Late Summer on a Plate
Our house.
Last week.
Dressed with Meyer lemon, olive oil and infant shiso leaves.
Perfectly ripe.
Thomas Fogarty Pinot Noir
It’s the first Santa Cruz Mountain pinot noir from the 2008 vintage I’ve tasted, and now I know why this beautiful creation from Thomas Fogarty Winery took a gold at the recent SF Chronicle competition.
This full-throated wine is loaded with complex aromatic information, and the flavors just go on and on. Dark plums and tamarind, an undercurrent of licorice and bay leaves, a suggestion of tangerine peel and black pepper — all of these gorgeous notes are delivered by a prime 14.1% alcohol content. Enough to carry the experience, yet definitely not engaged in the fruit bomb California stereotype.
Within reach too, at under $22 a bottle. Try Shoppers and New Leaf, but definitely try this lovely pinot noir.
eat cliché love
Eat Pray love is either better or worse than I expected. Like a wine that cannot be technically faulted, yet fails to engage the senses, this film seems to lack any distinction.
What it does have is a few fleeting glimpses of a potentially great actress struggling to break out of her contemporary, aging babe, Pretty Woman strait (sic) jacket. So frustrating, this one. The film is somehow packed to the hilt with clich̩s Рwise little brown people, ex-pats finding each other and eating, dancing and drinking with gusto, peasant women disapproving of single women Рyet also misses rich opportunities to bombard us with Hallmark moments.
St. Peter’s dome by sunset – a perfect all-purpose establishing shot that tells us we, and Liz Gilbert (the author/protagonist), are in Rome. You can practically smell the garlic and taste the wine. Yet we don’t get many glamor shots of the Eternal City. Instead we submit to silly new friends bonding episodes — so much so that between Roberts’ pleading eyes (more…)
etc etc etc
Go out and try the fresh halibut tacos at Hawgs — an entire meal for just over $10. . . . Chris LeVeque’s El Salchicero is looking at an opening by Halloween. The tile walls are up, the ceilings gleam, but the House of Codes is still putting this artisanal salumeria through some hoops. Can’t wait!….Lovely dancing and even lovelier music by Jon Scoville distinguished the recent Tandy Beal Eternity-fest at Cabrillo’s Crocker Theater last weekend. Most of Santa Cruz’ arts community packed the house. . . .Top pizza and irresistible music (Emily and Paul Rangell!!) are a few reasons to make La Posta your regular Tuesday night pit-stop. . . . And now, the month after the former Mrs. Pitt impersonates Barbra Streisand we get the equally pitiful Lindsay Lohan attempting a caricature of the late great Grace Kelly (current cover of the gutter-groveling Vanity Fair). Perhaps our only revenge is another scoop of Mission Hills Creamery’s sinful organic pistachio ice cream.
Kelly’s Ice Cream Shop!
You only need to know two words.
Caramel Almond.
Ice Cream Madness Continues!
Still high on a flavor-intensive sampling of handmade, all-organic chocolate ice cream from Mission Hill Creamery, I need to figure out how I’m going to live until my next visit to the five-week old ice cream mecca. Scooped up by chef/owner David Kumec himself, the samples absolutely knocked me out. I was treated to a strawberry ice cream with actual, deep summer ripe strawberry flavor. Then something tart and nostalgic called Orange Creamcicle (tastes just like it sounds!).
Next came the chocolate, loaded with artisanal chocolate bits amidst its sinfully dark chocolate creaminess. Yes, everything is organic! But somehow Kumec had saved the best taste for last. Pistachio. Pistachio the way it must have tasted in the Garden of Eden. Deeply earthily nutty, and yet like butter in its texture. I literally groaned right there in front of his fully-loaded ice cream display.
The flavors change daily (more…)
Inside the Flame
A book of sensory adventure: The rituals, passions and discoveries of an engaged life.