CALIRB 10 Best Books of the Year

 

As ever, I'm honored to have California Review of Books as a home for my literary criticism. Once again, they have compiled a top books of the year list, which, of course, is a semi-ridiculous quest--what lucky person gets to read enough of the books out any year to make that decision?

That said, never-as-read-as-I should-be-me made some choices, as two of my favs are listed at the link to the full slate.

Traditional with Some Tasty Tweaks

Consider that the year Santa Barbara’s Upham Hotel opened was 1871. Other big news that year: Stanley encountered Livingstone, Jesse James’s gang was robbing banks, and the Great Chicago Fire raged. So, the Upham is truly history.

Much more recently, the hotel’s restaurant space, with its inviting veranda on Sola Street, had been the home to Louie’s, a beloved institution. Fortunately, the weight of that history isn’t lost on the Bistro Amasa team that has just taken over the space. Executive Chef Julian Martinez and GM Jesse Gaddy certainly appreciate the roots of things, as anyone who has dined at their first restaurant — Barbareño — knows. After all, it’s named after a Chumash language, and one of its signature dishes, Eggamuffins, is a nod to Mickey D’s breakfast sandwich invented in our town.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Cider and Paella: A Perfect Pairing We Didn’t See Coming

Sometimes when food and drink purveyors team up to hold a joint dinner, it can end up a snooty affair. Especially in these parts, where we seem to need to find ways to say we’ve got money in ever new expressions.

So I was happily surprised to find quite the opposite experience when on a recent evening (November 16) Dom’s Taverna and High Seas Mead joined forces for something simply billed “Paella + Mead: A Night in the Funk Zone.” That colon is mine, and I apologize for the hint of academia it brings to the quite informal proceedings. For this gathering of 30 or so folks jammed into High Seas’ Gray Avenue tasting room was more family picnic than pretentious. Well, if your family has a really talented chef.

Care to read the rest then do at the Independent's site.

Dom's Taverna, a Blast of Basque Brilliance

It might have been a four-day-weekend of drenching rain and people just needed to be festively out and about, but my guess is a recent Tuesday evening at Dom's Taverna is already par for the course. It's a space (what was for many years Trattoria Victoria) that's been designed with building a buzz in mind. Forget about a mere open kitchen that you get to peak into via a window; here it's like a thrust stage, catching all eyes on chefly action towards the back of the long room. You also have to walk half the length of the space to get to the host stand, which at first seems odd but then you get it--even before you get to claim your reservation, you're part of the party. And that's what this taverna's atmosphere is after.

Of course, good vibes only get you so far in the restaurant biz. You need to bring the receipts. These start with intriguing cocktails at Dom's Taverna (and I will keep using the full name so as not to confuse it with established fave Little Dom's Seafood in Carp), not the least of which is the New Moon, pictured above. You know you've accomplished something when you get me to order a vodka drink (cause, why is there vodka when liquor can have flavor?), but here's why this one succeeded, even before I got to see how spectacular it looks. They wisely infuse that vodka with horseradish (to a milder effect than I anticipated), then add manzanilla sherry and Lillet Blanc, and maybe some Suze, or at least that's what our very skilled server, who made clear it would be an astringent not sweet drink, suggested. Think a gin-less, more herbal, Vesper. The kicker is that squid ink ice half-sphere playing the role of the moon. Little bits of it fleck off into the golden drink, adding salinity and a dark allure. The drink even comes in a cocktail glass with a divot built in for the cube to rock in. Do note that as you get to the bottom of the drink, you will end up with ink stains on your nose as you savor the last drops. Have your napkin at the ready.

The Basque-inspired menu will entice you with dishes definitely out of the Santa Barbara ordinary (hooray for new cuisines!). Above you see "huerta" on the left and "pintxos" on the right, so think vegetable garden and small, savory snack/appetizer. The huerta is called Tomat, and features fresh market tomatoes (still hanging on into November), tomato confit, a rich yet piquant Marcona-cashew butter, orange zest, olive, and capers. Get a bit of everything and the brightness nearly glows right out of your mouth (I hope you're chewing with your mouth closed so this image is more spectacular than gross). The pintxos (yes, the staple of much of Spain's bar culture--douse the dreariness of your day in vermouth and snack away!) in the case is Ensalada Rusa: “Potato salad” (the quotation marks are theirs), wild bluefin tuna belly conserva, pickles, English peas, and smoked roe. Think of it as a chunky, sea-funky dip. It's suggested you use the the little torpedo-like tapa crackers as mini-ice cream cones to scoop the salad up, but they don't give you quite enough area to do that. So dip first, munch the crunchy cracker second. That works.

Being only two people with as far as we know only two stomachs, we had to skip many an enticing item, including crab rice, squid and beans, and Wagyu steak bites. And when the Dom’s Louis Salad arrived at a nearby table, we instantly knew part of our next visit's order. The jam-packed bowl, above its base of iceberg lettuce, also offered wild bluefin tuna belly, local crab, poached shrimp, piparra, radish, tomato, chive, lemon-espelette vinaigrette, Louis dressing. We were envious lookie-louis. (I hope that joke isn't so bad that it disqualifies me from ever having the dish.)

Fortunately we had the dish above swim on up to our table, and our envy was forgotten. Whole Fish Basquaise featured local catch of Santa Barbara Channel rock fish roasted in the Josper Basque grill that imparts a lovely charcoal smokiness to all it cooks, even a fish as tender and delicate as rock fish. The succulent seafood gets pumped up with garlic crisp, chili, olive oil, and a garum emulsion (a fermented fish sauce that's all the rage now, for very tasty reasons). Our one regret--they don't serve the plate with two straws so you can suck up every last drop of the stunning sauce. The fish is a perfect emblem for what Dom's Taverna is all about--find really good produce and product, local if possible, and do as little intervention as they can. But what Chef Crisp and his crew does do always highlights, elevates, perfects.

