The “New” New Yorkers and the “New” Californians ~ Leaving Jurassic Park for the Aquarian Era

Living in flyover country does have its benefits. You can get to either coast in a matter of hours. A recent weekend in San Francisco, I was able to spend time with the wine community there and get a gauge on their current sensibilities. This past week in New York also afforded me a quick douse into full-immersion of where they’re at right now.

A couple of things. Dining here and there. The Wine Spectator Experience. And the latest rising star in the wine bar scene. Let's jump in.

High Cotton Uber-Dining in Gotham City

Posting from the road. In NY, the rain followed me from flyover country. Fortunately that wasn’t the only wet thing in my path.

10 of my favorite off-the-beaten-path places to eat in Italy

In preparation for an interview, I was looking up places I have really enjoyed eating in Italy. Many of these places don’t even have a website, or a sign. I was lucky enough to be taken there be locals. They represent some of the best eating and drinking I have experienced in Italy. And while most of them are not fancy places, the cooking in these spots have been some of the most memorable meals in a restaurant setting. I eat a lot around the farm table and am lucky to have home cooked meals. They’re great. But if you’re looking to go to Italy that won’t help you. These following 10 spots are open for anyone. It helps to speak Italian, for sure. But it’s Italy; anyone with a little passion can communicate to most Italians.

Note: don’t go looking for spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, lasagna or grilled chicken breasts. Expect the unexpected. Donkey ragù, tiny snails, entrails, tiny piquant sausages in a fiery broth, raw things from the sea (not just fish) and that’s just for starters. You should be adventurous. And not be looking for the best hits from Italy. This is how Italians eat. I love it. If you are lucky enough to find these places, you might find you will too.

Ancient Italy and the New California ~ An Auspicious Convergence

I had some unused vacation time and thought it might be a good idea to head out to California and “do” a wine dinner or two. I’m writing this as I am mid-week in a series of three wine dinners back home. What could have gotten into me that I would take the time and expense to go to California and do on my vacation time what I do weekly?

Sicilian White Wines ~ Feeding the #HeatWave in the Cities by the Bay

Welcome to the New California

If you had asked me, so very long ago, when I was a student in the Bay Area, trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life, if many years later I’d be in Oakland talking about Sicilian wines to a new generation of servers and wine lovers, I’d probably have said then “And what pill did you just take?” But as the future moves like a river, happenstance and fate brought me to A16 in Oakland in the Rockridge neighborhood, not too far from Berkeley at the invitation of Shelley Lindgren. Shelley started A16 and SPQR in San Francisco and a little more than a year ago opened up A16 in Oakland.

On the Nature of Being Sicilian in the Wine Business

Lest you think this will be the obligatory paean to all things Sicilian, after these last days spent on the island, many things are simmering. Yes, it is a Sunday, and to the millennials this might sound like a sermon. Pity.

How does one explain the blood in the veins? How does one look at a street, year after year, and still struggle to recognize what is right in front of one’s eyes? How much analysis is required to decode the Sicilian passeggiata of the last 40 years? I am obsessed with this. This is my mental mistress, never letting me inside the private chamber, ever tempting me with the promise of understanding, of clarity, of revelation.

Drinking Our Way Through Sicily ~ 2014

Just so you don’t get the wrong idea, we didn’t drink and drive, and when we did, we always had a designated driver. But we always, always, had food with our wine. Unless we were tasting. Then we had little food stuff around. And it always wasn’t wine. There was lots of coffee, but more about that at the end of this post.

It was harvest time in Sicily, so there was a lot of activity. With that in mind, we were able to unearth the scared and the profane, the common and the rare. Nothing was off limits; there was no agenda, no dogma to follow. Sicily doesn’t care about all the little games we play in America to bring balance to our life. Their life is pretty darn good, all things considered. And wine is a huge part of the life.

Please enjoy this short eno-log, my version of the slide show, with brief comments from time to time.

Eating Our Way Through Sicily ~ 2014

Indulge me. Or rather, let me indulge you, dear reader, and share some of the plates we were offered on this recent trip to Sicily. While Palermo would be enough in terms of gastronomic ecstasy, we didn’t stop there. We made our carousel around Sicily and along the way we had some of the most glorious food on earth.

Note: I don’t think of Sicilian food as Italian. It takes its cues from anther muse. There are similarities: pasta, tomatoes, wine, sweets, seafood. But as with all things Sicilian, the interpretation is different. Not necessarily better than on the peninsula, but a thinking about the products and the interplay of ingredients that I have found to be unique in Sicily. Even our lowliest meal, at a fast food cafeteria in Piazza Armerina, the vegetables were to die for. Unfortunately I didn’t photograph them.

