Christina Waters

Pomodori Time! The 17th Annual NatureSweet Carmel TomatoFest®, happens once again on Sunday, September 14, 2008,12:30 pm, at the magnificent Quail Lodge Resort in Carmel.Founder/Director of the TomatoFest®, Gary Ibsen, announced that 60 of America’s finest chefs will attend this year’s TomatoFest to offer guests the opportunity to enjoy world-class cuisine featuring heirloom tomatoes in an unpretentious, harvest-celebration atmosphere. Ibsen says, “Our gathering of culinary artists will showcase a range of unforgettable epicurean creations from classical to innovative (more…)

The infamous Le Cigare Volant, now in its 21st vintage, was the wine that launched Rhône Ranger Randall Grahm into the oenological stratosphere. A brilliant riff upon the Châteauneuf-du-Pape blend of grenache, syrah, mourvedre and a few dabs of this and that, the Cigare has always proved reliable, classy, and in some years, great. 2004 — the year of the latest Flying Cigar release - might be one of the great ones. Weighing in at a highly drinkable 13.5% alcohol, this garnet red elixir is dense with roses and licorice, a hint of cassis, spice and a beefy center. Minerals haunt every sip of this blend of 50% grenache, 24% mourvedre, 22% syrah, and a bit of carignane and cinsault.

This cuvée’s grapes hail from Gilroy and San Benito, as well as the mighty Bien Nacido vineyard down in Santa Maria. The Bonny Doon Vineyard flagship is a lovely creation, about as good as $30 gets and a sensational partner to that festive rack of lamb you’ve been planning. Best on Day Two, so open it now! Le Cigare Volant — life’s too short not to indulge.

Hands-On Sensations: Foodwise, you need to make plans to join mega-food instructor, menu designer and restaurateur Mimi Snowden at one of her upcoming Cooking Classes.
Sept. 18th & 19th- “An Indian Summer,” an end of summer BBQ with succulent bbq lamb.
October 23rd & 24th-”Bountiful Harvest,” celebrate the flavors and aromas of fall.
November13th & 14th-”Entertaining with friends,” new exciting recipes to share with friends and family.

Classes fill up quickly so sign up soon. Mimi’s waiting to see you all again! All classes are held at Mimi’s scenic Corralitos ranch kitchen — for details check the website, or call:(831) 722-4011.

The capsule view of Ben Stiller’s in-your-face comedy of egos goes like this: an inconsistent, multi-genre amalgam that delivers some inspired riffs, a Disneyworld of offensive stereotypes, Grade A men-in-groups horseplay, a rousing, shorts-sucking send-up of Hollywood greed, and the genius of Robert Downey Jr. It’s also unspeakably funny.

All of this sometimes brilliant, sometimes so-so cinematic bombast is redeemed by the ease and intelligence of Downey’s cunning performance — a role, within a role, within a role — think multiple personality disorder of the sort to which character actors like Peter Sellers, Marlon Brando, Ben Kingsley were prey.

Downey’s character, Kirk Lazarus - an Australian multiple Oscar-winner (think Russell Crowe) cast as a black Vietnam era soldier — is so committed to his role in the film within the film, that he has undergone drug therapy to darken his skin. Add the appropriate hair treatments and Richard Roundtree/Jim Brown voice lowered an octave or so, and you’ve got an eerie and ironically likeable blaxploitation stud. Downey not only doesn’t back down from what could have been an offensive stereotype, he works it right down to the Shaft.

Downey’s uncanny incarnation of a brother from another planet — Planet Hollywood — creates a terrific bookend performance to Heath Ledger’s Joker. (more…)

Wine lovers will hit the trail on Saturday, September 13, Noon-5pm, for the vineyard pub crawl known as the Corralitos Wine Trail.

