Indy Origins: The 30-Year Hobby Job That Has My Heart

 I came to town with an alternative paper history, having cut my marginally paid journalistic teeth at the Baltimore City Paper while still in college. As an aside, holding the mildly impressive title City Lights Editor there meant I bugged bars for their live band schedules, which in those ancient days involved phone and mail. How a paper came out every week was sort of a miracle.

It all led to a lifetime with a hobby job: writing for the local. Got to do it in State College, PA, where the paper was the Centre Daily Times, something early computer spell-check really wanted to rename the Sinatra Daily Times. Had a host of clips, some already fading newsprint, to prove that I had done this work a time or 20. So in 1995, half a year into my still running Santa Barbara tenure, I cold-called then Arts Editor D.J. Palladino, dropping off a clutch of clips, hoping the mélange covering everyone from Rick Danko to Yo La Tengo would convince him I should write about music.

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

The County’s Finest One-Off Food Night | Clean Slate’s Just 8

(Photo: Wine Club Marketing Inc.)

No one who has attended a Just 8 Supper Club at Solvang’s Clean Slate Wine Bar would ever, ever say that they just ate. For these exclusive evenings — generally occurring once a month, and plan ahead, as they fill up quickly — offer a kitchen firing at the peak of its creativity, providing an eight-course feast. What’s more, alongside each course are wines, two curated pours per course, from the primo cellar of Matt Kettmann, my colleague here at the Independent and a Wine Enthusiast reviewer. (He warns early in the evening, an army of bottles in front of him, “That’s your job to pace yourself!”) Everyone sits along the bar at the otherwise-closed-for-the-night Clean Slate, melding into one sated, happy food family by evening’s end.

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

Celebrate a Great Just 8 at Clean Slate

(Photos by Christian Rodriguez Photography, courtesy Clean Slate Wine Bar)

Consider this post just a quick preview of a future article for the Independent. Back in October I was lucky enough to attend a Just 8 dinner at Clean Slate Wine Bar in Solvang. Eight courses, 16 and a bonus wine generously shared from the cellar of the Indy and Wine Enthusiast's Matt Kettmann, only 8 guests, hours of delight. As good as Chef Melissa Scrymgeour's menus usually are, for an event like this one she really gets to play, to do things that would bog down service in her tiny kitchen if she had to crank the dish out all night. So you get stuff like that King Salmon Thai Pumpkin Curry above, with kuri squash standing in for the pumpkin--never a bad move if you ask me. 

I'm not going to do a run down of each of the courses, just drop in some tantalizing glimpses to make you get to one of these extravagantly special evenings one day. Plus it also reflects the nature of what Melissa and her husband Jason, a wonderfully warm host, are doing every night. After all, the restaurant's name refers to the slate they chalk each evening's menu upon. Sure, nights often have themes, from curry to Cajun, but you never quite know what might be served up. It all depends upon the season, what some farmer has that's perfectly ripe, etc. And on Melissa's exquisite palate--see her modern salad Niçoise above, the bluefin tuna a hearty tartare beneath both a potato-parmesan crisp and a scatter of angle-sliced green beans. Four leafs of little gems. Dollops of Dijon vinaigrette. And then the molecular magic of caper pearls, like frozen teardrops of salt.

 

And this elegant rethink of Coquille St. Jacques, one expertly seared scallop, a sprinkle of local, roasted mushrooms, a sauce of bright cream and wine. Speaking of, Kettmann did a wonderful job double pairing each course, to the point with this one the two Chardonnays, a 2022 Beauregard Ben Lomond Mountain and a 2019 Solomon Hills Estate "Belle of the Ball" Reserve, did one of those odd flips--I preferred the former with its racy, Chablis-like character just to drink, but then with the rich dish, the richer Solomon Hills said, "I got this," and sang forcefully along.

So, here's to the gang at Clean Slate, where I did far more than just ate. Look for an article before the next one goes on sale in 2025. And get up there in the meantime.

Chilling with Franc, Cab Franc

It's tricky to parse the wine-making business from the wine-selling business--because, you know, there's that business part. Given many smaller producers sell much of their wine through on-site wine tasting--as opposed to hawking boxes out of box malls, say--life in the age of COVID has made that business part hard. Luckily, when the going gets hard, the hard-up come up with a clever gimmick like Francs n' Franks.

