I found heaven on earth, and it’s in Brisbane, California. It’s a European food and wine importers warehouse. Every once in a while, they open their warehouse doors to the general public. A friend of a friend tipped me off and I went yesterday afternoon. The doors opened at 2 PM and rumor had it that the good stuff sells out fast, so it was important to be on time. That meant sacrificing an interesting late afternoon seminar in the pursuit of ever-lasting happiness. Indeed, the place was mobbed.

Compared to other shoppers who were loading their baskets with 10 kilo packages of French foie gras and entire wheels of English stilton and crates of French chevre, I was restrained. This was more of a reconnaissance mission on my part, as I was more interested in checking out what this place had to offer. And I found heaven. No pearly gates or fluffy white clouds or angels, just an entire walk-in refrigerator stuffed with cheese. Not to mention the warehouse racks filled with chocolates, olive oil, basalmic vinegar, pasta, and spices. Or the other fridgies with foie gras and smoked meats. And did I mention the specially discounted French wine?

So I left with Spanish olive oil, hard cider from Brittany, Italian prosciutto, French smoked duck, French foie gras, a round of epoisses, a chevre, some CowGirl cheese from Mt Tam, and a 1/2 case of a special cuvee of white chateau-neuf-de-pape for half price. Pretty restrained, I’d say. At least for me.

Being a charter member of the LSGNA Collaboration, I just can’t pass this one up! The Americas Summit (34 nations, including the US) is convening this weekend in Mar del Plata, Argentina. And the security force has been waylaid by a rabid lasagna….70 members, and counting, of the armed security team are down. What a great tactic! I am surprsied more people throughout history have not thought of mass quantities of lasagna as a weapon of mass destruction. The hotel serving the questionable lasagna used to be a favorite dining haunt for the local police squad. Wanna bet they’re busy right now checking the local guide for other places? Who knows, perhaps “W” will have a hankering for Argentinian lasagna and follow in his father’s footsteps.

PS: LSGNA = Large Super Giant New Accelerator. The collaboration formed in 1992. It meets sporadically, and ingests its favorite food along with large quantities of wine. We have our own theme song and enjoy pink flamingoes.

Correction: A collaboration member has reminded me that my memory is failing….the LSGNA collaboration formed in June 1993, not 1992. Being a major lifetime event, you would think I’d remember it correctly.

If you’re the kind of person who wants a tire company to tell you where to eat, you’ll be delighted to know that Michelin released its New York City Guide this morning. The New York edition is Michelin’s first in the U.S. and, as The New York Times reports, has generated much anxiety, and now much delight and despair among New York’s chefs.

I’m going to stick to trusting recommendations from the Zagat guide, which doesn’t usually disappoint. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a hefty price increase at establishments with even a single Michelin star. If this is the case, it may well be that the top-rated Zagat restaurants that haven’t made it into Michelin will become better value.

In any case, growing up, calling someone a “Michelin Man” was a derogatory way to refer to his or her weight problem (because of the rotund Michelin icon). That this springs to mind when entering a Michelin-rated restaurant hardly puts one in the mood for the intended gustatory excesses.

The next step on my personal journey back in time…. I’m living with my mum!

Ok, so she’s visiting for a few weeks. (No, I have not moved back into the parental home, watching TV on the sofa, calling out for food like some scary giant physicist-cuckoo-chick.) Anyway, she brought treasured stuff with her (thanks also to my sister, cmj!), including things that almost all UK people in the USA crave: Ribena, Marmite, proper simple teabags, decent chocolate (sorry but Hershey’s just suckity suckity sucks)….

I can get a lot of this in the English shops in Santa Monica, (and the G&B chocs in some regular shops these days) but it’s just not the same as getting it shipped in, inside a suitcase, with that delicious feeling of anticipation while it is unpacked. I actually don’t eat this sort of thing under normal circumstances. I suspect that it is the connection with the old country, its people, my people, and the past that I want to savour for a little while.

Note that this photo was taken within 24 hours of her arriving and the seals are broken on some things already. Now how am I ever going to maintain my girlish figure…?

-cvj

Just got back from Hollywood’s farmer’s market. Ooooh yeah. A weekly street party while you get the shopping done. Here there’s, for example, good live music (the buskers are actually good and not just playing three chords on loud rock guitar – Santa Monica buskers take note), fun things for kids to do, free movie test screenings to be had, etc. Here, gender takes values in a continuum as opposed to a discretuum, and overall it’s a much more diverse and, yes, fabulous crowd.

Do make comparison to yesterday’s haul if you wish, but there’s no intentional significance in it. Also, I just realised that I left out of the photo a crop of lovely peaches and nectarines. Too heavy for the basket. No, I’d not seen purple cauliflower for sale before today either. Very interested to try.

Off do do some physics now. Will tell you about some of it shortly, I promise.

-cvj

Just not as good a market as my neighbourhood Hollywood one (and of course not at all fabulous), but managed to find a few things.

