OH GOD THESE RIBS ARE SO GOOD SKAFDIWRHKSA

I literally made that sound when eating some ribs made by the Boyfriend this weekend. It was impossible for me to eat those ribs without making little happy sounds the entire time. They were so tender you could cut them apart with a set of tongs. The dry rub was the same one he usually uses, so at first we weren't sure why these were even better than they normally are. We determined that it was because he took them out of the smoker after two and a half hours, and then put the suckers in the oven for the next three, putting a mop-sauce on them every half hour or so. This took a normally fantastic recipe into the orgasmic territory.

I love ribs.

I also love wine, as we all know, but ribs aren't really a wine food, right? WRONG! If you are making spicy, dry-rub ribs, then you want some Black Box Pinot Grigio.

That's right.

Boxed wine.

Most wine drinkers will turn up their nose at boxed wine, but I know better. Have you ever ordered beef burgundy at a restaurant? Even chances that the Burgundy used was from a box. Or perhaps you got a white-wine sauce on your pasta. Probably from a box. Boxed wine is awesome for chefs, because it fits easily on a rack and generally provides a nice, even, "winey" flavor. 

That's all well and good, Stark, but you don't drink cooking wine, do you? Well, yes I do because I don't bloody well cook with wine that I wouldn't drink, but that's beside the point. Black Box actually produces some very pleasant wine. The Pinot Grigio is light, citrusy, and just sweet enough to cool your mouth after a bite of something spicy. It is not cloyingly sweet, nor is it sour, but it also lacks complexity. It's lightly sweetened lemonade, which is exactly what I wanted after eating those utterly fantastic ribs. 

At the moment however I am not sitting in a fabulous house overlooking the Assateague bay, I'm in my house in Bolton Hill, sitting next to a plastic cauldron and arguing about sociology with DesignBroad and Mr. India. This would be less pathetic if I were not sitting across from DesignBroad right now. 

I am drinking a glass of Venta Morales Tempranillo, which is "extremely quaffable" according to DesignBroad. She's right. It's a light to medium-bodied red with a nicely peppery flavor and no aftertaste to speak of. It is not heavily tannic, which I appreciate. Again, not particularly complex, but quite pleasant.

Tomorrow I'm going to show the schizos at work The Great Pumpkin. That should be pretty cool. Until then, continue drinking!