Bluewater Grill Renews Santa Barbara Ties

 

The steadily growing Bluewater Grill chain may be opening a new outpost every year — there are 10 so far from Catalina Island to Phoenix — but the goal for each restaurant is to stay grounded (or “sea-ed” perhaps?) in its region. The pandemic provided the opportunity to refocus that mission at our own Bluewater on Cabrillo Boulevard, which opened in 2018. Specifically, the restaurant hired new executive chef Alberto Torres, a 30-year Santa Barbara resident formerly at Hollister Brewing Company and Chuck’s Waterfront, as well as a new GM, Autumn Vaughn, a rising star in Bluewater’s ranks.

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

I Left My Heart in Fizzy Pisco

 

It’s easy to go a bit mad considering mandarins. Clearly pulling apart tangerines from clementines from trademarked brands like Ojai Pixies and Cuties… well, it’s certainly not as easy as pulling apart the luscious segments from these oblate wonders of the citrus world. Actually, telling them apart has something to do with the roughness of the skin, and, of course, genetic crosses you’d have to be a botanist to bother about. But the best thing is many of us locally have a tangerine tree of some sort or know someone who does who is probably offering you fruit. Say thanks, and get cracking on this cocktail.

Care to read the rest then do at Edible Santa Barbara & Wine Country (they've even got a fancy new site for you).

Dishing Up a New Julia

 

When Oscar-nominated directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West set out to make a documentary about the legendary Julia Child, they realized the public believed they knew her. That meant their goal was for a tone that was, as Cohen puts, “Not the same old same old.” People can find out how they made the story new when their film is screened as part of the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience’s Taste of Santa Barbara weekend on Friday, May 20, 7 p.m. at SBCC’s Garvin Theatre, with the directors on hand for a post-film Q&A.

Early on, chef Marcus Samuelsson, one of the first of many fascinating talking heads, calls Child “the Madonna of television chefs,” an outlandish comparison that’s also apt, as both challenged what celebrity women could and should do. Next, footage of a roasting chicken is set to Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire.” Sure, Child began her breakthrough public TV show The French Chef in the 1960s, but rocker Hendrix still seems from a very different world than the Pasadena-born patrician dishing up boeuf Bourguignon.

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

A Review of "The Ninth Decade: An Octogenarian’s Chronicle" by Carl H. Klaus

 

I like to think of Carl Klaus as a journal-ist. No, he didn’t write for newspapers, but his series of nonfiction books all were certainly journals, rich accountings of his life. His prose was lean and unfussy, but the more you thought about it, the more elegantly crafted it became. So, his writing was a lot like the man himself. That’s why it’s a gift that his final book The Ninth Decade chronicled his life in his 80s, a keen-eyed, non-sentimental examination of old age that he published a few months before his passing in February 2022.

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

Irish Whiskey Business at the Lark

I might risk having many of you want to kick me right in my shamrocks, but I'm not a fan of corned beef and cabbage, unless that cabbage is sauerkraut and I've got a Reuben in my hands (even there, I prefer pastrami). So when The Lark suggested the menu above to celebrate St. Paddy's Day, I couldn't have been happier--not an over-cooked anything all evening!

It didn't hurt that there were eight Irish Whiskeys* also offered, including stuff as mythic as a Bigfoot sighting. I can be extravagant, but I rarely pop $600 for a bottle of booze, so getting an ounce or two of Redbreast 27 was truly a treat, but I'm getting ahead of myself. (Good booze does that to me.) 

*Does the whiskey versus whisky spelling issue confound you? It goes like this: if you're drinking American or Irish, it's whiskey; Scottish, Canadian, or Japanese, it's whisky. Why? Nobody quite seems to know. But at least at The Lark for this dinner, the lovely stuff certainly made one go "eeeee."

