The World Is Sadly Less Sly

(photo: Paul Wellman)

Chef James Sly passed away Friday night and the world is less delicious and less sweet. I wrote a very quick note for the Independent, but I could just keep writing, and in some way I already have, as I will get to.

In the meantime I need to share a story from Michael Graham, co-owner of C'est Cheese, which I got too late (thanks email!) to include in my Indy article: "When we were in the throes of construction on our expansion, we were having dinner at Sly’s and complaining about how difficult it was and how we had no money left. A few days later he and Annie show up in the middle of our Saturday morning rush and James calls me over. He calmly hands me this huge wad of cash and in a super casual voice says 'I’d like to purchase a $10,000 gift card please.' It truly really saved us. I loaded a card up for him and he (very) slowly used it to make purchases for Sly's for the next several years."

Here's the article I wrote about Sly's a year in that gives some of his background, too.

And Sly was the coordinating chef for the annual Central Coast Wine Classic's fabulous dinner at Hearst Castle for over 30 years. I had the delightful opportunity to volunteer for a bunch of those years, and wrote about the magical, Brigadoon-ish appearing and disappearing kitchen back in 2009.

Then, one micro look. The fried wonder that was Sly's half-and-half of onion rings and home fries.

You will be so very missed, Chef.

Eat This: "Half & Half" at Sly's

Face it: As much as fried foods beckon with a siren crunchy call, they too often lure us onto greasy rocks that then sit at our stomach’s pit.

Not this dish.

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

Confessing My Love for a 22-Year-Old

Last night for my 50th birthday, my wife and I shared a 22-year-old. I have to admit to some anxiety before the first taste, as I had been thinking about this 22-year-old for years, hoping after I had bought it that I'd taken proper care of it, that it would live up to its promise, the weight of waiting. What if I'd done something wrong and ruined it along its journey to maturity? I'd never forgive myself. But now that it was at last mine, plush and luscious in my mouth, I have to admit, it was very very good.

Wait, you might be confused...I'm talking about a bottle of 1991 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon. It was the first expensive bottle of wine I ever bought, perhaps almost $40 back in 1995 (ah, those innocent, cheaper me days), and I've been storing it ever since, assuming there'd be a right time, a right steak (come to think of it, I was a pescatarian when I bought it). I would not want to begin to count the bottles of wine I've purchased/consumed since then, as the Montelena bided its time. Perhaps it felt it was waiting for me, too.

It was a relief bringing the bottle to a restaurant for corkage, as I didn't have to do the opening honors and face the fear of the cork crumbling or the cork lifting and emitting a damp cardboard tinge that might mean taint. The cork itself pulled clean, and was well-reddened, so it seems I stored the bottle relatively well. Not a whiff of TCA, either. And now the Cab sat, an open question, drinking air from a century different than the last it had contact with. We had cocktails to start, as this was Sly's, and you don't pass on Mandy's cocktails even for a 22-year-old.

Finally it was time, and we had much to toast to as it wasn't just my birthday, but my wife had just been named Santa Barbara Poet Laureate--a glorious coincidence for the bottle to be part of. Its color carmine even to its edges--not a bit of brown even for its age. The nose was muted, although that keep changing with the night, some red berry, some leather. The taste, of all things, dignified, although again as it opened more and more it let its wild side out, more bramble in that berry. And it left your mouth better than when it began, teaching your tongue how to taste, making my medium rare Kansas City New York bone-on beef in a drizzle of Bearnaise beautiful.The bottle just kept opening, a night of possibility, growing fuller, deeper, more delicious. As if I needed another lesson in how the best things in life are worth a wait.

I Drink, Therefore Iamb

So John Milton, Edgar Allen Poe, Edwin Arnold, Robert Frost, Stevie Smith, and Shel Silverstein walk into a bar. Well, they don’t actually walk, as they’re all versifying in the hereafter now, but poems by all six are being celebrated by Santa Barbara mixologists in honor of National Poetry Month. After all, for centuries the arts have inspired, intertwined, and cross-pollinated in a host of scared and profane ways, so what seems more natural than flipping the typical paradigm and having poetry lead to some cocktails?

