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MARIANI’S
Virtual Gourmet
March
11, 2007
NEWSLETTER
Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio at NYC's Stork Club, 1954
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In
This Issue
San Francisco Update by
Grace Ann Walden
NEW
YORK CORNER: Zeytin
by John Mariani
NOTES
FROM THE
WINE CELLAR: Making the Most of
Irish Whiskey by John Mariani
QUICK BYTES
SAN
FRANCISCO UPDATE
by Grace Ann Walden
salt house
545
Mission Street
415-543-8900
www.salthousesf.com
When the
Rosenthal brothers Mitch
and Steven, who after ten years left Postrio, partnered with front-of-the-house
dynamo Doug Washington to open their Creole-American themed Town Hall Restaurant, many
thought it was the
successor to Jeremiah Tower’s
long-gone Stars. Now
the boys are back with a second restaurant. They found a
quirky space on Mission Street, cheek by jowl to several high rises and across the street from
Golden Gate University. The space they've named Salt House is long and narrow and formerly housed a
printing press warehouse built in the 1930’s. And what a wondrous space! Think exposed
white brick, girders, 12-foot windows, and the original hardwood floors.
The food is
contemporary American with twists and tweaks. Start with a selection of oysters, expertly shucked.
I tried the Fanny Bays, Miyagis and the Malpeques. But with six or more
varieties to choose from we also explored the Buckley Bay and
Chelsea gems.
One surprise was the French-Canadian classic roadfood dish, poutine, a
plate of crispy potatoes with
short rib gravy, topped with
Fontina cheese. Being French-Canadian, I’ve tasted the real deal and frankly the
fontina is not a good substitute for fresh cheese curds. On the hearty side, the boudin blanc
(white veal sausage) was
perfect, aptly accompanied by braised red cabbage and grain mustard.
My companion
and I were most happy with our entrees, succulent sautéed scallops, redolent with Moroccan spices
with kohlrabi. I love kohlrabi and think chefs should use it more,
especially in winter. A
braised lamb shank was velvety and tender. And we couldn’t stop eating the faro grain with Parmesan
crust. After all
those oysters at the beginning, we only had room
to split their praline ice cream
Sunday.
The wine list
is great with the food, but my favorite part of the wine experience here is the House Blends on
tap, which are poured from taps in 6 oz., 12 oz or 24 oz. bottles.
Appetizers
$9-17 Entrees
$19-28.
Pres
a Vi
One Letterman Drive,
Building D, Suite
150
415-409-3000
www.presavi.com
In the Bay Area
many restaurants open
in San Francisco then branch out to the suburbs. Pres a Vi is a
contradiction. The first restaurant from these same owners opened in 2003 in
Walnut
Creek. One owner, an enophile, called it Va de Vi, which means, “go for
wine” in Catalan.
Va de Vi
is the only restaurant that I would drive 35 miles to the East Bay for. Its small plate global cuisine
and flights of wine are a compelling
reason to put up with the traffic jams to get there. With the opening of Pres a Vi, Catalan
for “captivated by wine,”
located in the revamped
Presidio, the former Army base, San Franciscans have only a short
drive.
Situated
in
a park-like setting in an office
building, the restaurant has expansive views of the Bay and Palace of Arts. The
ceiling for the San Francisco restaurant (above) resembles the interior of a wine barrel. One design element that
wine lovers will dig is the glass-and-wood
enclosed cellar adjacent to the main dining room. Diners can visit it to choose
their own wine.
The menu consists of 30-35 small plates, featuring the flavors of France, Spain, Italy, and the
Philippines, so sharing allows
everyone to try many items in one
sitting. And by
serving many wines by the glass and taste, as well as having flights pairing three red or white
wines, diners are encouraged to try many different wines as well.
The
executive chef of both restaurants, Kelly Degala, creates some toothsome dishes to delight diners. On two visits we tried just about the
entire menu including the lobster bisque, which had the essence of
tomalley, with touches of cream and brandy. The oyster spooners present six
Kumamotos or Hama-Hama oysters topped with horseradish cream, Anju pepper
sauce, the slight crunch of lemongrass,
and micro-greens served in Chinese ceramic spoons. The accompaniments were perfect and did not
overwhelm the briny little treasures.
