon juice.

#foodstr #chefstr #asknostr