by Christina Waters | Dec 11, 2007 | Holidays, Home |
Already enjoying a cult following among local winemakers, Au Midi in Aptos has planned a splendid New Year’s Dinner menu. Chef Muriel Loubiere will begin with Champagne and oysters, followed by seared foie gras and peaches. Then comes a first course of organic chicken breast with morels and white wine, followed by salad in hazelnut vinaigrette and crispy goat cheese. The entree of sand dabs wrapped in butter lettuce sets up the palate for a triumphant chocolate Bûche de Noël adorned with chestnuts and pears.
Au Midi’s gala Reveillon dinner, served from 7pm to 11pm on the 31st —available by reservation only — is priced at $90 per person (not including tax and gratuity). Move swiftly to make your plans to dine out the old year a la francaise, at Au Midi, located at 7960 Soquel Drive in Aptos (behind the Aptos Cinema). Call 831/685-2600 for reservations.
by Christina Waters | Dec 11, 2007 | Holidays, Home |
Some people go shopping, I get baking. Immediately after Thanksgiving I lay in a supply of pastry flour, candied citron, pecans, walnuts, almonds, cranberries, oatmeal, raisins, oranges and spices — oh, and butter and eggs. And then I retrieve my vanilla-stained copy of the Sunset Magazine from four years ago — the one with a few dozen award-winning Christmas cookie recipes. This is my template. I have embellished each recipe over the years, adding twice the amount of spices, plus coriander and white pepper, to the Pfeffernusse recipe. Stepping up the amount of grated orange peel, and substituted almonds for coconut in the cranberry-orange recipe. You get the idea.
Then – for two weekends – I bake. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Nov 1, 2007 | Food, Holidays, Home |
You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a sushi bar decorated for Halloween. Mobo did a fine, if restrained job of tossing a few pumpkins and spiders and cobwebs here and there on October 31.
But I was there for one thing – my favorite guilty pleasure lunch. Sushi. More specifically, tekka maki (maguro rolled into tight little rolls) with shiso (that peppery leaf that tastes uniquely like itself and nothing else). And since it was a holiday, I decided to splurge and have one order of hamachi nigiri. Add a tall glass of green tea, and you’ve got All Hallow’s Eve heaven on a plate. $13, not counting tip. Pure luxury, soaked in wasabi and soy. Arigato.
Mobo Sushi, 105 S. River St., SC 425-1700
by Christina Waters | Nov 1, 2007 | Holidays, Home |
Any holiday at Ristorante Avanti can be juicy. Especially Halloween, which brings out the outrageous costume consciousness in the normally sedate staff of servers. To be candid, any excuse to dress up and act out is welcomed by this hard-working, hard-playing group, and so it was even more fun than usual having dinner at the Mission Street landmark on All Hallows’ Eve.
We were shown to our table by Willy Nelson, our order was taken by the Queen of England herself, bread was brought by a young man whose daring disguise was as smart as it was obvious. He was dressed as himself! A charming pirate of the Caribbean made sure we had enough bread and a witch with pink hair swirled through the patrons.
Even better was the food. We started with a shared sauté of wild, fresh porcini mushrooms — sweet and earthy — on a bed of frisée. Jack then proceeded to dive into his Avanti standard, the exceptional meatballs with housemade pappardalle. I ordered a special of Liberty duck breast, done rare and smothered in more sautéed porcinis – yum – on a bed of ragout of various green and yellow beans and infant white turnips.
An appropriately wicked dinner, served by a skilled band of pranksters.
by Christina Waters | Apr 6, 2007 | Holidays |
Here’s what happened at our breakfast table this Easter weekend — an explosion of chicks hatched out of one of our soft boiled eggs! Egg-xactly.
by Christina Waters | Mar 27, 2007 | Holidays, Home |
The name “Easter†honors the Anglo Saxon goddess of dawn, whose favorite animal companion was the hare. Now hares, like rabbits, aren’t exactly known for celibacy (to whit, the high school expression, to “bang like a bunnyâ€), hence they make the perfect symbol of the season. After the hard times of winter, spring—by any name—was worth celebrating (and here we’d do well to recall that baby chicks, little bunnies, lambs and other adorable barnyard entities are actually born in the spring). The egg motif, again symbolic of birth, predates Christianity, and was used by ancient Egyptians and Greeks in their fertility cults. It would be cynical to point out that each spring, hens just tend to lay a lot of eggs, and somebody had to invent something to do with this ovoid glut. Nature was essentially the biological metaphor for Christ’s return from the dead—and vice versa. It was a good fit, and the early Christian marketing geniuses knew it.
So did later Christian marketing geniuses, guys with names like Macy and Wanamaker. Easter – the most exploited excuse for spending since (you got it) Christmas, moved from a religious ritual to a retail rite of spring, thanks to the Victorian mania for interior decoration. (more…)
