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.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

In a strange set of coincidences, I spent much of yesterday immersed in the recent economic crisis.

I started the day off with a viewing of Inside Job, this year’s winner of the Oscar for best documentary. It was well done, but it left a bad taste in my mouth that not even the incredible catfish at farmer brown could eliminate. [Note to self: Stop being intimidated by catfish, it can be delicious.]

Barring a few minor annoyances, it’s a film well worth seeing, whether you feel you understand a lot or a little about Wall Street’s role in the economic crisis. But it did provoke a bit of a crisis of conscience regarding my own employer, and it really made me want to pursue moving my money more seriously.

A lot of what the film covers is not necessarily new or surprising, but seeing it all laid out together was enough to make one sick. Some of the things that were surprising to me include how recently Wall Street salaries spiraled out of control, how many people did in fact warn of the dangers to the economic system, the complicity of the academic establishment and its incredible lack of disclosure (especially given what the FTC expects me to disclose as an amateur blogger), and (for the Buffistas out there) the quantities of hookers and blow involved.

Geoffrey Nolan, Juliana Egley, Carl Lucania, Brian Markley

In the evening, I was able to enjoy a much more comic take on the world of bankers, derivatives, and the Greek economic collapse, namely, No Nude Men Productions’ presentation of Hermes, a new play by Bennett Fisher, directed by Tore Ingersoll-Thorp. While I was there primarily to see the fabulous Juliana Egley as Anne, the entire cast was strong, especially Brian Markley as Brian. Admittedly, much of the philosophical speechifying of the gods Hermes and Hestia went over my head (through no fault of the actors), but I thoroughly enjoyed the more down-to-earth interactions of the businessmen, which often recalled the discussions about the “process” in The Spanish Prisoner.

If you are looking for a fun night out in support of local theater, or simply an excuse for dinner at farmer brown, I highly recommend it. The play runs Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. until March 26th at the Exit Stage Left (156 Eddy Street) in San Francisco. Very affordable tickets can be purchased here.

La Ciccia

I don’t normally write about food here, but I had such an amazing dinner earlier this week, I just had to. La Ciccia is a Sardinian restaurant located on the edge of Noe Valley near Glen Park. It was recently featured in a New York Times article on San Francisco Italian restaurants, but I’ve wanted to try it since it was featured on Check, Please! Bay Area. Seeing everyone on that show praising the restaurant so highly, and having recently watched the Sardinia episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, where everything he ate looked so incredibly delicious, La Ciccia quickly moved to the top of my list of restaurants to try. However, it took me some time to get there since most of my restaurant budget these past few months has been devoted to pre- or post-theater excursions.

In any case, I finally went, and it was delicious.  For antipasti, we started off with a plate of prosciutto, Sardinian flat bread, and an octopus stew in a spicy tomato sauce.  Despite being in public, I couldn’t resist “saucing” my plate, as they say in France. (Yes, the French have a verb for soaking up the sauce on your plate with your bread, and, while acceptable at home, one shouldn’t do it in a restaurant.)  For primi, we had two of Bourdain’s favorite dishes, Spaghittusu cun Allu Ollu e Bottariga (bottarga is a dried fish roe that is shaved over the fresh pasta) and Malloreddus a sa Campidanese (semolina gnochetti with a pork ragu). I think they’ve spoiled me for all other pastas; I would go back for either of those in a heartbeat. As a secondo, we shared the sea bream special. I’m not a huge fan of fish, but I really enjoyed this simple preparation. To finish, we shared the Truta de Arriscottu, a ricotta and saffron cake served with honey and almonds, a perfect dessert that wasn’t too sweet. To me, it had a taste very similar to madeleines, although no Proustian side effects. The wine suggested by our waiter (random side note: a gorgeous man from Milan), a lovely Cannonau, or Grenache, went perfectly with the food.

Heaven, absolute heaven.

Opera 101—Walk Like an Egyptian

This week, I enjoyed my second opera of the season. If Le Nozze di Figaro was light-hearted fun, Aida was opera with a capital O. Skipping from the opera buffa of Mozart, right over the bel canto of Rossini, to this grand opera of Verdi was quite a jump. All of a sudden—DRAMA! SPECTACLE!

Aida was not an opera I had any familiarity with at all, beyond the fact that it took place in Egypt, and somehow involved an elephant. It was definitely harder to relate to on a musical level than Mozart, with fewer standout “numbers” (you are not going to leave the theater humming, that’s for sure); however, the pageantry of the first half alone makes it a terrific introduction to the world of opera.

The Good:  The costumes were absolutely gorgeous, especially Pharaoh. The elephant was very well done and the triumphal march quite stirring. For the most part, the singing was very strong. Also, the woodwinds sounded great—as a former player of the clarinet, I always appreciate when woodwinds get a chance to shine.

The Bad:  I assume this is Verdi and this style of opera and not the performers, but the lyrics were unintelligible to me. Whereas I could follow much of the Italian in Figaro, here I totally had to rely on the supertitles. This may be why I felt the acting wasn’t as strong as in Figaro, which became especially problematic for the emotional tomb scene, where the production values could have been stronger.

Thankfully, there was no ugly. It was a fantastic night out all around. For that, I’d also like to give a shout-out to Indigo, for their fabulous food and even more fabulous policy of no corkage fees. We had a delicious meal and were able to enjoy a great wine (the Calcareous Vineyard Très Violet 2006—a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Mourvedre) purchased on my trip to Paso Robles last year.