I started cooking because I was hungry.
After track practice, I was usually too impatient to wait for my mother to make dinner. So I'd turn on PBS.
My favorite was Martin Yan.
"If Yan can cook, so can you!"
He made it look easy. A hot wok, a few ingredients, some impossibly fast knife work.
Soon I was making stir-fries, fried rice, and whatever else I could manage with what was in the fridge.
I enjoyed it. My mother got a break from cooking. And the rest of us got an occasional break from her cooking.
I began making more elaborate dishes. Different techniques, more ingredients, sauces that took hours to build. Some worked. Others didn't.
Years later, California introduced me to the yellow nectarine.
Heirloom tomatoes. Early Girls. Produce from farmers' markets, often the same farms supplying some of San Francisco's best restaurants.
A beautiful piece of fish, a handful of vegetables, a little salt, olive oil, perhaps lemon. An entire meal could come together with very little fuss.
I still love making elaborate dishes. But these days, I cook according to my mood, who's eating, and what happens to be in the fridge.
My kids generally prefer the simpler meals.
Unless the sauce for their flaky flatbread isn't rich enough.
Then suddenly they have opinions.
The Quiet Detail
A few days ago, I opened a bottle of Chavost Paradoxe.
I'd tasted another wine from Chavost before, their Blanc d'Assemblage, and was curious about this one.
Most Champagne houses make multivintage blends their everyday wines, with vintage Champagnes appearing less frequently.
When winemaker Fabian Daviaux arrived at Chavost in 2019, he took a different approach. He wanted to emphasize individual harvests, making Champagne without added sulfites or dosage.
But he also began building a perpetual reserve.
I'd recently written about Dhondt-Grellet's Roc Solare, which draws on a perpetual reserve begun in 1986. Fabian was starting his own from scratch.
I reached out to Chavost with a few questions, and Fabian replied.
The cooperative's existing reserve wines had been made with added sulfites, so he couldn't use them for the wines he wanted to make.
Each year, he retained some wine from the harvest in barrels, foudres, and tanks, adding younger wines over time.
By 2024, he had enough to make Paradoxe, blending the 2023 harvest with wines from earlier years.
About 40 percent of the blend comes from the reserve.
Fabian doesn't expect its character to change dramatically as the reserve ages. Adding younger wine each year helps retain freshness.
Paradoxe is Chavost's multivintage Champagne.
The exception he'd been planning all along.
Bottle of the Week
Chavost Paradoxe Brut Nature
Structure
Region: Champagne, France
Grapes: 60% Chardonnay, 40% Meunier
Harvests: 2019–2023
Terroir: North-facing clay-limestone soils
Vinification: 50% barrels and 4,000-liter foudres, 50% stainless steel
Dosage: 0 g/L (Brut Nature)
Added sulfites: None
Disgorgement: June 2025
Price: Around $60
I spent a ridiculous amount of time just smelling this wine.
Before the first sip, I went back to the glass again and again.
Ripe yellow apples, green apple, lemonade. Flowers. Lots of them. Something a little wild, almost unruly, but so pretty.
Then the first sip.
Soft, broad, generous. The fruit was ripe but never heavy. A faint bitterness toward the finish, just enough to catch my attention.
I might have wished for a little more acidity.
But I was having too much fun.
I poured another glass.
What to Notice
I unexpectedly encountered Chavost's Blanc d'Assemblage again at an izakaya recently.
Higher acidity, leaner, chalkier. Almost transparent.
Paradoxe was all fragrance and generosity. Ripe fruit, flowers, a soft, expansive mouthfeel.
Where to Find It
Chavost is worth looking for if you're curious about Champagnes made without added sulfites or dosage. Don't assume that means lean, severe wines.
Paradoxe is anything but.
A Short Detour
My mother made a wonderful crab curry.
The best version used Chesapeake blue crabs. Sweet, delicate meat, in a curry thin enough that you could still taste the crab.
She grew up in Sri Lanka, where seafood was a big part of her life. Her father worked near the coast and would send baskets of crabs and other seafood home on the bus.
Years later, living around Washington, DC, she found another coast and another crab.
We'd go crabbing on the Chesapeake.
My cousin Sandeep organized some of those outings. My mother took the lead. She'd grown up fishing, crabbing, even hunting.
I remember the excitement of pulling up a piece of chicken we'd used as bait and finding two good-sized blue crabs hanging on to it.
Two on the same piece of chicken.
We brought them home.
Some became curry.
I still make crab curry, though mine isn't nearly as good as hers. Not even close.
I make coconut sambol too. My mother grated fresh coconut. I usually don't, and it doesn't taste quite the same.
My wife likes my version, though, so it has found a place in our kitchen.
My mother doesn't cook anymore.
I wish she still could. She took such pleasure in feeding people.
These days, I occasionally bring home live crabs and other crustaceans, dispatching them just before cooking.
My wife isn't thrilled.
My youngest is fascinated.
Sometimes I wish I could sit down to another bowl of my mother's crab curry. Or have her taste mine and tell me what I'm missing.
Until the next bottle,
Manj
P.S. Is there a dish you grew up eating that you've tried to make yourself, but can never quite get right?
Hit reply and tell me. I'd love to hear about it.
I also share short Champagne notes on Instagram: @le_dosage.
