Mireille Guiliano's Passion for Oysters
By Mort Hochstein
FATHER'S DAY GIFT SUGGESTIONS
By John Mariani
NEW YORK CORNER
Texas de Brazil
By Mort Hochstein
Master Chef Roger Vergé Passes Away
By John Mariani
NOTES
FROM THE WINE CELLAR Bobby
Cox Takes Sole Ownership of Pheasant Ridge
by Andrew Chalk
❖❖❖
SUMMER READING
By John Mariani
The seasonal
tsunami of new books on food and wine, grilling and
baking, dieting and gluten-free, are increasingly
just more of the same. Another
Greek cookbook? Two more Thai
street food books? Tedious reveries of living,
loving and cooking in either of the two Portlands?
Given that most of these end up selling fewer copies
than a new translation of Sartre's Nausea, one
wonders why the publishers bother to keep ripping
off their authors via their in-house Departments of
Sales Prevention.
So, unless, you are dying
to try out another 120 recipes for Lebanese pastries
or read about 1,001 dishes you'll never get around
to eating, the only sensible thing to do for summer
is to search out food and wine books worth the
actual reading, books that inform, entertain,
educate and enlighten. Here is my pick for
those kinds of books most likely to claim a place on
my bookshelves past Labor Day.
THE HISTORY OF WINE IN 100 BOTTLES by
Oz Clarke ($24.95)--A wonderful read and antidote to
all those windy 700-page volumes of out-of-date
tasting notes and winery histories. Clarke,
who is one of the wine world's savviest and most
readable authors, gives us the reasons why wines as
illustrious as Mouton-Rothschild and as commercial
as Mateus are milestones in wine history and for the
industry itself. Along the way there are
stories of Egyptian tombs full of wine jars, the
reason for Greek resinous wines, how the modern wine
bottle came to be (in the 1740s), the importance of
Louis Pasteur, and opinions on international wine
consultants like Michel Rolland.
SHORT COURSE IN
RUM by Lynn Hoffman ($14.95)--
Let’s face it, who outside the
spirits industry needs a long course
in rum? There is, of course, a very long, sometimes
sordid, history to the liquor that involves pirates,
slave trading, and Prohibition, and Hoffman gives a
good taste of that.But he also gives a rollicking picture of
working in a small rum distillery, why great rum
need not be expensive (it’s all made from cheap
sugar), and plenty of recipes, from cocktails to
dessert.
WINE IN WORDS
by Lettie Teague ($29.95)--
Lettie Teague followed years of
embarrassing wine coverage in the Wall Street
Journal with her down-to-earth, honest
reporting on the industry, pointing out its foibles
and marketing ploys and the emptiness of the
100-point scoring of wines. The chapters constitute
a series of essays with titles like “The
Well-Dressed Wine” (about expensive, often useless
wine accessories), “Tasting Blind,” “In Praise of
Mediocrity,” and “The Country of Cheap” (Chile).
Teague is precisely the kind of wine-knowledgeable
person who will never bore you with Winespeak,
because she knows that such arcane verbiage is
usually just a mask for having nothing intelligent
to say about a bottle.
JEAN-FRANÇOIS PIÈGE by Jean-François Piège
($85)--
The cliché that you can’t tell a
book by its cover has never been more true than in
the case of this all-gray volume, whose cover hides
within some of the most stunning French cuisine of a
contemporary Michelin-starred master.Piège,
45, brought back the luster of Paris’s Hotel de
Crillon Les Ambassadeurs and made a further mark at
his own eponymous restaurant on Rue St. Dominique.These are
not dishes the home cook is likely to attempt, but
the book is a template for modern French cuisine,
which gives the lie to those who contend the
gastro-scene in France has become sterile and
stultified.The
photos of the dishes show the complexity of Piege’s
cuisine, so it’s too bad the recipe pages themselves
are printed in black ink on battleship gray paper.
