The Best of EMAF 2007

Wow, I don't know about you, but I've had a TON OF FUN with Every Meal A Feast since I began this in May 2007. To end this year, here are my picks for the "Best of" EMAF in 2007, either based on what I liked the most and/or comments from readers like you.

"...and the gloves come off..."

Food Confession: No. 1

Haunted by the Land Lobster

My Cup Runneth Over

The Greatest Sentence Ever*

The Night My Poker Buddies Drank VERY Well

Tony Brings a Tear

You Know You're in Vegas When...

Happy Holidays, and here's to many more adventures -- and misadventures -- with great food and wine in 2008!

Holiday Splurge

Of COURSE the holidays are all about splurging, and to me here's an extra-special one: dinner at Josef's Restaurant located within the Hotel La Rose in Old Railroad Square, Santa Rosa.

The interior of Josef's has a wonderful European feel, with a great bar, fireplace, and cozy nooks and crannies for those having a romantic and quiet dinner for two. I also love the food prepared by chef and owner Josef Keller, who's from Switzerland. A few menu highlights include Lobster Bisque, Veal Picada, and Boeuf Bourguignon. During my last meal here a few weeks ago with friends, I had the Emince de Veau Zuirchoise: thinly sliced veal in a mushroom sauce with spaetzle "dumplings". Magnificant!

And if you really want to splurge, I suggest that you book at room at the Hotel La Rose. The hotel, built in 1907 and now on the National Historic Places list, has a great old-time feel, gets supremely decorated at Christmas time, and the rooms are large, clean, and very comfortable. And here's an insider's tip: tell them that you saw their $100-per-night special on their Web site, and they'll honor that. Quiet a deal, if you ask me!

Anyway, Josef's has a special Holiday/New Year's menu. Check it out when you're in the mood to splurge (or simply want a memorable old-time-feel evening).

Happy Holidays!

...to you and yours, this holiday season, from Every Meal A Feast.

Sugar, Sugar

In the window at the The Model Bakery

Lights at the Inn

The driveway leading to the Wine Country Inn

Holiday Fun

A little something for you, adorning one wall at BarVino in downtown Calistoga. Enjoy!

Holiday Desserts, Baby!

Yes, gift shopping is important this time of year. But so too is stocking up on holiday food and wine goodies. And nothing says "stocking up" like holiday chocolates and desserts.

Where to go? Funny you should ask! Here are three great places.

Woodhouse Chocolate

This Main Street mainstay in downtown St. Helena always has a fabulous window display. Their web site is awesome. And the chocolate? Divine!

Cavaliere's Bakeries and Cafes
Two locations: 2600 Mendocino Ave in Santa Rosa, and 626 McClelland Dr in Windsor

Cavaliere's has all kinds of special Christmas desserts, including a Buche de Noel (Yule log), a St. Honore (puff pastry filled with rum custard and raspberry), and a Marzipan Princess Ornament.

Michelle Marie's Patisserie

In the Montgomery Village shopping center, in Santa Rosa.

Awesome selection of goodies, including a Christmas cranberry tart, a three-chocolate mousse cake, persimmon pudding, and a chocolate bourbon pecan tart.

Enjoy!

Holiday Gift Ideas: Part 3

The countdown continues.... In my posts of Dec 12 and Dec 14, I've given you Xmas gift ideas ranging from vintage cool coasters from Virgins, Saints, and Sinners to tuffles and other gourmet goodies at EnjoyFoieGras.com. So what's the next best thing to giving great food and wine gifts? Giving books about food and wine. Here are some suggestions. And if you want to help support Every Meal A Feast, you can conveniently access Amazon.com through the "Search Amazon.com" feature on the right-hand side of this blog. Enjoy!

American Food Writing

Chocolate Obession

The Tenth Muse

My Life in France

Bruce Aidells's Complete Book of Pork

Kitchen Confidential

Holiday Gift Ideas: Part 2

Only 10 or so days left till Christmas so time is running out to place online gift orders. In my previous post I mentioned some gift ideas, now here are others. Enjoy!

Walkers Shortbread

And for something really special, the Highlanders Tin, featuring a picture of William Wallace. Too cool for school.

Tortuga Rum Company

DiBruno Brothers

Niman Ranch

Strawberry Hill Povitica Company (an Eastern European dessert)

Wild West Coffee and Chocolate

Paint Horse Winery

An finally, one of my favorite places to spend time...and money: check out the coasters from Virgins, Saints and Sinners. My personal favorite? The vintage cowgirl one with the "guts, grits, and lipstick" motto.