They also aren't afraid to push a boundary in a playful way. For above was a preview of what should be a regular menu item by now (or soon?)--Basque cheesecake adorned with caviar. At first thought this seems a strange mix of dairy and the sea, if not just an indulgent flourish. Then the first little salty-sea bomb bursts in your mouth, and the savory edge contrasts so well with the creaminess of the cake. Isn't it a delight to have a bite you've never had and you instantly hope to have again soon?

Come to think of it, that's how we ended up feeling about Dom's Taverna overall. 

An Enchanted Mexican Evening at El Encanto

 

The dish before me is called Arte, topped with a 2×4-inch piece of edible paper printed with a colorful abstract by noted Mexican artist Olga Hernandez. Her work on Saatchi Art goes for tens of thousands of dollars, and I’m going to consume it. Beneath it lies a base of jocoque (think Mexican labneh, made from goat’s milk) and a fine dice of jacube (cactus), watermelon, pecans, and beans.

On the taste buds, it all adds up to, well, art — sweet, salty, savory, silky, surprising. This is just course number two of six at an edition of El Encanto’s Culinary Series, bringing renowned chefs in for special evenings. On October 11, that meant a visit from Rodrigo Rivera-Río of Koli. The dinner saved us a trip to Monterrey, Mexico, but delivered all the glory of his Michelin-starred restaurant. What’s clear: Rebel Hotel Company, the new management since the sale of the resort from Belmond, is doing their best to uphold the storied thoughts we have of a property as well-heeled as El Encanto. It doesn’t hurt that while dining on the veranda you get to watch owls sweep into the nearby trees as the night’s entertainment.

Care to read the rest than do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "The Hounding" by Xenobe Purvis

 Xenobe Purvis can write spooky, but then there are all sorts of haunts, aren’t there? Her debut novel The Hounding, set during the 18th-century in Little Nettlebed astride the Thames River—but far away, in distance and in thought, from London—concerns the Mansfield sisters, orphaned, insular, feminine threats, particularly to the small-minded males of the village. The book gives its plot culmination away in its first line (in what reads like a dark version of Johnny Carson’s old Carnac routine): “The girls, the infernal heat, a fresh-dead body.” But the book never surrenders its air of mystery—do the Mansfields have the power to transform into dogs? Then again, its theme is sussing out the line between what’s human and humane. (Note we are piss poor at the latter.)

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on October 31, 2025.

Bar Lou is Bar-Lou-Ti-Ful

One of the most pleasant of struggles is deciding on your culinary adventure for the evening when many a menu's options lure you in. That was the case as we settled into our comfy leather booth and its rich marble table the other evening at Bar Lou, now just a year in at the Coast Village Road, Montecito, Craftsman-cottage location formerly home to Oliver's and prior to that Peabody's. (On the slope side of CVR also gives Bar Lou a charming glimpse of sunset, btw.) Fortunately, there were cocktails to help get us in the mood. As with the food menu, the list is neat--you're in for a curated experience, not an evening at a New Jersey diner. The Petite Amer I choose, looking like an old fashioned in the photo above, is sort of that, but via Mexico and a bartender fond of Amari. It's mezcal, Amaro Montenegro, Cynar, and then an orange zest oleo that adds both sugar and bitter, quite like the two Amari, come to think of it. The mezcal smoke and earthiness from the artichoke in the Cynar lift and ground the drink at once. Simple, and simply lovely. The tall glass is a NA option cheekily called L'innocente: the local favorite Tilden Lacewing, mint, lime, tonic. Bright, fresh, a fine way to awaken the taste buds sans booze for the adventure to begin.

Somehow we pass on tempting items such as the evening's special, a pan roasted king salmon with green lentils, horseradish, crème fraîche, and salmon roe caviar. And the crab cakes with Creole remoulade, which means something since chef Brandon Boudet comes from N'awlins. And the fresh catch--Boudet works with local fisherfolk at both Bar Lou and his other fine spot, Little Dom's Seafood--tonight a vermillion rockfish, served alongside ratatouille. Or the oysters, or uni toast, or the surprising, and therefore tempting, French omelet with chive Boursin cheese and herbs, which, if you're feeling flush, you can goose with 8 grams of Osetra caviar.

But we did choose two ways to start, the first of which is above and begins a bit of a trend--Bar Lou wants to make delicious food even if it isn't easily Instagramable. (Wait, what year is this?) The smoked black cod rillettes in the jar might not visually shine, but as a culinary treat it's a supernova. Creamy, fishy, briny, bright--a hint of vinegar instead of citrus for a different take?--and you get to slather it on a crusty baguette Bar Lou gets from their friends down the street, Bree'osh. (If the spelling bugs you it won't as soon as you get some of their brilliant bread in your mouth.)

The rillettes came off Le Bar Menu, which expands options in enticing ways, from snacks like Creole deviled eggs all the way to another dinner option, the Bar Lou Burger with Comté cheese, tomato, and onion jam. But from the main menu's hors d'oeuvres section, we couldn't resist the trumpet call of the king oyster mushrooms. Expertly grilled to a meaty chewiness, they are perfect on their charcoal-kissed own, but with the zhoug on the bottom, they are beyond perfect (shoot, backed myself into a linguistic corner there). Think of it as Middle Eastern chimichurri, a vivid mash of cilantro, parsley, green chilies, olive oil. You will be very happy you have bread from the rillettes to sop some of it up. You will wish for a spoon to get even more.

My dear wife often opts for a salad, and by ordering Chicories, she got one big enough for a party double our size of two. Gorgeously piled under a snowfall of shredded Manchego, the refreshingly bitter leaves were perfectly balanced with dates, pecans, and a sherry vinaigrette. Balance is the mantra at Bar Lou, and this seasonal salad expressed that skill impeccably. 

Speaking of seasonal, with the evening air cooling faster and the sun setting sooner, it's time for a dish like this one, simply called duck leg confit on the menu. But, as you can see, with its saucy Ayocote blanco beans beneath the bird, it's nodding to cassoulet. I do love a good bean, and this one ends up both firm on the outside and creamy on the inside, a perfect complement to the duck, crispy on the outside and moist on the in. Both are kind of rich, so that toss of bitter greens atop again helps the dish find a balance. 