One
don’t-miss dish is the squid ink risotto, topped with sautéed
baby
squid and enhanced
with roasted tomato ragoût. Pork
belly lechon adds a twist to this now trendy ingredient by braising it, serving it on rice and garnishing it
with sweet-and- sour papaya. One
difficult decision is whether to choose between the
butter-poached Maine
lobster (above) on spaghetti or Degala’s soy-maple
glazed black cod. We solved our problem by ordering both. It was a wise
decision. Both were classics of this genre.
Small
plates range from $4-$16.
PlumpJack Café
3127
Fillmore Street
415-563-4775
www.plumpjack.com
PlumpJack Café was launched by Gavin Newsom before he became
mayor of San
Francisco. The backing for the café and almost a dozen
other projects comes
from San Francisco billionaire Gordon Getty. Their first project was a wine shop, and in
the
following 15 years their empire has spread to Squaw Valley, the Carneros
district in Napa, a winery, two other restaurants, a lounge and a
sportswear line.
The first time I dined at PlumpJack
Café about ten years, the chef at the time, Arnold Rossman, prepared a
delicious roasted chicken with a natural sauce enhanced with brandy.
Several chefs followed over the years, but the food stayed within the
California-Mediterranean box.
The current Executive Chef, James Syhabout, is part of the new breed of
chefs who have
added a very modern twist
to cusine. He judiciously employs
molecular gastronomy where appropriate, meaning he uses sous-vide and foams and also pairs unique
taste
combinations.
I can never
pass up crisp pig’s trotters when I see them on a menu. Syhabout, who was born in Thailand,
forms the trotter meat into crisp disks and plates them with a
sweetbread farce, a romesco with a grapefruit
and anchovy emulsion. As different as this all sounds, the ingredients work to
perfection. A more
classic combination is foie gras
with huckleberries in Acetaia No. 12 Balsamic vinegar. On one visit, I tucked into a
pan-roasted breast of capon served with charred chestnut fondant, while my
dining companion jealously guarded his domestic Kobe beef culotte, and
braised
veal cheek with stinging nettles
and fingerling potatoes.
One
absolute revelation was the chef’s pistachio and olive oil ganache, which Syhabout later told me he worked
on for weeks. It has a molten center and is garnished with a green
apple sorbet and a bit of beet syrup. He says he was inspired by a cookie he
tried from Pierre Hermé’s shop in Paris--a macaroon filled with
pistachio/olive oil. Formidable!
PlumpJack’s
award-winning wine list comprised of more than 400 choices with prices just above
retail, is a definite draw for wine lovers.
Appetizers
$9-14; Entrees
$19-29.
GraceAnn
Walden
is the restaurant
reviewer for KGO radio and a Beard House judge. For 16 years, she wrote
a weekly restaurant-news column for the San Francisco Chronicle.On
Saturdays she leads history-culinary tours of San Francisco
neighborhoods: North Beach, Nob Hill. Check out: graceannwalden.net or
contact her about her tours at gaw@sbcglobal.net
NEW
YORK CORNER
zeytin
519 Columbus Avenue
212-579-1145
www.zeytinny.com
Much
has been made of the
fact that in the last few years the Upper West Side has
grown a crop of very good high-end restaurants, but the enduring
strength of
the area has always been its myriad ethnic eateries and storefronts
like Zeytin, which is possibly
the best Turkish restaurant in Manhattan.
Owners Orhan Yuzen and his cousin Ozan
Yuzen,
both Istanbulians, one from the waterproofing and the other from the
construction
industry, believed that authentic Turkish food should be displayed in
New York (where so many ethnic cuisines get watered down), and three
years ago hired Chef Seyfi Urtas to bring that dream to earth on
Columbus Avenue.
Zeytin sits on a busy corner and has large
windows overlooking the street, which itself provides a colorful
show. Inside the lighting is warm, tables are well set, and the
service staff, from hostess to busboy, couldn't be nicer or more
helpful. In warmer weather this should be an enchanting cosmopolitan
place to dine.
The menu is just large enough to
be well handled by the small kitchen, and the winelist has
about a dozen Turkish wines
worth trying in addition to more international bottlings whose names
you're probably familiar with, but you can easily order many
selections for under $35.
In Turkish restaurants it's always
advisable to share, especially with the mezes, and there is a mixed
appetizer plate that is an outright steal for $15 ($12 at lunch),
containing the chickpea hummus puree of tahini mixed with a
judicious amount of garlic and olive oil; cacik,
a refreshing blend of diced
cucumber and homemade garlic-yogurt with mint; stuffed grapeleaves with
rice, pine nuts, and black currants; and patlican
salatasi, eggplant salad
with
sautéed tomatoes.
