by Christina Waters | May 23, 2013 | Home |
Don’t miss the chance to visit small wineries, sample new releases, chat with vintners and find out what makes the Santa Cruz Mountains winegrowing district utterly unique and distinctive.
So – to do that – you need to get some tickets ($40 per) for the 24th Annual Vintners’ Festival, AKA Roots that Rock. They’re available online. Not only winery touring, but your ticket also gives you access to the Downtown Santa Cruz Street Fair – June 9, on Pacific Avenue (between Locust and Walnut Streets), where you’ll rock to music, artisan foods, more wines and loads of live entertainment.
So if you’d like to tour the wineries on the “other side of the hill” – plan to hop in the car the weekend of June 1 & 2, from noon to 5pm.
And to tour the participating wineries in Santa Cruz County, get set for the weekend of June 8 & 9, and then head over to the June 9 street fair from 11am until 3pm.
All you really have to remember is “the best locally-made wine” – and those two weekends of tasting. The intel on the SCMWA website will walk you through the rest.
Salut!
by Christina Waters | May 20, 2013 | Home |
Thanks to Dee Vogel for sending me this very (very) interesting link—a huge flow-chart tracking the mega-corporate owners of all those “natural” food labels you love.
You’ll be amazed – and possibly uncomfortable.
by Christina Waters | May 10, 2013 | Home |
After an arduous morning of soaking up Netherlands’ finest painters and printmakers—including several matchless Rembrandts, the peerless Carl Fabritius, and of course the beautiful if over-hyped Vermeer “Girl with the Pearl Earring,” we needed some food.
The deYoung‘s outstanding restaurant obliged with a textbook double espresso, fresh-baked walnut and carrot cake, and centerpiece of Dutch-inspired lunch plate complete with three kinds of cured fish, smoked salmon, deviled eggs, gherkins, potato salad, rye bread and pickled onions. It tasted as good as it looks!
This show is loaded with some of the finest exemples of the 17th century Dutch Golden Age—the Rembrandt etchings alone are worth the scenic drive up the coast. It runs through June 2. Be there.
by Christina Waters | May 9, 2013 | Home |
From one prurient, salacious, gossipy bonfire of the vanities to another—Jodi Arias, for example—we seem to be devolving into a “culture” of media-addicted ambulence chasers. While details unfold about the latest heartland atrocity, no details are unfolding about Benghazi, or Fukushima, or Syria.
Besides, it’s so much easier for Mr. and Mrs. Front Porch to understand crimes of passion than to demand answers about political decisions — CIA, Department of Justice—these require actually digging for facts and being able to understand implications.
Our refusal to think is going to pound that last nail into the sinking ship that is our collective culture.
But that’s just me.
by Christina Waters | May 9, 2013 | Home |
Seriously. If you persist in thinking that you cannot afford to stop by a favorite cafe or restaurant, then consider acquiring a new Tuesday habit: tapas at Soif.
For $3 I had a sensation that was positively Roman in its voluptuousness. Quail egg, adorned with choice crisp pancetta, atop a yellow plinth of polenta. Slick of unctuous basil purée on the side.
A minerally Sancerre did the rest. Roughly $10 for a consciousness-raising bit of gourmet retail therapy.
Soif. Tuesdays. Tapas. Three dollars each.
by Christina Waters | May 6, 2013 | Home |
Jim Denevan gave us a tasty gift ten years ago, when the idea of outdoor dining on farms and incomparable natural settings was but a gleam in his eye.
But as you know, Outstanding in the Field has gone viral in the most delicious possible way. In fact adventurous diners will want to quick pounce on some of the available places at the Secret Sea Cove dinner on July 5.
Here’s why. H&H seafoods, fresher than a just-baked croissant, will form the centerpiece of the dinner. The ocean, surf, sand, and sheltering cliffs will form an unforgettable background. And, in a rare return to Santa Cruz, Justin Severino will bring his eye for detail and gift for culinary glory (more…)
