Culinary Mishegoss, Vol. 2

June 9th, 2008 § 0

This Sunday, the BF made a request for a healthy dinner. He knows if he left it up to me, we’d be eating something fried in butter, drenched in cream, followed by a cheese course and a dessert course. I would also act like I forgot about the existence of vegetables. This is another recipe learned from my last class at Hipcooks…



In class we did it with oyster mushrooms that looked fresh. I had to make due with dried shitake mushrooms from Mitsuwa market down on Alameda in Little Toyko, soaked in hot water to bring them back to life. I sauteed them up with some olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and 3 cloves of chopped up garlic, added in a handful or 3 of roasted pine nuts (a Tony favorite), then indelicately shoved the messy mix into a big pocket cut into the salmon filets. You can’t see the stuffing here because I purposely hid it from you! Haw! Wrapped the puppy in rice paper and then sauteed it until the wrapper was crispy and brown. Guzzled it with this:



We had a slight misfire with the wine sitch for dinner. I had a bottle of Rose from 05 waiting in the fridge and it looks like it had gone bad – it was too dark for Rose, and kind of had a vinegar nose. So I tried my second best option, a bottle of Pinot I had hiding away in the cellar. At least now I have confirmation that I can start opening all the 2004 Santa Barbara pinots. After popping the cork, the smell of fresh, fruity BERRY notes flooded our noses – strawberries and cherries – smooth tannins – rich and elegant, not flabby and flat. Snooty wine jerks are always talking about pinot with salmon, and now I get it. Something about the oil in the fish and the bright lively fruit in the pinot just goes damn well together.


More about this bottle – Longoria Wines

Drinking OTHER THINGS, Vol. 1 Monastrell / Mourvèdre

June 4th, 2008 § 0




I stalk this grape. I stalk Mourvèdre and Petite Verdot because everyone else is out chasing cult cabs and princess-y pinot noirs like they are the blonde square-jawed jocks and privileged prom queens of the wine world. To me, Mourvèdre is the new foreign exchange student. He is swarthy, bold. He looks like he plays the guitar. Probably speaks French and Spanish. Okay I’m getting a little carried away. This is what happens when you drink too much, kids!

This bottle was recommended to me by Steve, the knowledgeable wine dude at the Glendale Whole Foods. He always seems to show up just in time to give me the inside track. He sees he holding a cheap bottle of Malbec and I ask about it. “Ehhh, try this, this is bolder. Do you cook? Do you LIKE to cook?” He explains that this Spanish blend of Monastrell (what they call Mourvèdre in Spain), Cabernet Sauvignon, and a little Tintorera goes perfectly with certain flavors in Spanish cuisine. I know this sounds…very W.C. Fields-ish but I love wine with breakfast on leisurely Sunday mornings. I don’t get TANKED, people. But a nice mouthful or two of nicely paired wine with a breakfast followed by plenty of water is not a cardinal sin. And I should know, after 12 grueling years of Catholic school.

Breaking It Down

Full Name: Bodegas Castano Solanera 2004 (Yecla)
Technical Details: 65% Monastrell, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Tintorera at 14.5% alcohol.
Interesting Label Stuff: “produced from the oldest vines of the indigenous Monsatrella variety” – “aged in oak for 10 months”
The Occasion: Breakfast. Namely, this frittata:



And? Steve the wine dude from Glendale Whole Foods (STWDFGWF?) advised me to enjoy this tannic and dry red wine with a food item that’s been goosed up with some kind of Spanish flavoring. The onions in the frittata were fried with Spanish smoked paprika which danced well with the tart, dark fruit flavors in the wine. I grated some Iberica Spanish cheese on top (because everything always needs cheese) and that too was a perfect match for the wine, which proves once again the conventional wine wisdom you should sip wines with the native foods made nearby (mmm, I just thought of Santa Maria BBQ tri tip sandwich with a Santa Barbara syrah…) Strangely enough, upon opening, it went perfectly with the fried paprika-spiked frittata and could do battle with the onions, the potatoes and the cheese without being drowned out. Enticing, rich and warm on the nose, a hefty-ish alcohol level, lovely and dark in the glass. And one day later the wine was perfect on its own – it had mellowed out just a bit, and was much less unruly and bold. And fine, if you’re one of those people that insist on knowing, Robert Parker gave this bottling a solid 92 points. At $11 a bottle, I can totally go back to get another one and just have it with tapas – thick ribbons of Serrano ham, hunks of Manchego, some spicy chorizo? Yeah, the good stuff.


