Food, Wine, Good (and Evil) Spirits

My father's singular obsession with noble limestone permeates every discussion of our wines. He purchased our vineyard land only once he discovered it lies on a 300 foot deep slab of the white, porous rock. Because we are so proud of Limestone’s mineral, high acid effect on the wines, we seldom discuss the thin layer of dirt above.

The Stolpman estate vineyard's clay topsoil is light gray when dry and becomes a sticky mud when wet. Many 2×4 cars have fallen victim to the wet clay, even on our hard-packed roads. Boots become several pounds heavier with mud stuck like bricks in the treads.

That’s the very beauty of clay in our perpetual California drought: it retains moisture. This year, as we look at the driest winter thus far in our vineyard’s history; we are thankful to have clay. As we drip water on the ground through our irrigation hoses, we mimic normal rainfall, allowing the clay to become saturated. Like a year of normal rain fall, when we hope to get 12 inches, we won’t irrigate after set. Set describes the transition when the vines’ tiny flowers become “.” sized grapes.

By cutting water at set, we are ensuring that the plant will still have to fight through the summer to ripen tiny concentrated grapes, undiluted by irrigation. In a drought year like 2014, this is our new definition of dry farming.

I haven't met an herb I didn't like. Right now in my garden have more than a dozen varieties of herbs growing. I have different uses for all of them. Some I love to use when roasting meats or vegetables, like rosemary and sage. I put parsley and mint in my salads. I also use mint in my teas. I use cilantro in guacamole, which I make almost every week. And of course I have a bush of basil for when it comes time to make homemade tomato sauce.

This year I've tried growing Greek basil and Thai basil with great success. My stir-frys and Thai curries are so much better with the addition of Thai basil, which has an anise-like flavor. For years I've been growing lovage, a perennial herb that grows four feet tall every year. Its flavor is a lot like parsley and celery combined, and its tall stalks look much like celery except that they are hollow like bamboo. You might have come across lovage used in a Bloody Mary but not have known what it was. The stalks make very nice straws.

Last Sunday evening, in an apartment on the Upper West Side, I turned off the burner, dropped a knob of butter into the pan, and swirled it into the red wine, caramelized shallots, chicken stock, and filet drippings. This is my favorite moment in cooking. It’s called “mounting” (a great technique deserves a great name) and is the final thickening of a sauce by adding butter.

Everything becomes richer at that point. Every taste becomes a million times more delicious. It’s magic. I held my breath as I plated the roasted rosemary potatoes, sugar snap peas/ snow peas/ pea shoots in lemon sauté, beef tenderloin, and spooned the sauce on top. These were new clients I was cooking for and, yes, I still get nervous.

I was suddenly transported back to a client I hadn’t thought of in years. He was some bigwig but not famous producer whose name I don’t recall. It must have been a decade ago in Beverly Hills. I had just made the decision to leave the acting profession and pursue a career in the cooking industry. I had been cooking off and on for years but never really thought of myself as a chef. This was that moment of leaping and hoping a net would appear. I enrolled in a cooking school to make sure I knew what I was talking about and started working professionally about a month after class had begun. Thank you, net.

“He would like for you to come in next Tuesday to cook his dinner. This will be a test run. He’s been through a lot of chefs.” The client’s personal assistant had found my name and number through another chef, Monica, that I worked with in a busy Los Angeles catering company. Monica had tried and failed to satisfy him – a fact which terrified me, as she was much more experienced than I. She had said one thing to me, “He has a very rich appetite. Be prepared for anything.” I didn’t know if that meant he was wealthy or liked fattening things, so I assumed both were true.

Last night husband Martin and I were feeling a bit restless – nothing that an ale at the Verdugo couldn’t fix. The Verdugo is our (somewhat) local bar. It has an awesome selection of craft beers on tap, and really, is there anything as good as a good beer on draught? Beer geeks LOVE this place – it has Pliny the Elder, Craftsman, Sour Beers, Belgians, stouts, meads – you name it – on tap. Dudes love the place because the bartenders are pretty, and there is a flat screen t.v. at the bar, where if you ask nicely, they will turn on the ball game. Chicks love the place because, er, the beer is so fine? Also, if you happen to have unenlightened friends who don’t appreciate fine beer, there is a full bar.

So last night perusing the beer list, we both fixed on Aprihop by Dogfish Head. We requested a small taste (they will let you do that!) and we both ordered a pint. Dogfish is an interesting brewery. It’s in Delaware and there was an entertaining article about it in the New Yorker a couple of years ago. Unbeknownst to us, Bryant Goulding, Dogfish’s West Coast Regional Sales Manager was sitting a few seats down, and we got to chat him up about the beer and brewery.