For dessert we returned--with a vengeance--to the land of what doesn't photograph well. And we didn't care a whit. For these apple ricotta fritters are heavenly, crispy with a cinnamon-sugar crust, and then the cheesy-apple inside ready to go gooey on you. For an elegant lift they come with Calvados-laced whipped cream that you can spoon like butter on each bite.

I feel a bit remiss not mentioning the perfectly professional service. Our server Brandon explained when we needed menu assistance, never rushed us, never scooped instantly in the millisecond one of our plates was empty. Yet we never felt abandoned either. It's a tough line to walk, attentive versus helicoptered, but he knew how to pull that off. Even offered a half pour of the sublime French Grenache I had with the duck, knowing I needed a bit more to drink to finish with the dish.

Bar Lou is surely on top of its game one year in.

Roll ’Em Up, Chow ’Em Down — It’s Burrito Week 2025

It's 2025 Burrito Week at the Independent, so go read about the two that I wrote about and eat a whole lot more. There are nearly 50 to choose from this time! (Can you tell from my write-ups which one of these I liked better?)

Baked with Love: A Mother Lode of Delicious at Mother Dough Bagels

 

Jennifer Gonzalez-Neely comes to her love of bagels honestly. She grew up in New York, and recalls, “Having a bagel was part of my weekly, if not daily, diet.” But that doesn’t mean she won’t give them a twist at Mother Dough Bagels, open for a very successful eight months now in the former Recipes Bakery spot on Santa Barbara Street.

For while she rightfully asserts, “They are New York–inspired, and you will taste the malt, and it will be boiled,” the sourdough (her starter is named Rocky, which her daughter came up with) makes her bagels more Californian. Then there’s one more way Mother Dough distinguishes itself — “I incorporate Asian-inspired flavors close to my heart, as I was born in the Philippines,” she says.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Harborside Dining Finds a State of Gracie

 

“With a place like this, you don’t know what it will become,” says Dudley Michael, discussing his latest restaurateur adventure, Gracie, named after his partner, Grace Austin. “Your customers will tell you, and you will evolve with them.”

This opening bears even more weight than many, as Gracie has reimagined what was the Breakwater Restaurant. “People are really nostalgic about this location at the Santa Barbara harbor,” Austin says. Michael adds, “Some of them have been coming here since they were kids.”

The couple took over the location last fall, but they didn’t do the revamp — and it’s an impressive one, especially the jewel-box bar that classes up the joint — until this year, so they got a sense of possible complaints about change. Just shifting from frozen food to fresh freaked out some folks, let alone the F-bombs they received about the farm-fresh eggs they started serving — some were shocked by the bright-orange color of the yolks.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson" by Claire Hoffman

 

Why and how masses of people fall under the thrall of a magnetic person are the kinds of questions that sadly keep poking their, in the most recent case, oddly orange-tinged heads up far too often in history. That makes Clarie Hoffman’s steady, insightful biography Sister, Sinner, an examination of the fantastic and tragic life of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, all the more timely. An early 20th century powerhouse, McPherson arguably created the first megachurch (what became the Foursquare Church, which still has over 6500 congregations globally today) and was wise enough to be the first woman to preach on the radio, too. Her style of Pentecostal ceremonies featured staged spectacle, from camels to faux police motorcycles, big choirs, some speaking in tongues.

But the most important voice was always Aimee’s. Her goal was to make one’s relationship with the lord more personal—her original magazine from her church was the Song of Solomon inspired The Bridal Call. As Hoffman puts it, “Aimee’s words were a sort of heavenly come-hither, a promise of intimacy with the divine, a lifting up away from all the darkness that was gathering in the world.” But, often drawing her sermons from her life—and what a life it was—“She emphasized her fallibility, always,” Hoffman further explains, “She was prideful and prone to make foolish mistakes, but all of this made her more adorable and magnetic.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on September 5, 2025.

Cocina de Community

(Photo by Ingrid Bostrom)

When Jacqui Karlsen learned that Café La Fonda, operating on Anapamu Street across from the Courthouse Sunken Garden since late 2023, was in danger of shutting down, she was compelled to step in. That’s why, as of June 16, the prime location which has somehow run through many iterations since the beloved, sorely missed The Bakery left (The Courthouse Tavern, The Little Door, Piano Riviera Lounge, The French Table, and Elements Restaurant & Bar), is now officially La Fonda Smash Burger & Pancake House. Bet you can guess some of the menu.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Loquita Takes You on a Taste Tour of Spain

So Loquita has a new executive chef, and while it seems they sort of post someone new in that position as often as a TACO changes his mind on tariffs, we need to hope this one sticks. For Cristian Granada comes to Santa Barbara with a wealth of international experience--born in Colombia, he trained and worked in Spain, has been part of Michelin-starred kitchens in D.C.--and even better, he has the nuanced ability to understand and honor tradition while also eyeing the culinary future.

Take his take on gazpacho. Sure it kicks with tomato-power, then the richness olive oil brings, and enough spice to make it all sing. But his also comes, as the menu puts it, "spherified." That is, your adorable wooden spoon holds a flattened globe of gazpacho that you suck into your mouth like a mini-egg yolk, where it bursts with all its brightness. It's a revelation, a moment of flavorful joy.

That spherified tomato gazpacho is currently on feature as part of one of Chef Granada's new additions to the menu, a Pintxo Experience: A Taste Tour across Spain. As the placemat you'd get when ordering it claims, "Discover the rich culinary heritage of five iconic Spanish regions through a curated selection of pintxo--small bites with big stories." (One big problem with the bite-sized delights that are the apps pintxos--auto-correct likes to kill the "x" every time you type the word.) The tastes will change some over the course of the year based on what's seasonal, but for now include compressed peach with jamón bellota from the Basque Country; from Catalonia, an uni-prawn mousse in a mini cone, cute as a button, and maybe pointing to a French Laundry classic, if with a smaller cone; from Madrid, a showy "transparent" bread--kuzu is involved--with a rich tomato atop; and from Valencia, jamón inbérico tartare on a pork cracker. The handy placemat offers a map of Spain so you can get a lay of the culinary land and also offers a quick description of each region's food roots.