Buy it at Wine.com

Culinary Mishegoss, Vol. 1

June 3rd, 2008 § 0

A few months ago I started taking classes at Hipcooks in the Brewery art colony. It was part of a general order from the head shrinker that I both put myself in the position of student or newbie to someone else’s experience *and* do something outside of my comfort level. Before that first cooking class, I was more of a Food Network passive junkie who bought cookware and chef’s gadgets and just let them pile up in my space-cramped kitchen. Perhaps it was that joke on SNL in the There Will Be Blood skit when the narrator says “Food Network – porn for fat people” that also helped me get off my butt and start using all my kitchen junk. If Crate and Barrel insists on being irresistible to me on paycheck Fridays, I better put it all to good use. And if I’m gonna do all this damn cooking and wine guzzling, I better blog about it too, eh? So here’s part one in a series about ‘not being a lazy fat-ass who just watches bobble-headed people making food whilst eating Doritos’.

Here’s my latest effort. The recipe is from the last Hipcooks class I took, “Healthy, Fresh and Zingy 3″ – a goat cheese tart.



I was slightly intimidated to give this a shot because of the crust making. Who the hell wants to take the time to make a crust? Crust making sounds like something John McCain does naturally, in his sleep! And to top off my general paranoia, in class when this was demo-ed to us, our instructor whipped out a pre-made crust, par-baked and light golden so we never actually saw the labor involved in person. But like most things in life, if you just follow the damn instructions you’re going to be okay! So for once, instead of being impatient, I really let the dough sit for an hour in the fridge as instructed! I rolled it out between plastic wrap as instructed! Wow, so this is how baking works! My only major screw up was not having enough flour and using whole wheat flour as a substitute. Despite this tweak, I think it came out pretty damn good. My major proof in support of its damn goodness is the fact that I baked this on Saturday and come Monday morning, exactly one quarter of it was left. Yes, we ate it all. It’s like a fancy pants cheesecake – half goat cheese, half cream cheese, spiked with lemon zest both in the crust and in the filling, and topped with slivered almonds. We did not pare it with any specific beverage, although damn. I bet it would be good with cool, crisp proseccoto cut that creaminess, but not too acidic to kill its light citrusy, vanilla subtleties. Mmmm, **Homer voice** citrusy, vanilla subtleties…



A Must Have for Winos! Oxo Stemware Washing Gadgety Thing

May 29th, 2008 § 0




I was actually looking for something to clean the BF’s many iced tea pitchers which get stained at the bottom. I also have a decanter from Crate and Barrel that looks like a flower vase and is ALSO bitchingly hard to get perfectly clean. Then I spotted this doo-dad at Target! It was a good $6 investment – a year or two ago good friend Madmojo was cleaning an Ikea wine glass and the fucker shattered around his hand. He had a Frankensteinian, bloody gash across his hand that was…not as amusing as it would have been in if featured in an Evil Dead movie.

Notice how it fits the lip area of the wine glass so perfectly. GET ONE!

Great Dinners – Canele

May 12th, 2008 § 0


The BF took me to Canele in Atwater Villlage for the 31st birthday. The first awesome decision made was bringing this wine with us. Both of us had the beef tenderloin entry and this syrah from Santa Barbara made the entree a total home run. This great food wine is not too tannic, not too peppery, and also went really well with our appetizer – serrano ham, olives, and idiazabal:


The only thing is – olives do NOT go with wine, yet here I am, chomping away on salty, oily, delicious olives. That’s what your water glass is for, I guess.

