It was such a joy for me to finally meet Aiden and Liam Yelenosky, who came into this world on Monday November 4, 2013. That’s their dad John Yelenosky — affectionately known as “Yele” — one of my best friends of all time. He and I grew up together in La Jolla, California, playing basketball […]
Above: the Jayne Burger — “Niman Ranch ground beef, aged Vermont cheddar, house pickled onions, garlic aioli, fries.” The year was 2009 — and oh what a good year it was — when a lapsed New Yorker cum native Californian sat down in a newly opened restaurant in Austin, Texas with his southeast Texan bride-to-be. “What a […]
After nearly 50 years on this planet, I’m allowed to take a little vacation, right? Tomorrow Tracie P and I will be taking our girls to La Jolla, California where I grew up and where I will be performing a set of music with one of my old and beloved bands, The Grapes, on Friday […]
Goodbye California, goodbye beach, goodbye pool. Goodbye fish tacos, goodbye nigiri and sashimi, too. Goodbye ocean, goodbye seal, seagull, and pelican. Goodbye to some of our favorite things American. Thank you San Diego, La Jolla, and thank you sweet friends. Thanks for a week of paradise we wished would never end. Thank you dear mother […]
Above: Fried tacos stuffed with potato purée paired beautifully with the Tempier Bandol Rosé yesterday at Jaynes. What a thrill for me to get to play the country jams with some of my best friends and country guitar great Dave Gleason yesterday at Jaynes Gastropub in San Diego. With a weekend sandwiched between trips to […]
One of my best and oldest friends was in Austin over the weekend… John “Yele” Yelenosky, whom I’ve known since high school. Of course, I wanted to open a very special bottle of wine and with temperatures here in the triple digits, Nebbiolo just wasn’t going to be right. So I reached for this brilliant, […]
Our trip to California has come to an end. Today we head back to Texas… We’ve had a lot to celebrate out here in the land where I grew up: Georgia P met her grandma Judy and her Parzen cousins, my band Nous Non Plus had a super fun mini-tour, and it was great to […]
Beyond the olive oil-cured red hot chili peppers (peperoncini), there’s not much Calabrian about Caffè Calabria in San Diego. Back in Seattle, he said, where he first became a coffee connoisseur, owner Arne Holt had seen the rise of so many pseudo-Italian venues with meaningless name that “I just randomly pointed my finger on a […]
When my buddies Yelenosky, Erickson, and I tasted this wine together last week at Jaynes Gastropub, the three of us were simply floored by how friggin’ delicious it is. Donkey & Goat 2010 Untended Chardonnay, made from a 30-plus-year-old abandoned and “un-grafted” vineyard in Anderson Valley, California. As you can see from the image, the […]
Tracie P and I capped off our holiday weekend in San Diego with a drive out to La Mesa (quite-a-place-a) to the Riviera Supper Club for some excellent old-school rhythm and blues by the Fairmounts (above). Really groovy stuff with Jon from Jaynes Gastropub on guitar… Bass player Tom and I figured out that we […]
Do Bianchi 