by Christina Waters | Nov 4, 2011 | Art, Home |
Proving how easily a 250-year-old opera can provide musical epiphany, George Frideric Handel came to San Francisco last week with his delectable pastiche of arias, recitatives, and impossible vocalese —the opera Xerxes.
It was probably one of Benjamin Franklin’s favorite operas, this Italian tale of mistaken genders, identities and lovers, written by a German composer and widely performed in London. What San Francisco Opera audiences feasted on at last Saturday’s matinee performance was the aural luminescence of seven of the world’s finest Baroque singers vying with each other for complete dominance of the gorgeous music, the witty set design and some of the longest, most complex passages ever written for the human voice.
It was a banquet of trills, glissandoes and accelerated arpeggios. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Nov 3, 2011 | Home, Wine |
My friend Mateo scarfed down two orders of the Cajun fried oysters while I took my time over this deeply comforting appetizer of sautéed fresh porcinis on toast dusted with parmesan reggiano and topped with a fried egg.
It was all the better with a glass of Birichino Malvasia Bianca, a creation of Soif wine buyer and resident oeno-maestro John Locke, who tells me that his young Birichino wine label will be including two pinot noirs—one from Central Coast grapes and another small batch from Santa Cruz Mountain fruit, along with a malvasia, vin gris and grenache—in its 2011 vintage.
More to drink. More to like.
by Christina Waters | Nov 3, 2011 | Home, Wine |
Write this down: Palacios “Petalos” Mencia.
Now go to Soif.
Say out loud the words you wrote down.
Wait for a glass of scarlet wine to arrive.
Swirl, sniff and drink.
Be amazed.
by Christina Waters | Nov 2, 2011 | Wine |
Big Basin Vineyards winemaker Bradley Brown teams up with Chef Josiah Slone of Sent Sovi in Saratoga next week for a sparklling four-course dinner on Thursday, November 17.
Winemaker Brown will talk about the various wines served, and bring participants up to speed on the current harvest of 2011. The menu is blatantly mouth-watering, and includes smoked, cured and fried appetizer “bites” paired with a voluptuous meritage of grenache, syrah and cabernet. After a butter lettuce, shrimp and fennel salad course, Chef Slone will serve sonoma Liberty Duck with harissa dried cherry compote, destined to be perfection along with two of Brown’s award-winning 2009 pinot noirs. Then there’s a 48-hour short ribs with potato confit and smoked chard (the green veggie, not the white wine) course, joined by 2008 Odean Syrah/Cabernet, finishing up with a dark chocolate spice Marquise cake paired with two (more…)