Chef Granada is certainly one to watch, ready to burnish the already bright reputation of Loquita.

Sandwich Week '25: Gala, Goat Tree, SB Fish Market

As the Indy slowly moves to 52 Weeks of Fill-in-the-Blank Food per year, try to digest them all (and really, it has nothing to do with ad sales, look away), welcome to the first Sandwich Week. Over 40 to choose from. I got to preview three. See images below or....

Read the rest at the Independent's site.

 

Marisella Is Molto Bella

It's not easy being a resort restaurant. Hotel guests can resent you as they feel Stockholm syndromed into loving you as you're the only game in town. Locals, ever on the lookout for snoot to bemoan, can feel excluded, starting with the valet parking fee. There's a lot to overcome to please both your possible audiences.

Maple Hospitality Group, out of Chicago, is the latest entity trying to crack this difficult nut at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara in the location most recently occupied by Angel Oak. It opens Marisella (star of the sea) to the public June 26th, but this weekend held a swank reception for some press (me!), people who probably call themselves influencers unironically, friends and family, and a heaping helping of rich folks. But I shouldn't be disdainful, as it was all lovely--I mean look up top, they are ice-luging shots and offering you a lot of oysters, shrimp, and uni backed by the Bacara's best quality--a killer ocean view. Of course one has to be wowed a bit.

And get a load of all that gorgeous whiskey behind the bar. They seemed to know what to do with it, too, offering some tasty bespoke cocktails and not flinching in the slightest when Chryss asked for mocktails. She was able to have two completely different ones, even, after the bartender asked about likes/dislikes. I left out photos of the folks pouring wines from the site's 700 plus label cellar, but they certainly knew their stuff and were kind, engaging, and talented at sabering champagne bottles. Plus willing to share one-offs from the cellar they wouldn't be able to put on the list, including a 2011 Arnot-Roberts Syrah.

The man above is the mastermind behind Maple Hospitality Group--the talented and engaging Danny Grant. While I will go on about the food we got to taste, you don't have to trust just me--he happens to be the youngest chef ever to win two Michelin stars in back-to-back years. Now his culinary empire extends to Scottsdale, Dallas, Miami, and...Goleta. (I kid, I kid.) One clever redo in the dining room, that overall seems lightened to rid it of steak-houseiness and make it be more Amalfi Coast-y, as the press release suggests, was to make the enlarged kitchen viewable from the dining room. That also means the kitchen can view the diners, and out past them to the Pacific. That's one lovely way to keep a kitchen crew happy.

That's beef that melts in your mouth, if you wondered. Simple, direct, beautiful. Not pictured, as it isn't the most Instagrammable dish in the world (so I give Grant even more kudos for still serving it--sorry, influencers!), is a salt-baked whole branzino, that flakes into moist not mushy delight, far from over salted, and then bathed in a simple, simply perfect brown butter, caper, lemon sauce. This kitchen has the ability to make foods taste like amped up versions themselves, the beefest beef, the fishiest fish (in a good way--I can see how that one doesn't work quite well). Soon a line formed so everyone could get in on the carving station, which eventually added some slow roasted bone-in short rib, again exactly what you hope it could be, but better. The same was true for the passed foods, especially a light, crispy fritto misto. Note that on the opening menu online, Marisella, in addition to apps and in-house pasta and entrees, is hoping to convince people to buy big for the table--that branzino, say, or a 40 oz. bistecca alla Fiorentina, or a Festa Del Mar of roasted lobster, prawns, Pacific clams, Calabrian chile, and tomato sugo. They hope you've come to party.

Maple Hospitality also brought out its big guns to make sure those working at Marisella are fully trained. That is, the top pastry chef was in town, and you could relish her skills in a wide variety of dessert bites, from petite chocolate cake to peaches & cream profiterole. 

From this first impression, if Marisella isn't a smashing success as a resort restaurant, the failure will turn out to be ours for not supporting them.

David Rosner’s Doughy Dreams at Rozzi Pizza

 When I pop into the new Rozzi Pizza for our assigned interview, chef-owner David Rosner instantly asks me, “Mind if I work while we talk? My 9:30 delivery got here at 1:30, so I’m behind.” Somehow, he could not only carry on a lively conversation with plenty of eye contact — he’s big on that — but he also kept methodically, smoothly measuring up and cutting to weight pizza dough balls, rolling each into a shiny globe set away for later. “This is my retirement job,” he tells me, “but I’m working 10 times harder than when I wore the white coat as executive chef.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of Marcy Dermanksy's "Hot Air"

 

In Marcy Dermansky’s engrossing novel of (mis)manners Hot Air, third person limited isn’t just a narrative technique, it’s a view of the world where solipsism holds all the cards. Her characters are self-involved, feckless, cruel, and what’s worse, two of them, couple Jonathan and Julia, are ridiculously rich. As their assistant Vivian considers it, “It was amazing how easy it was to solve problems when you did not have to worry about how much it cost.”

Of course, things can cost us more than money. A handful of pages into the tale, Jonathan and Julia, contentiously celebrating their anniversary on a hot air balloon ride, crash into Johnny’s pool, just as he and Joannie have had their first kiss on their first date. (Yes, four names that begin with J, which leads to some confusion, but also underlines how sadly similar everyone is deep down.) Joannie, the poorest of this foursome, is a divorced mom, eager to move up in the world for her and her daughter, Lucy. Although Joannie has written a semi-successful novel she has never been able to follow up on, and therefore perhaps is the closest to a stand-in for the author—who names each chapter after the character’s viewpoint we are privy to in those pages—Dermansky lets loose this zinger, “As a rule, Joanie didn’t like rich people, but she thought that could change if she were to become one.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on June 10, 2025.