Guests got half ounce tastes of the four "welcome" whiskeys--although you could sneak back in for re-tastes if you were pushy or me. The big difference, as the Pernod Ricard rep (yep, Midleton-Spot-Jameson-Redbreast are all part of one of the mega liquor conglomerates, as probably you and I are, at this point), is with your usual Jameson Irish Whiskey, no one knows how it tastes, they just do shots. Here, you better damn well sip. So then you'd know Green Spot has a lovely minty character, Redbreast 15, with more oak, is both smoother with a longer finish, and the Redbreast 21, oh, you want to spend an evening with this one, even if you will feel its liquor-heat. Speaking of, Blue Spot is cask strength, 117 proof, and enough to make you wonder if you're sitting down when you're sitting down. But it's also complex as all heck, having been aged in Bourbon casks, Sherry butts and Portuguese Madeira casks. So it runs the gamut from vanilla to more exotic tropical notes. 

All four went down well with the passed app, since there's some mighty good grilled sourdough to help soak up the alcohol and then a lovely mix of salty-fattiness with that porchetta di testa (pig's head roulade, sliced to be presented as charcuterie) and then a zesty balsamic onion jam and pickled mustard seeds that burst with goodness (and run a bit about like ball-bearings, too).

Somehow I didn't get a photo of the artichoke course, but it made me wish there was even more of the delicious Dungeness crab on it, and seemed a bit of a puzzling choice to be served with stuff you were drinking from a Glencairn whiskey tumbler, because pulling out artichoke leaves and scraping the meat with your teeth makes for very messy, if tasty (thanks, tarragon-flecked Fresno chili butter!), fingers. Maybe other people are better at being dainty, but I was making a mess. And, of course, we were eating family style, at festive long tables packed tightly with revelers that denied we had just come out of (and have we?) a pandemic.

The Midleton Very Rare Barry Crockett served with this course had its own battle to fight--at a mere 80 proof and aged in barrels with untoasted heads, it was a more demure pour than the Blue Spot that proceeded it. Try being just a gorgeous gal after Marilyn Monroe had blown threw a room. But it rewarded with its subtler pleasures as we sat with it, as is fitting for a whiskey named after the head distiller at Midleton for five decades.

The Yellow Spot served with the next course brought home the sherry notes from the barrels it was partially aged in, and, as our presenter called it, "Christmas cake," because no one wants to compare anything positive to fruitcake, plus, that's what they call it Ireland. Just the aroma of the duck confit was insane, and serving it with a barley risotto was clever, of course, but the barley you eat is pretty different than the malt that goes into distilling. Both the pour and the duck had honeyed notes--the dish from honey-roasted red flame grapes--but in many ways the evening proved that while you can have delicious food and intoxicating whiskey together in a meal, it's hard to have them hold a truly meaningful conversation. I'd order that duck again, though, in a second (nasturtium are so pretty and delicious both).

But I might order these ribs first, and I'm generally not a huge ribs fan (living with a pescatarian gives you less time to develop your barbecue palate as the best joints get meat into everything, from the greens to the mac-n-cheese to the meat itself, of course). These ribs, though--smoking made them exquisitely tender and flavorfully full, especially when lightly doused with the maple and pear vinegar gastrique, a perfect sweet-sour line of tension. And what could be wrong with a whiskey-pickled jalapeño for a bit of kick? 

The Jameson 18 poured alongside is a blend of three different whiskeys, all at least 18 years old (that's what the year designation means--that's the minimum of what's in the mix), and exhibits a classic pot-still richness, picking up accents from its aging in Oloroso barrels for spice and vanilla and more from aging in Bourbon barrels, too. I'd like to call it a smiling whiskey, as that's what it leaves you doing after each sip.

And then the Redbreast 27 arrived. Think about what that number means--AOL offered internet browsers to the public for the first time the year that this whiskey began aging. And you can see what aged better. A 109.2 proof behemoth of all you might want, and things you didn't know you wanted, in an Irish whiskey, as its aged in Bourbon, sherry, and ruby port barrels. Rich, luxurious, it even offers more exotic fruit notes in addition to the more traditional plum and cherry fruit soaked in vanilla. 

