Christina Waters

Once again, Avanti scores a direct hit - this time the kitchen won us over with a lunch special of braised pork (pastured pork from TLC Ranch, butchered at the restaurant), golden chanterelles and tumescent, gravity-defying gnocchi.

The pork surrendered upon impact, the chanterelles were blatantly addictive, the gnocchi were perfect and the whole thing was bathed in meat juices and topped with a few, choice bitter greens.

This is food worth getting out of bed for. More and more restaurants are using this incredibly delicious, humanely raised, organic pork raised in south Santa Cruz County by Jim Dunlop - and also available at your favorite local farmers market.

Americans in record numbers are exercising their metastasized souls and fickle appetites. And it’s not on eBay - it’s on the presidential primaries. I thought this was supposed to be a presidential election, not a national installment of “American Idol.” But I was wrong. Showing their collective appetite for fashion, sound bites and easy rhetoric, my fellow Americans are throwing themselves at candidates who mouth the juiciest phrases and have “good personalities.”

Reality check: the public seems to be disfunctioning big time. I call this randomized, ubiquitous hysteria, apocalyptic behavior. This is occurring at every juncture: viz. our mass idolatry of TV personalities and fascination for Britney Spears, hand-held technology, and cheap clothing made by children in China. We have become a nation of media junkies (George Orwell was here first) in thrall to just about everything we see on a computer or tube. Any tube. CNN, Fox, BBC, YouTube, MySpace, QVC, every single blog du jour. We don’t know why trans fats are bad for us, but we do know that Nicole Kidman is finally pregnant.

Just saying a word doesn’t bring about a new state of affairs. (more…)

Unbelievable - but true. While the actual celebration happens on February 14, the glorious bakery and rosticerria is offering oodles of great reasons to come to Gayle’s starting right now.

Pictured here is a lunch we took home last week — luscious rosti from the glittering deli cases of Gayle’s. The fat one on the left was loaded with salame, mozzarella and tapenade (it went quickly), and the other offered plump morsels of artichoke, dill, tomato, and something creamy. Also good, but that salame number really fired our rockets. For $3.50 each, these spiral wraps make wonderful lunches. Just add fruit and tea and you’re there.

But there’s always something tempting at Gayle’s.

Keep in mind that every single day starting January 15, there will be a drawing at Gayle’s for edible prizes. AND all of those winners are eligible for a Grand Prize Drawing on February 14. Ho hum you think? You would be wrong.

The Grand Prize celebrating the 30th anniversary of Gayle’s is a catered 30-person dinner delivered to the winner’s home!

If you only visit Gayle’s on one day this month, make it January 30 when 30% of gross sales will be donated to Second Harvest Food Bank.

Only 3600 bottles of St. George “Absinthe Verte” were made last year by inventive distiller Lance Winters. And I scored one of them last week. Yes, this was the allegedly hallucinogenic tipple that fueled artists, poets and bohemians at the turn-of-the-century.

Think Toulouse Lautrec, Degas, Baudelaire. Banned since 1912, the high proof — 120 proof to be exact — herb-laced elixir has made a one-man come-back, thanks to the tireless tinkering of eau de vie master Winters. The results are, it must be said, unforgettable and dreamy.

What does it taste like? Subtle, bracing, haunting — like a blend of Fernet Branca, grappa and Chartreuse. Only better.

What does it cost? Twice the price of a great bottle of single malt.

Hopefully, the beautiful bottle of will last a long time. It’s filled with the fabulous fragrances of woodworm, hyssop, basil, fennel, nettles, tarragon, and mint, all riding on a high octane cloud of triple distilled brandy.

Happy New Year indeed!

It’s not everyday I’m faced with a wine made in Texas. So when my New Year’s Eve hosts offered me a glass of McPherson Viognier, I struggled to suppress a smug smile. What I tasted wiped that grin right off my face. A Viognier from Lubbock! And a good one. Who knew?

Okay, it might not give the Montrachet people a restless night sleep, but this was a very interesting white wine. Fruit-forward, but something more interesting as well. It had a rugged almost evergreen bouquet, like (trust me on this) Metaxa splashed with retsina. But it pulled back before it had gone that far and opened into some pears and geraniums. Really quite enjoyable. And it turns out the McPherson people have been insisting on making wine in Texas for a long time. The winemaker - UCDavis-trained Kim McPherson (who also makes wine for Cap Rock Winery) - learned about Texas-sized grapes from his father, an early Lone Star pioneer in viticulture. Next time you’re in Texas - you should give it a try.

We lost two local legends last week — Gilda Stagnaro, matriarch of the wharf, and Gary Lease, scholar, hunter extraordinaire and Professor of History of Consciousness. Gilda made a place at her table for over 35 years for devoted locals and delighted visitors. A warm, graceful woman, she was a link to the founding days of the wharf when Genovese fishermen braved the elements and set a tone for colorful immigrants to follow.

Those who knew Gary knew him to be in every sense larger-than-life. A genuine force of nature. He didn’t know how to do anything small or tentative when it could be done with gusto and bravura. Willing to speak plainly and act boldly in order to be true to his huge heart and brilliant mind, Gary was a gifted mentor, a generous host and a genius with expletives. Colorful to the end, he went out in the midst of a wild storm worthy of the wild west figure that he was.

Goodbye to Gilda and Gary - our local color is dimmed by their passing.

How can we explain the Disney-produced mess that is National Treasure 2? How is it possible that Nicolas Cage - with his monochromatic, slack-jawed, puppy-eyed expression, his bad dye job, his cornball tendency to break out in patriotic sweats at the drop of a hat - how is it possible that this man continues to get work in the movies? (Surely it can’t still be the Coppola thing, can it?)

Lacking script, direction, competent acting (except from old pros Jon Voigt, Ed Harris and Helen Mirren, who must have needed the money), National Treasure 2 lurches through a visual wikipedia of great films from the past.

From Indiana Jones we get the underground treasure thing and rolling boulders. (more…)

Röckenwagner for our last lunch of 2007 - and Parkhouse Eatery for the first lunch of 2008. Delicious in both cases. Especially the plump old-fashioned apple pancake with crème fraiche at Röckenwagner Cafe & Bakery in Venice’s Abbot Kinney boutique district, absolutely packed with the young and the beautiful, fueling up before New Year’s Eve.

We hit the crowded cafe after a trek up to the Getty Villa Malibu, where the gazillion dollar refurbish of the once-glorious villa left us cranky and hungry. Antiquities in a theme park, aggressively framed by dining and shopping opportunities - that’s what the Getty money bought. If you remembered the old Getty villa from years gone by, you will be aghast. Get on a plane headed for Sicily or Pompeii instead, where the environment matches the collection. But back to the food.

At Röckenwagner, we consumed a mixed bag of sensational German apple pancake (right), tiny tuna sandwiches on brioche with designer salads, and an unsatisfying niçoise salad with over-cooked “poached” eggs. The breads, and especially a nut-filled scone, were lavish and wonderful — the Rockenwagner bakery continues to impress. By the time we finished up lunch at 1:30pm, the temperature was 80 degrees.

Is Ron Paul the village idiot? the court fool? or one of the smartest secret weapons in the Republican arsenal? Think about it. Why is this stranger-than-fiction gnome up there on the stage with all those relatively clear-headed straight-arrows? Here’s why. Paul is so far right that he’s left, and threatens to become a cult darling of anti-war libertarians and independents alike.

The light went on for me as I watched the recent Republican debate. (more…)