by Christina Waters | Dec 29, 2010 | Home |
The sounds of bittersweet Italian folktunes filled the air last night, Tuesday, at La Posta, as we joined our friends Ralph and Ray for our end-of-the-year feast.
Wild mushrooms in parchment, grilled yellow-fin on a buttery puree of cecci topped with toasted pistachios (!), and housemade local lamb sausages on a bed of bitter greens.
My appetizer of brick oven roasted Dungeness crab with arugula and sliced beets was flawless! It was another stunning assault on my senses by chef Catherine Stern and her brilliant kitchen.
by Christina Waters | Dec 29, 2010 | Home |
I scored a couple of these laugh-til-you-cry terracotta busts with Barry Obama’s face at the Scotts Valley K-Mart while delivering cookies to my Auntie Da.
Chortling so hard I could barely grasp my credit card to pay, I whisked them back home and wrapped up one to give my girlfriend/opera companion and the other for my sweetie.
You know the deal with Chia pets? You immerse the terra cotta in water for an hour, slather the top with gooey chia seeds, place the soon-to-be shrine in a sunny window and wait until the seeds sprout, and the head will be covered with green “hair.”
Well, it’s day four and so far just a few straggling sprouts……bummer. But hey, there are enough seeds that we can just scrape off Obama’s gooey hair and start over.
In warmer weather.
by Christina Waters | Dec 29, 2010 | Home |
by Christina Waters | Dec 21, 2010 | Home |
“Oscar bait!” some have said. “Dazzling!” Who are they talking about? What planet have they come from? Did they see the same Black Swan that I did? — the new film by Darren Aronofsky, whose past work (Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler) skates the same masochistic ice as does his latest study of physical and psychological abuse. THAT Black Swan? If so, they must be in the employ of Natalie Portman’s publicist.
If Oscars were given for eye makeup, neck tendons, and eyebrows knitted into clichés, then yes, Natalie Portman would win by a landslide. But after the first fifteen minutes of Portman’s mono-dimensional agonizing, her irritating retreat into a short list of mannerisms, I was ready to scream.
Let’s move on. I wanted to love, to adore, to grovel at the feet of this film. Anything ballet, I’m there. And I loved Aronofsky’s past explorations of extreme endurance and self-mutilation. But little did I expect the multi-genre mess (more…)
by Christina Waters | Dec 16, 2010 | Home |
Yalumba is the label, Bush Vine Grenache is the grape. The vintage year is 2008 and the territory is the Barossa of Australia.
Here is a new world grenache with both attitude and grace, loaded with fruit grown under the Southern Cross, where strawberry meets pepper and spice and opens into a voluptuous middle. The finale takes its time.
A whole lot of wine for $14.99 – at Shoppers where wonders never cease.