Happy shopping/browsing/eating/drinking.

Holiday Gift Ideas: Part 1

The countdown till Christmas continues in full swing. For you online shoppers looking for some "food splurges" this holiday season (as gifts for others or, even better, for your family!), check out all the goodies at EnjoyFoieGras.com. In addition to foie gras (of course!), they have all kinds of pates, sausages, and...truffles!

And I plan to purchase some Fleur de Sel de Guerande, which is supposed to be the creme de la creme of salt. The EnjoyFoieGras web site reinforces my belief that the better the ingredients, the better food.

Coming Friday: MORE gift ideas.

Grilling Cheese

Had a fantastic dinner Friday night with G. and her lovely husband J. (awesome brisket G -- thanks). Gio and I took some goodies, including bread and wine, and for something special, I brought along some Halloumi Cheese.

I'm a huge cheese fan, and Halloumi is turning into one of my favorites. Not only does it taste great, it's the only cheese that doesn't melt when cooked. Too cool for school, right?

Halloumi is a sheep and goat's milk cheese from Cyprus. Again, it doesn't melt when heated, so here's how to make it:

1. Slice into cubes about 1" thick by 3" long

2. Drop into a hot skillet (no need to add oil)

3. Cook until the cheese is lightly brown on both sides

Serve alone or on bread

And for an extra-special treat, first wrap the cheese cubes with Prosciutto, grease the pan lightly with Pam or oil, and saute about two minutes. Wow -- it's a salty gooey savory experience.

You can pick up Halloumi at the deli in finer supermarkets or, of course, online. Check it out sometime, especially when you want to make a here's-something-different-splash at a dinner party.

Cool in the Clouds

Wow, had a great time earlier this week with my friend G. at the ultra-trendy, ultra-hip -- and extremely welcoming -- Upper Fourth bar in downtown Santa Rosa. Upper Fourth, owned by locals Molly Gallaher and Ivan Richard, is celebrating its one-year anniversary this month.

I love the feel of the place: leather chairs, fireplace, great lighting. Plus in addition to the central room complete with bar, there are two or three other small rooms for more intimate gatherings -- including a "game" room with full-sized poker table. Too cool!

Upper Fourth of course specializes in hip drinks, and has a nice wine list. Food options are limited, though the two appetizers I had -- Spanish-spiced almonds and a wonderful red pepper humus -- were awesome.

Definitely check out Upper Fourth, which gets its name from being on the second floor. (And yes, it has some great views of the city down below.) It's a hip crowd, but hey, I hung out there and didn't get kicked out so you can too.

G.: Whispers in the Dark

Upper Fourth

96 Old Courthouse Square (next to Flavor Restaurant)

573-0522

Happy Happy Happy Dec. 5

Good morning all, and happy December 5th... which of course (!) is the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition! (In fact, this Dec 5th is the 75th anniversary.)

That's right: 75 years ago today the 21st Amendment to the Constitution became ratified, thereby repealing the 18th Amendment which had, nationwide, prohibition the making, sale, or drinking of alcohol.

So tonight, lift a glass of beer or wine or champagne and give a toast to our Constitution that allows us life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...and to drink!

(Interesting side note: The 21st Amendment is the only Amendment repealing an earlier amendment.)

My Wine Holy Grail

I've been fortunate this year to drink some fabulous wine both at wineries and at different meals. I had some awesome Ghost Horse Vineyards cab sauvignon ($500 per bottle, thank you very much); I'm a huge Nord Vineyards fan (note--they have a new web site coming soon, I promise); and recently I disovered a Napa Valley up-and-comer that I'll talk more about shortly.

I love great wine. However, it's difficult to drink great wine every night with meals. So I'm continually trying and experimenting with what I call "everyday" wines--those in the $8.00 - $15.00 range that can be enjoyed with everything from pizza to hamburgers. It's tough, because after drinking great wine, it's difficult to drink lesser wine.

But now I've found what I consider the "Holy Grail" of everyday wines: Frontier Red from the Fess Parker Winery. Most of you know who Fess Parker was: Daniel Boone! For the past 15 years, he's had a winery down in Santa Maria, in southern California. Anyway, I believe his Frontier Red is the best $9.99 bottle of wine I've ever had. It has a great nose, great flavor, but most of all, it has great FEEL -- it feels good in your mouth. It has character and taste and doesn't feel "transparent", and by that I mean that there's nothing left in your mouth once you swallow. Anyway, if you're in the market for a great everyday wine, I suggest you check out some Frontier Red. Yes, Daniel Boone was a man (theme song, folks), and yes, Fess Parker knows how to make a great $9.99 bottle of wine.