Let’s stop talking and start gawking, shall we? First stop, Sambuca di Sicilia.

Sicily ~ Thinking Outside the Boot

I’m nothing, if not overwhelmed, when I step away from Italy and into Sicily. I am also liberated. Freed from thinking things are as they are, because Sicily has its own interpretation for everything.

Sicily ~ The Oldest Kid in Italy

Of all the places in Italy, Sicily is the one that scares me the most. I have cancelled trips to Sicily because I was afraid something was going to happen. I have gone to Sicily when my bones were sore from a car wreck. I have driven a car in the streets of Palermo and Catania, which is questionable for an able bodied person. I have stared at dead people, their skin dry, their eyes missing, their bones falling off their skeletons. I have walked on mosaic floors that were laid thousands of years ago. I have gazed up at ancient temples, the sun glaring back. I have walked the streets in the heat in the dark with a bum leg, with the legs of youth and with the gait of one who is no longer young. And all through it ancient Sicily kept getting younger.

Texas Turd-Floater in Passopisciaro (#Etna) Sicily

2014 has been a crazy year for weather patterns. There seems to be controversy brewing over the quality of the 2014 vintage in Italy. It’s too early to tell, but there are some things that have been happening that are not advantageous to the growers in Italy. One is the unseasonably cool weather in the summer. Another is accompanying rain. Doubtless there will be growers who will have great conditions, but the quantities are down. Here in Sicily, everyone is telling me their harvest is anywhere from 15-30% lower than last year. After two years of double digit increases, perhaps this year is Nature’s way of slowing down. Sicily is still a warm and sunny place, most of the time. But today, following a visit to the Tascante farms, we ran smack dab into a Texas turd-floater.

Sicily 2014: Palermo "Full Immersion" ~ Wine

Posting on the fly as we head out of Palermo on our carousel around Sicily. While Palermo was mainly about food and the evolving multi-cultural experience of a very old city, wine plays a part on the table. We visited one winery, Cusumano. Today our journey takes us to more. For now this is what we’ve tasted with the foods we’ve had. Enjoy. More to come…

Sicily 2014: Palermo "Full Immersion" ~ Food

Eggplants at Mercato di Capo - Palermo

Full immersion is just what it means. We land in Palermo and drop the luggage at the hotel and hit the streets. First La Vucciria and the Capo open markets. A trattoria and an osteria, and a small event with elevated street food. And that’s just the food.

This is complete vanity. Palermo is a fascinating place. These are the highlights. The wine will follow. But there is a saying in Sicily, “Porta cu tia e mancia cu mia” (Bring the food and eat with me).

Without food, wine is incomplete.

Palermo is a walking city and walk we did. All around the old historic center, two of the important open markets, a special selection of local spots and a trip to a macabre spot, the Catacombe dei Cappuccini. It’s always good to remember we will not be here forever, regardless of our wealth or our station in life.

That said, these last two days were a dream. Every time I thought I was near someplace I was looking for it was a matter of a block or two away. My life as a tour guide, albeit a short one, is looking good so far.

For now we are on our way into the country of Sicily. Harvest is on. We are here also for the wine. For now, feast your eyes on the food, some of the most glorious food in Italy. But we are in Sicily, which is another reality. You must come.

Wine Blog Death Watch: Two wine blogs that are bright lights in a forest of darkness

photo from Tim Gaiser's blog

Brooklyn Guy has turned off the tap. Alice has her newsletter. Reign of Terroir has hit a drought. Eric is safely entrenched within the pages of The Gray Lady. Joe Roberts thinks the wine blogging community might be a joke. Is wine blogging dead? In the word of the inimitable Hosemaster, “No one has any damned idea who is reading a blog.” Who cares if it dead, alive or on life support? As HMW says, “it's a solitary sport. We blog at home, at all hours, in our underwear, drunk, or avoiding our real life.”

Yes, it's been a long, dreadful summer. That said, there are two newish blogs that deserve our positive attention. They are:

The Native (Italian) American

As we get more science on exactly who we are and where we came from via DNA mapping, we often find out we aren’t who we think we are. In my case, I found out I am 51.6% Italian. I also found out I have a small percentage of East Asian and Native American.

Since my grandfathers and grandmothers came to America over 100 years ago, their descendants have multiplied. In a paternal lineage that will most likely stop. We will have had roughly 150 years of being in America by those sets of measurements.

What does it matter? There are 7 billion of us right now, a small portion of the roughly 107 billion who have been born on earth. Staggering numbers. Even more staggering is how each and every one of us thinks 1) we’re the center of the universe and 2) with a little luck we might not die.