As rich was the ganache, wisely salted (really the only way to enjoy chocolate fully). The sea buckthorn berry/grand fir oil sauce was a bit much for some--think mango and pineapple had a particularly tart baby--but I thought it provided a pleasing cut to the obvious richness of the chocolate. And, even to the whiskey some. So let's call this oddball the pairing of the evening?

I am a bit sad no future March 17 will ever live up to this one, for food or drink, for as the Pernod Ricard rep put it, all these whiskeys are highly allocated and he claimed to have never seen them poured at one event before. So I guess that leaves me green with Irishness, and you can just be green with envy. (Sorry.)

7 of the Best Small Wine Producers in Southern California to Try Right Now

 

While most people know the sad tale about how the auto industry and its corporate fellow schemers offed public transportation in Los Angeles, few know what Prohibition and urbanization did in Los Angeles' flourishing wine production. Indeed, the original seal of the County of Los Angeles — from 1887 until a surprisingly late 1957 — was a cluster of grapes.

In the last 30 years, wine production has exploded throughout Southern California. Take Santa Barbara County, which was named the Wine Enthusiast's wine region of the year in 2021. In the late 1980s, there were 29 wineries; today, there are well over a hundred (one might have opened during that sentence). And even Temecula has survived glassy-winged sharpshooters eating nearly half their vines in the 1990s and a bad rep thanks to recovering from that disaster to become one of the state's hottest wine regions. Now, Southern Californians are making wine from the Mexican border to the Cuyama Valley. Here are just a few of the best small producers.

Want to read the rest, then do so at KCET's website. (And thanks for having me back, KCET!) (That's Say When in the photo above.)

WOPN 2022: New Finds

Based on my two WOPN posts (so far, one still to come?), you must think all I do while there is get snapped in usies, but I wanted to start both posts with the only two of those social media friendly gang shots I was in all weekend in order to: 1) get some people in these blog posts (not only did I fail to take pictures of people, I had to grab most of the bottle photos from the net for this post--bad blogger!); 2) a big part of WOPN is the sudden moment a table becomes a party--who knew drinking in public led to talking to strangers?; 3) I wanted to point out there were lots of Pinot lovers crammed into the Bacara ballroom, and so I guess we all figure we're done with COVID (let's hope it's done with us).

So the angle for this post is new finds, and the funnest new find of the weekend was definitely Bee Hunter (see photo above). I'm historically a big fan of Anderson Valley wines, the gorgeous cherry of them, the hint of redwoods, plus the location itself is a beauteous land that seems to have banned all chain companies. Forget Starbucks and Mickey D's, even the gas station and supermarket go by people's names, not corporations'. So it's not surprising that's where the very personable Bee Hunter comes from, and the dynamo Ali from the Valley behind the table made sure everyone was tasting, getting info, having fun. She and her husband Andy DuVigneaud make a host of wines, from orange to after dinner, and then a fantastic phalanx of Pinot, including a luscious 2018 Anderson Valley that the Wine Enthusiast gave 96 points to, which suggests not all ratings are ridiculous. The charm and warmth of this winemaking couple shines through in every bottle.

Staying in Mendo County, I also really relished the 2020 Maggy Hawk White Pinot Noir. You heard that right--they get the juice off the skins fast enough it stays light, but light isn't the world for the flavor or texture. Especially after all the traditional Pinots, this wine, with its elegant peach and exotic fruit notes is a palate re-awakener. (And here I should admit that I might have written about this wine after a previous WOPN for a different vintage, but it seemed like a new find again, so I'm sticking with that.)

 

Then there are the places who find their great grapes from a wide range of places, which gets us to Auteur. While based in Sonoma, winemaker Kenneth Juhasz and his COO wife Laura Juhasz cherry pick from the best fruit they can find, and the best they were pouring at WOPN came from Manchester Ridge in Anderson Valley. Two thousand foot elevation, coastal, super stressed small cluster fruit and one big, big wine laced with saline from the ocean influence. Yum.

