While the Rhône Ranger were pouring grenache next door, Jeff Emery—one of the stellar grenache makers in the region—was busily forklifting grapes for his 2012 vintages, from truck to cellar.
Those are Jeff’s just picked Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard grapes posing for this week’s masthead at the top of my web column.
And, for the record, my current house red is Bonny Doon Vineyard’s Clos de Gilroy, containing 75% grenache grapes. Killer and affordable.
Do some wineries have all the fun? or does it just seem that way…..
At the annual Day of the Doon celebration for Bonny Doon Vineyard wine club members, Randall Grahm and company finished off the impressive, multi-course meal created by chef Ryan Shelton and pastry chef Yoomi Shelton, with a firedancing ceremony.
After the incredibly graceful (and brave) Luke Mahler whirled balls of fire around the intrepid winemaker, in a beautiful ceremony of dance and invocation, chef Shelton ignited the huge paella pan (now filled with grappa) and stirred the flaming liquid, called queimada, adding bits of fruit and spices to the blend.
From northwest Spain, Galicia, comes this tradition of distilled spirits, ignited into a beautiful blue fire while a special incantation wards off evil spirits.
The potent queimada ritual must have been successful since no evil spirits showed up later to steal Yoomi Shelton’s bewitching peanut butter meringues and layered grape gelée candies.
The high spirited finale topped an amazing wine dinner. Truly spectacular!
PEPPERFEST! Saturday, October 6th, Westside Farmers Market.
You know that pepper season is in full swing, so why not have an entire party to honor the brilliantly-hued vegetable? That was a rhetorical question, btw.
PepperFest will dazzle your Saturday, as will the peppery patter by master gardener Orin Martin, Manager of the Alan Chadwick Garden. Learn insider pepper lore from Everett Family farmers and watch a pepper roasting and smoking demonstration. Both sweet and hot pepper varieties will also be for sale at the Everett Farm booth, as well as others. The Westside Farmers Market runs from 9-12. Get yourself down there by 11 am sharp for Orin’s discussion on the mind-boggling variety of peppers you can enjoy right this moment of the central coast farm calendar.
[photo: Weston Monroe]
Stupendously tart, crisp and perfumed with a wine scent, these lovely Pink Pearl apples absolutely made our day one recent lunchtime.
From a local Watsonville grower, they were discovered at New Leaf market.
Beyond even Gala, Braeburn and Newtown.
In his final opera, Parsifal—whose motifs had been built over a thirty-year period—Wagner fulfilled his vision of operatic “music theater” as something that would go far beyond the classical notion of a drama told in song and music.
The Parsifal of this season’s Bayreuth Festival—direction by Stefan Herheim and set design by Heike Scheele—was in clear and stunning resonance with Wagner’s intention, and used electrifying manipulation of sets, lighting, costume, movement, and voice to achieve a fusion of space, time, and music.
When this production was first mounted several years ago it produced shock and awe. This season the sight of crimson National Socialist banners unfurling swastikas from the ceiling, while the young Parsifal rises from center stage in (more…)
A book of sensory adventure: The rituals, passions and discoveries of an engaged life.