Carolyn Tillie

as you know I am not a professional chef and dont have to "work" in a kitchen. i only cook in my own kitchen for family and occasionally for courses I teach Actually, that remark came from my Green Envy Monster. As a jeweler and affirmed nail-biter, I could never hope to have such perfectly lovely nails...

BTW, should I chastise you for wearing finger-nail polish??? I big no-no in kitchens, you know!

Want. Want. Want. Want.... Now I'm gonna be craving Gulab Jamun all day!!!! Not fair!

I was given a pretty cool cookbook about ten years ago, Pacific Northwest Flavors by Michael Skott and Lori McKean. Here's some of the recipes: Coastal - Corn & Oyster Chowder - Wild Mushroom & Seafood Chowder - Matsutake Mushrooms in Seaweed Broth - Sea Urchin Bisque - Panfried Oysers Parmesan - Sautee Abalone with Pink Gooseberry Sauce - Salmon with Blackberry Pinot Noir Sauce Farmlands - Raven Hill Herb Farm's Chilled Sorrel & Spinach Soup - Goat Cheese, Bacon, and Walla Walla Onion Frittata - Oregon Blue Cheese Torte with Hazlenut Pastry - Warm Tea-Smoked Chicken Salad with Hazelnut Dressing - Chicken in Pinot Noir with Wild Mushrooms and Bacon - Fraser Valley Pheasant with Okanagan Peach Sauce - Poached Pears in Cabernet Sauvignon with Creme Fraiche Cities - Acorn Squash and Pear Bisque - Hot Oysters in Beurre Blanc with Cucumber and Swiss Chard - Dungeness Crab and Comice Pear Salad with Sesame-Ginger Dressing - Warm Skate Wing with Coriander Sauce - Berry Compote with Pear Eau-de-Vie Mountains and Forests[/bi] - Spring Vegetable Pate with Watercress and Fiddlehead Ferns - Sagebrush Biscuits - Wild Greens and Alpine Strawberry Salad with Strawberry-Peppermint Vinaigrette - Venison with Blueberry Vermouth Sauce Hope this helps!

Eeeeuuuuwwwww!!!!

OPJK, can you enlighten us on who is sponsoring this *event* - i.e., WHY is it occuring?

Can I put in on my Chevron card?!?!?!

It may be hard to tell at this point how much growth is going on. We will see a lot of growth in the arms and leaves before the grapes start to expand. BTW, it is still very warm here!

While in Monterey over the weekend, I stumbled on A Meal Observed by Andrew Todhunter. He claims to not be a "foodie" but he wormed his way into a stage at Taillevent and then subsequently ate a meal which is thus chronicled.

Well, not understanding the hand-folding thing either, that one sentence is the part that DOES seem reasonable. Yes, hand-picked, organic fresh market fruits vs. Sysco's best (cold-packed a month ago and shipped from counties on a slow boat) could make a remarkable difference.

And I couldn't be happier having a partner in crime that is a lot more coherent in these matters! Damn, Bombdog, I'm gonna owe you a bottle or two of Ladera wine before all this is done! I hope you'll bring Lynn up to see the winery some day soon...

Blowmogawry told me to clear my cache... It seemed to work (finally!)

Fresh cherries had just arrived at the market (and were damn good!) I had friends visiting and thought that finishing dinner with a Cherry Clafouti would be delightful. I had recently transferred all my dry goods to pretty, cork-topped glass jars (as yet unlabeled) and instead of putting in 2 cups of sugar, I added 2 cups of salt. Pretty hideous but I felt the loss of the cherries more than the loss of my time...

It is an interesting thing... I PM'd Bombdog about it to get some clarification. What can happen is called shatter. I learned about it for the first time last year -- Almost half of Gundlach Bundschu's Merlot was hit by shatter due to early heat. Here's what Bombdog told me: So, sitting in the office next to me is Gabriel, having lunch with a guy that sells some of our vines to us. I spoke with them about this early heat. The shatter problem of last year was almost exlusively a Merlot issue. This guy said that shatter is the result of two things: Weather and Nitrogen. Right now, the early heat is not a problem for us, but can be for those growing Merlot who are using too much nitrogen. We are fine and Gabriel is loving this weather, projecting that we may actually be harvesting as much as three or four weeks earlier this year. He is also hoping there won't be any more nights of frost. He has only had three or four this year total (last year, there were almost 20 days of frost). Generally, this early heat is a good thing. Convoluted answer, but I hope it helps...