DONUT NATION by Ellen Brown ($22)--
I always await with an appetite the
next volume from the prolific Ellen Brown, whose
topics often seem narrow but whose scope is
daunting, even when it comes to an item like the
donut. For this is not just a book of recipes--and
they are all tempting, with names like “Dutch
Monkey,” “Chocolate Stout” and “Zeppole”--it is also
a Baedeker to the myriad donut shops all over
America, each thoroughly researched and lovingly
described.Brown,
who was USA
Today’s first food editor and now is a weekly
columnist for the Providence
Journal, has enormous affection for American
fare and she writes about it with gusto, as when she
describes the nurse-like uniforms of Psycho Donuts
in San Jose, CA, where the donuts types are
scribbled on prescription pads.
CHARLIE PALMER'S AMERICAN FARE by Charlie
Palmer ($40)--
The marriage of French technique
and American good taste has affected both cuisines
so that the distinctions are not as evident as they
were before chefs like Charlie Palmer, who graduated
from the Culinary Institute of America to go the
classic route of apprenticing in illustrious
restaurants in France, came on the scene.Today he
runs 14 restaurants and hotels, and his long
residency in the wine country ofSonoma
has been a crucible for developing family meals
based on everything he knows, from baked ratatouille
and green tea soba noodles with tuna to pork loin
with orange and mustard-crusted rack of lamb.Recipes
are simply and clearly written and geared to the
home kitchen--perfect for outdoor cooking this
summer.
REAL MAINE FOOD by Ben Coniff and Luke
Holden ($35)--
I don’t know that there is a “fake”
Maine food, but Coniff and Holden will convince you
that the 100 recipes culled from “fishermen,
farmers, pie champs, and clam shacks” have a
distinct regional flavor based on the glory of Down
East bounty, both from the sea and the land.There are
communal dishes like the “Washtub Lobster Bake” and
recipes using kelp in a salad; there’s a finnan
haddie gratin and pastrami mackerel with whole grain
mustard; and there is “Bean Hole Beans” along with
anadama bread, maple kettle corn, and Whoopie Pies.The
evocative photos are first-rate, too.
PATSY'S ITALIAN FAMILY COOKBOOK by Sal
Scognamillo ($29.99)--
Patsy’s is far from the last
remaining Italian-American restaurant in New York,
but it is to my mind the best, not just for the
quality of the cooking and for the wall of celebrity
photos it is famous for, but for the hospitality of
the Scognamillo family that has run this ebullient
Theater District restaurant for seven decades.Patsy’s
seems never to change, but in fact Chef Sal is
constantly working to improve dishes with better,
seasonal ingredients, without ever compromising what
made them so beloved in the first place, from
mussels marinara and eggplant rollatini to osso buco
and spaghetti and veal meatballs.Open any
page, look at the photo of the food, and just try to
stop yourself from salivating.
Mireille
Guiliano: Paris Oyster, A Love
Affair With The Perfect Food
By Mort Hochstein
By
the high water mark she set more than a quarter of a
century ago, Mireille Guiliano’s fête for her latest
book , Paris Oyster, A Love Affair With The
Perfect Food ($20), is quite modest. Back in the eighties, this powerhouse of a
woman was the North American CEO for Veuve Cliquot
Champagne. She staged a lavish party, a screening of
the award-winning film, “Babette’s Feast,” followed
by a monumental buffet recreating the memorable
banquet that gave the movie its title.
I thought of that event while
attending a reading Mireille staged at the French
Institute Alliance Française in New York recently.
There was no extravagant buffet ,sad to say, just
four select oysters, a fine Sancerre, Mireille
rhapsodizing over the French passion for oysters,
and a respectful audience that paid to hear her
promote a book.
In the years between these two
events, Mireille (below)
left Veuve Cliquot and went from behind-the-scenes
marketing guru to literary light, front and center.
