chezcherie

I think there are a number of variations on that theme (casks carved with the varietal), but could it be Sebastiani? Most notable is the famous hand-carved wine cask collection. Local winemaking scenes, various grape varietals and an array of birds have been chiseled into hundreds of antique redwood casks. They were carved by a friend of Samuele’s son, August, the second-generation family member to assume control of the winery. Here's a link describing the location (from a wedding destination POV) that might help rule it in or rule it out. sebastiani info good luck with the search!

i do a wild rice salad that folks love. sherry vinaigrette, chopped celery, green apple, red onion and hazelnuts, basically. the sherry vinegar really plays up the nutty flavor of the wild rice. i wish i had some right now...

gloves. i use them when pulling mozzarella and (attempting) sugar work. really helps when my "asbestos fingers" don't do the trick.

that's so interesting--anybody know why?

good shoes. dont taste everything. focus on what you really might carry. enjoy.

just finished it. quick read. enjoyable way (for me) to spend most of a day off. my take--far from a review: anybody who uses the word "pantagruelian" in his book is all right by me. (even if that same writer, or more likely his copy editor, mistakenly refers to goujons as "tiny, cheese filled pillows", when i must believe gougeres are being referenced. if i thought for a moment that that was a bourdain mistake, i might take all the pantagruelian points away!) other than that, i think he's a happy man. and that might be the end of his nervy-junkie-kitchen badass writing career. which i suspect would be fine by him. he's done that, and made a fine life for himself with it--finer than it seems he ever would have imagined, or perhaps thought he deserved. while bourdain says he's still angry, i think he doth protest too much. even when labeling culinary luminaries as heroes or villains, he nearly always throws the villains a bone of one sort or another, and talks a little trash about the heroes. too neutral for the old bourdain. but he's a self-professed happy daddy now, and older, and farther removed from the flame and smack days. and i liked that just fine, too. it's a fun read, if you won't be too pissed off that he's mellowed. if you are still all about whose knife is sharper, or who has the most impressive kitchen scars, go read "kitchen confidential" again. it will still make you happy.

(waves hand in air) i also wrote a trader's joe's cookbook.

sooo....anyone actually read this bourdain book yet?

adobo over rice. want.

thanks so much for the responses. it appears we are going with marty for the first evening as our group may be larger than 12. i will check out l'avant gout on the same trip, with a smaller group. (we've had remarkable response to this trip, and we are very nearly full, seven months out. dare i say it appears that the economy is...no, i won't jinx it!)

well, now we're talking..is ted drewes open at night? can't tell from the website. if so, perhaps a farmhaus dinner, followed by frozen custard (never tried--always wanted to !) for dessert? looks like farmhaus is very new---anyone been? bbq snoots, you say?....i would try those!

i think i'd do a lamb, feta and red onion empanada filling. and eat several off the bone, stone-cold, with lots of crispy salt. and lick my lamby fingers...

i'm playing with the piquillos today, recipe-testing for my second "]trader joe's cookbook. i combined a drained tin of tj's smoked trout with a little butter, lemon juice, a couple piquillos and some chopped walnuts. filled romaine hearts with some of that goodness....pretty and tasty!

i'm going to st louis! to be on great day, st louis! to promote my book! the i love trader joe's cookbook! sorry for all the exclamation marks, but, not being a fancy-pants AUTHOR-type, flying somewhere to appear on a morning show is a big deal in my life!(okay, that was the last exclamation, i promise.) so, having checked the archives, i've found very old posts, and references to gooey butter cake (so bfast is covered...) as specialties of the region. while i'm there, and after the tv butterflies have fluttered off, what quintessential delicacies of the region should i not miss, and where will i find them? i don't want to leave st louis without having tasted their best. thanks a million.

we will be leading a culinary tour in france this fall, and will be arriving in paris after a week-long barge cruise in avignon/arles/the camargue. we'd like to pre-arrange a group dinner that first evening in paris, as we will arrive in the late afternoon/early evening, and folks will likely be hungry, and won't have a chance to get their bearings until the next day. any suggestions on a good place for a group of about 12, where we could pre-arrange? we'll be staying in the 13th, and would like to stay close that first evening. thanks so much for any suggestions!

i just finished this, and passed it along to my former punker son. one of my favorite lines, not cheese related, was something to the effect of "lots of punk rockers are nice people, pretending to be mean. many hippies are mean people, pretending to be nice." having had his scary-looking friends around our home for many years, i can certainly vouch for the punk-rock side of the equation! i, too, want to zip up and eat cheese at the counter with the author. road trip, andiesenji??

one question i didn't see addressed above: how long after purchase did you marinate the chicken? if you'd already had it in the fridge a few days prior to marinating, i'd be leary of it after 1-2 days in the marinade. if it was fresh, i wouldn't worry about the food safety, but as previous posters mentioned, texture might be an issue.

zout works well.zout

one thing i really like about the paste is the terrific flecked appearance of batters or custards. creme brulee, for example, has the flecks throughout the custard, and to me, that appearance enhances the vanilla flavor of the food, at least psychologically.

nothing went wrong! in fact, everything went right! a gelatinous stock is a beautiful thing, with a rich, lovely mouth-feel and great body. scoop some out, and heat it up. you will see that it will melt...well, like jello in a saucepan! taste for seasoning, and use for whatever purpose you made it for. congratulations on a well-made stock!

i'm a generous pincher.

they are called yaki onigiri --rice snacks. i like 'em too.

i think you are looking for john sedlar, late of st. estephe and currently at rivera.bio here

hope all goes well, fatguy! are you having post-diet food brought in, or will you go out for your iodine after?

i can't begin to imagine how many letters like this an editor of a major magazine gets every week. no, i don't think a reply is to be expected. hoped for, maybe. expected, no. (i also believe your grammatical correction to be incorrect. might have been a factor in deciding whether to answer this letter or not....along with the repeated nature of the correspondance.)