The
hot appetizers are wonderful, from very crisp, greaseless calamari to
crispy phyllo-wrapped cheese rolls called sigara böreği, filled with
Gruyère and absolutely addictive. Best of all are the manti, the classic Turkish pasta
dumplings filled with ground lamb lavished with garlic-yogurt and
butter and dressed with mint--as good as any I've had in Turkey.
The spices and seasonings of the Middle
East are rife throughout the main courses too, which include the
vertically roasted sliced lamb called doner
seen in every window of every Turkish eatery everywhere, along with a
superbly juicy tavuk adana--skewers
of ground chicken with herbs and peppers grilled and served with rice
and vegetables. There is also a mixed grill of meats.
Seafood comes off well, succulent, and flavorful, and hünkar beğendi is
an eggplant puree topped with morsels of lamb cooked in a light tomato
sauce.
Do not skip the desserts--baklava
and gullac--uniquely
delicious at Zeytin, the flakiness of the pastry with the baklava
impeccable, the honey sweetness not too sweet, and the thin wafers of gullac with rosewater
and fresh pomegranate just exotic and comforting
enough to make it a favorite.
I do not mean to overpraise Zeytin
except to say that I've rarely had such an enjoyable time on the Upper
West Side and for a lot less money than I've gotten accustomed to
paying. This is true Turkish cuisine, well cooked, well served,
and done with obviously care.
At
dinner appetizers runs $5-$15,
entrees $14-$25.
NOTES FROM THE
WINE (and Spirits) CELLAR
Plenty of Options for
Saint Patrick’s Day Spirits
by
John Mariani
Saint
Patrick’s Day should not
be an excuse
to drink Irish whiskey; it should simply be another occasion. With so
many
refined examples now available, it seems a shame to save them for an
Irish wake
or as tot in Irish coffee. Indeed, over the last decade Irish whiskey
sales have
soared—with annual double-digit growth and 30 million bottles--at a
time when
other whiskies’ sales are flat or declining.
The Irish themselves
consume about 6
million bottles, with France the next largest consumer, especially
since 1988,
when Pernod-Ricard bought Irish Distillers Group, a 1966 fusion of
Jameson,
Powers, and Cork Irish Distillers.
“Irish” is a grain
whiskey, mostly
blended, though there are also Single Malt, Single Grain, and Pure Pot
Still
styles. Unlike Scotch, Irish does not use peat in its malting process
(Connemara
Peated Malt is the exception), so there is less smokiness in the
bottle.
In the late 19th
century more
than 150 distilleries turned out more than 400 different brands of
Irish, but
the industry was crippled by the onset of Prohibition in the U.S. The spirit’s slow growth after World War II
had as much to do with ethnic snobbery as it did with weak grain
supplies and lack
of marketing money. The whiskey had a niche market among
Irish-Americans, while
Americans drank other “brown goods” like bourbon, rum, rye, Canadian,
and
Scotch.
A big boost came with
the popularity of
Irish coffee--unknown in Ireland or anywhere else until 1942 when first
created
at the bar at Foynes Dock, where the flying boats docked during World
War II,
then promoted as a welcoming drink at Shannon Airport. In 1952 American
newsman
Stan Delaplane (seated at left at the
Bar) introduced the beverage at San Francisco’s Buena Vista
Bar,
where it became famous. A plaque outside the bar tells the story.
Today all Irish is
made in just three
distilleries—Midleton (owned by Pernod-Ricard) in Cork, Bushmills in
Antrim,
and Cooley in Louth (the only one Irish owned). Consolidation brought
money and
marketing clout to the global market, so that there are now at least a
dozen
Irish whiskies widely available in the U.S., with prestigious
small-batch
labels costing upwards of $200. Yet the
average price for a bottle of Irish is still below $25, making them
readily
affordable.
Bushmills
produces at least seven different whiskies. Its standard
“White Label”
($18), is a fine introduction to Irish (Czar Peter the Great declared
it the
best spirit in Europe.) Its Black Bush ($25), aged in old sherry casks,
has
been a big hit in the U.S., with a more pronounced maltiness and a near
Sherry-like, soft finish. Their
10-Year-Old Single Malt ($42) competes with the Scotch Single Malts.
