Landing the White Whale: Napa and the California Dream

The second day after I moved to San Francisco, La Belle Chantal* called up and asked if I wanted to drive up to Sonoma. Well, who wouldn’t? So, off we went and had a fun-filled day of trains for the kids and wine for the adults. At the time, I thought that that’s what my life here in California was going to be like—fabulous restaurants in the city, weekends off in wine country, swimming pools, movie stars—you know the drill. But then I woke up and realized I still had lots of debt from graduate school and worked in publishing, so maybe I’d have to settle for fabulous burritos and cable cars. Eh, there are worse things.

Fast forward more than four years, and, while I’ve been very privileged to have seen lots of my new home state, including multiple trips down the coast, four of its eight National Parks, and fourteen of the twenty-one missions on the Mission Trail, I had never been to Napa. Which, as many people have pointed out to me, is just a little crazy, especially given that I have been wine tasting in both Paso Robles and Santa Barbara—twice. Anyway, La Belle Chantal once again stepped up to the plate and suggested celebrating my birthday in Napa. Again, who am I to refuse?

What a lovely day. I definitely need to do this more often.

We started out by taking the tram up to Sterling Vineyards in Calistoga, which is as lovely a setting for wine tasting as you can imagine. And, I actually preferred the cab, so another first for today—miracles do happen!

Looking out over Napa Valley from the terrace of Sterling Vineyards

We also checked out many overpriced goods at the Oxbow Public Market and on the streets of St. Helena. I resisted the temptation of $9 soap and managed to get out alive having only spent $2.80 on crushed vadouvan at the spice store. Score!

Despite eating too late a lunch at the Pica Pica Maize Kitchen in Napa (try the deviled ham), I still managed to put away a good part of a wood oven duck dinner at Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. The salad was as delicious as it looks; the sumac in the dressing was subtle, but gave it a distinctive zip. If this is her “casual” place, I certainly see why Cindy Pawlcyn made the Top Chef Masters cut.

Thank you, Chantal!

*La Belle Chantal is my former roommate from Paris and one of the reasons I fell in love with San Francisco (since her moving here allowed me to visit far more than is reasonable). She is many things, including belle, but her name is not actually Chantal.

Opera 101—That Girl Is Poison

“Miss her… kiss her… love her… wrong move you’re dead”

This week I saw my first opera of the season, Lucrezia Borgia, a lesser-known work by bel canto master Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). Donizetti was incredibly prolific, composing seventy operas, including Lucia di Lammermoor and L’Elisir d’amore, which both aired on KQED earlier this month.

A Glass of Wine with Caesar Borgia by John Collier

The plot of the opera is fairly simple, revolving around the historical personage of Lucrezia Borgia, she of the powerful Renaissance clan, written about most famously in Machiavelli’s Il Principe. Although historical evidence is scant, rumors surround this notorious woman, including allegations of incest, poisoning, and murder. In the opera, the climactic scene involves a mass poisoning of rivals accused of insulting her family name. Although very different stylistically, I found myself reminded of Cheek by Jowl’s excellent Duchess of Malfi at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the mid-1990s.

Renée Fleming in Lucrezia Borgia. Photo by Karin Cooper.

Like Cyrano de Bergerac for Plácido Domingo last year, more than anything, Lucrezia Borgia is a vehicle piece for Renée Fleming. That said, I enjoyed the opera itself far more than I expected. There were a number of pleasant duets and trios and the main cast was quite strong. Although Fleming was suitably impressive, I was more struck by the tenor, Michael Fabiano, as Borgia’s long-lost illegitimate son Gennaro, and the bass, Vitalij Kowaljow, as Borgia’s husband, Don Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. I was not entirely convinced by the trouser role* of Orsini, Gennaro’s close friend, especially the directorial choice of emphasizing the homoerotic nature of the Gennaro-Orsini relationship, which becomes muddled when the male role of Orsini is sung by a woman.

