With the afterglow of last Tuesday night finally starting to fade, I still need to acknowledge the preamble to the evening, which was a blind tasting of 2007 California Pinot Noir. I had been anticipating this tasting for quite some time, and I had also exhibited tremendous patience in the process: Back in March 2009, I had eagerly purchased Pinot Noir allocations from Kosta Browne and Chasseur, having finally earned a coveted spot on their respective mailing lists (these unclaimed allocations were the function of a sputtering U.S. economy, no doubt). At the time, slipping behind the velvet rope [... read more ...]
|
|||||
 
The Culinary Timeline is a side-project that I've been working on since October. I'm hoping to have most of it complete by the end of January, with any luck. Until then, updates around here will be weekly, rather than twice weekly. Do stay tuned. • • •
  |
L-I-V-I-N: 2001 LeRoy Vosne-Romanée, 1983 Chateau Latour, 1990 Domaine Weinbach Cuvée Ste. Catherine. Wine tasting can sometimes be counter-productive to blogging, at least in the short term. Pictured above, three reasons why I’ve been mostly absent from the internet this week. This handsome trio in the photo capped an epic Tuesday evening, which began with a blind tasting of 2007 California Pinot Noir (Kosta Browne, Papapietro Perry, Chasseur, and three others; my full report to follow next week). Before this throw-down of mailing-list Pinot, I had already spent the entire day touring Napa wine country with my friend [... read more ...] The #11: Sometimes hot really means hot. So many Asian restaurants seem to be closed on Mondays, and I always seem to fall into this trap again and again. Today, I had driven down to Berkeley on another ramen mission, this time to Norikonoko on Telegraph, which is catty-corner from one of Berkeley’s best used book shops, Shakespeare & Company Books. I found a killer parking spot just off of the main drag, fed the meter full of coinage, and soon found out that Norikonoko was closed. Fortunately, Berkeley offers a target-rich environment when it comes to Asian [... read more ...] Shoyu ramen with pork, spinach, and bamboo shoots. Living in the Napa Valley, I’ve long been searching for a decent bowl of ramen that doesn’t require a bridge toll. Unfortunately, there’s no realistic solution to this problem, so far as I can tell. For what it’s worth, I can at least find the Vietnamese counterpart to ramen at Pho #1 in Vallejo, which I also recommend wholeheartedly. But despite their superficial similarities, pho is not ramen, and the latter dish still requires a $5 trek across the Carquinez Bridge, if not the Golden Gate. I mention this fact [... read more ...] Butterscotch sabayon, vanilla rum ice cream, caramel corn, and a sliver of galette (with chocolate cookie crumbles at the very bottom of the dish). I have always admired the desserts at Redd, especially the peanut butter and milk chocolate gianduja, which I have probably eaten more than any other dessert in the Napa Valley. I’ve also been a longtime proponent of Redd’s bar menu, which is probably my favorite in the area. The other day, I got to thinking about pork buns, sweet and spicy chicken wings, and some of my other favorites, so I dropped by Redd [... read more ...] After a satisfying breakfast at the Brown Sugar Kitchen in West Oakland last week, I drove up to Black Oak Books on San Pablo, a place where I can always kill a couple hours by browsing their used cookbook section. I have a penchant for kooky old books that are long out-of-print, and when I had discovered an old copy of 1962′s “An Illustrated History of French Cuisine” by Christian Guy, I was hoping that the book would be filled with lots of great vintage illustrations, as the title seems to suggest. Unfortunately, this wasn’t really the case, at [... read more ...] Smoked beef short rib with sweet corn, sugar snap peas, smoky bacon, crispy onions, and Texas toast (to help mop the plate). As promised, I made my return visit to Solbar this week, after my lunchtime visit earlier this month. Geographically speaking, Solbar is the Napa Valley’s northernmost Michelin-star restaurant, located way past St. Helena and into Calistoga, which is the last stop before crossing over into Sonoma County. If you begin your journey from the City of Napa, driving all they way up to Calistoga actually takes you more than halfway over to Healdsburg, which [... read more ...] I know you got sole. Conspiracy theories, in general, are usually pretty boring. After all, who in their right mind wants to listen to some crackpot ramble on about government plots or UFOs? For me, it all adds up to a bunch of noise. But that being said, I do have a small conspiracy theory of my own regarding the 2010 Michelin Guide and Bistro Jeanty’s loss of its Michelin star. Perhaps it’s a bit far-fetched, but perhaps not. It goes as follows: Since its wine country debut in 2007, the Michelin Guide has long been criticized for [... read more ...] As a blogger, I feel as though I have the journalistic privilege of running with any rumor I please, so long as I remain completely upfront about it. Sometimes these rumors prove true, sometimes not. But I did wish to mention that the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, which had been officially delaying its new development in Napa’s Oxbow District (ever since the U.S. economy tanked last year), has now allegedly pulled the plug on its planned Napa location. The Ritz-Carlton launched the project over three years ago, when construction of the Ritz-Carlton Napa was first announced back in April 2007, after [... read more ...] I found an interesting old paperback at the used bookstore a few weeks ago, 1993′s “California Wine Country Cooking Secrets,” edited by Kathleen DeVanna Fish. The book itself is somewhat poorly conceived — part tour guide, part cookbook, part Napa, part Sonoma — it doesn’t really offer much definitive advice or insight regarding any of these four subjects. Instead, “California Wine Country Cooking Secrets” glosses over the critical details, and simply compiles fluff descriptions for the bigger wineries, alongside a handful of restaurant entries, each offering three recipes. That said, the Napa restaurant section does remain the most compelling [... read more ...] |
 
• • •
 |
 
|
||
|
© 2012 The Accidental Wino |
|||||