Made from
100% malted barley, distilled three times, and matured in bourbon
barrels for
at least 10 years, this has a lively smokiness in the bouquet, with
level after
level of complex spices and fruit, finishing like velvet on the palate.
Jameson, the
dominant brand in the US market, with 2
million cases sold in 2006, dates back to 1780. . I find its basic
label
($16) not
quite as rich as Bushmills'; I prefer the 12-Year-Old ($42), which
shows off
nutty, woody flavors, and a pleasant undertone of sweetness.
The
Bushmills Distillery
John Power & Sons ($19)--the
bestseller in Ireland itself--begins dry,
almost
severely, but mellows on the palate and takes on nice caramel-like
notes, then
comes up again with the right heat in the finish, though I find a
somewhat
medicinal flavor in there too. Though the same 40 proof as most Irish,
it has a
powerful kick.
Tullamore
Dew takes its name from “Tulach
Mhoŕ” (big hill) and the letters of general manager Daniel. E. Dew’s
name. The
company motto is “Give every man his Dew.” They
make a good basic label ($19) and a 12-Year-Old
($27), while its
Heritage ($30), blended from 20 casks laid down in 2000 to commemorate
the
company’s Heritage Centre opening, is a fine mix of spice, citrus
notes, and
vanilla from wood aging. It comes only in 70 centiliter bottles,
available at
duty free shops.
Michael Collins
is named
after the beloved
Irish political leader, known as the “Big Fellow” (Liam Neeson played
him in a
1996 biopic). According to the back of the slender, pleated bottle,
“his heroic
spirit lives on in Michael Collins Whiskeys,” which, I suppose, has
more
marketing persuasion than a whiskey named after general manager. The
basic spirit
($26) goes through a small copper still whose long neck delays the
passage of
the spirit, making it more refined, spending a minimum of 8-12 years in
old
bourbon barrels. The first sip has a real bite at the start, then a
softening,
elegant sweetness and maltiness on the palate, fading slowly without
any
harshness whatsoever.
Then there’s lovable Paddy Old
Irish
Whiskey, named, inauspiciously, after a company sales rep. It’s pleasant enough and mild, if lacking in
finesse, and is ideal for Irish coffee. And if you can't locate any
coffee, Paddy does fine all on its own.
John
Mariani's weekly wine column appears in Bloomberg Muse News,
from which this story was adapted. Bloomberg News covers Culture from
art, books, and theater to wine, travel, and food on a daily basis, and
some of its articles play of the Saturday Bloomberg Radio and TV.
BOOKINGS HAVE SOARED FOR
THE "BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN" SUITE
"According to experts, one of the
hottest
travel trends of 2007 will be 'mancations,' or male-only trips
where men can bond while doing 'guy stuff' such as fishing or hiking
in the
great outdoors. In fact, according to a 2006 survey
commissioned by
the group travel site I'm In! . . . Where better to experience the
ultimate in
male bonding than in the adventure-filled Grand Teton National Park? In the heart
of rugged yet beautiful
Wyoming, and nestled inside Grand Teton National Park, Grand Teton Lodge Company offers
a variety
of accommodations and adrenaline-inducing
activities
from May
through October to fulfill any man's need for excitement.
An ideal 'mancation' might include
roughing it with the boys on a weekend camping trip at Colter Bay
Village,
kicking back with a beer-in-hand
while taking in the
spectacular
views at Jackson Lake Lodge, or catching up over a
five-course meal
at the four-diamond Jenny Lake Lodge."--Press
release by Grand Teton
Lodge
Company.
DOES
SHE STILL GET THE CONSOLE?
In Sacramento, CA, KDND-FM held a water-drinking
contest in which contestants chugged as much water as they could
without going to the rest room. The prize for the "Hold
your Wee for a Wii" was a Nintendo Wii game console. When a listener
to complain that chugging bottles of water could be fatal, to which the
station's DJs responded, "Yeah, we're aware of that," and "Yeah,
they signed
releases, so
we're not responsible. We're OK." That day a woman in the contest died
from chugging down nearly two gallons of water.
I
consider this the best
and savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a columnist
for USA Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and
Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski
and a frequent contributor to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com and Elle Decor. "I’ve designed this
site is for people who take their travel seriously," says Potter.