Better colour balance than my Aspen basket, perhaps? And sure, just like in the Aspen post, share your recipes with us!

-cvj

By popular demand, here is the wine list from the 2005 SLAC Summer Institute (SSI). One of my duties as SSI program co-director is to choose the wine that we serve with the Institute dinners. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.

It really isn’t so easy. Honestly. We have a strict budget. I can’t just order a case or two of Chateau Margaux! (Actually, I’ve never had the pleasure of tasting Chateau Margaux….sigh.) I have to average around $6.00/bottle. And, I must admit, I know little about wines that cost $6.00/bottle. And, I can’t serve just any everyday plonk – I have a reputation to maintain! So, to ensure quality, I taste. As I said, it’s a tough job… I start looking for bargains a few months in advance. Whenever I see something interesting, and cheap, I buy a bottle. I taste it immediately, and if it passes muster, I immediately return to buy a bunch. Good cheap wine sells out quickly and you gotta be fast. All in all, I usually taste about 2-3 cases worth. (Yes, at my own expense.) Sometimes I end up running to the sink to spit the stuff out. Sometimes I end up buying some bottles for myself.

So….drumroll please….here is the 2005 list. Average cost $6.29/bottle.

White:

Meridian Chardonnay, Santa Barbara County – 2004, $5.99
Grand Cru Chardonnay – 2003, $4.99
Sartarelli Verdicchio – 2003, $4.99
Aranacio Grillo – 2003, $5.99
Kenwood Sauvignon Blanc – 2004, $8.99

Red:

Charamba Duoro Tinto – 2000, $5.99
Bogle Old Vines Zinfandel – 2003, $8.98
Columbia Crest Merlot, Grand Estaters – 2001, $8.99
Deakin Shiraz – 2004, $6.99
Rosemount Estate Shiraz (Diamond Label) – 2003, $7.99
Marques de Riscal Tempranillo – 1999, $7.99

Apparently coffee is now a health drink! According to a new study, “Americans get more of their antioxidants from coffee than any other dietary source. Nothing else comes close.” This may mostly say something about how vegetable poor the average American diet is, but at least we can all keep on drinking without remorse!

Although, my new antioxident love is Brazilian açai…

Sorry for my extended absense here, I just returned home this weekend, and my travels were just too too busy. It’s weeks like the last two that made me think it was impossible to have a blog before I had such lovely co-bloggers to cover for me! I’ll write in the next day or two something about what I’ve been up to and about the conference that I was at. But at the moment I’m just going to write a few words about cheese, one of my all-time favorite things to rave about.

My first real evening home, and I was lucky enough to be back in time for an event of cheese and wine tasting celebrating the first anniversary of my neighborhood cheese shop, Pastoral. It was cosponsored by Slow Food Chicago — Slow Food is a movement founded in Italy in the mid 80′s, which is all about making food and the pleasure of eating central to life, appreciating regional and seasonal food, and supporting sustainable agriculture and small family farms. If you are in Chicago, or just dining in Chicago, I highly recommend the book that they just came out with this year, the Slow Food Guide to Chicago.

Anyways, we had some great stuff — artisanal cheese in America is undergoing a real renasssaince, most of which has been in just the last decade. The Fromagier (head cheese guy) at Pastoral gave a little history of cheese in America, which basically went: Pilgrims made some good cheese, but then big machines cometh with Kraft singles, and then “Thank God for the hippies”, who in the late 60′s started worrying about where their food was coming from, and started the seeds of what has become a wonderful and rapidly-growing American cheese market, which each year puts out more small, locally produced, delicious farmstead cheeses than the year before (this guy is a foodie but most certainly not a hippie, so I found this amusing). Apparently, membership in the American Cheese Society has doubled in the last 5 years. These guys have good taste, it seems, because one of my favorite cheeses from the evening, called Pleasant Ridge Reserve, won “Best in Show” at the most recent annual competition. These babies ain’t your mama’s American cheese — if you are lucky enough to have a local cheese shop or a local cheese counter near you, stop by and spend some time there.
Eat, and enjoy.

[This is all close to my heart, I grew up in the organic food business, raised by one of said food-obsessed hippies, who is now making some fantastic organic farmstead cheese of his own in northwestern Washington.]

P.S. Should have mentioned that Saveur had a nice special issue a few months ago, all about “the new glory in American cheese”, with a list of their 50 favorites.

So I know that my last post promised a story, with some physics. It’s coming, but I must admit to having been distracted this morning by a bit of long-overdue tending of the garden. For those of you out there who might be wondering how the garden’s doing, especially after my description of my irrigation solutions in a previous post, here’s a look at today’s harvest:

Contents: tomatoes (3 varieties), cucumbers (2), courgettes (3), mint (2), basil (2), lemons, and limes.

I’m very excited, relieved, and pleased! So being on the road for so long was not too bad for the garden (although I lost several tomatoes and cucumbers due to over-ripening).

-cvj