NEW
YORK CORNER FABIO
CUCINA ITALIANA BY
JOHN MARIANI
NOTES
FROM THE WINE CELLAR WITHOUT
WATER WILL THERE BE WINE IN CALIFORNIA? BY
JOHN MARIANI
❖❖❖
WHAT'S NEW IN AUSTIN?
By
John Mariani
There
has been more than a little media attention paid to
Austin’s food scene recently, after years of
neglecting this booming Texas city as a place you
might drive through for a BBQ stop before heading to
Houston or San Antonio. Of course, the food
scene in Austin goes hand in hand with its far more
established music scene, and the downtown nightlife
along Sixth Street has managed to buoy the city’s
official slogan “The Live Music Capital of the
World” as well as its self-absorbed mantra “Keep
Austin Weird.”
Austin’s food scene feeds mightily off this energy
and, while the city can hardly claim to have any
uniquely great restaurants, there is a lot to love,
yes, including a few good BBQ places. Here are
some of the new spots now getting well-deserved
attention.
clark's
OYSTER
BAR
1200 W 6th Street
512-297-2525 clarksoysterbar.com
Photos by Casey Dunn
I
was a big fan of Perla's, Larry McGuire's and Thomas
Moorman's seafood restaurant, which hit all the right
marks for freshness, simple cooking, color and casual
appeal (it was one of my “Best New Restaurants of the
Year” when it opened three years ago). So I was
happy when the duo debuted the smaller, even cozier,
Clark’s in the fall of 2012 in West Austin.
There
is of course an oyster bar on the premises, made of
marble and pecan, within a long slip of a bright white
room with tree-shaded outdoor tables too.
(Reservations are taken only for six people or
more.) On any given day there might be a dozen species
of the bivalves, served with horseradish, cocktail
sauce, mignonette, Saltines and lemon. The
cold bar also offers fresh-as-morning shrimp or crab
Louie with a crisp Iceberg lettuce salad, and a big and
beautiful plateau of shellfish--oysters, clams, prawns,
mussels, and crab--along with a selection of overpriced
domestic and European caviar.
Even
far from New England, I can never resist a lobster roll,
and Clark’s is a good one, with plenty of lobster,
served with cole slaw, pickles and a heap of crisp
French fries. There’s even a velvety New England
clam chowder here, and San Francisco cioppino comes
heaped with fish and garlic toast. Though I wasn’t thinking of
ordering a burger here, it was urged upon me by
regulars, so I went for it, happily rewarded with
freshly chopped beef with tangy sauce gribiche,
Gruyère and more of those excellent fries.
This is a cunning place, the staff
exceptionally friendly without being palsy, so you know
they’ll coax you into a little dessert. Go for the
s’mores bread pudding or the maple bourbon pot de
crème, better than any you had as a child.
Austin can get hot and humid in summer, but on a
twilighted evening, with a cold longneck or bottle of
Chablis on ice, there are few nicer places to eat in
town right now.
Clark’s is open for lunch
Mon.-Fri.; dinner nightly, brunch on Sat. & Sun;
Appetizers run $4-$21, main courses $21-$32.
JEFFREY'S
1204 W Lynn Street
512-477-5584 jeffreysofaustin.com
Jeffrey's has long been one of Austin's institutions,
dating back to at least two decades. And,
like most institutions, it needed a complete facelift
and a refreshed menu, which it has received from the
same McGuire and Moorman who own Clark's above.
Now the
place is warmly lighted, the bar intact but swankier,
the artwork a fine mix of western motifs and abstracts,
and there is an impressive wine cache room where you can
hold an intimate private party. The wine list itself is
truly impressive, probably the best in town, along with
an equally daunting spirits list. Prices, though,
are formidable by the glass: a glass of 2012 Venica & Venica
Pinot Grigio costs $15 here; a whole bottle in a wine
shop runs under $20.
Indeed, Jeffrey’s prices for a lot of things are as
high on the hog as you can go in Austin, with 50 grams
of Israeli caviar at $240, a pan-seared veal ribeye
running $56, and a 16-ounce bone-in strip $70.
