Great lunch yesterday at ABC Seafood (Chinatown, Los Angeles) with our friend Jeff from Austin (who flew in from Texas to eat his way through LA and catch my band’s show on Saturday night).
No website, no fancy sign. Just an LA classic, reasonably priced and always delicious. Highly recommended.
Here’s the Google place page.
After all these years and shows in SF, I’d still never been to Zuni Café. Brilliant… Terrebrune Bandol Rosé by the glass… perfect…
Last night in San Diego was a blast at Soda Bar…
Come see Nous Non Plus in San Francisco at Rick Shaw Stop tonight!
I bucatini leggerissimi e il pomodoro perfettamente saporito oggi a mezzogiorno presso Sotto a Los Angeles.
Venitemi a trovare stasera al ristorante!
You can catch me as Dr. Jekyll tomorrow night (Weds. Feb. 8) at Sotto in Los Angeles where I’ll be working the floor pouring and talking about wine or you can catch me as Mr. Hyde (aka Cal d’Hommage) on guitar with Nous Non Plus on Thurs. in San Diego, Fri. in SF, or Sat. in LA.
Ever since I was a child (when I lived and grew in California), the song has had a profound meaning for me… Nostalgia and longing played out in falsetto and dulcimer… Will you take me as I am?
This time around the song has a whole new meaning as Tracie P bundle up our “little green” Georgia P for her first trip to meet her California family and see where her daddy grew up. Just the thought of her seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time fills my heart with a joy that I could never have imagined before she came into our lives…
California I’m coming home
I’m going to see the folks I dig
I’ll even kiss a sunset pig
California I’m coming home
…
Oh California I’m coming home
Oh make me feel good rock n roll band
I’m your biggest fan
California, I’m coming home
Will you take me as I am?
Photo by the amazing Nichols family.
Above: The art of the puccia lies in the creativity and freedom of ingredients that you use to dress it. At the puccia truck in Austin, they make a pastrami puccia! I love it!
The word puccia first became part of my gastronomic lexicon when my good friend (and client) Paolo Cantele took me to one of his favorite puccia shops in Lecce (Puglia, Italy).
The puccia is a savory flatbread indigenous to Puglia: it is griddle-fired and then stuffed with a wide variety of toppings — often clashing flavors. When I questioned Paolo’s wisdom off requesting a puccia stuffed with prosciutto and tuna, he didn’t miss a beat in responding “that’s the whole point of the puccia!”
You can imagine my delight when I discovered that Austin — the capital of trailer dining and food trucks in the U.S. — has its own puccia pimp, an Apulian dude named “Lucky” Luciano who runs a puccia truck downtown across from the Whole Foods Market on Lamar on 5th St.
But the coolest thing about Lucky’s puccia is that he embraces American foods in the toppings he uses, like the pastrami puccia above. And of course, all things being equal, in Austin you can pair Lucky’s puccia with Texas beer.
Here’s the Yelp and here’s the Facebook.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Buon weekend, yall! :)
From my post today for the Houston Press…
Slice one medium-sized black beauty aubergine into ¼-inch rounds (I know that you Solanaceae geeks out there would cringe if I called a western variety eggplant). Arrange in a colander and sprinkle with kosher salt. Set aside for 30 minutes to purge its bitter liquid.
Pre-heat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit.
In the meantime, make the tomato sauce by sautéeing 1 or 2 peeled whole cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp. finely minced onion and 1 tbsp. finely chopped well washed flat-leaf parsley in extra virgin olive oil (reserve a tbsp. of flat-leaf parsley to finish the dish). Add your favorite tomato purée (ideally unseasoned; my favorite is the Central Market brand in bottle). Season with 1 bay leaf, and salt, pepper, and chili flakes to taste. Once the tomato has begun to simmer, add ½ cup of white wine. By the time the eggplant has entirely purged its liquid, the sauce will be ready.
Grease a medium-size, oven-ready, deep casserole dish with unsalted butter. Distribute the aubergine rounds in the bottom of the dish and sprinkle generously with freshly grated domestic cow’s milk mozzarella. Pour the sauce into the dish, making sure to cover the aubergine completely. Top generously with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and bake until the Parmigiano Reggiano begins to brown.
Serve hot sprinkled with finely chopped flat-leaf parsley.
In summer, when locally grown fresh basil is available, use the basil instead of the flat-leaf parsley. This dish is best if you can prepare it beforehand and let it cool, reheating it immediately before you serve it.
It’s not everyday that you dine at one of the top Japanese restaurants in the country with the woman who wrote its cookbook. Last night I finally caught up with Jessica Dupuy and executive (and celebrity) chef Tyson Cole who took time out to talk about some of his dishes and his approach to cooking at Uchiko with me and travel and wine writer, my friend Bruce Schoenfeld who was in town on business.
Bruce suggested we pair the [Tocai] Friulano by Livio Felluga with a dish of uni, cuttlefish, and lemongrass (above). The minerality and grassy aromatic character of the wine worked gorgeously with Tyson’s creations. I’ll let the food do the talking…
Nantucket bay scallop with nasturtium blossoms, cantaloupe sorbet, and sherry vinegar.
Buri sashimi with pickeled hakurei turnip, saikyo miso, and crème fraiche.
Abalone nigiri with lemon, maldon, and garlic.
Yokai berry with Atlantic salmon, dinosaur kale, Asian pear, and yuzu.
Dewberry Hills farm chicken, short grain sweet rice, banana leaf, and Thai chili vinegar.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! :)
For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing has come,
And the voice of the turtledove
Is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth her green figs,
And the vines with the tender grapes
Give a good smell.
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away!
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
In the secret places of the cliff,
Let me see your face,
Let me hear your voice;
For your voice is sweet,
And your face is lovely.”
Catch us the foxes,
The little foxes that spoil the vines,
For our vines have tender grapes.
Song of Solomon
Do Bianchi 