Wine and Ravioli Shine at Stars of Santa Barbara
Posted on June 28, 2009 by Gary McCarty
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Forgot to load the SD card in my digital camera, so all I had left at Stars of Santa Barbara was my pocket YouTube camcorder (results below).
The charity event, benefitting the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, was held outdoors at South Coast Plaza (no doubt the nation’s premier shopping mall and one that seems unaffected by the economic downturn). Under bright evening skies, more than 500 people lined up and gathered to sample wines (a lot of Pinot Noir) from Santa Barbara and food from local restaurants (sparse were they).
In the video, you can listen to the announcer thank everyone for attending and then pop a trivia question on naming the first winery in Santa Barbara (answer: Longoria). In the final scene you get to see the staff of Antonello Ristorante preparing ravioli for the masses, which was quite yummy.
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‘Top Chef Masters’ Must Master a Color Scheme
Posted on June 24, 2009 by Gary McCarty
Tonight’s Top Chef Masters pays tribute to a classic season two Top Chef Quickfire in which the chefs must create a dish using one single color – and of course it has to be delicious!
When Ludo Lefebvre (Ludo Bites) and Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill) both plan to make a quesadilla as their main dish for the elimination challenge, each worries that his overlap will jeopardize his chances of winning. Will the two go head-to-head over quesadillas? And who of the four expert chefs will come out on top to advance to the finals?
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Wine & Cars Under the Stars: Some e-Coli There Too?
Posted on June 23, 2009 by Gary McCarty
I attended my second Wine & Cars Under the Stars at the Fairplex in Pomona, Calif., this past Saturday. Though I found it about a third (or more) smaller/fewer in offerings of wine and food from 2008, I enjoyed myself.
I discovered some really nice wines and gobbled the food, sparse though the grub may have been, and overall enjoyed the warm evening surrounded by vintage, restored and race cars at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum.
Other than the reduced offerings from the year before (understandable given the economy), I did have a couple of beefs.
First was the disorganized nature of the wine offerings. Too many booths had no winery representatives (jus volunteers) and no handouts to list the wines, and naturally I did not bring pen and paper with me to take notes. I found an absolutely terrific 2005 Bordeaux for under $15, for instance, and though I tried to remember its name, by the next morning I had no clue.
For a good reason.
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LA Live Almost Rocks, Which Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra Definitely Do
Posted on June 22, 2009 by Gary McCarty
Okay, so an orchestra dedicated to playing waltzes and opera pieces can’t really be said to rock in music terms, but tell that to the several thousand people who turned out at the Noka Theater at LA Live this past Friday, June 19, to spend the evening with Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra.
Actually, the orchestra played as many or more opera pieces than walzes, and more waltzes by Franz Lehar than by Strauss, but it was "The Blue Danube Waltz" that got couples into the aisles to dance along, which conductor Andre Rieu predicted would happen. He dutifully stopped the music on a few occasions just to confound everyone, but that just led to the fun. Thankfully, I and my wife were stuck in the middle of a long row, so I really (honestly, I couldn’t) didn’t have a chance to go make a fool of myself.
This was my first venture to LA Live, which is like Downtown Disney or Universal City Walk in that it’s a gathering place full of restaurants and nightclubs, and of course, the Nokia Theater, right across the street from the Staples Center, home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers.
I, unfortunately, hadn’t done my research, so I took a wild guess and headed to Rock’N Fish.
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Vending Machine Battle Tonight on ‘Top Chef Masters’
Posted on June 17, 2009 by Gary McCarty
Tonight on Top Chef Masters, the chefs are operating on an extremely tight budget and must create the perfect amuse bouche using only what they can find in a vending machine (a la a season-two Top Chef competition).
Master chefs Wylie Dufresne, Suzanne Tracht, Graham Elliot Bowles and Elizabeth Falkner find themselves “lost” as they are challenged to make a meal inspired by the hit TV show of the same name, using ingredients such as fish, wild boar, fresh fruits, and other island specialties. Lost co-creators, executive producers and writers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof guest star, while one chef eventually moves on to the Champions Round.
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Cellar Dwellers from Heitz Produce Some Surprises
Posted on June 16, 2009 by Gary McCarty
When a friend at work recently said he needed to start drinking some wines he’d been aging, my mind was drawn to two bottles of Heitz Cellar Cabernet Sauvignons that I’d been keeping for probably way too long. One was a 1982 Martha’s Vineyard, and the other a 1984 Bella Oaks. When I bought them, they were legendary Cabs, back in the days before Hollyweirdos started buying up property in Napa Valley.
Taking a cue from my coworker (whose wines were about five or so years old), I vowed to finally sample–drink whole, actually–the two bottles. I opened the 1982 Martha’s first. Initial sign of trouble: the cork was worn out and my corkscrew merely created a hole in the cork without ever removing it, so I was forced to filter the wine while pouring it. Second sign of trouble was the rust color that made it appear that the wine may have been beyond its time. My first sip sort of confirmed that it may have aged too much, so I chilled the bottlea bit. The result was a much more pleasant and balanced wine, but still one on the edge.