Here’s our other app, perfectly steamed asparagus sitting on a super buttery piece of crispy bread, topped with a soft boiled egg. Everything drizzled in brown butter. I could eat this for breakfast EVERY DAY:



A few other random notes:
You sit close, VERY close to your neighbors, so either get over it or prepare your conversations ahead of time to be as inoffensive as possible. Corkage is a reasonable $10. None of the desserts sang to me but I had a tough time choosing between the beef tenderloin and the beef bourginon.

Verdict:
I would definitely go back for another dinner but what I am even more curious about is their weekend brunches! Who wants to come with me?

Canele in Atwater Village

The Joys of Verdugo Bar

March 11th, 2008 § 0



The BF has been on my case for weeks about popping into Verdugo Bar but I’m kind of a stubborn piece of work and a creature of habit that has become overly comfortable in certain Bavarian-themed Silverlake establishments. But now I needn’t even get on the 2 freeway anymore. Maybe ever again! Some brilliant human being has opened the beer-centric Verdugo Bar in Glassell Park, a blessed 5 minutes away from my hilltop shanty.


This is definitely a wondrous place for the beer adventurer to do a little travelling, and they’ve got excellent selections both in bottles and on tap. The sheer amount of choice panicked me at first so I asked for a Duvel, only because I recently had it at Paperfish a few days ago and it was the first thing to pop into my head. They didn’t have any Duvel by the bottle, but the bartender helpfully steered me to a Delirium Tremens, a Belgian Strong Pale Ale, at a hefty 8.5% alcohol level and served to me in a goblet. It was delicious, kicky, hearty but not heavy at all, and certainly not too bitter. It compared perfectly to the Duvel in terms of it being a delicious beer just to sit and sip, but I found it much more refreshing and lip smacking. Verdugo Bar wins points for giving me a goblet – the bartender at Paperfish could only rustle up a wine glass. Back to the beer though – I’m impressed with this skillful recommendation, seriously, because now helpful Wikipedia is telling me this beer was declared THE BEST BEER IN THE WORLD! in 1998.

We eagerly returned to Verdugo Bar a few days later for a beer tasting from the North Coast Brewing Company. They were pouring 9 selections. The one I was most familiar with is their Red Seal Ale, which you can find at Trader Joes in the area and my chum Inland Empirical recently blogged about.


photo by Inland Empirical


I hate to sound like one of those drunk people you meet a beer tasting (wait…I am one of those drunk people you meet at a) but seriously, every single one of them was pretty damn good. One of my favorites was the Pranqster, a Belgian style Golden Ale, fruity, a little clovey, and gently spiced on the nose. I’m not even a huge fan of dark beers but I even took to their Old Rasputin, a Russian Imperial Stout. It was rich and creamy with distinct coffee notes that made it seem like it would be comforting on a rainy day. Mmmm, a beer-coffee. A blatte? Sorry.

The last beer was their Old Stock Ale. It says all kinds of important sounding things in the tasting notes: “brewed with classic MarisOtter malt and Fuggles and East Kent Goldings hops, all important from England”. This beer was definitely the fiery punch-swinging redhead of the group, with a seductive deep dark color and a BIG kick (11.7% alcohol!). This is the kind of beer that makes you weak in the knees, not because it’s so flavorful and very robust but because you are well, pretty schnockered if you are sitting around downing this serious brew.

Only two trips to this bar and I am in love. Someone pour me a staggeringly delicious Hoegaarden witbier. I’m settling in.

Pros: Extensive beer menu, dark low key atmosphere and no douchebags thus far.
Cons: No food. But there are chips! Kettle Chips! We had a few bags!