At this popular event, inquiring oenophiles can visit all four Corralitos award-winning wineries Alfaro Family Vineyards, Nicholson Vineyards, Pleasant Valley Vineyards and Windy Oaks Estate Winery , taste barrel samples, walk the vineyards, and talk to the winemakers. One ticket covers all tastings, food, and fun.Check the Wine Trail website for all details. (Wine Trail poster boy Richard Alfaro is shown pouring some of his luscious Alfaro Family Vineyards pinot noir at Hollins House last month.) (more…)

The talented Nicci Tripp, whose sophisticated orchestrations of fine, seasonal ingredients helped reinforce Theo’s culinary reputation for the past seven years, has left the Soquel landmark to become General Manager and Executive Chef at Vida, located at 1222 Pacific Avenue in downtown Santa Cruz. According to Vida’s publicist, Tripp has completely revamped the kitchen, and brought in his own staff to help interpret the all-new menu.

Commenting on the changes, Theo’s owner Roger Romano told me (more…)

An alfresco dinner prepared by chef Nicci Tripp (see post above!), and matched by wines from downtown Santa Cruz’ enoteca VinoCruz will include a farm tour guided by organic growers Rich and Laura Everett. The wine pairings to accompany each of six courses, will be presented by VinoCruz’ glamorous and very knowledgeable oenophiles, J-P Correa and Jeffery Kongslie. Author of Fields That Dream, a Journey to the Roots of Our Food, Jenny Kurzweil, will be among the guests, at the farm located at 2111 Old San Jose Road (831/566-0472).

Organized by 50 Mile Radius, the event celebrates our celebrated local bounty and some of its top producers. More than simply a designer dinner, this event promises to be a close encounter with brilliantly-prepared foods, enjoyed on the very spot that produces it. The time of year is perfect for a long, leisurely, alfresco meal.
Tickets, priced at $165, are available at the 50 Mile Radius website. For more information and reservations call 831/621-3794.

The subtext behind complaints about multi-cuisine restaurants (see my mini-rant below) is not only that it’s incredibly difficult to get one culinary genre right, much less two or three. But that calling a place, e.g. an “Asian Restaurant” implies that there is such a thing as “Asian” food. And that implies the devolution of specific ethnic cuisines and traditions into a glob of fused, homogenous cookery that merely nods in the general direction of its various influences.

How much of so-called “Asian” cuisine, for example, is Japanese? And how much is Thai? or Cambodian? or Mandarin, Szechuan, Vietnamese? You see where I’m going.

If I drove by a restaurant that billed its specialty as “American cooking,” I would not only be confused, but I’d wonder what happened to, e.g. Cajun, or Chesapeake, or Texas-style, or California, or Southern. What I mourn in this postmodern, globalized environment is the details of specificity - in wine it’s called terroir. Those unique flavors, styles, histories, influences, ingredients, which distinguish this place from that, one climate from another.

When you globalize cuisine, you cheat every one of those powerful, unique and honorable influences. You neutralize them in the name of convenience, i.e. $$$.

Santa Cruz-based, mixed media artist Victoria May creates exquisite, hand-wrought creations. Her uncanny blends of richly-worked fabric and photoemulsion tend to push viewers to the edge of their art vocabularies. And that’s exactly what solid artwork should do.

So get up to The City and stretch your senses at May’s opening reception, this Saturday, August 16 from 3-5pm. The show, entitled Residuum, continues through September 27 - at the Don Soker Contemporary Art Gallery, 29 Geary in San Francisco. 415/291-0966.

Four of us worked our way through some charismatic Italian wines last night, accompanied by a little food — at La Posta, where the ceiling baffles and rustic carpets are definitely taking the edge off the noise level. With chef Chris Avila at the helm, we sampled a stupendous salumi plate — all, save the duck prosciutto, were house-made examples of dried, cured meats at their best. The range was vast — it might have been a night in Genoa.

Fresh spring salads laced with infant white turnips, haricots verts, snap peas and fresh mint provided a terrific foil for the rich meats. A pizza showed off the wood-burning oven and the chef’s way with an ultra-thin, delicious crust. And dessert of (more…)