Before summer shows up and forces you to install your window units, which limits your ability to ventilate your apartment, which is triggering to your smoke detectors, which makes browning things on your stovetop super annoying, we have a few more weeks of chilly early-spring weather when you can braise cheap, tough cuts of meat (or vegetables, yes! who doesn’t love a braised leek?) and transform them into flavorful, meltingly tender, savory, dream-haunting meals that will garner praise from all who partake. So now’s the time to drink big, flavorful reds with structure and layered complexity. You’ll also need some cheap, unoaked reds for the braising, so I’ll throw a couple of those in here too, since you’re always asking for them.
