Make every bite count: adventures in food, recipes, eating out & love
Ever wanted to know how restaurants make their dishes sooo delectable? Well, check out our series on chef’s recipes from the best restaurants in Santa Barbara County here!
All recipes originally printed in Edible Santa Barbara magazine.
I once attended Christmas Eve Mass in an old cathedral built in the 1100s in Lausanne Switzerland. What I loved the most about this was the musty, mystical feel of the church filled with villagers in the cold night, the fact that I could understand much of the sermon in French, and the vin chaud (mulled wine) they served everyone at the end.
Being a new wine drinker, I’d heard of mulled wine but never tried it. This “warm wine” is heated and steeped with spices like clove, cinnamon and anise and then served hot, steaming with fragrant spices. It tasted like Christmas in a glass, but also of the vineyards. It was heaven. And I was drinking it in the perfect place.
I found mulled wine all over Europe during the holidays and through the cold winter months. It reminds me so much of winter holidays that I now make mulled wine at the end of every year, and into the new year too. I like to make it with local wines, especially young table wine and freshly-ground nutmeg to keep the experience original.
For a more modern, fusion vin chaud you can use white wine (making it more cider-like), add different combinations of fruit juices, grate fresh ginger into the mix and experiment with herbs to create different flavors. Make your own unique winter concoction and settle in for the winter.
Recipes to start:
The Castle of Gruyères — Château de Gruyères in French — is located in the tiny medieval town of Gruyères in the canton of Fribourg. It is one of the most famous places in Switzerland, not only for the castle and the historical town, but also for the cheese.
Visiting Gruyères is a very Swiss experience. You will arrive on time on a clean, silent train. You’ll see modern, clean cheese manufacturing and the modular Swiss architecture recent buildings all seem to share, then take a short walk up an Alp to see ruins harking back to the Roman days, a medieval village with cobblestone streets and a castle with history ranging from 1270 to the late 1800’s.
In town, you’ll eat meringues with La Gruyère double cream and aged Gruyère cheese (hopefully in a fondue), as well as meet smiling, friendly Swiss country-folk who won’t hesitate to shush you or admonish you with “non non” as needed. There is even a bar in town where you can sit in a chair designed by H.R. Giger, the man who gave the movie Alien its look. When you’re ready to go, your train will depart at the exact minute it should, delivering you quietly to your next destination.
It’s really a splendid, splendid place! Check out our photos below.
Note: some things may be closed in winter or certain days of the week, so make sure to check before going.
In Périgord, Dordogne France, it’s always foie day. It happens to be the foie gras capital of France (and the world), producing 90% of all foie consumed in France. And the French consume a lot of foie: 18,450 tons — 78.5% of the world’s estimated total production. This region also produces high-quality almost-Bordeaux wines at a fraction of the cost, sometimes poured for you in the wine maker’s own kitchen.
But back to foie. Ducks and geese are inclined to eat as much food as you give them, so force-feeding is actually not a necessity. This is something we’re all familiar with; it’s not unlike the US population residing in middle America. Producers should give up force-feeding machines and let the birds eat three times their weight naturally so we can still eat foie in California! Alas, with the recent foie gras ban in California, we are now forced to travel to nearby Los Vegas, where it is plentiful and permanently on the menu — no morals there — or preferably to the Dordogne in France.
It was there that I actually ate 5 different kinds of foie gras in one day! And it just might have been the best day of my life.
After visiting Bergerac’s town market that morning, we found the only Michelen-starred restaurant in the area: La Tour des Vents. We sat on the outdoor deck, overlooking the valley of grapes and geese.
First course was traditional foie gras mousse served in a small ramekin, with a hard brûlée top and a bite of salad on the side, shown above. It was like a foie-savory creme brûlée…quite possibly the most delicious thing I will ever put in my mouth.
For my main, I ordered a trio of foie gras — just to make sure I tried them all! All three were terrines: 1) marbelized black pepper (center), 2) maple and spice cake with mango/cherry jelly (left) and finally, 3) traditional on toasted brioche with seasonal fruit chutney and aged balsamic (right). It was heaven, especially paired with the local sweet wine that actually works better than Sauternes: Monbazillac.
And when we returned to the hotel later that day for dinner, we found our hosts busy cooking in the kitchen for us. And guess what they were preparing for us that night? You guessed it, homemade foie gras, pan grilled and served with lentils and cured duck slices, shown above. It really was the best day ever.
