Christina Waters

The best white wine you’ve never heard of. The initial opening of jasmine and mineral salts, continues into a center of golden delicious apples, green and crisp. The piquant finish offers hints of tangerine and lime. At 13% alcohol you could drink this all day long.

Made from central coast grapes by oeno-gurus John Locke and Alex Krause, this mysteriously perfumed yet utterly dry wine is so far available only in Canada (there’s a long story here), and at Soif. But soon, it will be all over your neighborhood. And in your glass.

Nora Ephron’s new film is just a trifle. A mere bon bon. An amuse bouche for baby boom nostalgics. But for providing the cinematic feast that is Meryl Streep playing Julia Child, Ephron deserves our unrestrained gratitude.

Streep is as joyous in her over-sized portrayal as the real Julia Child was in everything she did. Large, generous, and graced with a huge appetite for life’s sensory possibilities, the real Child was the savvy gastro-entrepreneuse who made “cuisine” a household word in post-war America. Streep, by all accounts our greatest living actress, not only retrieves the most Childesque mannerisms - the perpetually tossed head, the rolling eyes, the warbling chortle - she goes further. Not into an over-the-top impersonation. Dan Ackroyd already did that.

Mais non! Streep does something even better. She offers us Julia Child transfigured. Julia Child as we remember her, as the collective “we” created her — a robust, hulking, darling of a woman who brought joy, memorable recipes and most of all empowerment to several generations of hopeful gourmet cooks. Streep is blindingly accurate in portraying our cultural memory of this icon. Not Julia as she exactly was, but Julia exactly as we recall her. (more…)

It wasn’t simply a long week of long, sumptuous operas. It was a pilgrimage. A spiritual journey, in which — thanks to the power of music so beautiful we mortals don’t deserve it — the haunting fact of mortality was made thunderingly clear.

The four operas comprising The Ring of the Nibelungen created by Richard Wagner 150 years ago, require stamina, patience, a huge investment of time and money, and the willingness to be open to the magic of theatrical make-believe. For those able to surrender, The Ring rewards with what must be the ultimate performance experience. And every four years since 2001, Seattle has become a world shrine for Wagner’s devoted worshippers.

Valhalla’s leitmotif has been swirling through my head for the past week, blazing with French horns and diminished sevenths. I can only liken it to a biochemical firewalk — once your sensory tastebuds have been consumed in the flames, you’re never the same. And frankly, I still don’t know quite how to articulate the power (more…)

Eloquent feet, observed at a stoplight on Mission Street. Exhaustion in day-glo yellow, to which we say “thank you.”

Refreshingly non-multi-cultural, resoundingly mythic and visually ravishing - the Seattle Opera’s “Ring” cycle invaded my consciousness last Sunday and didn’t let go until six days, four operas, and 17 hours of music fit for the gods had elapsed. Here’s baritone Greer Grimsley as Wotan. Yes, he was that choice — sexy, masculine, archetypally moody, AND he could sing!

(to be continued…)

My homecoming dinner, after a week of opera in Seattle, involved chorizo and Bellwether Farms ricotta pizza, Roman-style thin and delicious, from The Cellar Door. The long, long communal table was filled with prix fixe clients, headed by Bonny Doon Vineyard winemaker Randall Grahm & family. And Charlie Parker’s kitchen was hoppin’ with smart ideas.

Since woman does not live by pizza alone, we also shared an evening alacarte special of slow-roasted pork loin, sliced over a bed of fragrant creamed corn and spinach. (Those are infant rohlrabi sprouts atop the pork.) A pungent relish of tarragon deviled egg played counterpoint, and everything tasted spot on paired with Grahm’s current masterpiece, the 2005 Cigare de Volant. This oasis of enlightened food and wine is located dangerously close to my house. It’s just so easy to drop by, sit at the bar, select something small - okay, maybe two or three things small - and pair with wine. Life is still good.

In addition to sampling two charming - really, that’s the word - examples of Spanish mencia varietal, we split a small plate of tender, tangy calamari salad on a float of micro-gazpacho. Soif still owns the island of intriguing off-the-beaten-track wines. Go immediately to sample the mencia flight, including the lively tamarind and roses of the 2007 Guimaro “Amandi” from Ribeira Sacra.