The set reflected the simplicity of the storyline and worked quite well. The costumes, especially for the early scenes, could have been more vibrant, although they worked fine with the somber nature of the story. However, Gennaro’s outfits were hideous and made him look like some sort of second-rate Christophe Lambert in an early 80s French space adventure. In the final scenes, his costume was particularly distracting and just didn’t seem to go with the rest of the production. There was also one odd moment when a nameless woman was thrown into a prison pit with no real explanation whatsoever.

Renée Fleming and Michael Fabiano. Photo by Cory Weaver.

But, overall, it was a great start to the season, if not the mega-watt star turn that I was anticipating going into the evening. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you can.

Lucrezia Borgia is playing through October 11 at the War Memorial Opera House.

[On a side note, we decided to splurge on dinner at Jardinière beforehand. It actually turned out to be less of a splurge than we thought as Monday nights offer an incredible three-course tasting menu, including wine pairings, all for $45. Every Monday menu has a different theme, with this week’s being the celebration of Chez Panisse’s fortieth anniversary. I particularly enjoyed the starter of grilled Mediterranean octopus, although I was also very pleased to see my favorite dessert, clafoutis, on the menu.]

*In 17th- and 18th-century Italian opera, boys and young men were often played by castrati. Today, these roles are usually played by mezzo-sopranos dressed as men.

Crossing the Rubicon

Alea iacta est.

Les jeux sont faits.

Yes, yes, I’m finally on The Twitter.

What finally got me there? Was it @javachik and her incessant haranguing about all the cool kids being on The Twitter? Or Audition author @swkehoe with her “innocent” questions about whether I tweet travel?

No, it was barbeque. That’s right, barbeque. You know those days when things don’t quite go according to plan? Well, as I headed up the hill from the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market this afternoon, much later than usual due to a fabulous (but late) game night and morning (well, afternoon) hike out in the East Bay, I saw that the relatively new BBQ place on Hyde was open. Apparently, it doesn’t open until well after lunch which is why I’ve never seen it in action before. Sometimes, not being on schedule is a very good thing.

With ribs smoking out on the sidewalk, how could I not stop? And, well, they had me at Bourbon Cornbread. I resisted the Sweet Potato Rum Pie, but I already regret it. As an extra bonus, their sweet tea was decaf so I could actually try it (verdict: a bit too sweet for me, but with an interesting mapley flavor). Anyway, as I later googled to get the exact name of this slice of heaven (Hyde Away Blues BBQ & Gumbo Café at 457 Hyde Street at O’Farrell), I found their official website, which turned out to be a twitter page—where they tweet what is fresh out of the oven or hot off the grill. All I could think is: “I want to go to there!”

And, thus, @sly_wit was born.

I don’t yet know what I’ll be doing there, but, yes, I’m finally on The Twitter. Stop asking.

However, as God is my witness, I’ll never join Google+.

It’s Not Because I Hate Gwyneth Paltrow

Okay, maybe it is. Just a little.

Anyway, back in the dark days of no blogging (i.e., the past two months), I was extremely saddened to arrive home from a lovely weekend in Santa Barbara to find the following in my mailbox:

I knew this was coming, but actually having it delivered affected me more than I thought it would. I am a long-time subscriber to Bon Appétit, courtesy of a long ago Christmas gift from my sister that she generously continues to renew. I always felt Bon Appétit was more relevant for the home cook than other food magazines, with recipes that were fairly basic and thoroughly tested. However, some recent trends in the magazine’s coverage had me concerned that it was becoming less about food and more about style and celebrity. This confirmed it. Really, Bon Appétit, you never put people on your cover and you start with Gwyneth Paltrow?!?

And then I did it. I cancelled my subscription. With a grand, dramatic note that may have involved third-rate actresses* and lame women’s magazines.

And, either Bon Appétit really doesn’t care about their customers, or they were overwhelmed with people doing the exact same thing, because I received no response. Zero. To the point where I went back to the subscription site to make sure it had been done. It had. Although, apparently, they have chosen to deliver issues until my subscription runs out in January. So the magazine keeps showing up in my mailbox, effectively neutralizing my grand, dramatic gesture.