She became the 21s century’s version of Alexis de
Toqueville, who explained American culture to the
French with his two-volume book Democracy in
America, in the mid 1800’s. Mireille
has been explaining the French way of life to Americans
and the world in a series of books, starting with
the best selling French Women
Don’t Get Fat in 2005. She followed that with
French Women
for All Seasons; Women, Work and the Art of Savoir
Faire; a cookbook and website based on French Women
Don’t Get Fat, and innumerable articles and
speaking engagements.
Guiliano has planted her flag in
a vein of what seems to be an inexhaustible gold
mine. Asked what makes French and American
cultures so different, she cites feminism. “Before the
rise of equal rights for women in the United States,
they were at home and were cooking. Then things
changed drastically, and when they went to work,
they put the cooking aside. In France, women do not
regard a job as the top priority in life, whereas in
the United States, you are sort of defined by what
you do, and that is why so many women are lost when
their careers end.”
Returning to the subject of her
new book,Guiliano
said that the French passion for oysters can be
explained by three virtues: The oyster, she
rhapsodizes, is simply delicious, but,
secondly, it isa nutritional powerhouse, loaded with
proteins, carbohydrates, antioxidants, good lipids,
and wonderful boosts for the human immune system.
And the third element is sex. Casanova, she tells
us, seduced a total of 122 women, on a diet of five dozen
oysters a day. The Roman emperors, she notes, paid a
fortune for oysters, having them shipped by sea from
Cancale, France, and no one questioned their belief
in the aphrodisiac qualities of
the crustacean delights.
While
she says there is no scientific proof that oysters
inspire and facilitate sexual performance, she
reports that they are rich in acids associated with
increased levels of sex hormones, as well as zinc,
which aids in the production of testosterone.
She gives example after example of Parisians
savoring the oysters piled high on street carts and
in bôite after bôite in Paris. She
mentions many of her favorite restaurants for
oysters,like
La
Coupole, Brasserie Lipp, Le Dôme, and Le Procope,
but her oyster heaven is Huîtrerie Régis, a popular
hole-in-the- wall -sized temple to the oyster in the
heart of Saint Germain-des-Prés.
Régis, the proprietor (no last name to
speak of) does not take reservations, but he is good
to his regulars, so Mireille seems always able to
find a seat at his table. A successful businessman
in other fields before succumbing to his passion for
oysters, Régis is, he says, addicted to them, and
joyfully works at his trade nearly 18 hours a day,
six days a week, all the while exuding bonhomie to
his fellow oyster lovers.
Guiliano’s book is crammed with
descriptions of belons, facts and figures on speciale de
claire, fin de claire, prairies and Marennes,
the varying grades of oysters and advice on how best
to eat them. But the most interesting parts are the
recounting of the shared passion
of Mireille and a battery of famous Parisians
who make Huîtrerie Régis their
club. (I have to interject here that I, too, am
an oyster lover. During a recent one week visit
to Paris, I ate four nights at La Mascotte, an
oyster haunt in Montmartre, and will return as soon
as possible.) Back in the
seventies, the gourmet food writer Roy Andries de
Groot wrote his most heartfelt book, The Auberge of
the Flowering Hearth, about a restaurant deep
in the the Jura Mountains. Food fanatics swarmed the
little inn, driving one of the two patrons into
early retirement and the other into surrender. She
sold her inn and the place no longer rates any
attention. I asked Mireille if the book’s
glorification of Huîterie Régis might incite a
similar onslaught. Non, she
emphasized: “My little book may bring a few
customers, but with such a small place, so many
oyster bars in Paris, and a no reservation policy,
the hurried crowd of today may not consider it
necessary. There is room for those who come early
and are in no hurry. Régis is also a passionate
baker and makes the delicious apple tart of his
grandmother daily, hopefully for the next ten years.