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

Gomme Sweet Gomme

Perhaps I feel cowed by the creativity cocktail makers seem able to offer so simply with just a shake of the wrist. Perhaps I am dulled by consuming too many of their drinks. But it's seemed hard to write this entry I've been meaning to get to since December 6, as December 5 is a day that should live in famy (isn't that the opposite of infamy?)--the repeal of the 18th Amendment. For 13 long years our poor country was dry and not high. That stretch even includes some Depression years, and if you can't drown away your centless sorrows, how miserable must life be? No wonder it was also the era of the great Dust Bowl.

But is it perfume from a bitters, that makes my entry all a-skitter? Indeed, for today we are in a perfect storm of cocktailiana--everything's legal (even absinthe), history is lovingly excavated by artful archaeologists, and then there's the fine fuel of the local-artisanal food movement turning its eye to craft distilling. Add in global influences as if sprinkling with fairy dust that's actually ground crickets and pretty much anything can happen in a cocktail glass.

Some of it's quite tasty, too, not just novelty, and that's crucial as a cocktail is nothing if it's not tradition. When you toast, it's not just to the person or people you're with, it's a cheers to every drinker ever, a sign of civilization at its most civil: we have tamed this firewater, made it beautiful, and will share it peacefully while even better doing our best to make witty and wise.

This was easy to do at a place like Drago Centro in downtown LA, all sleek and not at all old school Italian despite nailing Italian food with that simple made perfect from kick-ass ingredients way (tomatoes are tomatoes here, even in December, somehow). And then the brilliance of this dish il risotto allo zafferano e midollo, which just sounds beautiful (say it aloud, so your tongue gets ready for the beauty of the actual dish while eating it). That's saffron risotto and salsa verde, almost something minimalist, that is until you start to massage in the roasted bone marrow that sits atop. So much richness in each forkful.

But as to the cocktails, or the "new classics" as they put it, cleverly making oxymoronic sense (as a drink does, so very elegant as it begins to muddle your mind with its spirits). We had: the Blessed Bliss made of Karlsson’s vodka, Cardamaro, Underberg bitters, fresh ginger, fresh apple, and fresh rosemary; and the Hot Bellied .45 made of Bulleit bourbon, Del Maguey Vida mezcal, Cocchi Americano, Art in the Age snap, and Fee Bros. lemon bitters. That first led with its herbs--the very skilled waiter warned us he wasn't fond of the drink as he's not a rosemary fan--, but that's little surprise as in addition to the prominent rosemary sprig, Underberg supposedly packs in 43 herbs. So, something of surprising depth. As for the .45, the mezcal gave it a kicky smokiness, always a fine match for a bourbon, and then, again, things got complicated, what with a bit more lemon than mere bitters might make one expect and the molasses depth of the Snap (as in ginger).

Alas, this foray was nothing compared to what awaited us at Sly's on December 5 itself. It turns out the "Mix mistresses and barmen" as they bill themselves, craft a special cocktail list only for Repeal Day, and then it's your secret handshake for the year, as you can flash it and request the drink of your choice on it that no one else knows. Nothing like having your speakeasy and prohibition too. That's eleven choices I get and you don't (sorry, dear reader--go next year), including one from Chef James Sly himself, a sneaky Bloody Mary variation that swaps beet juice for tomato (it's a salad in a glass!, or, more seriously, the perfect drink to have with a salad, always a tough pairing).

And I don't mean to be coy, but I'm not going to spill any of the drinks' names, for they belong to those who are part of the secret society. Mandy Chinn, the head mix mistress there and award winner several times over for her mixology, has her team always take things one step beyond the norm. Here there's nothing so simple as simple syrup, it's gomme syrup, which with its gum Arabic emulsifying away, ends up even smoother than just sugar water. That's the way it used to be done, and still is at a place as fastidious as Sly's. Even more mysteriously, even owning the menu doesn't quite get you to the point where you can recreate the drinks at home, for key ingredients often don't make the list--is that merely a typo that there's a comma at the end of one write-up, or a sneaky hint Sly's is living up to its name? Don't worry, sip away, and watch as Chris Chinn beats a glass with sprigs of thyme like a penitent flagellating. Ah, ritual, delicious as sin, these well-balanced brilliances.

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.