An Avocado Junket Is Far from the Pits

I was somewhere around Camarillo, on the edge of the Conejo Grade, when the avocados began to take hold. This was late April, and I was one of “a diverse mix of journalists, content creators, and retail and foodservice professionals from across the Western United States.” At least that’s how the California Avocado Commission described us in their attractively presented Briefing Book. We were all on a junket to learn to love Big Green.

It seems everyone/thing needs representation these days. If Clooney and Saldaña need agents, why not Persea americana, in particular those from California (just grown from San Diego to Monterey)? The more-than-100-year-old nonprofit California Avocado Commission hypes its fruit as fresh and local, sustainably grown and ethically sourced, seasonal, and sure to bring that creaminess avo-heads crave. Another reason the association is needed: Even though California is on target to produce 375 million pounds of avocado this bumper-crop year — a figure that would be the equivalent weight of more than 31 million electric guitars, or a million giant kangaroos, a species thankfully extinct for eons — Mexico will produce two billion pounds of avos.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

Dart Coffee Aims to Please

 

(photo credit Ingrid Bostrom)

Sometimes the interview questions write themselves. When I sat down with the team behind Dart Coffee Co. — David Dart, retired dentist; Erika Carter Dart, still a very active artist; and their son Carter Paul Hallman, winemaker and SBCC Culinary School grad — in Erika’s cozy Green House Studios, I had to open with, “How did painting and dentistry lead you to coffee?”

I knew it would be a lively chat when Erika deadpanned, “Isn’t it obvious?” The short answer turns out to be that art and science brew the best cup of joe. The longer, more fascinating answer involves Dart growing from its original Funk Zone location to a spot on the Santa Barbara harbor and, sometime very soon, a third outpost in Carpinteria’s much-awaited Linden Square complex.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Review of "What Art Does" by Brian Eno and Bette A.

 

At a mere 4.5 by 6.5 inches, only 122 pages long, with a cover that’s bright white and soothing flamingo pink, Brian Eno and Bette A.’s What Art Does beckons with an easy-going, “See? Manageable.” That’s even with its subtitle “An Unfinished Theory” dragging along like tin cans attached to a car, startling everyone. That said, a quick peek inside is even more welcoming. Bette A.’s deceptively naive, you could almost draw them yourself, just beyond line drawings are full of childlike whimsy. The typography is also playful, changing size, color, font, and even fading away. Given the ultra-creative natures of its authors—Eno is a British polymath musician, producer, artist, activist, A. a Dutch artist, novelist, and art school teacher—of course this book about art is art itself.

But then what is art? That’s where the aphoristic writing steps in, each sentence a barbed argument posed as indubitable statement. You find yourself bobbing your head in agreement page after page. Take this run of claims, “We all make art all the time, but we don’t really call it that;” art is “the name for a kind of engagement we have with something;” and, “the art engagement begins where functional engagement ends.”

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on May 2, 2025.

Come on Baby Light My Ire

In light of the recent death of Val Kilmer and the recent announcement that I will be appointed Santa Barbara Poet Laureate for 2025-2027 (with no guarantee poetry, the country, or you and me will be here for the full two years), I recalled an op-ed I wrote while I was a lecturer in the English Department at Penn State way back in 1991. Thanks to the internets, everything you've ever written can eventually surface. I was young(er) then, so excuse my impudent tone, but I think this holds up.

Groove to the Beat, But Don't Call Rock Stars Poets

originally published May 1, 1991

 Ah, for the days of yore, when exams smelled of fresh mimeograph fluid, and the end of the semester had, as it should, its own distinct stink. To recapture some of the magic of those long-gone days, I thought I'd give Collegian readers a pop exam.

Name three living poets.

I'm waiting.

One living poet?

OK, I heard somebody whisper Jim Morrison. One: He's not living. Two: He never was a poet, so even if he is alive on that island of the Dead and Famous, it doesn't matter. In fact, Oliver Stone and The Doors movie did more to misrepresent poetry than anything since Dead Poets Society, which proffered the mind-numbingly regular metrics of "O Captain, My Captain" as the peak of Whitman.

As for The Doors, believe it or not, most poets don't see Native American dancing about when they write. Most poets do not do enough drugs to make their hearts explode at 27. Most poets don't have naked honeys groove to their words (yeah, here I'm bitter, as a sometime poet myself.) Most important, most poets don't write endless drivel to their diddle; Morrison was as phallocentric as a Maypole.

Yet, it's not surprising a director as heavy-handed as the aptly named Stone would find Morrison a worthy successor to Blake and Byron. Stone, who in Platoon reduced Vietnam to a facile struggle between good and evil father figures, only to decide that "we have met the enemy, and he is us" (too bad we killed lots of Vietnamese to find out.) Stone, who in Wall Street reduced the greedy grabbing of the 1980s to a facile struggle between good and evil father figures, only to decide that "we have met the enemy, and he is us" (too bad trickle-down economics left more people poor than at any time since the Depression).

Stone is simple-minded, and Morrison is a poet for the simple. Sure, he was a Sure, he was a magnetic rock star, and the band helped open up rock music to the influences of jazz, but to call Morrison a poet is ridiculous. Such a claim makes lines like "we need great golden copulations," "death and my cock are the world," and "mute nostril agony" something they aren't.

And, no, I'm not just saying rock lyrics are hackwork and poetry is ethereal. Rock lyrics can deepen music, can create emotion and mood, can even sparkle. But it's enough to call them good lyrics; we don't need to elevate them to the haughty level of poetry to bestow greatness upon them. It's fine for Elvis Costello to do his thing, and for Wallace Stevens to do another. (Costello is much better singing about blue chairs than blue guitars, and as for Stevens . . . well, studies have shown no insurance salesman can rock out.) As a teacher of mine once said, "The term art merely means 'I like it a whole bunch.'"