TGIFoie.
Matching the right wine with specific foods/dinners can dramatically enhance both the food and the wine, as well as the dining experience. And sometimes your dinner company too.
To accomplish this, the wine needs some acid, good balance and something interesting to offer for pairing — like a pleasing mix of spice, fruit aromas or bold flavors that don’t overpower other elements. And please, no extra oak or residual sugar designed to trick your palate into liking it. (Which is more than I can say for some of the company I’ve kept.)
This French wine, 2008 Château Bouscassé, Les Jardins de Bouscassé, Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Sec, was the most local thing on the menu. Literally. Our waiter said it was the wine made closest to the town of Eugénie-les-Bains, the town where famed chef Michel Guerard cooks works of art and improves your figure at his restaurant/spa hotel Les Prés d’Eugénie.
The beautifully balanced wine was 80% Petite Courbou and 20% Petit Manseng, two grapes indigenous to southwest France, and it paired very well with all courses in this meal and the elegant restaurant itself. Beguiling and lovely in its acidity and floral-ness, understated with the promise of more to come, this wine from this small corner of the world was deserving of much more attention than it ever receives (much like this relationship with the Baker).
It was perfect. We drank in its beauty, trying to hold the brightness inside ourselves. And we ate gloriously for this one last night, temporarily averting a creeping sadness and slowly devolving palate for each other.
Santé!
There’s at least one winery in every state, but that doesn’t mean you should taste the local wine when you’re driving through Oklahoma.
But in North Carolina, they’ve been slowly converting tobacco crops to grape vines over the last 10 years, thanks in part to an incentive by the state government to do so. In this state, the wines go gloriously with the local gourmet cuisine. You can find gourmet food and wine in North Carolina’s Yadkin Valley.
Yes, I found some lovely things to eat in the boonies of North Carolina. One place was Twenty One & Main in Elkin, a bistro serving up some incredibly tasty lunches and dinners in these here parts. On this day, the lunch special was a salmon tartare sandwich, with edamame paste, grilled pineapple, and wasabi cabbage, shown above. And it pairs perfectly with a crisp, white Italian wine from Raffaldini vineyards.
The next night for dinner, my hosts served me another local wine (or was it cider?) on the deck as the sun was setting over 12 acres of green crops and wooded fields. Then they proceeded to fix a grilled romaine salad, with a chipotle-caesar dressing, alongside grilled beef and buffalo with a Cabernet reduction sauce.
But the best thing I ate in the North Carolina countryside was fried okra straws, with produce picked straight from the garden just moments before. I never liked okra as a child…it seemed like everyone in the Midwest breaded and fried okra the exact same way and then smothered it with ketchup. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever eaten.
But these were glorious. My hosts sliced them thinly, lengthwise, to look like straws. Then, they dipped them in spicy corn meal mix, and flash fried them in a deep fryer.
These spicy fried okra straws were the best okra I’d ever eaten! I never thought someone could fix okra for me that I actually liked! And now it was fixed…along with the best summer evening, in the woods, on a deck, I’d had in a long, long time.
Breakfast/Brunch is probably my most favorite meal of the day. I love the morning sun, the smell of pork belly, coffee and mimosas. Levain sourdough toast with butter and strong coffee with cream is all I need to feel happy and well-fed. Add a fried egg on that and it’s gonna be a special day.
So I am very familiar with all the traditional and regular breakfast/brunch menus and dishes. And frankly, a little bored. So now that farro appears on breakfast and brunch menus all over town, I am again excited about the first meal of the day.
This ancient grain is most often grown in Italy, where the people have the lock-down on how to eat fresh, delicious and healthy. And it’s perfect with eggs.
At Canelé in Atwater Village, I had this fried farro with egg, bacon, kale and sriracha. Farro is the perfect nutty platform for fried egg, kale and bacon. It satisfies any craving for that classic eggs-and-bacon-breakfast, while adding a dimension of flavor. And sriracha never disappoints.
Then, at Lazy Ox in downtown Los Angeles, I had this creamy farro with wild mushrooms, fines herbs & pecorino. Savory, creamy and perfectly salty-sharp, this dish feels more like a pot roast than a simple whole-grain dish.
Thanks farro, for making my day.
Simple Farro & Eggs