BE CREATIVE!!!

COSTA MESA - Still in So Cal, and have noticed two things:

1. O.K., I love the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet (see my earlier post), but please, kitchen people: AFTER FOUR OR FIVE DAYS OF THE EXACT SAME FOOD, THE BUFFET LOOSES ITS APPEAL. Can you mix it up? Please? Pretty please? Would it hurt you to make some custom-ordered omelette's, or throw some Canadian bacon out there?? I mean, come on, be creative.

2. Avoid ordering calamari at a fast food restaurant (Daphne's). It's NOT GOING TO BE THE SAME AS FISHERMAN'S WHARF OR THAT REALLY COOL RESTAURANT IN NY CITY WHOSE NAME HAS JUST SLIPPED ME. (It won't even be close!!!!)

Rantings from the road.

Made in America

COSTA MESA -- In Orange County CA on a business trip for several days, and this morning partook of something quintessentially AMERICAN---the $10.95 all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. There is nothing better, IMHO, to start a long and when-will-I-have-time-to-eat day than with a huge breakfast spread: coffee, juice, pastry, scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes, and yes, a couple (O.K., THREE) strips of bacon. I'm good now till 3 or 4:00 p.m. easy. Really, you load up on the morning buffet and you don't NEED lunch. It's a great deal, a nice splurge, and yes, I'll walk off all the calories and such throughout the rest of the day. Life in Costa Mesa, at the Orange County Hilton, is very good today.

Wood-Fired Cooking

In my previous post, I shared my Food Fantasy about purchasing a wood-fired oven. I got the idea for this by attending a couple of months ago a "Wood-Fired Cooking" class through Healdsburg's Relish Cooking School.

The class was awesome. It was hosted by Andrea Mugnaini, whose Mugnaini company has helped re-introduce to the U.S. authentic Italian wood-fired ovens. Andrea cooked all kinds of goodies (see pics below) as well as went over the highlights of wood-fired cooking. Here are some of the tid-bits I took away from her class:

* Wood-fired ovens don't use gas or electricity, and have no moving parts

* You don't use a thermometer to cook: you look at the various colors of the charcoal and use your hand

* When the oven is fully heated, food cooks FAST (pizzas take about 3 minutes)

* While the floors are the thickest part of the oven (cause that's where the fire is), once the oven has heated, the TOP of the oven is actually hotter than the floor

Andrea prepping:

Pizza!

Simple:

Even desserts!

O.K., and if you really want to dream, how about this: every year Andrea leads a week-long "Art of Wood-Fired Cooking" class in...Tuscany. Now THAT would be cool.

My Food Fantasy

O.K., I’ve shared with Frequent Readers of This Blog (FROTB) a food confession, I introduced you to the Meat Monkey, and I’ve gone on and on about the Land Lobster. Now it’s time to take this one step further: I want to share a Food Fantasy.

And no, my food fantasy does not have to do with celebrity wonder chef Giada De Laurentiis and tomato sauce.

(No, you see, my fantasy about Giada goes like this. She makes me one of her special gourmet breakfasts, and serves it to me in bed. And because my hands are bandaged from some sort of non-lethal accident, she has to feed me the breakfast. And then afterwards, again because my hands are bandaged, she—wait! Whoa. Sorry about that—I started to get a little carried away!)

My food fantasy is this: I want to have in my backyard one of those big old wood-burning pizza/bread ovens. Then I could make really cool wood-fired pizzas and roasted veggies and awesome breads, and invite all my cool friends over and have great backyard parties drinking awesome Napa Valley or Sonoma County wine and playing bocce ball and so on and so on. Wouldn’t that be cool? You know, crank up the oven to 900 degrees or so and just go at it.

Here’s what I want:


Here’s what I have:


I even have the perfect spot in my backyard. You see, we had this old gazebo which began to rot away. So I knocked the darn thing down! All I need to do is knock out the deck and presto!—wood-fire oven spot.

Gazebo, eight minutes later (well, maybe 10-12 minutes later):

So what do you think? The ovens only cost about $5-$8K… plus delivery… and custom installation… and of course the cooking classes… and you need a couple-three cords of wood. I mean, that’s not a lot, is it?

Let me know what you think.

And stay tuned for my next post, when I talk about the wood-fire oven class I recently attended put on by Andrea Mugaini whose company re-established wood-fired ovens in the U.S.

Olive Ole'

Yes, the 2007 Napa Valley grape harvest has come and gone, as has the 2007 Sonoma County grape harvest. But there's another harvest going on right now still: olives!

