Gabriella: the Never-ending Story
Fresh seafood gets star treatment at the hands of Sean Baker, who makes beautiful food at Gabriella Cafe. Baker is currently running a variety of sculptural crudo appetizers involving artworks of oysters with baby fennel mignonette, uni interspersed with tart minced...
A Bite of the Big Apple
What's not to like about New York? And since my mom and I both love the Big Apple, we spent a few quality days there last week - taking in a show, museums, the action in Central Park (in full spring bloom!), the NFL draft (my mother loves men in groups), and feasting...
Second Bites
Rockefeller Plaza is a magnet for visitors and celebrities and we had fun swilling coffee and some of the finest pastries in New York, at the chic Dean & DeLuca coffee shop that overlooks the "Good Morning America" crowds gathering to wave and scream for the cameras....
Feel Good Foods @ Vine Hill
The visually delightful, all-organic catering group founded by Heidi Schlecht and Amy Linstrom (who also operate the inviting River Cafe) continues to fuel some of our best parties. Platters lavish with edible flowers, opulent proteas, and other eye-candy adorned the...
Tasting Notes: Cumbre 2005 Raffaelli Pinot Noir
Big enough for lamb, restrained enough for mahi mahi — this is one serious contender for terroir-defining Santa Cruz Mountains appellation pinot noir. After an initial wave of cola and spice, primarily cloves, this sumptuous wine offers a dark finish that goes into...
Choice Bites
A girl's gotta eat, right? And in this region, that can be a delicious prospect. Over at River Cafe - I do love that place - I drifted into an altered state over a brilliant "salad" of quinoa, that soft, fluffy, Inca grain. The pale yellow quinoa was tossed with...
Burgundy to Burn For
Comparison shopping can be sweet. In order to better understand California pinot noirs - and specifically those made in the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation - it is sometimes necessary to cave in and purchase, taste and sigh over a pinot noir made in France. Here's...
Biodynamic Muscat Ca’ del Solo
What a delightful creation, this vivacious 2007 Muscat from Bonny Doon Vineyard's Ca'del Solo estate. Cultivated according to the exacting standards of biodynamic agriculture since 2004, this spare, rugged vineyard has produced a luscious new wine that is full of...
Chocolate Worth the Calories
The quest for chocolate continues — and my most recent fieldwork has turned up another reason to live. Lake Champlain Organic Chocolate! Packaged in a convenient purse-sized (!) 1.25 oz bar, this truly TDF chocolate comes in some brilliant forms. Those who like it...
Silver Mountain Pinot Noir Tasting Notes
Silver Mountain Vineyards - 2004, Tondré's Grapefield, Santa Lucia Highlands. I'm convinced that something close to sorcery must occur in the Tondré Grapefield. Because Tony Craig - formerly of David Bruce, who's now joined founding winemaker Jerold O'Brien at...
Egg Power!
TLC rancher Jim Dunlop himself was doing the farmers market honors last Saturday - sitting on a mound of free-range gold from his free-rambling, pasture raised chickens. I've wandered the range with some of the very chickens who laid these eggs and a happier, more...
Cafe Fanny
A charmed corner of Berkeley, this wedge of turf at Cedar & San Pablo. At one edge of the small parking lot is the mighty wine house of Kermit Lynch, where I stopped by to see what I could afford in the way of 2005 Burgundy. (Not much, but I did my best.) At the other...
A Taste of Soif
Friday. 5:30pm. A splash of Gruner Veltliner from the Austrian house of Nigl in the glass and a beautiful appetizer plate of alternating coral and green bands of ahi and avocado. Add a dusting of black sesame seeds and a luscious vinaigrette spiked with tamari and...
Silver Mountain Pinot
Somebody's gotta do it. My intensive, rugged - nay, grueling - taste testing of Silver Mountain Vineyards Pinot Noirs is nowhere near complete. Next week I'll be providing in-depth notes, but meanwhile I am morally obligated to urge every single one of you to go out...
Pinot Paradise
At a table set for two dozen people, the pinot noir flowed freely. Well of course it did - after all every other person at the table was a winemaker specializing in Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noirs. Jeff and Andrea Emery (SCMtn Vineyard), Nick Guerrero (Vine Hill),...
Vinocruz Does Pinot
The pick of the week at Vinocruz just happens to be the mighty 2005 Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards Pinot Noir, Branciforte Creek, which won Double Gold Medals in the recent San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Kudos to winemaker Jeff Emery. Come test drive this...
New Testament Cuisine
What would Jesus eat? we asked as we thought about a special Easter dinner this year. Well, obviously lamb, yogurt, onions, rice pilaff, pine nuts, something with lemons and olive oil. Garlic, absolutely garlic. Lamb grilled over wood found in the desert, like...
Springtime on a Plate
If Sean Baker gets any better at what he does, Gabriella could wind up with a Michelin star one of these days. We were blown away on the first evening of Spring by a few choice appetizers from what is becoming the top kitchen in the area. Certainly for sheer...
Au Midi for Lunch
It was a moment of matchless synchronicity. I met my great and good friend Rita Bottoms, former empress of UCSC Special Collections, for lunch at Au Midi in Aptos. There we were, surrounded by colorful impressions of Parisian cafe life, thanks to a display of oil...
Oral Fantasy
Confession. I'd walk a mile for a cupcake. A residual daydream from childhood, where the cupcake was Queen. An ornamental, hand-held device that can transport you to immediate comfort — ah, the cupcake! Creamy, layered with complex sweetness, spice, tender texture...
Doon and Dooner
Bonny Doon Vineyard has no peer when it comes to self-reinvention. The oenological shape-shifting continues with this week's preview of the first all-biodynamically produced, Demeter-certified bottlings from BDV's Ca'del Solo Vineyard in Monterey County. And there is...
Oswald Update: #417
Relax, it's gonna happen. I spoke with Oswald co-owner/chef Damani Thomas yesterday and he's definitely on the project. "We're just trying to get the construction going," he said. Everything is taking longer than expected, but Thomas is looking toward Oswald opening,...
On the Waterfront
The view from the front door of Riva Fish House is enough to induce instant serenity. The big-shouldered seafood menu at Riva is always a reason to drive out onto the water and enjoy all those huge, oceanic views. The gelato selection alone is legendary. But now...
l’Ecole No.41: A Wine Diatribe
That's French for schoolhouse forty-one, and it probably refers to some esoteric bit of vineyard architecture somewhere up in Washington. But all you need to remember is the name. This winery - L'Ecole No. 41 - makes killer faux Bordeaux - especially something called...