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‘Food Inc.’: How Stuff Gets from the Farmer to You
Posted on June 12, 2009 by Gary McCarty
The new documentary "Food, Inc" explores how America’s food is produced, packaged and sold. Director Robert Kenner and consulting writer Michael Pollan discuss what the future of farming may look like, as well as the health costs of efficient, abundant food production. Watch the trailer:
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‘Top Chef Masters’ Debuts Tonight
Posted on June 10, 2009 by Gary McCarty
From the promo material I received:
Tonight begins the ultimate foodie face-off as 24 of the most established chefs compete in tried-and-true Top Chef format for the chance to become “Top Chef Master”! The first four chefs to draw knives and are tasked with cooking dessert for a tough crowd of judges and Girl Scouts. Later in the elimination challenge, the acclaimed chefs must cook a three course meal in a college dorm room — will they be able to handle the pressure?
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LA WineFest: Better for Raleigh Studios Than ‘Ugly Betty’
Posted on June 7, 2009 by Gary McCarty
If you hurry on over, providing you live in Southern California, you can still catch the second and concluding day of LA WineFest 2009, which is being held at the Raleigh Studios in Hollywood from 2 to 6 p.m. today (Sunday, June 7) as well as yesterday, when it was held during the same time-frame. I highly recommend it. it’s a pleasant escape in a pleasant setting with plenty of great wines from the Paso Robles (mainly) wine region to sample. I was particularly happy that, unlike the Gold Standard, which was held earlier this spring at another studio, LA WineFest wasn’t overrun by Yippies, Yuppies or Millennials, or whatever the crowd of too-young-to-drink, upwardly mobile, future Bernie Madoffs call themselves these days.
It would be unfair to single out any vineyard, or group of them, for acclaim, since there is no way that I or anyone else in attendance could sample everything on hand and render a suitable judgment on all. That being said, I guess I’ll go ahead and do that anyway. I was particularly taken by the subtle wines produced by the winemaker for Pear Valley. His wines were all smooth but redolant (how’s that for a wine snob’s word?) of the grape variety. Even the big, bold wines possessed a smooth richness to them.
I was also pleasantly taken by a winery called Sculpterra, but mainly for the sculptures that line their winery (they had miniatures on display). Both Pear Valley and Sculpterra are in the Paso Robles region and worth a visit, which I hope to make soon, maybe over the July Fourth Weekend, if I’m not participating in a pitchfork parade somewhere.
Food was available for sale, but I didn’t want any hard substance to come between me and my grapes, so I settled for getting quietly enebriated instead. However, the ladies from Garlic Expressions were on hand to provide samples of their salad dressing/marinade of the same name. They offered up a Mache salad. Now if you’re like me and never heard of Mache before, you can do a little Web search. It’s a tiny-leaf lettuce that looks herb-sized and tastes really scrumptious with the Garlic Expressions salad dressing on it. I’m going to try to find both products and spring them on my wife to see if she concurs that the combination is a winner.
Now, as for Ugly Betty, I’ve never seen the show, but if the star thinks she’s some kind of philosopher fit to pass judgment on presidents and expect all of us to salute her infinite wisdom, I say, "Tear down that studio, Mr. Chairman," and get rid of the brat. Raleigh Studios is much better as a wine-tasting escape. One should never go to Hollywood to learn politics–or to listen to actors and actresses when they’re not reading from a script.
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Towering Surprises at The Anaheim White House
Posted on June 3, 2009 by Gary McCarty
We visited the Anaheim White House, a Northern Italian eatery situated in a restored 1909, yup, white house, this past weekend, and were in for a few surprises. The occasion? My wife’s birthday.
First, let me say that I was last at the Anaheim White House ten or so years ago and found it overpriced for the food but not for the service or the ambience, which were both quite elegant (see Anaheim White House Web site for pictures). Really, the only reason I went back this time was that I was able to buy a $75 discount coupon for less than $20 at Restaurant.com (the site was having a 50-percent sale, which turned into an 80-percent sale a couple of days later).
My wife, daughter and I all had fish dishes of varying degrees of success and flavor, but all three sported some sort of pastry tower for decoration (see picture). My sand dabs I found quite tasty. Daughter was silent about her calamari, but my wife wasn’t too crazy about her yellowtail en papillote. Our Pouilly Fume was excellent, a good recommendation by our server (no sommelier?), and overall, I found the experience quite enjoyable. My wife fretted about the cost, which is what she loves to do (even on her birthday?).
In addition to the pleasant surprise about the wine, and a towering surprise about the plate decoration (was it just to mask how little was actually on the plate?), our initial and perhaps lasting surprise was to find a cucumber slice in our water glasses (which you can actually see in the photo). Water with cucumber, it turns out, is a great combination.
Get yourself a $75 coupon (wait for a sale at Restaurant.com) and check it out. It’s worth a trip for an elegant night out (but dress code is business casual)–especially when you save a third or half of the bill.
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