Category Archives: de cibo

Chicken & Dumplings, Cornbread, and News of Baby P

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As of today, we’re exactly four weeks away from our due date (did you know that pregnancy is now measured in ten months? So we are technically “nine months” pregnant).

But that didn’t stop Tracie P from making her famous Chicken and Dumplings (from scratch, including the stock) for Sunday supper with the Johnson Family. That’s Donkey & Goat Untended Chardonnay in my glass, btw.

We are all healthy and our obstetrician is very happy with Baby P’s development. Her weight is just below the 50th percentile, “right where we want baby to be” said our doctor. But we are feeling a lot of fatigue and discomfort these days with the final “growth spurts.” Tracie P’s belly is getting BIG!

Aunt Holly brought delicious cornbread and brownies…

We are so lucky to be surrounded by people who love us and want to help and support us as we head into the last month of our pregnancy…

Stay tuned! :)

California Huevos Rancheros and Wine for Breakfast

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I had fun this morning with my Houston Press post, writing about my favorite breakfast — my take on California-style huevos rancheros — and wine for breakfast (in this case, Moscato d’Asti). Here’s the link…

And, hey, it’s a tough job but someone’s got to do it… Here are a few recent posts I did for my friend Tony (above with screenwriter and winemaker Robert Kamen): an interview with Maximilian Riedel (where he discusses the art of decanting Champagne) and notes from the Kamen dinner at Tony’s this weekend.

Who’d have ever thought that you could make a living as a wine blogger?

Buona lettura e buon weekend, yall!

Scenes from a (Southern) Italian restaurant… @SottoLA

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Pour it, swirl it, smell it, taste it, touch it, kiss it! IT’S FINALLY HERE! The 2008 Cirò Classico by ‘A Vita, made from 100% Gaglioppo grapes, by my friend, the inimitable Francesco Maria De Franco (whom you may remember from the Italian Grape Name and Appellation Project).

You can taste it with me tonight and tomorrow night at Sotto in Los Angeles.

BTW, the abbreviation on the label “F 36 P 27” refers to folio (page) 36, parcel 27 — the vineyard’s listing in the Italian government’s official registry of growing sites.

The year isn’t over yet but I’m going on record: Francesco’s wine is “my top wine for 2011.”

We still don’t have his top-tier wine but I believe that both this and his Rosso Classico Superiore (which I retasted this month in Brescia at the VinNatur table at the European Wine Bloggers Conference) are destined to gain entrance to the pantheon of the greatest wines of Italy.

I love it that much! (And wanted to share this second photo so that you can see the bright color of the noble, tannic wine.)

Sotto was hopping last night and I was psyched to debut a bunch of new wines, including the ‘A Vita and three new wines from Alois (Campania)… more on those later…

There is so much good shit on the menu at Sotto but I just can’t resist Chef Zach’s pizza margherita.

If you happen to be in LA tonight or tomorrow night, come down and I’ll pour you some wine and spin you some wine tales!

Flying into Los Angelees, carrying a couple of (wine) keys @SottoLA

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I’ll see you tonight, tomorrow, and Wednesday nights at Sotto in Los Angeles, where I’ll be pouring wine on the floor…

Flying into Los Angelees… Carrying a couple of keys…

What to pour for Alice Feiring in Austin?

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In a remarkable confluence of cosmic events, Comrades Howard and Alice both found themselves in Austin last night: he, to speak at the Austin Film Festival; she, to talk about Natural wine and her new book today at Whole Foods Market (Lamar) and tomorrow at Vino Vino.

When we all met for dinner last night at one of our favorite restaurants in the world, Fonda San Miguel, it was only natural that we would drink López de Heridia. After all, Alice wrote “the book” on the winery.

It may seem facile to pair Mexican cuisine with Spanish wine (for the overly obvious reasons). But the fact of the matter is that the attenuated fruit in the López oxidative style works gloriously well with the intense flavors of great Mexican cooking. The wine paired brilliantly with our mole, for example, where the gentle astringency of the wine played counterpart to the chocolate in the mole.

Tracie P and I are thrilled that Fonda San Miguel wine director Brad Sharp has continued to support these unique wines, even in a world where 99% of his guests ask regularly (and nearly exclusively) for Chard, Cab, Merlot, or Pinot.

After dinner, perhaps inspired by the brio of the evening, Alice insisted that we make a pilgrimage to the chicken coop out back behind Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon.

Last night was 100% irony-free at Ginny’s and Sarah and The Tallboys, a country outfit out of Chicago, played a smoking set (imho).

Ginny and daughter Sharon are so sweet to me and Tracie P whenever we visit.

But their wholesome Texas hospitality reached its limits last night when Sharon had to kick out a couple for getting to frisky! Never a dull moment at Ginny’s…

Chili cheese fries, Texas style, at 24 Diner Austin

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Cousins Joanne and Marty were in town for the wedding of their close family friends but they snuck away from festivities for a few hours so we could visit at 24 Diner, where no one could resist the Chili Cheese Fries.