But, as Raymond Chandler wrote, "All good art is entertainment and anyone who says differently is a stuffed shirt and juvenile at the art of living." Following Chandler, I want to suggest something much more revolutionary -- that poetry is entertainment. That living people write it. That it takes work to do and isn't the product of lightning bolts or chemical muses. That if more people read poetry, the world might be a better place.

While the violins warm up in the background, and I climb a soapbox taller than Mount Nittany, settle on in. I'm going to make a pitch for poetry.

Poetry attests to complexity; as Valery said, "All lofty thinking ends in a sigh." Poetry is honest exploration in a television world where the only question is How to get laid and the easy answer is Have the brightest smile and the driest underarms.

Poetry is difficult; that's why we run from it. It allows for lines like Bill Knott's, "Ancestor-silencing is difficult when you you're the one/ who forgot to patent the dodo." The syllables pile up so that we are forced to slow down, to halt our rush to evolution.

Poetry not only makes us re-think, but think. Instead of chowing down Pentagon-pushed myths of heroism, we get Jack Gilbert telling us "the abnormal is not courage: The marriage, not the month's rapture." Instead of the America first military mentality that makes football another form of ground war (of thee Whitney Houston lip-synchs), we get Rodney Jones dreaming up death as the ultimate fullback in the poem "Sweep," in which he writes, "I have been home three days, listening to an obituary."

Poetry is a mirror in which we see ourselves in the brightest light. In a poem about something as everyday as a radio request, Maria Flook writes: "It is difficult to humiliate desire;/ that in itself is important to note,/ if it is late at night/ and someone is saying, 'This is for that girl/ on the island, God bless her.'/ The sea is the same. I am the same. Fish swim/ to the false surface of the searchlight." Poetry lets Flook embrace pop music and all its pathos, while seeing through the bathos, lets her hold love up to hope, yet lament.

Yet lamenting poetry is what this column must do. Now, only poets read poetry; everybody else reads Kitty Kelley. Somewhere in too many minds hides the ghost of a high school English teacher who was nearly a ghost himself, reciting Verse in a trebly voice. (He's the same guy who taught you the five paragraph theme -- hunt him down and kill him.) And read some recent poetry; it might be a moment like this one described by Denis Johnson: "As the record falls and the snake-band chords begin/ to break like terrible news from the Rolling Stones."

Ewe Owe Yourself a Cocktail at Black Sheep

Owner-GM-maitre 'd Ruben Perez admits his head's swimming a bit, and it's because his lovely brasserie Black Sheep has just begun a cocktail program, having landed a full liquor license. Don't blame the drinks themselves--Ruben is an always sober if jovial host--but the way a bar program led to a revamp of what Black Sheep is. (Don't worry, nothing is messing with Wednesday moules-frites night.) It's just the goal is to loosen the mood bit--a bit less expensive, a bit less formal, a bit more raucous. And, yes, to provide some kick-ass drinks. It's made for the past few days to be a bit of a business blur for him.

Speaking of blur, sorry the photo above doesn't do the drinks we enjoyed justice--it's dim but not too dark in the dining room, and it seemed rude to illuminate or flash. But both cocktails were winners, the further an Aztec Goddess which fully earns its name as its base liquor is Casa del Sol Añejo, aged in barrels for 14 months, usually just sipped. It's luxurious and rich and round and a fine offering to Mayahuel, the Aztec goddess of agave. (Hence the drink's name.) And don't even think it's merely a high test Marg, for its other ingredients are Yuzu, egg whites, bitters, and Thai basil. It truly takes you on an adventure.

The nearer drink is from the Classics list, a Corpse Reviver #2. Long time readers of this blog might know it's one of my favorite cocktails, witness a post waxing poetic about them way back in 2012. Black Sheep nails it, starting with the absinthe wash that brings the anise to your nose as much as to your tongue. And then the Sipsmith gin, Lillet Blanc, Cointreau, and lemon all do their magic conjoining trick, leading to a sweet-n-sour, Goldilocks approved utter delight. Also crucial--they got some elegant glassware to show off their creations, an essential touch for an elevated cocktail service.

And the cocktails better be elevated to keep up with the fine food coming out of Chefs Jake Reimer and Robert Perez's kitchen. Start, as we did, with the salt-roasted pickled beets, pictured above. You pick up a lick of that salt but then all the good earthiness you expect from the tender beets, although it's all that sauce that sends the dish into the stratosphere. It's an aji, blood orange, and Yuzu kosho citronette, with both a heat kick from the first and last ingredients and then the tang from all of them, all neatly rounded by sweet and salt. We ordered baguette to sop up what was left. That Pt. Reyes blue cheese espuma is something else, too, like whipped cream and blue cheese had a baby, and now you're all for infant munching. (Hmm...metaphor took a dark corner, sorry.) An effortlessly sophisticated, wildly pleasing dish. 

Chryss got to sing the praises of the sea with the local catch--this evening a Channel Islands halibut--served moqueca baiana style, that is a Brazilian fish stew/curry. It's zippy with coconut milk, lime juice, red palm oil, tomatoes, and red bell peppers all reduced and whirred into a smooth sauce. The cucumbers keep things a refreshing cool, sort of yogurtless raita.

We shared a side of fried fingerling potatoes that were a wonder of texture and smokiness--I've got to assume they had a moment directly in some open fire or were buried in embers? Crisp and crackly on the outside, moist and meaty in the middle. Plenty of Maldon salt making it clear why finishing salt's a thing. What set the dish truly apart was the romesco, the Catalan wonder paste that makes everything extra delicious--more red peppers, almonds and maybe hazelnuts pine nuts, etc. Also note the wide-ranging influences that weave through the kitchen. The chefs know their stuff, and will make whatever is certain to please you. (This dish really reminded me of something you'd get at Gjelina down in Venice.)