Visit Verdugo Bar
Visit North Coast Brewing Company

Ramsay 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley

March 5th, 2008 § 0




Don’t you love those water drop stains? I am too lazy to polish my glasses with a paper towel after washing. What, is this the Ritz? No, this is the 90065. That’s how we roll in East LA.

What We Drinking Here?: Ramsay 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, which is a secondary label for the Kent Rasmussen Winery.

Technical Details: Can’t locate any on their website for the 2005 bottling, so we will have to assume it is 100% Cabernet from Napa although their 2006 tasting notes say THAT bottling has a small kick of Petite Verdot or Merlot in there.

The Occasion: Nothing special, fools. Wine is drunk in the Gulmahamad-Federico household with 95% of dinners. Right now I am guzzling this puppy with some Asiago Pine Nut ravioli from Whole Foods and it is pairing up VERY nicely, with just the right fruit to goose up the cheesiness but not too much alcohol to distract or throw off flavors.

AND? This is tastytown. And yes, that is a technical wine term. Loads of dark ripe cherry flavors and a thoughtful mellowness that does make me think there is some womanly merlot in this. What’s REALLY nice about this particular cab is its relatively sedate 13% alcohol level. There’s no ‘monster alcohol breath’ here but the acidity is still nice and manageable. “Rounded tannins” if you will. The notes for the 2006 Cab specifically bring up oak and in the 2005, you do get that little touch of sweetness on the end, a teeny kiss of vanilla or even caramel. This is an elegant sipper that I think cost me about $20-$25 and it can both be a food wine or enjoyed on its own.

ANYTHING ELSE, WINO? I noticed this tasted a LOT better slightly chilled in the fridge and it tasted flabby and boring at room temperature. I need one of them thar newfangled wine thermometers, I guess. OR you could just pop it into the fridge for about 5-10 minutes and skip buying all kinds of doodads at Sur La Table.


Purchased at Colorado Wine Company | Visit Ramsay Wines

Color Me Intrigued, in the Most Ironic Possible Way

March 3rd, 2008 § 1




Alright. I took discovery of this as a sign I need to post more in the old wine blog because man. This is for real. Little Jon makes wine. Wine fine enough for your most diamond-encrusted crunk goblet!!! Seriously. I want to try them! They are all California wines, a Cab from Paso, a Merlot from Monterey, and a Central Coast Chard. Way to support the Golden State Wines, Lil’ Jon! Eeeeeyyyyeah! Will you give it a try? Can you think of other successful celebrity wine attempts that you’ve tried or are at least, curious about?

Visit Little Jonathan Winery’s Website

Temecula Wine Country: A Cautionary Primer

January 8th, 2008 § 1



The view from Palumbo Family Winery, Temecula CA

The BF promised me a secret day trip and thus he delivered…albeit took this day trip after we had been up all night drinking strong margaritas in Silverlake, but we trekked out there anyway despite a puke-worthy hangover on my behalf.

Our dusty shoes touched down in Temecula at The Original Pancake House for our first stop. I was still sadly reeling from the hangover which did not allow me to eat more than a plain waffle, but the foodie smell on the inside of this place was homey and classic, strong coffee and stacks of pancakes covered in maple syrup everywhere. We did notice immediately that we were no longer in the city. Here are some typical Pancake House customers:


(photo by apollosputnik)

So a few things to remember about Temecula:

1. This isn’t really serious-serious wine country. And we could tell from our first stop. I don’t like to winery bash unless we are drunk and standing in a room face to face, so I won’t really name names here on the blog. But the first stop along our route was a very bustling winery making PORT-ICE WINE MARTINIS. That’s right. A glass of ice wine, a drop of port layered on top, with chocolate shavings on the rim. $6. And plenty of grown up, adult looking people were ponying up to the tasting bar for this sweet monstrosity. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t great vintners out there in Temecula. But we all know there aren’t any mountains, or ice, in Temecula. So that’s not an ice wine. Nor is it a martini. AND, we heard a very proud woman telling her friends nearby she belonged to the wine club of this winery. I found this astounding as the first glass of award-winning Riesling tasted like Welch’s Grape Juice which leads me to number two:

2. Everything is “award-winning”. BUT WHO GAVE YOU THIS AWARD? Don’t expect an answer and:

2B: Don’t be expected to be told WHERE your grapes are coming from either. We noticed at so many wineries they never tell you the name of the vineyard, or even tell you if the grapes are estate grown. This is in stark contrast to what goes on in Santa Barbara and Sonoma, where the names of the precise vineyards and their locations are usually offered to you freely.