A couple of weeks ago Buttonwood Farms & Winery hosted a webinar that you got to eat and drink along with, sort of a dream Zoom (it was on FB and Yahoo live, actually). Some folks were even on site for the event, where they got treated to a BBQ of franks (sounded mostly like sausages, actually, but that ruins that fun nomenclature), a fuller tasting (four wines compared to the home two-pack), and the ability to hear the panel of winemaker Karen Steinwachs, assistant winemaker Brett Reeves, and Matt Kettmann from Wine Enthusiast and Indy fame (he's busy getting ready to publish the book about SB wines, even) live. For some reason, our connection worked best through one of our iPhones, and not through our laptop. 

You see, the generally high acid Cabernet Franc tends to work well with smoky flavors, hence the idea grilling would be good. At that point, you sort of have to make the name joke, don't you? (As if I could ever give someone the slightest bit of a hard time for pushing a bit of wordplay, c'mon.) The "home kit" featured a bottle of Buttonwood's 2017 barrel-fermented/aged Cab Franc and their more experimental 2019 Carbonique--Cab Franc that goes through carbonic maceration. The simplest way to think of this is the "regular" CF ferments in open vessels, while the carbonic CF ferments in a closed vessel. That means the grapes ferment from the inside out. And, if you're Steniwachs, whose desk at the winery is near the closed fermenter, you hope nothing explodes (at least that's what she joked).

The difference is a "lighter" wine, more fruit-forward--which is important for Buttonwood's Cab Franc as it tends to grow smaller berries. Note that vintage difference, too--you also drink it sooner. It's meant to be a "fresh" wine. Thanks to those profiles, they suggest you give it a bit of a chill, too. Yes, a red! It's ok. It certainly works with the hotdogs, even our rather soulless vegan ones (think of them as carrying devices for sweet relish and miso mayo).

Nothing was soulless about the event, though. Karen is always good for a sly aside or two, and the wine knowledge of all the participants was of course top-notch without being any kind of pedantic. So a good time was had by us, and it seemed, everyone. Even if those of us not tasting safely socially distanced on site didn't get to try the Carbonique both chilled and room temp, or try the 2007 Cab Franc. And we didn't get to celebrate Kettmann's birthday with cake, either. He owes us one.

By the way, we didn't finish the 2017 CF that afternoon, and since it was a mighty hot weekend, we kept it in the fridge until the next day. Turns out it's quite good with a bit of a chill too, if heartier and deeper than it's carbonic cousin.

Foodie Awards 2018

It's time for the 9th annual Independent Foodie Awards. Check out all the best of eating in Santa Barbara County according to an esteemed board of eaters, led by Independent Senior Editor Matt Kettmann and me. (And if you were wondering, I wrote the blurbs for Jeanine's, The Nook, Elaine and Alberto Morello, Yellow Belly, and Bear and Star, where you can get things (on a special menu) like the incredible bao shown above.

Want to read it all, go to the Independent's site.

The 2017 Foodie Awards

Writer's note: Somehow it's already the eighth version of the Foodie Awards, an idea I helped concoct back in 2010 as a way to tip the toque to all the amazing food happening in Santa Barbara (and it's only got better since, even if this year we saw the first retirement of one of our Lifetime Award winners, John Downey--so that's kind of sad). Kettmann and I split the writing of these, so see if you can guess which 5 I penned. And a hint, the tartare photo above I took this past weekend on a trip to the firing-on-all-cylinders Pico.

The 2017 Foodie Awards on the Independent's site.

Santa Barbara Cabernet Has Come a Long Way, Baby

When a word like pyrazine is the “simpler” way to put something, you know you already might be too far down a rocky scientific road. So let’s jump into the nomenclature deep end: meet isobutyl methoxypyrazine. That’s the chemical compound that makes you smell and taste “green pepper” in red wine, a place where we don’t want green pepper, or at least not so much we end up calling a wine vegetal. (And we won’t even get to cooked green beans, but it can get that bad.)

Want to read the rest then do so at the Santa Barbara Vintners blog.

WOPN Shares Pinot Pairs

Sure it's very hard to think "poor you" when a person says, "We did, of course, subject ourselves to a couple-hour session of tasting nearly 20 cheeses with the three wines up in downtown SLO a few weeks ago." But given the results of all that "work" means a better event at the World of Pinot Noir, the better that is for all of us attending.

The speaker of that quote was Matt Kettmann, senior editor at the Santa Barbara Independent and contributing editor for Wine Enthusiast, who will be moderating two panels Saturday morning, Myth-Busting: Pinot, Cheese and Chocolate. For cheese he will be able to lean on the expertise of Sophie Boban-Doering and Paul Doering (both pictured above) of Fromagerie Sophie in SLO; for chocolate the mad skills of Jessica Foster of Jessica Foster Confections.