No use worrying about the future.” Paris
Oyster ends with Mireille's version of
“We’ll always have Paris,” Humphrey Bogart’s famous
farewell to Ingrid Bergman in the movie
“Casablanca.” “Huiterie Régis,” she declaims, “is
Paris, past, present and future. When I am in New
York or in a far-off location, I know I can mentally
slip into a seat at Régis and feel deeply,
emotionally there. The culture, the people, the
traditions, the oysters. I can eat them as Hemingway
and Proust did. I think I’ll take a dozen.”
❖❖❖
FATHER'S
DAY GIFT SUGGESTIONS
By John Mariani
Fathers come in varying degrees of size, height,
weight, sophistication, and affluence, as do their
sons and daughters. So here are some convenient,
utilitarian, delicious and over-the-top gift
suggestions for Father's Day. (I trust my
sons are reading this?)
LUXE LEATHER
ENTREPRENEUR BY GENIUS PACK ($278)—Men
can never have enough pockets, especially when it
comes to briefcases, and I found that thisLuxe
Leather Entrepreneur had so many pockets that I
had to go over the case again and again before I
found and got used to them all. A padded
compartment fits 13-inch
to 17-inch laptops; there’s a water-resistant
umbrella pocket; pockets
for newspaper, pens, business cards, and a
Genius Charger & Device to power up your
iPhone (though the iPhone 5 and 6 requires use
of their battery cord). The zippers are hefty,
the teeth have real grip, and the carrying
handles (with strap) easily fit over trolley
handles and stay put. Of real importance, it
only weighs 1.2 pounds. The case is not the most
beautiful piece of luggage, but it does
everything you need a case for. http://www.geniuspack.com/collections/luxury/products/luxe-leather-entrepreneur
MARK
THOMAS DOUBLE BEND SERIES GLASSWARE
($65-$125)—These days the remarkable low prices
for wine and other glasses has made it irrational
not to buy good quality for everyday use.But I
cannot imagine anyone’s father not feeling giddy
if given these Mark Thomas
hand-blown, lead-free crystal glasses made in
Vienna of such beauty and lightness. Indeed, they
are so light I at first thought they were made of
very, very thin plastic. But they are also quite
sturdy, even to being put into a home dishwasher.They
are designed so that wine, Champagne, or beer
appeals to the nose, eye, touch, and feel, while
maximizing aroma and taste. The
unique double-bend design outlines the measurement
for a perfect pour: the first bend indicates the
ideal amount for a wine tasting, the second bend
ideal for the average pour size for restaurants
and wine connoisseurs. I loved the wine glasses but,
even more, I found the beer glass so convincing,
so elegant and such a perfect fit to my hand that
I doubt I shall ever drink a brew from anything
else in the future.The glasses are not inexpensive—they rank
with some of the top-of-the-line Riedel—but the
Mark Thomas series offers more in terms of design
and utility.
Available through https://www.kneenandco.com/catalogsearch
MAGELLAN JETS’ 10 HOUR GETAWAY CARD—Anyone
who has ever flown on a private jet is unlikely to
forget the experience and forever regret that he
can’t always fly at that level of service.Now,
just for Father’s Day, Magellan Jets is offering
Dad (and the family if he’ll take them) access
to a private jet anywhere in the U.S. with as
little as 10 hours’ notice, with a pool of nine
different jets to choose from.The
company has 24/7 concierge service to advise on
the appropriate size jet (prices vary), plan or
change itineraries, order catering and arrange
ground transportation. Purchases can be made through
Father’s Day 2015 and the card is valid for travel
through Father’s Day, 2016. Call Magellan Jets at
877-550-JETS or by visiting www.magellanjets.com
SHAVETECH USB RECHARGEABLE TRAVEL SHAVER
($29.99)—Outside of jetlag, the drained,
off-putting icky feeling getting off a plane might
be considerably helped if a man could quickly
shave without lathering up back in the bumpy
lavatory or depressing airport men’s room.If you
can get to your electric shaver, which I doubt
many men carry, it’s a noisy business and probably
needs an electric outlet to work.Shavetech
has come up with an electric shaver that is not
only easily rechargeable but looks as sleek as an
iPhone but smaller.It’s not quite as powerful as some electric
shavers but it’s a lot less bulky, lighter, and
really pretty cool. The outer foiland
inner blades are replaceable.
