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...
Inside the Flame
A book of sensory adventure: The rituals, passions and discoveries of an engaged life.