Last but not least for me was this steak. Sure, ordering the filet mignon can feel like waving your hand high when they ask, "Who lacks a culinary imagination?" But I was celebrating and feeling carnivorous. Even more, it comes bathed in a double-Cognac peppercorn Bordelaise, which is so my jam I wish someone made actual jam from it. (Note to self: start new business.) Some of that sauce even, sloppily, got on some potatoes. It's great to eat messy, you know. If you want a steak that the kitchen nails, you aren't going to do better than this one.

We had no room for dessert. We have a great desire to go back.

Make the Mōst of Your Aperitif Hour with atōst

 

The weather is warming up, it's the first day of spring, and it's time to start having drinks outside (get that fire pit going if you're still chilly). It can be particularly pleasing to enjoy an aperitif pre-dinner, especially with dusk holding off ever longer. What a perfect way to ease into a night, to release the tensions of a day.

Even better, we have a fine new local product to enjoy. Created in Ventura, atōst is a tribute to California agriculture--co-founder Cindy Pressman's grandparents migrated from Mexico to work in CA's citrus fields, and that's where the liquor's flavoring begins, with oranges. (Its alcohol base, and that's not a crazy strong base at 18% ABV--it's built to savor and not slump over--starts from grapes, which is even more Californian.) Then there are strawberries, and other local botanicals they keep a secret, as most such products do. They hand zest, chop, and blend. It's artisanal, y'all. The ultimate result to my palate is a West Coast Aperol, a bit of bitter, but then plenty of unctuous fruit and that good syrupy quality such products can have.

Not surprisingly, they first suggest we enjoy it as a spritz, as one might imagine with an Aperol-ish liquor. Two ounces atōst, 4 ounces sparkling rosé, garnish with orange. Hard to go wrong there, and the bubbles bring the jollity to the party. 

But you know me, I had to make my own cocktail with it. Leaning in to the Alta California feel, I opted for a margarita variation, only to see they offer one to on their recipe page, a Sunset Margarita. Mine's a bit different, though, leaning into my love of smoke, so mezcal, and my good fortune to be able to pick delicious Meyer lemons in my own yard. Plus I thought getting another local-ish product--Camarillo, but coming to Santa Barbara, at least that's the rumor?--Chareau in couldn't hurt. I mean, something that ups the aloe, but also gets in cucumber, lemon peel, a bit of mint, etc.? Sounds good to me (tastes good too, as I'm my own test kitchen). 

Smoke at Sunset (makes one drink)

1 oz. atōst

2 oz. mezcal

1 oz. fresh squeezed Meyer lemon

.25 oz Chareau

lemon peel

Add everything but the peel into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well to chill. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with lemon peel. Let the world feel better.

A Review of Sameer Pandya's "Our Beautiful Boys"

It’s no coincidence that the two main subjects of Sameer Pandya’s second novel Our Beautiful Boys are family and violence. Set in a vaguely Santa Barbara-ish fictional Chilesworth, CA (Pandya is an associate professor of Asian American Studies at UCSB), the book focuses on three high school football players and a vicious attack of a fourth student at a post-game party in a spot called the Cave House. This sly and captivating book fronts as a whodunit—crucial plot elements keep dropping until the very final pages—but even more so it’s a whoarewe, if I may create a sub-genre, as all its well-limned characters must confront the chaos of their inner selves. And then try to find where their true selves allow them to be in the shifting and complex milieus of family, work, teams, friendships.

Pandya masterfully builds three distinct family units—the Shastris, Gita and Gautum, and their golf-playing son Vikram, suddenly turning his attention to football; the Cruzes, high-powered academic Veronica, her running back son Diego, and her brother, Alex; the generationally privileged Berringers, Shirley, Michael, and their star quarterback son Michael Jr., who goes by MJ. Issues of race and class are clearly obvious from the first pigheaded teenboy taunt, but they go lots deeper than mere name-calling. Indeed, issues of race will grow quite twisted as Veronica’s backstory unspools, and we get to discover why she might be so hesitant to visit her parents. In this way Pandya gets to examine what the limits of self-invention are.

Care to read the rest then do so at the California Review of Books.

Review also posted at the Santa Barbara Independent on March 27, 2025.

WOPN 2025: Old Friends

One of the reasons I love going to World of Pinot Noir is that I've gone to WOPN before. Even better, many people I really like go year after year, or go AWOL for a few and then reappear and it's as thrilling as when the magician brings his missing assistant in a flash back to the stage. I love wine, obviously--just count the thousands of words I've spilled about it in my life. But I love people more. And lord knows, we need community right now. So thanks for all of that, WOPN. 

So what to my wondrous eyes should appear pouring at The Hilt table than Patrick Reynolds. I knew he had been working there for a few years now, but he will always be one of Santa Barbara's best bartenders in my head--even winning a Foodie from the Indy way back when--and he started the Farm-to-Bar Tuesdays at Wildcat/Bobcat with Shaun Belway. A man with impeccable taste and boundless creativity, he's always good for a few fun stories along the way, too. Plus, he was pouring Matt Dees' as ever norm-setting wine from The Hilt. This was winning WOPN bingo. (That got reinforced when the person tasting beside me was Don Schroeder, director of winemaking at Sea Smoke.)

It was a delightful flight of nine wines, so I won't write about them all. But some important lessons: evidently the talk around the water cooler, as Patrick put it, is Radian is Chardonnay, Bentrock is Pinot Noir. (Here's hoping I don't have it introduce you to two of Sta. Rita Hill's wildest, most wonderful vineyards.) Or to put it another way, Bentrock Pinot is a dog--"A wine that hugs you--thanks, I needed that!" while the Radian Pinot is a cat, and says, "No love until I kill you." That's all Reynolds. The festive and fabulous sparkling is hand riddled, so Patrick is happy they don't make more of it (it's at 125 cases now). And then the Estate 2022 Pinot, a blend of all three Hilt vineyards (Puerta Del Mar too) and a bit of Sanford & Benedict whole cluster, well, it's not as singularly distinctive but it is all the yummy, and it costs a lot less. Sign me up.