"The umbrella term 'cheese' is almost as broad as saying 'food.' There are so many different types of cheese in the world that Sophie has access to, you could find one to go with anything you're drinking, from soda water to a root beer float," Kettmann points out. "Which is to say, pairing wine and cheese is much easier than wine and chocolate, simply because there are so many wildly different possibilities, from light and crisp to unctuous and gooey." 

Boban-Doering was more than pleased with all the possible pairing options for Pinot. "Each Pinot is unique because of terroir, wine maker prerogative, weather, etc. Typically, the nose of a Pinot will guide me on what cheeses to try," she explains. "Some Pinots are peppery, others more fruit forward, some have a darker fruit flavor, while others have red cherry notes…in addition the texture of a wine can help dictate which cheeses to try; is the wine smooth or acidic, heavy or light? Pinots are fun to pair since they are so varied (it’s a tough job but someone has to do it)."

And while the usual two basic types of pairings are to complement or to contrast, Boban-Doering sees it in a more complex way that should make Saturday fascinating. "The moments when the cheese and wine pairings are transformational are my favorite," she says. "By transformational I mean that a flavor emerges from the pairing that I can’t attribute to just the wine or just the cheese. Transformational pairings result in flavors of anise or tobacco or some other herb or spice. So much is going on that it makes me think of what I’m experiencing. Then, out of nowhere, a complexity between the cheese and wine dances in your mouth and finishes beautifully."

 Of course pretty much nothing finishes as beautifully as chocolate with wine, but people need to think before they drink. "Dark chocolate can be bitter and biting, while milkier chocolate tends to be lush, scene-stealing, and even cloying," Kettmann spells out. "That may go well with some dessert wines and very rich, cocktail-style Cabs, but even those are harder to pair with chocolate than you would think. Pinot can be more versatile depending on the style, but chocolate really demands its own space on your palate. So yea, it's no piece of [chocolate] cake."

Of course it's not like WOPN will have you sucking on a Hershey's kiss and swigging Two-Buck Chuck. "Luckily, in the case of Jessica Foster, we are pairing amazing truffles that feature a range of spices, fruits, and other fillings and toppings," Kettmann points out. "That really opened up the possibilities, and I think we've found some nice combinations for the three wines, which are, incidentally, a sparkler from Oregon, a rose from Sancerre, and a regular red Pinot from Sonoma.

"And if you don't like the pairings, we've got some cool backstories on the producers and the locally sourced ingredients in each truffle to keep you interested. But really, with fine hand-made chocolates and fine hand-made wines, what's not to like?"

It doesn't hurt that both seminars feature winemakers who have particular affinities for their food subject--for instance Jim Klein from Navarro, Anderson Valley's fine producer that also makes cheese, too--so the only question after the seminars will be: did I learn more or like more?

Chardonnay's Bad Reputation

Perhaps it's so easy to be snobby about chardonnay as it's ubiquitous as air. There are more acres of it planted in California than any other grape, red or white -- imagine the 142 square mile Bakersfield totally as a chardonnay vineyard, say. (Now quit laughing.) That makes the need for a Chardonnay Symposium, like the one held May 16-17 at the Dolphin Bay Resort in Pismo Beach, a bit clearer.

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Foodies Podcast: Food Talk

Want to hear how we came up with the Foodies this year for the Independent? You can! Senior Editor Matt Kettmann, Food Editor Shannon Kelley, and your truly chat about how it all went down. It's so wonderfully multi-media!

The Foodies Podcast.

Thanks for hosting and engineering and posting, Jake Blair!

Do You Know the Way to Monterey?

Moments do resemble ads sometimes, and such was the case with a lovely-and-a-half dinner we had the great pleasure of hosting earlier this summer. It's mighty fun to hang with cool people under the wisteria-covered arbor in the backyard of our Spanish charmer. Thanks to everyone and everything and all the planets aligning etc.

And then Matt Kettmann, Indy colleague, went and wrote it all up too:

In an evening of culinary highlights, perhaps the happiest words we heard on a warm night in a backyard on Santa Barbara’s Westside this past summer were these: “I have these little presents to give out.” So said chef Danny Douglas (dannydouglascatering.com) as he presented the 10 of us with his main course, succulent halibut filets cooked in paper and just this side of done, served alongside asparagus, bok choy, and shiitake mushrooms. “Wow,” said The Indy’s food editor, George Yatchisin, our host for the night. “That smells great without even opening it.”

Want to read the rest, then go do so at the Indy's site.