SAILING
ESCAPE FROM CASTLE HILL INN--Along with a
two-night stay at Newport, RI's historic Castle Hill
Inn, fathers, sons and daughters can enjoy a private three-hour sailing lesson
and a Castle Hill tote bag packed with gourmet chef
snacks. Guests can also gear up for the afternoon in
top-of-the-line sailing gear with a $100 gift card
from Helly Hansen. Then follow with sunset cruise
through Newport Harbor on The Madeleine,
then finish off the night with dinner at resort’s
first-class restaurant, The Mooring. Total cost
depends on room, season, weekend bookings, etc. Call
888-466-1355.http://www.castlehillinn.com
HIGH SPIRITS—There are always new spirits
coming on the market, sometimes reprises of older lines that Dads
cherished. Those who are fans of peaty, smoky
Scotch (though less so than the label’s 10
Year Old) should cheer at the return of Laphroaig 15
Year Old ($79.99), just re-released after 30
years for a limited time, in honor of Laphroaig's
200th Anniversary.This Single Malt Scotch is bottled for export
at a higher 43 percent alcohol. . .Heretofore
unavailable in the U.S., Six Saints Rum ($37) takes its name from six of
Grenada’s parishes, where rum has been produced
since 1785; the distillery, one of two on the
island, is the last of the West Indies to actively
export their spirits. Made in small artisanal
batches, Six Saints has medium body, 41.7 percent
alcohol, and if you close your eyes, you may sense a
hint of the Spice Islands. . . .Haig Whiskey, which
dates to 1824, known for its Gold Label and Pinch,
is now selling Haig
Club ($50), in
a beautiful sea-blue square blue bottle, made from a blend
of three grain whiskies, each matured in different
types of casks and unfiltered. Soccer star
David Beckham is the public face of this, the first
new offering from Haig in more than 30 years, and,
bottled at 40 percent alcohol, it’s designed for
easy drinking and intended to woo younger drinkers
from vodka.
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER
By Mort Hochstein Texas
de Brazil 1011
3rd Avenue
212-537-0060 texasdebrazil.com
Long ago I
swore off churrasquerias, those generous South
American-style restaurants where the food,
primarily meat, keeps flowing until an ambulance
arrives to take you away. It’s not because
those restaurants are bad; it’sbecause
I’m weak and lose all inhibition and self control
when confronted by fine food. But recently, impelled by reports about a
really good example of the genre, I toddled over
to Texas de Brazil on the East Side of Manhattan.
The restaurant has a small, attractive bar at
street level, but all the action--meaning a
huge buffet and squads
of knife-wielding servers carrying
meat around on skewers--is upstairs. It's one
of scores of branches in an international chain
that stretches to the United Arab Emirates and
South Korea. Texas de Brazil is a
churrascaria, the Portuguese way of spelling the
term. And, while its servers wear very moderately
flaired gaucho pants, their costumes and the
restaurant decorations are more subdued than at
other such steakhouses I’ve experienced. The centerpiece of the room is where I
immediately lost control, dazzled and snared by
a huge overflowing buffet table with hot
and cold food and soups (right). There were enough
goodies packed onto that table to appease all
appetites and, indeed, the buffet is offered as a
separate, lower priced option. There was sushi,
good quality smoked salmon, seared tuna,
charcuterie, about six varieties of cheese,
asparagus stalks, shrimp salads, hearts of
palm, maybe four dozen possibilities, and on
one side, along the wall, hot soup, including a
lobster bisque, creamy and
generously lobster-loaded, a meal in itself.