Even more than wondrous moment above, my orbs might have done the cartoon sproing out of my head when I spied Aaron Watty. The lucky of you might remember him from his days as a server at bouchon, or his very small production but high quality Big Tar Wines. Heck, I even wrote an Indy feature about a dinner he once chefed himself featuring his wines back in 2015. But he hightailed it from these parts for a bit, down at The Rose in Venice Beach. So to see him at the Joyce Wine Company Table was a delight. Turns out Joyce took over the rundown Ventana Winery in Soledad in 2020, and has slowly been restoring it, now with Watty's help as an assistant winemaker. 

The winery has a Joyce label that's all priced at $25 a bottle, "fresh, charming, easy drinking everyday wines," as they put it, from Albariño to Syrah. Then there's the Russell Joyce label, higher end, club member only, and also single vineyard goodies. I got to taste two of these, the 2023 Rusell Joyce Pinot Noir from Pelio Vineyard from the hilltops overlooking Monterey Bay on the Carmel Coast. "It brings the salinity I'm familiar with," Watty points out, comparing it to the fruit he knew from Duvarita Vineyard in Santa Barbara County. It was clean, fresh, bright. The 2023 Russell Joyce PN from Cortada Alta I liked even better, a hearty, very typical Santa Lucia Highlands, deep, dark berry Pinot from the highest elevation in the AVA. Watty told a great story of how Joyce could drive grapes carefully down the precipice-edged hill in perfect a little-to-the-left, a little-to-the-right correction balance, earning Aaron's trust, and paralleling the ways Joyce can finesse his way between tension and harmony with his wines.

Speaking of Aarons, it's always imperative to visit Aaron Walker from Pali Wine Co. at WOPN. (Yes, it seems I only hang out with really tall winemakers, now that I think about it, not that you have a photo of Walker here.) I've known him since he served wine in our house as part of the we need to bring it back again Indy series Make Me Dinner (and the unsaid, And Pour Me Wine) in 2013. My apology to him was he was my last table to visit on Friday, and I only hope I wasn't as blurry as my notes of the tasting are. The two big news item he share were that their Funk Zone tasting room was scheduled for a big remodel and that Pali in general is going focus more on their own Sta. Rita Hills vineyard, planted in 2012 in Gypsy Canyon. That direction bodes well based on my taste of the 2020 PN Pali Vineyard that nails what SRH can do; my notes was, "always what you want from where you want." Each of the 7 different clones used for this estate wine is hand-harvested separately and then fermented and aged individually, so Walker and his team can blend and balance as they see fit. That blend is then barrel-aged for a year-and-a-half in 50% new French oak, 50% neutral. The result is 100% scrumptious. Also notable was Pali's last offering from the renowned Fiddlestix Vineyard, a 2021, that practically vibrated with the tension of acid and fruit.

While Aaron Walker gets to focus on Pali's own fruit, Matt Brady continues SAMsARA's fine project--finding the best Santa Barbara sources and making the best wine possible from each. (Note I didn't get a photo of Matt or his wines, so the above image is from the winery's website--I'm such a writer first, or is that old guy first/last, who didn't grow up with social media--thankgod.) He even flipped the Hilt's water cooler script, pouring captivating 2021 Radian Pinot and 2022 Bentrock Chardonnay. Both exemplified what I've come to think of as SAMsARA's signature--each wine will surprise you with the depth of what it brings. I was going to say a kind of Phil Spector Wall of Sound but: 1) no one members what that means ("River Deep - Mountain High" anyone?), and 2) Spector was a crazy, murderous bastard, so why drag him into it. Brady's wine makes you want to contemplate, not kill, and then sigh in happiness considering their profundity. 

Speaking of profound, it would be hard to calculate all the good Karen Steinwachs has done for our region's wine industry. As you can see, she's not afraid to get her hand's dirty (again, not my photo). She's, and this list isn't exhaustive: a director and chairperson emeritus at WOPN; president of the Women Winemakers & Culinarians Foundation (who just had what looks like a great festival and I missed it all and I'm sad--my schedule is too crazy!); kindly helped staff the Santa Barbara Vintners table all weekend while other members off SBV were off in Korea and Japan, trying to build the SB brand there. She's always good for a few incisive quips but what's better, for making gorgeous wines as Seagrape Wine Co. At the SBV table she was pouring a 2022 Jump Up Pinot from Hibbits Ranch Vineyard. Matt Kettmann--speaking of old friends--wrote this about it in his 95 point Wine Enthusiast write-up: "Lovely aromas of raspberry, mulberry and black plum are decorated in complex waves of thyme and pepper on the nose of this single-vineyard expression from a vineyard just east of Lompoc. The zippy palate is brisk with pomegranate and raspberry flavors that are enlivened by sumac, cinnamon and blood orange touches." Exactly. Karen joked, "It includes all the clones [ten]. And yes, Michael Benedict was involved in its planting."

And yes, Gray Hartley of Hitching Post Wines was involved in WOPN. He and his partner Frank Ostini have been making SB Pinot for 40 years. (Heck, that was the year Mike Wallace grilled some rich New York jagoff about his future political ambitions on 60 Minutes.) Gray, ever with a twinkle in his eye, just loves making people happy with wines, and the occasional bad joke. For example, he told me that when people come up and tell him they knew of his wines before an Academy Award-winning film blew them and the Hitching Post restaurant up, he replies, "That's BS," and waits for their shocked expression before following up, "Before Sideways." While H-P's current releases were spot on, it's also good that at WOPN Hartley likes to open up older vintages to help prove SB Pinot manages just fine. After all, most of us don't cellar stuff away, especially given what real estate costs round these parts--square footage has to go to people sleeping and not wine bottle snoozes. One such pour was a 2001 from Fiddlestix Vineyard that was completely unbricked, fresh and fruit-driven to the point you would never guess it was old enough to drink itself. 

Heck, so is World of Pinot Noir at 25. Long may it pour/roar.