I like bourbon, but not whisky. I know, I know, bourbon IS whisky, but to me there's a big difference. American bourbon is smooth and sweet and has complex flavors that I enjoy in food--warm spices, fresh herbs, toasted nuts, all kinds of fruit, vanilla, coffee, toffee, chocolate, caramel and more. Whisky, is fire water. Though a fan of all whisky, Chef Michael Symon summed it up this way, "drinking whisky should be a massage, not a wax!"
Symon was in San Francisco to talk about bourbon and Knob Creek in particular, an award winning bourbon made in small batches. It's aged in very deeply charred oak barrels, and is bottled at 100 proof. It has a distinctive sweetness and big flavor. Symon told me he like the boldness of it, saying it goes great with the kinds of things he likes to cook. "It's smoky, you can taste the age, like you can with a good salami. It has great depth of flavor, like wine and I appreciate what goes into making it--the 9 year aging process." Bourbon matches Symon's approach to cooking, "Things I like to cook take time and patience like charcuterie. Knob Creek is the charcuterie of the spirit world."
Though I love wine, I don’t own much wine paraphernalia. Good glassware and a sturdy corkscrew is pretty much all anybody needs. Carafes are nice for entertaining. Aerators a possible necessity if you’re drinking a lot of young red wine, but I generally spend my wine dollars on wine. We have a fairly large cellar and once people find out how many bottles we have - enough to survive a year without buying more, not so much we couldn’t drink it in our lifetime - the first question is always “how much do you drink?” Let’s just say there are two of us, usually one bottle a day…you can do the math.
We were really happy to sample the new PomWonderful drinks as a prelude to the holiday season. Pom Mango, Pom Hula, Pom Coconut. And since we’re not going away for Christmas this year, it was an excuse to pretend we were lounging under an umbrella on the beach, listening to the waves pound against the shore, and watching the sunset as we tasted the new varieties. (For the record, these were sent to me as samples, but as people who know me know, I don’t always write about the samples that I’m sent, not unless I like them, anyway – those crabcakes shaped like baseballs come to mind...)
As a wine lover in Los Angeles, there is a wide range of dinners, tastings and classes one can attend every month and unless you have
unlimited funds, you have to become fairly selective in where you spend your wine tasting budget. I've heard many great things about Wally's Annual Central Coast Wine & Food Celebration, but was never able to attend until this year. This past Sunday, I decided to take a chance. For me, the biggest factor in whether I'm going to drag myself (and my
designated driver, a.k.a my husband) out to an event is what we call "bang for the buck." I don't normally go to festival-type functions because I want to talk to the winemakers about their offerings, which rarely happens when you're trapped in a tiny room with
other, equally excited, wine lovers who you have to elbow out of the way just to get a 1-ounce pour. Plus, it's hard to feel like you're getting your monies worth when you only remember tasting 20 wines...and that's if you're taking notes.
Lady Restylane was a carnivore, a notorious coquette who left lipstick marks like business cards. But when men followed up, expecting the innuendos to lead to escapades, their calls were seldom returned. To Lady Restylane, it was all about the dance. Genuine intimacy scared the hell out of her.