I was hanging out with my friend Maury recently, who's the groundskeeper at The Wine Country Inn in St. Helena, and he stepped me through the process they go through to harvest and cure the olives from the 25+ olive trees on the Inn's property. I found it fascinating! Hope you do too.

First, the olives are picked green. (Apparently, if they have any color at all, they're "too far gone".) Next, the olives, which are very toxic, are soaked in huge plastic garbage cans in LYE. That's right, bleach, lye, the bad stuff (the Inn uses Red Devil Drain Opener). According to Maury, you mix 8 oz. of lye per five gallons of water. The olives soak for six to eight hours in this lye/water mixture, until they turn a straw color all the way to the pit.

Next, the olives are then soaked in water for six to eight DAYS to get all the lye out. These olives need to be stirred every hour, and the water changed every four hours.

So how do you know if you've soaked out all the lye? Someone (!) has to taste them! Yes: If they burn your lips, they need more soakin!

Anyway, I found it quite fascinating. And once the olives have soaked thoroughly, they are then put into a brine/lemon juice solution and canned. And of course, you can add goodies to impart onto the olives other great flavors, such as rosemary and garlic (my personal favorite).

Needless to say, it's a pretty labor-intensive process. But Maury says these Wine Country Inn olives are the best he's ever had. And I have to agree.

BTW: Maury has his own blog about the various garden goings-on at the Inn. If you're interested, check it out.

TIAGASIAB

There IS a god and She is a BUCKEYE!

Today: The Ohio State Buckeyes 14, that lowly team from Michigan 3

OSU is now 11-1, outright winners of the Big Ten conference two years in a row, and almost certainly headed to the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day. If you're a Buckeye, it just doesn't get much better than this....

My recommended celebration: A cold bottle of Anchor Steam, from San Francisco's Anchor Brewing Company. Every time I have one of these, I immediately get transported back to Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran and the smell of fresh crab and shrimp and fried calamari. This beer has history, taste, and character, and worth every penny.

Time to Talk to Mom

Countdowns abound at the moment. The BIGGEST GAME is now less than 24-hours away. And the BIGGEST DAY (for many, many people) -- Thanksgiving -- is now less than a week away. For a special Thanksgiving treat, do what we do every year: order a couple of homemade pies from Mom's Apple Pie in Sebastopol.

A little background. "Mom" is one Betty Carr, and for years she's been turning out high-quality fruit and other pies via a small store on Gravenstein Highway North, at approximately where it intersects with Guernville Road. Their pie selections for Thanksgiving include: apple, apricot, blackberry, cherry, peach, raspberry, rhubarb, wild blueberry, pecan, mincemeat, and, of course, pumpkin. Be sure to call and order ahead though: They have almost NO available pies the day before Thanksgiving; ALL have been pre-ordered.

Anyway, check out Mom's for great quality pies...and a big taste of homemade. 4550 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol; 707-823-8330

Da BIGGEST Game

That's right, this Saturday is not the Big Game but the BIGGEST GAME: The Ohio State University vs. that funky old Michigan team. Being a born-in-Ohio Buckeye, this means a lot to me, along with, oh, the other however-many-more-million of us Buckeye Staters. Here are a few fast facts about this legendary series:

* First game: 1897

* Played every year since 1918

* Last regular season game for both teams since 1935

* Voted by ESPN in 2000 as the greatest North American sports rivalry

This year's game: at Michigan Stadium (107,501) with Ohio State ranked 7th nationally at 10-1 and Michigan ranked 23rd, at 8-3. At stake (besides, of course, PRIDE) is the Big 10 championship and a spot in the Rose Bowl/national playoff picture. (Check out this countdown-to-game-time clock as needed. And see the cool pic of former OSU coach Woody Hayes below, too.)

No predictions; just know that I'll be tailgating in my living room, ready to cheer on the Buckeyes, and ready to call my dear friend Dave W (even though he lives in MI) once the Buckeyes win.

Now, what does the OSU-Michigan game have to do with food and wine, you ask? It's a chance to poke fun at Michiganders! So here goes. You know you're from Michigan when:

* You only own three spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup

* You go trick-or-treating for Halloween candy with your costume over your snowsuit

* You have 10 favorite recipes for venison

* You know which leaves make good toilet paper

* Your car trunk doubles as a freezer

* You actually understand what "hoagie", "chipped ham" and "pop" mean

* You learned how to read from Campbell's Alphabet soup

* You think Kraft Macaroni and Cheese is one of the best foods ever (because of a box of it only costs $.79)

Go Buckeyes!