(At NYC’s Palm One, the nonpareil strip costs
$50, and in free-spending Las Vegas Charlie Palmer
Steak charges $54 for the same cut.) Jeffrey’s
is using very good Prime beef, but the price
discrepancy stands out by comparison.
Breads are
baked on the premises. For starters there’s
finely textured foie gras terrine, as well as seared
fresh foie gras on French toast with roasted pineapple
and a fennel salad. Lobster on top
of blini with crème fraîche gained
nothing from a dab of bland caviar. Blue crab
cake was all big, sweet lump crabmeat, not too firmly
packed, roasted quickly and served with corn,
tomatoes, Serrano chile, wild arugula, and, gilding
the whole thing, a marvelously rich Béarnaise
sauce. Texas Akaushi (wagyu-style) beef
was chopped into a robust tartare, with a quail egg,
capers, and Parmesan chops but the addition of
tasteless summer truffles was an ill-advised
afterthought.
I
applauded the excellent, firm-fleshed oven-roasted
halibut with oxtail ravioli, shishito
yogurt, baby artichokes and a stew of summer
vegetables that just skirted being too much of a good
thing. Lobster Thermidor is a dish you rarely
see anymore, and Jeffrey’s version does nothing to
demand its return: though piled up with spinach,
Mornay sauce, breadcrumbs, lemon and Thai chili butter
and sautéed escarole, the lobster hadn't the
flavor to carry all that was heaped upon it.
The selection of steaks and cuts--some with side
dishes--is vast, from eight to 16 ounces of Texas
Akaushi ribeye to Niman Ranch and Branch Family West
Texas dry-aged beef. Despite its price, I
thoroughly enjoyed the beefy, mineral flavor and
yielding texture of the strip steak, aged for 28 days,
though a ribeye, also aged that long, curiously lacked
fat flavor, despite its being a more marbleized cut.
Accompaniments include nicely rendered baked orechiette
pasta and melted cheese with charred scallions and
breadcrumbs, and excellent wood-roasted radicchio and
endive drizzled with a little caramel--a great idea.
Yukon gold pureed potatoes needed enrichment with
butter.
I’m
very glad Jeffrey’s has been brought back to life.
Austin deserves a place for the big splurge, and
now it looks and tastes a lot more like 2014.
Jeffrey’s
is open for dinner nightly; Appetizers $6-$24, main
courses $38-$75.
TRIO
The Four Seasons Austin
98 San Jacinto Boulevard
512- 478-4500 fourseasons.com/austin/dining
The
Four Seasons Austin is one of the earliest of the hotel
chain's units outside of Canada, and, after various
renovations, it is still the finest in the city, from
the greeting to the care taken with every request.
The rooms are large, the bathrooms too, and all
the amenities in state-of-the-art order. It hits
the right balance of upscale luxury and comforting
hospitality. And, like most Four Seasons hotels, they
put a lot of attention into their food service, trying
not so much to fill a niche as to appeal to a wider
audience.
So, while there are several
southwestern items on the menu at Trio, the hotel's
highly colorful, very casual ground-floor restaurant, it
also offers an array of first quality steaks and chops,
as is requisite in Texas. I only had occasion to have
lunch at Trio, but I was very happy with the offerings,
beginning with a lightly grilled chicken sandwich on
herbed focaccia, with crisp apple, a thick slice of
bacon, and Texas Gold Cheddar, dressed with a
lemon-and-thyme scented aïoli, and a choice of
steak fries or house salad. I also enjoyed an
abundance of Gulf shrimp--jumbo, if not downright
whale-like--with various mixed fresh vegetables and
quinoa.
At night the menu expands to dishes
like tuna tartare with avocado and sesame dressing;
homey chicken and dumplings with a chicken confit in
consommé; grilled Texas quail with creamy grits,
a bite of shishito peppers and a bacon emulsion. Gulf
redfish comes with curried butternut squash puree, kale
and chili.
I also
need to note that the wine list at the restaurant is not
only very good, broad and deep, but unlike most
restaurants around Austin, it has a fine selection of
the better Texas labels, well worth trying, like the
Duchman Family line.