"For travelers who want to learn about special places but don’t
necessarily want to pay through the nose for the privilege of
staying there. Because at the end of the day, it’s not so much about
five-star places as five-star experiences." To go to his
blog click on the logo below:
Tennis Resorts Online:
A Critical Guide to the World's
Best Tennis Resorts and Tennis Camps,
published by ROGER COX, who has spent more than two decades writing
about tennis travel, including a 17-year stretch for Tennis magazine. He has also
written for Arthur Frommer's Budget
Travel, New York Magazine,
Travel & Leisure, Esquire, Money, USTA Magazine, Men's Journal, and The Robb Report. He has
authored two books-The World's
Best Tennis Vacations (Stephen Greene Press/Viking Penguin,
1990) and The Best Places to Stay in the Rockies (Houghton
Mifflin, 1992 & 1994), and the Melbourne (Australia) chapter to the
Wall Street Journal Business
Guide to Cities of the
Pacific Rim (Fodor's Travel Guides, 1991). To go to the site click here.
QUICK
BYTES
* On March 17 The 8th Annual
Young School Benefit
will take place on at The Winery at
Quintessa in in
Rutherford, CA, with a walk-around wine
and food stations as a backdrop to an auction of one-of-a-kind wines
and
entertainment packages, incl. lunch
with
Wine Spectator Senior Editor James Laube, dinners
with Gourmet Magazine's Gerald Asher
in San Francisco, Restaurant Wine's Ronn
Wiegand, and Fritz
Maytag of Anchor Steam Brewery, a tour of
San Francisco's ornately restored
City Hall with Mayor Gavin Newsom, and a front row seat at Napa
Valley's best
fireworks party on July 4. Tix are $75 pp. Call 707-967-9909, Visit www.foreveryoungbenefit.org.
*
On March 19 Patsy's in NYC will be celebrating St.
Joseph's Day with a variety of special dishes incl. Stuffed Artichokes,
Stuffed
Mushrooms, Minestrone Soup, Broccoli Rabe, Spaghetti with
Anchovies, Stripped Bass Alla Livornese, and Zeppole de San
Giuseppe. Call 212-247-3491.
* On March 21 at Martini
House in St. Helena, CA, Chef-owner
Todd Humphries and Chef de Cuisine: Christopher Litts a “Wine Geeks and
Mushroom Freaks Dinner” with dishes based on mushrooms along with
small-production
Rutherford wines. $75 pp, with wines, $140. Call (707) 963-2511.
* In Southborough, MA, Tomasso
Trattoria will hold a tasting
series on the wines of Piemonte, March 20, April 10 & 24, and May
8, hosted
by Wine Director, Lorenzo Savona. The
wines that are presented at the tastings are available for purchase at
a
substantial discount at Panzano Provviste e Vino for everyone that
attends the
tasting. $30 pp for each tasting or $100
for the series of four. Call 508 481 8484.
*
Chef
Ron Siegel
of The Dining Room at The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco
has designed a 6-course tasting to
showcase his daily shipment of fish from Japan, called the “Kyushu Island Box of Fish Menu”
at $105
pp. Call 415-773-6168 or visit www.ritzcarltondiningroom.com.
*
On
March 22-25, 2007, at the Mirror
Lake Inn Resort and Spa in Lake
Placid NY, the Adirondack Festival of Food & Wine will host chefs
from
around the country for seminars, demos, and to share food and wine,
incl. Anton Flory, American
Academy of Chefs; Dale Miller, Jack's
Oyster House, Albany; Curtiss Hemm, New England Culinary Institute;
Eamon Lee, Century
Club, Syracuse; George Higgins, The Culinary Institute of America;Paul
Sorgule,
Jason Porter, Greg Michaud, and Tim McQuinn of Mirror Lake. On March 23
a
6-course dinner will be held. Call 518-523-2544.
*
On
March 22 in Washington, DC, Charlie
Palmer Steak is hosting an dinner with Opus One
Winemaker, Michael Silacc, prepared by Executive Chef Bryan Voltaggio.
$250 pp.
Call
202-547-8100.
* From
March 22-24 the 12th annual Miami
Wine & Food Festival, hosted this
year by chef Marcus
Samuelsson, will be held to benefit
Camillus
House and United Way of
Miami-Dade. Events
incl.: Swing & Sip Golf Classic, followed by the evening’s “Taste
& Toast”
extravaganza, with more than 60 international
wineries and
gourmet treats from nearly 30 of South Florida’s top restaurants and
caterers,
incl. North One 10, Two Chefs, Azul at the Mandarin Oriental Miami,
Atrio at
the Conrad Miami, La Cofradia, Chispa and Escopazzo. $75 pp. in advance
of $100
at the door; the “Food, Friends and Fun Interactive Dinner” $250 pp.; “Bubbles,
Bids & Bites Auction and
Luncheon,” featuring live and silent auctions, and
wine lots. $500 pp. Call 305-371-WINE
or visit www.miamiwinefestival.org.