This is doubly frustrating because I really wanted to cut back on a few subscriptions and this was a good excuse to start. Especially since I really can’t think what else to cut out—aside from National Geographic, which I subscribed to accidently when I thought I was renewing my subscription to National Geographic Traveler (not that it’s not a good magazine too, it’s just less relevant for me). Even in the digital age, I really like getting all of these, even if, for my purposes, I would prefer Entertainment Weekly to be monthly.

Do you still buy magazines? If so, which ones do you feel are worth subscribing to? Do you read each issue right away, or only when they pile up? (Except for Entertainment Weekly, I have a tendency to read mine only when the next one arrives and I need to make room for it on the coffee table. And then I clip and file recipes and articles for future reference.)

Speaking of making room and overflowing mailboxes, please sign the email charter now and be part of the solution. Only you can prevent the virtual forest fires that I want to set when I see a clogged inbox.

*Even though she totally deserves her Emmy nomination for her role as Holly Holliday on Glee.

How to Drink

As many of you know, I am always on the lookout for good cocktails, or, failing that, good books about making them. I posted last fall about Dale DeGroff’s The Essential Cocktail, which has served me well and should be on the shelf of everyone who is serious about their personal bar. Right alongside should be Victoria Moore’s How to Drink.

I learned about this fabulous tome on Rowley’s Whiskey Forge—a blog for anyone who loves cooking, eating, and drinking (not necessarily in that order), or even just reading about said activities. I can’t do justice to his beautifully written review of this book, so I’ll just link to it here. Suffice it to say, How to Drink is extremely readable, while also providing plenty of recipes and essential information about brewing coffee and tea, choosing wine, and stocking your bar. Moore even has a section on making your own elderflower cordial!

After covering the basics, the book is organized by season, which takes me back to the days where you could tell what time of year it was by whether I was drinking a gin & tonic or a bourbon & ginger. Of course, now I live in San Francisco where seasonal drinking has less relevance, but that just means that practically every day is potentially a Pimm’s day. Lucky me.

*In non-drinking news, I’d like to offer an apology to anyone whose comment was lost due to the issues Blogger was having earlier in the week. Please know that I did not delete your comment on purpose and feel free to repost!

Violets and Elderflowers

While in France last month, I noticed that many things came in violet flavor. I had never noticed this before, but brought back a bag of violet candies for the office. It was quite interesting to see people’s reactions as they tasted them, since violet is more associated with bath products here than food. Even I thought the first taste was somewhat unusual, despite loving the original aviation cocktail and currently having a bottle of crème de violette* on my bar. However, I grew to really like the candies, and I couldn’t help but notice that certain people definitely kept coming back for more. I asked a French co-worker if this abundance of violet-flavored products was something new or just something I had never noticed. She had never noticed it either, so I guess it’s a new thing.

I noticed a similar phenomenon in London with elderflowers, which I had the opportunity of tasting (via a bottle of elderflower spring water) while eating lunch at Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath. I liked the taste, and would probably buy a similar product here, but elderflower’s only presence in the U.S. seems to be in the French liqueur St. Germain (which I do not currently have on my bar, but maybe I should). Please let me know if I’m wrong about this.

This got me thinking of flavors and trends. As my co-worker observed, maybe violet is France’s answer to cinnamon—an observation that made me laugh since one French friend’s request for something from the U.S. always used to involve Big Red gum. But, while the spice obviously crops up in many items, especially baked goods, its use as a flavoring seems limited.

Seeing a bottle of green apple soda at the local burrito place made me wonder whatever happened to push that one off the shelves. When I was younger, everything seemed to come in sour green apple. I really miss it, but we seemed to have moved away from the sour to the sweet, haven’t we?

Is there a flavor you think of as distinctly American? For my international readers, is there something that you feel visitors to your country should try? Is there a product you stock up on while abroad that has a flavor you can’t get in your home country?

*For those in San Francisco, you can find crème de violette at Cask, on Third Street near Market.