In Texas, the designation chili is highly codified, denoting chili con carne, a dish which rigorously and canonically excludes beans. The sliced jalapeño took this expression of Chili Cheese Fries, an American classic, over the top.

The food at 24 Diner is always solid and the atmosphere is fun. Great location, next to Waterloo Records, and across the street from Book People and the flagship Whole Foods Market.

Alice Feiring in Austin Sunday & Monday

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It seems like a lifetime ago that Tracie P and I met Alice on our first trip to Europe together. Tracie P and I were in Paris to play with Nous Non Plus and Alice was there to write a piece on Natural wine and our paths happily crossed.

I’ve known Alice for more than 10 years and she’s one of our dearest, dearest friends. A big sister, a mentor, and one of the most fun people to be around on this planet, no matter what mischief we’re up to.

Alice has a new book, Naked Wine: Letting Grapes Do What Comes Naturally, and she’s coming to Austin for a few readings: Sunday at Whole Foods Market on Lamar and Monday at Vino Vino. Both events are being presented by the Wine and Food Foundation of Texas.

Tracie P and I will be at both events, of course, and I hope you can join us to hear Alice read from her new book and taste some Natural wines with us.

Beyond our deep friendship, I support Alice in her cause to spread the word about Natural wine not just because I enjoy Natural wines but because I believe that Natural wines and the people who make them (and drink them) can save the world from the ills of our increasingly industrialized food chain.

In other news…

I’m making one last trip before Baby P arrives: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings of next week, I’ll be pouring wine on the floor at Sotto in Los Angeles where I’ve curated the wine list this year.

We’ll be debuting one last flight of wines for the fall before I take a break for daddy duty, including one of the best wines I’ve tasted this year… More on that later…

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!

Gaia Gaja’s cowgirl boots (and my first Alba truffles of the season)

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Yesterday found me back in Houston where I had lunch with my friend and client Tony and Gaia Gaja.

To mark the occasion of her Houston, Texas visit, Gaia donned the cowgirl boots she had picked up on her previous visit (above). As the saying goes, you can take a girl out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the girl. After all, she does come from a town where they didn’t have running water until 1964.

As you can imagine, Tony pulled out all the stops for the luncheon: I’ve posted my complete notes on the meal and the wines over at his site here.

I wasn’t surprised by the Gaja 2007 Barbaresco: however strange (by virtue of the fact that there was no winter to speak of), the 2007 vintage was generous to Barbaresco and everything I’ve tasted so far has been great to phenomenal (remember when Tracie P and I tasted 2007 Asili and Santo Stefano with Bruno Giacosa?).

But it was Gaia’s family’s 2008 Barbaresco that really blew me away. In a challenging vintage, Gaja was blessed with very juicy, well ripened fruit. Green harvesting and southern exposure of their vineyards delivered mature grapes, said Gaja, and allowed them to pick before inclement weather arrived. The floral notes on the wine were fantastic and although still very young in its evolution, it had that zinging acidity and powerful tannin that makes Barbaresco such a unique appellation imho and one of my favorite wines in the world.

My favorite dish of the meal was the branzino and poached potato tartar topped with caviar and paired with the 2009 Gaia & Rey Chardonnay (a guilty pleasure, I must admit).

Click here for all of my notes, including the 2005 Sperss, and images of the dishes…

Thanks again, Tony and Gaia!

Italian nuclear family dinner

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My friend Stefano Spigariol and I have known each other for more than 20 years, since I first came to Italy to study Italian philology in Padua where he studied Latin. Like many of my friends from university days, he works in the publishing industry in Milan, as a publicist for a top scholastic publishing house.

He’s one of my best friends in Italy and our confabulatio always ranges from the erudite to the rock ‘n’ roll, from the sacred to the profane.

He, his wife Anna (a lawyer), and daughter Matilde live in a one-bedroom apartment near the center of Milan.

Last night, they had me over for dinner: cheese and charcuterie, bread and taralli, roast chicken legs, Veneto-style braised cabbage, and a caponata, paired with a bottle of 2009 Sordo Dolcetto — an old-school expression of the grape variety that Stefano picked up for less than Euro 10 at his local wine shop.

I can’t think of a better meal for my last night in Italy…

Thanks again, Anna, Matilde, and Stefano… I love you guys!

Fantastic lunch at Osteria al Bianchi (Brescia)

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Tagliatelle Pestëm (tagliatelle tossed with tomatoes and crumbled pork sausage) and Casconcelli (stuffed with finely ground beef).

Fegato Burro e Salvia (liver sautéed in butter and sage, served with grilled polenta).

Bagòss (made with saffron, a local speciality, very piquant), Parmigiano Reggiano, Gorgonzola (dolce, unbelievably good), and Taleggio.

Zabaglione (a must).

Osteria al Bianchi.

Highly recommended.