Christina Waters

Here’s how we handle it, this winter/recession thing.

Beans, rice and Italian sausages (all natural pork made by New Leaf).

Add a big glass of Bonny Doon Vineyard’s excellent Sangiovese, a few candles (yes, David, we still dine by candlelight every night), and voila!

Jeff Emery’s splendid Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard wines just continue to find traction, most lately with the judges of the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Emery’s robust Graciano 2007 bearing his Quinta Cruz label, took Best of Class & Judges’ Choice awards in the “Other Red Varietals” category.  The big, spicy Graciano — often blended with Tempranillo in distinguished Spanish wines  — offers complexity, rounded dark berry notes and plenty of grip. At $28 it makes a confident partner for game meats and spicy pastas. Available at the winery, 334-A Ingalls St., on the Westside,  as well as your favorite stores.

Katherine Stern has worked expert magic on the menu at La Posta. Since the richly resuméd chef came on board a few months ago, things have gotten very interesting at the chic Seabright dining room.

Contemporary Italian cooking. Deeply burnished flavors. Uncluttered presentation.

E.g. an intensely tangy Meyer lemon crostata, with mascarpone.

La Posta - open for dinner Tues-Sun - at 538 Seabright Avenue.

We learn many things from the new Sherlock Holmes film starring the very pretty Jude Law as Dr. Watson, and the always appealing Robert Downey Jr. as the eccentric fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.

We learn for example that Madonna was right to ditch Guy Ritchie, a man whose directorial credentials reside in his ability to write big checks.

We learn that Robert Downey Jr. is easily the most watchable actor on the screen. Yet that isn’t enough. Even he—gasp—is beginning to rely on self-parody and schtick. He had to. There was neither script, nor story nor director available.

We learn, once and for all, that despite his visual appeal, Jude Law cannot act.

We learn that misogyny is afoot and evident in the casting of two woefully awkward and untrained ingenues to play the female bits in the new Sherlock Holmes flick. One is a poor girl so loaded with collagen that she can barely say her lines. The other is a terrific looking actress (I use the term with abandon here), Rachel McAdams, whom we are to believe is not only a cunning vixen, a brilliant sleuth in her own right but the once and only love interest of the great Holmes himself. Yet when McAdams opens her mouth, the entire facade crumbles. Her squeaky valley girl delivery makes a mockery of what might have been a delicious foil for the utterly chewable Downey…..to be continued….

The prestigious San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition has showered the winemakers of Soquel Vineyards — Jon Morgan, Peter & Paul Bargetto, with gold (and not the kind advertised on those TV infomercials either).

Three opulent Pinot Noirs, a Sangiovese and a Cabernet Sauvignon made at the small Santa Cruz mountains winery, took Gold Medals — with a double gold going to the cab!

This could be the excuse you’ve needed to get out to the beautiful tasting room located in the hills above Soquel to sample all of the award-winners. Or you could check out your favorite wine store (e.g. New Leaf, Shoppers, VinoCruz) and pick up one of these tasty tipples. Three of Soquel Vineyards’ award-winning pinots come from Lester Family Vineyard, where ace viticulturist Prudy Foxx tends the vines.

Kudos!

News of Gabriella’s impending demise—promulgated by the owner himself—seems to have been premature.

The love of a good tax attorney might be just the ticket. We’ll see.

But whatever the actual status of the tiny downtown dining room, a packed house last Friday (including me and my birthday buddy) enjoyed some of the best food ever produced by wunderkind Brad Briske and his young kitchen team.

Somehow there continues to be miles of savvy and style separating what this dining room can produce and what others can manage. Not sure just how or why. But I will be back for more next week.

The words on this promo poster say it all!

Proving that there are plenty of bad film ideas to go around, Denzel Washington hacks his way through post-apocalyptic America armed only with a machete, four or five semi-automatic weapons and a big, sacred book that is somehow going to salvage what remains of Mankind.

The Book of Eli, co-produced by Washington and “directed” by two guys billed as “The Hughes Brothers,” answers the burning question: “What ever happened to Jennifer ‘Fame’ Beals?” Well she turns up at the kept woman of Gary Oldman (who is so severely tic-ridden as to erase all memory of his former cinematic brilliance). Oldman is the honcho of a frontier town that resembles a cross between the cast party of Road Warrior and a Hells Angels convention.

Packs of very dirty men dressed in leather roam what’s left of the world after a nuclear something has destroyed (more…)

Billions, schmillions—Avatar is sheer self-indulgence touted as cutting-edge sci-tech.

But that’s not my big issue with this bloat of folkloric cheesiness wrapped in day-glo and eco-blather. And I don’t care how many billions are being shelled out for this film.

My main problem with Avatar lies with the moral implications of such big budget generic commercialism: Lack of courage.

Once upon a time, filmmakers had imaginations larger than their budgets. Often they had fresh stories to tell, and fueled by their imaginations they shaped these stories with words, images and directorial vision into cinematic gems. The greatest made work that endured, enchanted and enlightened.

Given the amount of advance hype, the ten years of his life director James Cameron (The Abyss, Aliens, The Titanic) gave to the project, and the amount of money it cost, there was good reason to get excited about the Big Holiday Movie that opened less than a month ago. Alas while Cameron took his sweet time tinkering with technology and special effects, film fashion passed him by. The hackneyed graphics, the psychedelic sensibility, the embarrassing ethnic stereotypes, the recycled underwater-meets-the-rainforest imagery, the sophomoric script and most of all the shocking lack of fantasy/sci-fi vision make this the howler of the decade.

Dances with Wolves meets The Lion King
Cameron is a sucker for simple tales of worlds colliding with some sort of trans-species lovefest as a result. He’s made that film before - and better. (more…)

The beautiful 2008 chardonnay made by Sal Godinez for Vine Hill is a surprisingly tangy, tart pour that avoids the cloying oak and butterscotch of so many California chardonnays.

Laced with minerals, the new Vine Hill release clocks in at a solid 14.4% alc, begins with plenty of lemon and lime, and then finishes up with hazelnuts and an appealing hint of banana.

Spectacularly distinctive, this wine adores middle-eastern flavors, grilled chicken and oil-rich seafoods. For $27 it is a great way to get acquainted with the future of Santa Cruz Mountains white wines.

Tikka Masala from Seeds of Change - is serious flavor in a jar. All the labor-intensive work of grinding, roasting, mincing, and simmering has been done for you - all you need to do is get a jar of this wonderfully aromatic simmer sauce ($6 @ New Leaf) and let its heady perfume turn something ordinary into a spice trip.

Confession: I am not a mistress of Indian cuisine. I don’t have a wildly successful curry recipe up my sleeve. But I adore (adore) the extreme spices of Mother India. So I’m always grateful for high-wattage shortcuts.
We had roast chicken the other night. Chicken can always use a little extra kick, no? This tikka masala worked transformative magic. I like my Indian flavors on the hot side, so we also applied a few hefty dollops of “hot” mango chutney to the chicken, along with tons of the tikka masala.

Fabulous. (I know all of you spice purists are probably rolling your eyes. But some of us gotta work for a living and don’t have tons of leisure time to watch the Food Channel and whip up a respectable masala from scratch.)