Thank YOU!

This is why psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists get paid the big bucks...

Corks. Any wine geeks has piles and piles of corks. I've made wine-based wreaths with 'em and there are patterns out there for trivets and bird-houses. I've even seen one guy put corks all over one wall. Then there are the piles of saved wine labels. I just recently had to construct a cat door for a window. The only way to make it work was to install the cat door into a piece of plywood. Not wanting the ugly plywood, I covered it in wine labels. Looks pretty cool, actually... Anyone from the 70's remember bread dough art? And, at Christmastime, I make stained-glass cookies - any refrigerator dough made into outline shapes in which crumbled Lifesavers are put. When baked, they turn into pretty stained-glass designs that can be either eaten or hung in the window.

Well, Chris... it was tough - there I was, living in Redondo and driving to Napa three and four times a year when our landlord evicted us from our bungalow to put up one of those two-on-a-lot monstrosities (we lived on Juanita, behind Joe's). It was a toss-up to stay in the South Bay or finally head out of Dodge... I gave Shawn three choices: Seattle, Portland, or Napa. It has only been about 18 months and so far, it is pretty cool (although I really miss Creme de la Crepe and all the GREAT Japanese restaurants in Gardena, especially Shin-Sen Gumi!) And the pictures of all of us were taken outside before we went in and the flash didn't go off... sorry - no pic!

Yeah, I wasn't sure if this should go into the Media/News forum of the Wine forum and I put it here... In today's Spectator, Those Who Can, Do: Niebaum-Coppola Packages Sofia in Aluminum - With the success of her last film, Lost in Translation, writer/director Sofia Coppola’s name is appearing everywhere these days, from movie marquees to magazine newsstands. You can even find it on an aluminum can of sparkling wine. That’s right -- a can. You gotta look at the article, just to see the picture!!! A Blanc de Blancs no less! I haven't even eaten breakfast yet and my stomach is already ready to hurl...

Lunch and dinner - but they are not open seven days a week... I think they are closed on Sundays (as most of downtown Napa is). I didn't add their number in my previous post: 707-252-4474

And some of my consistent favorites: Bucheron and Sauterne Parrano and Merlot Cumin-laden Gruyere and Gewurtztraminer (okay, that a new fav! and a darned good one!) Any hard, aged, salty cheese (I like aged Vella Jack) and Zinfandel I've gotten to a point, in my old age, that when dining at fancy-schamncy restaurants, I prefer an assorted cheese plate with lots of contrasting flavors, paired with a sweet, white wine; a late harvest Riesling, a Sauterne, anything Botrysied, an Ice Wine... Sometimes a port will do, but I like the cloying sweetness that comes in a cold, white sweet wine vs. the warmth of a port when a really hefty cheese hits the palate.

Good luck, Gordo! I'll be in Monterey this weekend but may have to send Shawn down for the Inauguration... Regardless, I'll be there the following Saturday (and probably every Saturday there-after) with bells on! BTW, one of the things that Shawn and I miss about SoCal, was the year-round Farmer's Markets. We moved here during the winter and my first question (and then astonishment) was that there was no markets to be found until late Spring! I'll keep my fingers crossed for a year-round market!

Yeah at 1:00 a.m.! Give yourself an hour, seriously.. Depending on the beach you are heading to, you are probably looking at more than an hour commute. The locals can do it a half hour, but there is fore-knowledge of back roads for that scenario.

I'm not sure about New York, but in California, if you are under 21 you can SERVE a poured drink, but you can't pour it yourself. That might be the fine line here... Drew was behind the bar, pouring drinks. BTW, I have to add that I am loving every minute of it -- the cheesy show and our eGullet commentary! It is all fabulous!

THE classic beach-view restaurant is Gladstone's in Malibu. Overrated, IMHO, but there's probably a reason it is still around. Slightly pricey is Kinkaid's in Redondo Beach. It is located on the pier and has pretty decent food. Just north of Redondo is Hermosa and Manahattan Beaches, both city have a plethora of restaurants on the beach - Hermosa is more laid-back where you will get burgers and suds for your ocean view. Manhattan Beach is more upscale and you can dine on finer fare while watching the waves.