Why Not a Pinot Party?

Twenty-five years is as fine a reason for celebration as any, so that's certainly what happened at Thursday, February 27th's Opening Night Party for World of Pinot Noir. Of course anything feels luxe happening at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara, a hotel that's sort of its own grand Pacific-side world. (Just the collection of the cars you'll never come close to driving parked in the central plaza as you enter tells you that.) But WOPN did its best to spiff up, putting on its metaphorical white tie and tails for the evening. Even the step-and-repeat was attractively classy. (Notice I didn't ruin that effect my getting picture taken in front of it.)

After having your ticket scanned and and your armband affixed (note, they use the clip ones, not the sticky ones--my wrist hairs, unpulled, say thank you), you were ushered into what would turn out to be the sparkling station/room for the whole weekend, and pours of Seppi were handed you. There are worse ways to kick off an evening with wines made in honor of Joseph "Giuseppe" Phelps. Heading out that door, servers offered mini-Wellingtons you could dip into rosemary aioli. Somehow this golfball-sized gourmet delight worked--the flaky crust stayed on, you could eat it three bites tops. You'd been at the event four minutes, and you felt at the least fancy, if not half way to schmancy. 

I'm going to make this look like all I did was eat, but: 1) remember my rules about ballast at drinking events, and 2) food photographs better than wine bottles, if you ask me. So that's mezzi rigatoni pomodoro, the pasta exactly al dente, the sauce essential tomato yet kicked up with gunciale and a hit of Grana Padano. What's more, spiced sausage offered that great fat, with its own heat cutting the fat too, and then the lovely, light cloud-like tufts of whipped garlic ricotta. I fought the urge for seconds and the second didn't win.

This shrimp cocktail positively glowed. (Sorry.) But I was a real sucker for the lighting from under the ice trick. The shrimp were cooked precisely, but that trick of locking them both into each other and into the serving spoon made it hard to unhook them, in a weird way, and I even tried to eat them before I had had much to drink, I promise. 

While it is the World of Pinot, it's always heartening to see providers from our very region, and you can't get one much closer to Bacara than the Cultured Abalone, who not only brought their delicious mollusks but also had a rep on site to tell you about their terrific farm. The presentation of the seared abalone was a straightforward sear in garlic sea salt butter, then hit with herbs and citrus, but these wonders of the sea are so delicious, that's all they need. It was an honor to indulge in them, and to get to nod to what was once a food in great supply on our coast.

OK, yes there was wine. But I've got two more wine-soaked entries to write about WOPN 2025 and its grand tastings, so will go lighter on all that here, if you don't mind. You can see a hint of some of the range of stuff on offer in the photo. I drank from a different bottle of La Follette, a 2022 Heintz, a vineyard that runs deep in lore with Williams Selyem fans. It lived up to my expectations, racy and wild, with good fruit rounded with a bevy of attractive side notes--hillside sage, white pepper, baking spice. I also enjoyed a 2021 Ram's Gate Bush Crispo Vineyard that should be in the dictionary alongside Russian River Valley Pinot. A classic. And other wines we'll get to in future posts.

It was tricky to tell who the crowd was. Certainly a lot of winemakers, but one local who will go unnamed suggested, "Most people stay partying in their rooms and then show up here later and buzzed." I didn't stick around for that, saving myself for two days of grand tastings. Did I mention there would be grand tastings? There was also fine rock n roll from Dan Curcio of Moonshiner Collective, stuck trying to juice us up when there was plenty of juice to drink for that. Maybe you had to hangout until the very end to see if the dance floor got used. I know the step-and-repeat did.

Culinary Icon Alice Waters Meets Santa Barbara Elite to Improve How We Eat

 On a lovely late summer afternoon from El Encanto, a Belmond Hotel’s perch on the Riviera, one might assume your focus would be on the enthralling city and seascape below. Instead, on August 19, all eyes looked back toward the fabled hotel, where legend of the slow food movement Alice Waters made her pitch for the Edible Schoolyard Project.

Waters, the force behind Berkeley’s culinary gem Chez Panisse, helped create the farm-to-table movement back in the 1970s. But providing delicious and nutritious dishes to restaurant patrons was merely the beginning of her life’s work. The one time Montessori teacher remains a powerful educator. And as she pointed out to the small if well-heeled crowd at the fundraiser, the Edible Schoolyard Project grew from one school in Oakland to more than 6,500 schools today.

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

All Hail the Slyly Served Snail

It's a tricky task to single out one thing at Sly's as the place tends to do no wrong. Cocktails, well, Mandy and her crew has got them, and every part tends to be made from scratch, from the orgeat in the Mai Tai to the bitters in the stirred, not shaken Manhattan (as that drink is fond of foaming when shaken vigorously). The service is ever professional and friendly but it still has that old-fashioned air, too--it's not about palsing around, but performance. The bread service I could have easily heaped hearty wheaty hosannas on just as much as the one at Coast's (or the one at Downey's--that Irish soda bread...yum)--how can you beat warm black bread with gooey raisins?

But given all that goodness, this entry's going to be about abalone, even if it took a snail's pace to get around to announcing it as my subject. James Sly gets his from what he bills as Dos Pueblos Local Abalone, for a wealth of reasons, no doubt, not the least of which is nostalgia (Sly's is nothing if not the steak house of your dreams you think you remember, but even better). Abalone hankers back to a different day in California, when the world was rich in their veal-of-the-sea loveliness, when living the coastal life didn't require oodles of cash. Of course that world is long gone--the price of the abalone main course attests to that ($48)--but it's nice to reconnect to a simpler age, even if at a premium. Sly's, too, also loves the local, having been on that trend before it was a glimmer off Michael Pollan's bald head. What's more, Sly is sly about language as much as anything else, relishing in the corniness of pitch-talk like "just blocks from the world's safest beach!" For let's face it, Dos Pueblos Local Abalone is relatively sexier than the Cultured Abalone, from where the little mollusks actually hail. The good news is they are farmed sustainably, so you can eat with a clear conscience.

And you will, as Sly serves them up totally tender, lightly breaded, perfectly pan-fried. Cut each one into tiny pieces and savor--it's a meal that teaches you to eat slow (the one part of slow food perhaps not emphasized enough: just take your time and enjoy what's going into your mouth!). If a clam and lobster mated, they might hope to give birth to an abalone, but it would have to be an exceptional child. That breading adds just enough, well, even crunch is too much of a word, but it's all about texture, something to play off the tender abalone (which isn't chewy in the slightest). All of this is napped--and that's the only word that works for just the exact amount of saucing so you'll get just a bit on each and every bite and suddenly your plate will be spotless when you're finished--in a doré sauce, proving so much of cooking is really just nailing the simple. Butter, wine, shallot, parsley, salt, pepper, and I'm guessing maybe a dash of cream (it's like the exclamation point of Angostura in the Manhattan mentioned above).

If this plate isn't heaven, damn me right now.