by Christina Waters | Mar 31, 2010 | Art |
If there’s a stringed instrument that David Lindley hasn’t mastered, it doesn’t exist. The former lead guitarist for Jackson Browne, whose soaring riffs burned their way through most of the classics of Browne’s golden age – and beyond, into the eclectic world music excesses of El Rayo-X – will team up with dobro maestro Bob Brozman this Saturday, at the Rio Theater, for some blistering string theory.
Lindley’s virtuosity with the string repertoire of Asia, Egypt, the Caribbean, Uzbekestan, Latin America, the American south, and on and on, has made him a legend among ethnomusicologists as well as rock groupies who want it all. The show should be amazing.
Amazing.
Rio Theater – still holding down the center of Soquel Avenue on the eastside of Santa Cruz. Contact Snazzy Productions for ticket info. But just be there. The show this Saturday starts at 7:30pm – Gold Circle $40adv/general $25.
by Christina Waters | Mar 30, 2010 | Home |
Giving authentic meaning to the phrase “artisanal pizza”, muralist James Aschbacher moonlights as a pizzaiolo for close friends and lucky neighbors. I was treated to one of Aschbacher’s thin-crust pizzas when I lunched this week with the artist and his wife, novelist Lisa Jensen.
Turns out there are a few absolute necessities involved in making pizza so good that it occupies a higher plane than the mere “homemade.”
First, the gloves. That’s for opening the oven door when the temperature is full-blast 550 degrees.
Then there’s the dough. Stretched thin enough to read through.
Barilla pasta sauce. Certo. Fresh basil, you bet. Plus various secret topping ingredients that involve cheeses, olives and other stuff.
Another secret weapon: the pizza screen (available at 
Chefworks in downtown Santa Cruz). Instead of building your pizza on a round pan (think cookie sheet) you construct it on a spherical mesh grid, which allows for the heat to move up around, in and out of the pie.
This is what keeps the ultra-thin (Roman-style) Aschbacher crust light, crisp and golden.
Final secret: the pizza is placed on the very bottom of the oven (you gotta have a gas oven for this). NOT on the lowest rack. On the BOTTOM of the oven.
Jim watches his pizza like an Italian matriarch, turning it every few minutes during the roughly 10 minutes of baking time.
Served with a delicious Merlot, this pizza was a bravura bit of cookery. Unbelievable.
And since you’re wondering…Jim uses pizza dough from Trader Joe’s. Aschbacher has tried it all, including from-scratch. But this is what he swears by. Well, I’m a believer. This pizza was molto, molto bene!
by Christina Waters | Mar 29, 2010 | Food, Home |
Surrounded by the sacred artifacts, fetishes and flavorings of his alchemical trade, and clad in ceremonial robes, well-seasoned shaman of all things culinary—Joseph Schultz—prepares for an intensive workshop in Greco-Turkish cooking at the demonstration kitchen at New Leaf Market.
Was the maestro giving a crash course in ethnic cookery? or was he refreshing his chops for the May 1st opening of his new India Joze Restaurant?
Stay tuned.
by Christina Waters | Mar 28, 2010 | Home, Movies |
Tell me I’m not alone in finding the new Tim Burton exercise in narcissism a crashing bore. (Except for the miraculous vision of Johnny Depp.) Obviously made to cash in on the momentary 3-D craze, Alice in Wonderland, the newest screen visitation to the holy shrine of Lewis Carroll is just not up to the task, I don’t care how much turquoise eyeshadow they put on Helena Bonham-Carter’s Betty Boop eyes!
Oh the opening definitely grabbed me, offering a shimmering reminder of the magic of Carroll’s shamanic fable of the role of the imagination in constructing the texture of reality. But when that tiny doorway finally lets the newly miniaturized Alice into the garden of talking flowers, things grew—not curiouser and curiouser, but rather more and more obvious, predictable, and in many cases, (ironically) unimaginative.
To relish the gorgeous face and nimble movements of Johnny Depp is to realize all over again that no artificially-generated imagery can match the nuance and depth of human action. But Depp’s appeal is almost drowned in computerized cliché and hackneyed set design.
The genius that brought us Edward Scissorhands somehow failed (more…)
by Christina Waters | Mar 28, 2010 | Home |
More from the infinite well of surprises that is Shoppers Corner‘s bargain wine rack.
Here, for example, is a ridiculously well-made cabernet sauvignon – H by Havens, 2006, North Coast. For under $10 (I cropped this with the price label still on it so you could be amazed), this pours dark berries, black tea, a hint of anise, all on a sturdy backbone of tannins.
The wine is composed of 75% cabernet sauvignon, 12.5% syrah and 12.5% merlot.
Lovely with beef.
(And while you’re there, check out the many other good value tipples from $7.99 – $9.99 on the same bargain rack.)