In a
churrascaria guests control the service
by flipping up a green card that says bring
it on or by turning the card to its red side,
which tells servers you need a time out. Show that
green card and almost immediately a waiter is at
your side, skewer up, with an
ominous, glistening blade poised to
slice away at a huge slab of meat. The first
course in our case was a somewhat spicy Brazilian
sausage, and we had to tell the waiter to ease up.
Please, we begged, please split
one small sample of whatever you have between
the two of us. We
knew the best was yet to come and we would be wise
to leave room for pork ribs, slow roasted leg
of lamb, chicken breast wrapped in bacon, flank
steak, braised beef ribs--the surprise hit of
the evening, tender and tasty, a
flavorful ringer for the brisket we served at
Passover--lamb chops, and two takes on filet
mignon, normal cut and a filet wrapped in bacon.
In every case, we had to frustrate waiters
who were too eager to slice king-sized
portions. When the
server was not satisfying carnivorous
cravings, he was scurrying from table to table to
offer garlic mashed potatoes, creamed spinach
and an irresistible cheese bread. I have to
mention that the waiters knew their stuff. A
lot of the terms they used to describe cuts
are Latin American in origin, and the servers to a man,
or woman, provided an
understandable translation. And, oh yes, dessert. The selection
was somewhat more limited. From a tray that
included several types of cakes and ice
cream, we chose a version of bananas foster
and a tangy Key lime pie, foregoing, sadly, a
generous slice of cheese cake (right).
Though the desserts were ample, king-sized to be
truthful, they didn’t measure up to the meat
offerings. And they came too late
and fell on an exhausted
palate. However, I shall return with a more
tactful battle plan, after I work on my self
control.
Open
nightly for dinner. Fixed price $59.99, for salad
area only $39.99.
❖❖❖
MASTER CHEF ROGER VERGÉ PASSES
AWAY AT 85
By John Mariani
Roger
Vergé, one of France’s most respected and beloved
master chefs and a pioneer of la nouvelle
cuisine, has died at his home in Mougins at
the age of 85 from complications of diabetes.
With his jaunty mustache and
white hair, Vergé was the epitome of the modern
French chef when he came on the scene in the
1960s, at a time when chefs were barely
acknowledged for their efforts and the Michelin
Guide gave stars to the restaurant, never
the chef.
Along with Paul Bocuse, Michel
Guèrard, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, and Alain
Chapel, Vergé forged a new style of French cooking
whose hallmarks were a respect for the best
ingredients, a simplification of cooking and
presentation, and a call for creativity in the
kitchen without ever abandoning the classic body
of knowledge and technique that made innovation
possible.That
the cooking was often lighter than traditional
haute cuisine was an aspect that garnered too much
attention, as if it were supposed to be health
food.
Vergé disdained the way la nouvelle
cuisine was appropriated by young,
publicity-seeking cooks who took creativity to
mean gimmicky license of a kind Vergé
characterized as “a joke. It is
nothing serious. Now it looks Japanese: large
dishes, small portions, no taste, but very
expensive.”
What
distinguished Vergé’s cooking at his restaurant,
Moulins de Mougins, which he opened with his wife,
Denise, in 1969, was a distillation of all he knew
of classic French cuisine with the flavors of
Provence and the Mediterranean.
Having cooked in North Africa
and Kenya, he developed an avid appreciation for
the taste of fruits, citrus and sweetness, which
he amalgamated into haute cuisine with rigorous
French techniques.Vinegars and olive oil were used liberally,
the aromatics of flowers gave a freshness to the
dishes, and the presentation, on Villeroy Boch
china, was fanciful.
He’d use ingredients long
banned from haute cuisine kitchens, like pig’s
trotter, even pasta, and called it the Cuisine of
the Sun (the title of his cookbook ), served up in
an enchantingly sunny dining room with patio. The
first menus, which included lobster, were fixed
price at 28 francs; guests felt as well treated
wearing casual holiday clothes as jackets and
ties. In 1972 he won the prestigious Meilleur
Ouvrier de France award and two years later earned
a third Michelin star. Vergé said he
“liked to take risks” and a had a “dread of
sameness,” which translated to a glamorous
lifestyle that often took him away from Mougins,
even to opening a restaurant at Disneyworld in
Orlando, FL, with Bocuse and Gaston Lenôtre, as
well as promoting products.It was
all a far cry from the stultified stereotype of
the chef who never leaves his kitchen and has no
life beyond it, including no knowledge of other
cuisines but his own.