*
On
March 23 Hemingway’s
in Killington, VT, will
celebrate its silver anniversary with a “Cheesey
Affair,” a cheese theme dinner with cheesemakers Janine and John Putnam
of
Thistle Hill Farm in Pomfret. . . On June 1, a dinner based on the book
by
Suzanne Rodriguez-Hunter, Found Meals of
the Lost Generation. . . Aug 28, a farmer's
dinner with Vermont Fresh Network. Call
802--422-3886.*
From April 11-15 The Taste of Vail announces
three celebrity chefs have been selected to participate in the 17th
annual
event: Michael Chiarello, Tra Vigne; Lee
Hefter, Spago ; Lachlan
Mackinnon-Patterson, Frasca
Food and Wine. Also, 54+
wine producers from around the world. Visit www.tasteofvail.com, or
call
970-926-5665.
*
On
March 25,
Managing Director David Haskell of L.A.’s BIN 8945,
will launch a new monthly "Sunday Guest Chef Series” on the last Sunday of every month to showcase the
work of guest chefs, the first being Ludovic Lefebvre, most recently of
Bastide. Lefebvre, along with BIN 8945's Chef Michael Bryant for a 7-course menu at $135 pp, with while
wine guru David Haskell pairing wines for
an additional $65 or $100. Additiional
chefs will incl. Sang Yoon of Father's Office, Santa Monica; Salvatore
Marino of Il Grano, West L/A.; Call 310-550-8945.
*
On March 28 in Charlestown, MA, Copia restaurant
Executive Chef
Anthony Caturano will hold a 4-course
Super Tuscan wine dinner.
$100 pp. Call 617-242-6742; Visit www.copiarestaurant.com.
* From March 28-April 1 the 22nd annual Texas Hill Country Wine & Food
Festival
will feature seminars, cooking classes and winemaker luncheons at
various
Austin locations, incl. “The Sauvignon Blanc Experience” with
Chef John
Ash; “Three Sommeliers Take on Texas” with Devon Broglie of Whole Foods
Market,
Craig Collins of Prestige Cellars, and Scott Cameron of Epicurean
Wines; A reserve tasting of Robert
Talbott Vineyards’ Sleepy Hollow Chardonnay; The return of
the well-loved “Savor the Hill Country Luncheons” with Mandola’s Estate
Winery,
Becker Vineyards and Fall Creek Vineyards are paired with a
multi-course meal
by notable Texas chefs; The Driskill Hotel presents 6 award-winning
“Texas
Culinary Masters Dinner.”; “Stars
Across
Texas Grand Tasting” at the Hilton Austin hotel, with more than
60
restaurants from across the state and more than 40 wineries from Texas and
the
world participate; and much more. For info and tix visit www.texaswineandfood.org;
or call 512-249-6300.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher:
John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani, Naomi
Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson, Edward Brivio, Mort
Hochstein, Suzanne Wright. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery, Bobby Pirillo. Technical
Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.
John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Bloomberg News and
Radio, and Diversion.
He is author of The Encyclopedia
of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary
of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the
award-winning Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common
Press).
Any of John Mariani's books below
may be ordered from amazon.com by clicking on the cover image.
My
newest book, written with my brother Robert Mariani, is a memoir of our
years growing up in the North
Bronx. It's called Almost
Golden because it re-visits an idyllic place and time in our
lives when
so many wonderful things seemed possible.
For those of you who don't think
of
the Bronx as “idyllic,” this
book will be a revelation. It’s
about a place called the Country Club area, on the shores of Pelham Bay. A beautiful
neighborhood filled with great friends
and wonderful adventures that helped shape our lives.
It's about a culture, still vibrant, and a place that is still almost
the same as when we grew up there.
Robert and I think you'll enjoy this
very personal look at our Bronx childhood. It is not
yet available in bookstores, so to purchase
a copy, go to amazon.com
or click on Almost Golden.
--John
Mariani
|
copyright John Mariani 2007
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