Feast
A moveable feast of dining inspirations.
-
March Madness Bracket: Belgian Ale & Pork Rinds
Work with me here: Until recently, I assumed “March Madness” was a reference to Alice in Wonderland a la “as mad as a March hare.” Turns out it’s about college basketball, which, this time of year, enjoys its own pseudoscience in the form of Bracketology. Apparently, Bracketologists predict the winner of the annual National Collegiate…
-
March Madness Bracket: Belgian Ale & Pork Rinds
Work with me here: Until recently, I assumed “March Madness” was a reference to Alice in Wonderland a la “as mad as a March hare.” Turns out its about college basketball, which, this time of year, enjoys its own pseudoscience in the form of Bracketology. Apparently, Bracketologists predict the winner of the annual National Collegiate…
-
Pork Rinds. The other Pigskin.
The Super Bowl and certain pork byproducts share a common ancestor – the pigskin. The first known footballs date back to 16th century Scotland and were comprised of pig bladders ensconced in deer leather. Pigskin eventually became the material of discerning footballers until a few centuries later when cowhide and polyurethane finally tackled football fabrication.…
-
The Vintners of Our Dissed Content
It all began, as these small odysseys often do, with a misunderstanding. In this case, the issue was entirely my own, and the fact that it persisted for nearly 40 years is not only embarrassing but rather damning to any gustatory gravitas I might’ve claimed. It went like this: I was strolling through our namesake…
-
Bird(s) is the Word: The Turducken
Dr. Frankenstein is not a name often invoked during the Thanksgiving holiday, except perhaps when critics deride a certain culinary phenomenon that has crept upon plates throughout the past quarter-century. The Frankenstein monster, that crude assemblage of body parts stitched into an ill-fated attempt to recreate life, has at least one counterpart in our nation’s…
-
Foie Gras Ban in California: Human Livers Still Legal
If one is to believe the recent news cycle, Sonoma is obsessed with liver health – not our own but those of geese. Thanks to California’s looming state-wide froie gras ban, goose liver and Sonoma (home of the state’s sole producers) have been the plat du jour of national media. At issue is the ethical…
-
Napa World’s Top Food and Wine Destination – WTF?
My e-mail inbox is a magnet for publicity spam, particularly those breathless missives regarding the “Wine Country experience.” How can I tell the difference between spam and a press release in the nanosecond before I delete it? If it’s about Napa, it’s spam. Seeing as my beat is decidedly Sonoman, I haven’t the time or…
-
Emmy Kaplan: Patr?n of the Arts
For Emmy Kaplan, the proprietress of both the San Francisco and Sonoma, California iterations of Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack, the secret ingredient to a good cocktail is ?freshness.? Fear not for Emmy’s punk rock cred, however, a favorite among Bay Area musicians, artists and foodies alike, the Shack (as it’s colloquially known) has not been Michael…
-
Buying the Farm(ers Market)
Regular attendees of Sonoma’s Farmer’s Market might have noticed a few additions to the bucolic hustle and bustle of last Tuesday’s market. Besides the return of once-ubiquitous balladeer Nelson Mint to his perch at the rose garden (strumming and crooning about his recent incarceration in a tune entitled “I did it, so what?”) and the…