by Christina Waters | Apr 7, 2012 | Home |
He was one of the angriest men I ever met. Spewing platitudes and autographs with machine-gun precision, Thomas Kinkade was a one-man tent show of strategic branding, cornball imagery and raw, unrelenting ambition.
Now that he’s gone I have to wonder all over again just how it was possible for one man to propogate so many vacant, if colorful, fields of magenta, so many technicolor sunsets, so many cabins in non-existent Edens. I researched his background as a better-than-decent painter, tracked the rise of his sugar-coated faux Disney clichés, interviewed him for hours and wrote about him just as his trademarked “light” was about to dim.
Now that the darkness that surrounded his psyche has finally swallowed him up, I also have to wonder just how many azalea fields and snowy Christmas tableaux—always devoid of human companionship—are about to go up for sale on eBay.
by Christina Waters | Mar 30, 2012 | Home, Movies |
Succumbing to curiosity, I took in a matinee of The Hunger Games last week to see what grabs the YA audience these days.
The film isn’t great, the acting is hit and miss, but the action is bracing. A fierce sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen (played by pretty, moon-faced Jennifer Lawrence) takes her younger sister’s place as one of the 24 “tributes” chosen to engage in an annual hunt to the death. She has been chosen along with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), a young man from her district who is clearly not up to the contest to come.Think “Survivors” crossed with “Lost.”
As the combatants gather, coming from empoverished backwaters to the decadent capital city of writer Suzanne Collins’ best-selling dystopia, we meet a multi-cultural bevy of handlers and mentors who coach Katniss and Peeta with a few key survival skills. The attempts at visually quoting the bread and circus excess of Roman gladiatorial games pretty much fall flat, though it is fun watching Woody Harrelson sporting a long blonde wig.
Everdeen’s an expert with bow and arrow. She’s also (more…)
by Christina Waters | Mar 27, 2012 | Home, Wine |
Applying some spin to his perennially avant garde branding instincts, Doon-meister Randall Grahm has brought in a new chef, and ushered in a new name for his tasting room restaurant.
Gone is the fairly tame “Cellar Door” and in comes the dashing “Le Cigare Volant” named for the winery’s celebrated flagship Rhônesque creation. The culinary team at Le Cigare Volant will be headed up by chef Ryan Shelton, who joins Bonny Doon from the two star Michelin ranked Baumé Restaurant in Palo Alto. The new name, according to Grahm, represents “a commitment to a more refined…level of cuisine and service.” (more…)
by Christina Waters | Mar 27, 2012 | Home |
A very attractive Latin Fusion retaurant, Estrella, has just opened in Paso Robles, in one of the old Victorians lining the central zocalo on Spring Street.
The brainchild of Chef Ryan Swarthout (of Roberts restaurant fame) and Travis Borba, the restaurant surfs a culinary wave from South America, to Mexico, and the Caribbean. What we found, last Sunday evening, in addition to a gorgeous vermillion wall next to the old brick, was a menu loaded with intricate spicing and some of the finest black beans this side of Oaxaca.
A dish of Veracruz snapper, for example, gave us a peek inside the kitchen’s mind. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Mar 27, 2012 | Home |
All You Need is Love – one of the finer memories provided by the Beatles – and also the title of the next museum-wide exhibition scheduled for downtown’s Museum of Art & History, opening for a Member’s Preview on Friday, March 30 – and then to the general public starting March 31.
Running until July 29, the show is dedicated to love in all its forms, as explored by over thirty artists, including Joan Brown, Frank Galuszka (detail shown here) and Raymond Saunders. In addition to the extraordinary artwork, historic love letters, wedding gowns and other sentimentalia will be on display in all of the galleries within the museum.
MAH is open Tu-Sun 11-5pm, and is located at 705 Front Street in downtown Santa Cruz.
(detail, Coyote in the Kitchen, F.Galuszka
by Christina Waters | Mar 5, 2012 | Home |
Finally, I came to the end of the labor-intensive process. The orange bitters had steeped, it had been crushed, it had been filtered, it had rested.
The last stage had involved mixing together the high-octane orange peel-infused alcohol with water and finally with sugar that had been melted into a brown, taffy-like goo. When I added the hot molten sugar to the mother liquid, it sputtered like a mini-Vesuvius. The recipe warned that the sugar might turn hard, at first, but then would quickly enter a liquid state.
And it all came to pass. Except for one thing. The final liquid never became clear.
It tastes exactly like orange bitters. Exactly. It is, in all ways save visually, an authentic orange bitters. Yet it longs for clarity, like a merlot longs to be a clear shade of magenta.
I will be calling on a few winemakers to find out about fining. Surely there is some remaining alchemy I can try. If not, I will need to turn my attentions to some other artisanal creation.
Ideas?