The only exception to this was found at the Hart Family Winery where we actually tasted some wonderful red wines, including a Merlot which we ended up taking home that day. This leads me to my next note:

3. There is a pretty decent chance that what you are drinking is over-ripe and comes from over-ripe grapes grown in this too-hot climate. You know how you can tell? That trademark “rubber tire” smell is all over most of the red wines we tried in Temecula. We did find some pretty decent examples of Italian varietals and faux Super Tuscans at the Mount Palomar Winery, but most of the other reds we tasted were too alcoholic and overripe to even produce signs of what varietal you were quaffing.

4. But don’t despair, there is one thing you can get that is excellent in Temecula. The dessert wines. One of the best glasses of sherry I’ve had in quite some time was purchased at the aforementioned Mount Palomar Winery, which had this wonderful bouquet of hazelnuts and honey. I bought it on sight. Er, taste.

5. And if all else fails, we did discover you can get very good olive oil and gourmet food products in old town Temecula at the Temecula Olive Oil Company. I ended up taking home 3 things, which is a better haul than at any winery for the rest of the day! The must buy at this store is definitely their vanilla-fig balsamic vinegar, which will make even the most pedestrian bowl of salad greens much more exotic.

So would I revisit? It’s hard to say. My friend Inland Empirical has already pointed out to me that I didn’t make it to Stuart Winery, and in the past, I have enjoyed a bottle of two of Wilson Creek’s almond champagne, but there’s no two ways to cut it. Temecula ain’t no Santa Barbara. It’s not as picturesque, the wines are not as articulate or unique. But people did used to say this stuff about Paso Robles and look at Paso now? Who knows. Who do you think I am, the wine oracle? I’m not. I’m just a girl with purple stained teefs.

Links for Reading Comprehension:
Drink Mount Palomar’s Solera Sherry
Buy Temecula’s Vanilla-Fig Balsamic Vinegar
Visit Hart Family Winery
Visit Temecula Wine Country

The Very Best Thing(s) I Have Consumed Recently

April 9th, 2007 § 0



This is the Brioche with Proscuitto, Gruyere and Egg at A.O.C. As of this writing, it is the best thing I have eaten all year (sorry Mozza Pizzeria). I would eat this every day without fail or fear for my arteries if I could.


As everyone and their dairy-lovin’ friends already know, A.O.C. is also an excellent restaurant for wine and cheese lovers. This is our beautiful cheese plate, with a cheddar from England, a sharp and stinky blue from Spain, and a creamy goat from the Loire Valley. The cheddar was my favorite, crumbly and not too tangy. This cheddar has ruined me now, nothing will ever seem as addictive. And guess what it’s called, Mrs. Appleby’s New Cheshire! Mrs. Appleby, wherever you are, I salute you!

After drooling all over the cheese menu selections, you will be presented with a nice selection of whites and reds by the glass, by the carafe, and of course, by the almighty bottle. We went with a carafe of Flowers’ super juicy and compelling Pinot/Syrah blend, the Perennial. It sounds lame to say so, but it really had the best of both varietals – it was both supple and elegant, smooth and plummy, bespeaking a Pinot, but it still had a little Syrah spice to give it personality. I will certainly seek this interesting blend out again, and keep an eye on this Napa vintner in general…


Final Verdict: A day or two later and I’m still thinking about my meal at A.O.C.

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