I still
have my index card notes from my one and only meal
I had at Moulins de Mougins, on May 6, 1982,
remarking on the lovely atmosphere of what had
once been a mill and on the young staff that
seemed such a contrast to those in stiff, formal
dining rooms to the north.The
wine list was superb, with as many wines of
Provence as of Bordeaux and Burgundy.And my
wife and I still recall just how amazed we were by
dishes that would fit impeccably onto menus today:
a warm mousse of salmon and scallops with lemon
sauce; zucchini flowers with truffles and another
rendering with a forcemeat of mullet; a lobster
salad with grapefruit, mayonnaise and snow peas;
turbot in cream with morels; duck confit with
pears; apple soufflé with Calvados ice cream; and
more.It
was all unforgettable, as much for its fine taste
as for its personality, which was purely Vergé’s.
Unlike
many of his contemporaries and a generation of
chefs to follow--who, like Alain Ducasse and Joël
Robuchon, built empires on their names and
connections--and except for the profitable foray
into Orlando and a failed restaurant consultancy
in NYC, Verge never expanded beyond Provence,
where he was happy.Which was what Vergé wanted his guests to
be after dining so beautifully at his restaurant.Life is
too short to spend it in a dark dining room
conversing in whispers, and Roger Vergé broke that
mold with personal élan and a touch of welcome
Gallic whimsy.
❖❖❖
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
Bobby
Cox Takes Sole
Ownership of
Pheasant Ridge by
Andrew Chalk
Bobby
Cox (below),
the winemaker who played a major part in putting
Texas wine on the national map, is back as owner
(with his wife) of Pheasant Ridge Winery. Cox
and the Bingham Family agreed to split the assets
with the Binghams, getting existing inventory and
all of the wine making equipment at the winery,
and Cox getting ownership of the brand, the winery
building near Lubbock and thirty acres of
vineyards (about half of which are producing). Cox
said that he is optimistic about the future of
Texas wine, considering the industry to be at a tipping point at which high
quality is going to become commonplace. He says
that he looks forward to being part of that
quality revolution and will be using 100% Texas
grapes.
The Bingham Family, one of the
largest growers of grapes in the High Plains,
plans to move forward with their Bingham Family
Vineyards in
Meadow, TX, and has already released wines and
opened a tasting room in Grapevine (below).
Tastings and tours start at the Meadow winery
facility later this summer after construction work
is finished but Betty Bingham stressed that they
expect the Grapevine tasting room to be the main
consumer tasting facility.
For
Texas wine lovers, this development means that two
producers committed to making quality wine from
100% Texas grapes can operate at full pace.Pheasant
Ridge holds a unique place in Texas wine history.
Founded by Cox in the early 1980s, it committed to
grow vinifera grapes in Texas right from the
start. At a time when many of the few dozen
wineries then in the state were producing an
embarrassing mish-mash of chemistry set
experiments gone wrong, Cox’s winemaking and
viticulture produced medals, not just in-state but
at the country’s most prestigious wine
competitions. The Pheasant Ridge 1982
Cabernet Sauvignon won a medal and their Sauvignon
Blanc won an honorable mention at the San
Francisco Wine Competition. A silver medal was
awarded to the 1984 Sauvignon Blanc at the San
Francisco Wine Competition in 1985. In 1986 the
1983 Cabernet Sauvignon won a gold at the San
Francisco Wine Competition. The world’s most
influential wine critic, Robert Parker, wrote “For
Cabernet Sauvignon Pheasant Ridge Winery is
turning out lush, intense wines with plenty of
character that can compete in quality with
anybody’s.”