Sticking in Sonoma I heartily enjoyed the "sister" projects Works & Days (I mean, who doesn't love a Hesiod reference? or, if you'd prefer, a Prufrock reference to the ancient Greek?) and Coursey Graves (note the names rhyme--how to win over a wine-loving poet). Cabell Coursey was a delight to talk with, as he described his winemaking--for one thing, they age in terracota amphora and only use natural yeast. So you really taste the wonder that is their vineyards, and while I quite liked Works & Days 2018 Spring Hill Vineyard Pinot--everything you want a Sonoma PN to be, fresh and full, deep and racy--what truly blew me away was the ringer under the table, the 2015 Coursey Graves Syrah. Their website aptly describes it this way: "This wine blends American bold richness with a European elegance and style. Explosive aromatics of violets and blueberry, and focused flavor of blackberry, licorice, and pepper, this wine will age for a decade or more." Somehow they resisted using any exclamation points; I scribbled a rarely-used 5 stars in my notebook.

One of the keys to navigating so much wine in one room is listening to friendly recs. That's how I ended up at the Cobb Wines table, after bumping into the always-good-to-see Matt Mauldin (who works for the Miller Family Wine Co.), thanks to his advice. Think cool climate Sonoma coastal vineyards, and then some special magic for the 2016 Diane Cobb Coastlands Vineyard Pinot. The Diane Cobb block is the heart of their family estate, and winemaker Ross couldn't mess up if he's going to name a wine after his mother, could he? Given he's worked at the likes of Willams Selyem and Flowers before starting his winery with his family, no. Wine & Spirits named it the year's best pinot, and they might be right.

One of the great fun parts of WOPN is discovering a wine regional's or sub-region you didn't know about, and that's the case with Eden Rift, tucked in the Cienega Valley AVA right up upon the San Andreas Faultline. It's got a more famous neighbor in Calera but it's making great wine on its own, which might not be a surprise given Eden Rift is the oldest continually producing vineyard in California, planted in 1849. Throughout their tasting line-up they offered racy, grippy wines with good minerality. I particularly liked the 2019 Estate Pinot Noir (you can't even buy on their website yet), coming from what they hailed as their favorite recent vintage.

Note one running theme of this post: most of the new finds are going to be out of Santa Barbara as I'm a bit more attuned to what's happening here, but not always. Hence, Piazza Family Wines. (I will not make Mets or Belle & Sebastian jokes. I will not make Mets or Belle & Sebastian jokes. I will not like you if you say the Mets are a joke.) Ron & Nancy Piazza planted the famed Mt. Carmel Vineyard that long sold fruit to stars like Greg Brewer and Rick Longoria, and then became co-partners in Mail Road (see the old friends post), but wanted even more of a presence in the winemaking community. So they bought what was the Harrison-Clarke Vineyard in Ballard Canyon, renamed it Bella Vista, and most importantly, hired Gretchen Volcker as their winemaker (she also makes her own wines as Luna Hart). While the Ballard Canyon property lets them make some Rhone varietals, at WOPN it was the Mt. Carmel Pinot that starred, especially the so good if still so young (so how great will it get?) 2020 Mt. Carmel PN, ridiculously concentrated yet lithe, and with that windswept wild quality the hilltop site lends to wines. All in a 12.9% package, too.

To end on a bit of a palate cleanser, thanks to its bubbles, let's consider the easy to glug Neighborhood, 2020 Sparkling Pinot Noir 'Pet Moon Red' from Pali. Now, chatting with the ever affable Aaron Walker helps make any wine go down, but this pet nat--and I know, I know, it's a favorite for trendies who don't know what's good, only what's hip (and what the heck do I know, I just used the word hip)--this one is actually good, bringing the fresh and delight with plenty of berry and potpourri power. And if you can't enjoy something a bit unusual, and a bit less fussy, why would you care about WOPN finds, anyway?