The
early 1990s saw a recession which put the original
winery out of business. Cox became a prolific
consultant in the Texas High Plains, having a
formative impact on the viticultural and
enological development of the area. Today’s news
restores the status quo ante. “I aim to make the
best wine possible with the available terroir,” says Cox.
❖❖❖
THE FISH CAN ALSO BE
USED AS A NIGHTLIGHT
According City Town,
despite
city warning signs that read, "Warning: Fish
contaminated. Do not eat," a growing
number of people in East Harlem, NY, are fishing for
striped bass, bluefish, and perch in the heavily
polluted East River in an effort to go "organic" and
avoid farmed fish. "Personally I like organic stuff,
so I prefer fresh fish," one man explained. "I don't
eat farmed fish." Another said the bass are "the
freshest fish in New York City,"
BLOCK THAT
SIMILE!
"Like a school bully, Western Europe had grabbed me by the
ankles,
turned me upside down and shaken me until my loose
change chimed
on the pavement."--Gavin Haines, "I Love Porto," National Geographic
Traveller UK (June 2015).
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
I'm proud and happy to announce that my
new book, The Hound
in Heaven (21st Century Lion Books), has just
been published through Amazon and Kindle.
It is a novella, and for
anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance, inspiration,
even the supernatural, I hope you'll find this to be a
treasured favorite. The story concerns how,
after a New England teacher, his wife and their two
daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their barn in
northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise. But when
tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and the
spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring
back his master back from the edge of despair.
“What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was
completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its
message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw
“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight,
soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani
pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing.
Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James
Dalessandro, author of Bohemian
Heart and 1906.
“John Mariani’s Hound in
Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an
American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise
event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a
voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A
page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote
for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann
Pearlman, author of The
Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister.
“John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a
literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and
the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas
tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children,
read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly
recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling
author of Pinkerton’s War,
The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To
Woodbury.
“Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an
animal. The Hound in
Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that
is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and
his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can
enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara
Royal, author of The
Royal Treatment.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square
Cafe, The Modern, and Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites:
I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
columnist for USA
Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor
to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com
and Elle Decor.
"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
their travel seriously," says Potter. "For
travelers who want to learn about special places
but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for
the privilege of staying there. Because at the end
of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences." THIS WEEK:
Eating Las
Vegas is the new on-line site for
Virtual Gourmet contributor John A. Curtas.,
who since 1995 has been commenting on the
Las Vegas food scene and reviewing
restaurants for Nevada Public Radio.
He is also the restaurant critic for KLAS
TV, Channel 8 in Las Vegas, and his past
reviews can be accessed at KNPR.org.
Click on the logo below to go directly to
his site.
Tennis Resorts Online:
A Critical Guide to the
World's Best Tennis Resorts and Tennis Camps, published
by ROGER COX, who has spent more than two decades
writing about tennis travel, including a 17-year stretch
for Tennis magazine.
He has also written for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, New York Magazine, Travel &
Leisure, Esquire, Money, USTA Magazine, Men's Journal,
and The Robb
Report. He has authored two books-The World's Best Tennis
Vacations (Stephen Greene Press/Viking
Penguin, 1990) and The
Best Places to Stay in the Rockies (Houghton Mifflin,
1992 & 1994), and the Melbourne (Australia) chapter
to the Wall Street
Journal Business Guide to Cities of the Pacific Rim (Fodor's
Travel Guides, 1991).
nickonwine:
An engaging, interactive
wine column by Nick Passmore, Artisanal Editor, Four
Seasons Magazine; Wine Columnist, BusinessWeek.com;
nick@nickonwine.com; www.nickonwine.com.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani,
Robert Mariani,Misha
Mariani,
John A. Curtas, Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein,
Andrew Chalk,Dotty Griffith and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Dargery, Bobby
Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.