Trio is open for breakfast, lunch
and dinner daily; Dinner appetizers $11-$75, main
courses $27-$52.
QUI 1600 East Sixth Street
512-436-9626 quiaustin.com
There's
been a great deal of ballyhoo in Austin about Paul Qui (left) winning top
honors in the ninth season of "Top Chef," that
egregiously awful torture chamber of a TV show in which
contestants are asked to perform idiotic culinary tricks
that bear no resemblance whatsoever to what actually
goes on in a restaurant kitchen. Nonetheless, Qui,
formerly at Austin’s finest sushi restaurant, Uchiko,
was the winner, so applause is due, as well for him
being honored by the James Beard Foundation as Best Chef
in the Southwest in 2012.
Such kudos do not seem to have
affected Qui’s demeanor, for he seems to have weathered
it all with his ego intact, and he is a genuinely
affable gentleman. But the expectations for his
restaurant were such that Austinites and the media
stormed the place from the day it opened and the crowds
have not dissipated--which is annoying, mainly because
Qui takes only “limited reservations.”
The premises are handsome--all wood
and stainless steel, so the sound of
casually-but-well-dressed people screaming to be heard
is hardly enhanced by the throbbing of the playlist
here. Everything here is handcrafted, including the
ceramics, and much has been made about all the careful
stylistic touches, from serving surfaces to
multi-colored knives. And, of course, there are a
lot of tattoos on the kitchen staff.
The website has a four-minute video
(with almost no printed info of a kind a potential guest
might like to have) that ends with Qui pronouncing his
restaurant like “nothing else in the world.” I
was, then, prepared for some very special food, but,
sadly, after seven courses, my primary reaction was that
I was very hungry. Qui’s cuisine is extremely
light on fats, without compensation from other sources.
So, although much of what I tasted was enjoyable--chawanmushi
ribbon fish with hash brown, ham and egg custard and
chanterelle--the flavors were so subtle that they became
refined to the point of blandness. Qui seems so
hesitant to add more than a tweezers-ful of an
ingredient that they don’t really register in a dish like his sunomono of
lemon cucumber, sea weed, dill and Parmesan water (this
last a ridiculous conceit).
He names
one dish in honor of the great French chef Michel Bras,
but I can't imagine why: it is simply chilled eggplant
garlic dashi soup and vegetables, which I can’t imagine
Bras would have any interest in serving his guests.
“Rabbit 7 ways” didn't add up to much--and it was one
tiny rabbit--and after six courses, my friend and I were
literally discussing going to Austin’s best pizzeria,
The Backspace, after dinner, when a delicious butcher’s
cut of beef shank arrived and made a decent dent in our
appetite. Assuming you
can get a table, you can have a pleasant time at Qui
à la carte, though it’s tough to imagine doing so
to the point of satiety. The whole enterprise is
admirable, and I’m sure Qui himself believes he is
providing a unique experience to Austin. I feel strongly
that most people will enjoy themselves here, but in the
end, the degree of satisfaction is in the eye of the
diner.
Qui is open
Mon.-Sat. for dinner; Small plates $8-$18, large
plates $18-$46.
❖❖❖
NEW YORK
CORNER By
John Mariani
Fabiocucina
italiana 214 East 52nd Street (near Third Ave.)
212-688-5200 fabiocucinaitaliana.com
The
question of culinary “authenticity” pits purists against
progressives, with the former insisting that the food of
a region--Sicily, Bavaria, Provence, Sichuan,
Louisiana--should be treated with high respect and
attention to hundreds of years of tradition; the latter
shrug and say, “Hey, if it tastes good, who cares if
it’s authentic?” I share the progressives'
acceptance of change, but I am equally adamant that the
corruption of traditional foods comes at a cost to cultural identity.
Nowhere is
this truer than with Italian food, whose American
interpreters seem to feel that it’s easy enough to make,
so why not pile on more stuff and make it one’s own?
Largely this is a view held by those who have
never set foot, or trained, in Italy, and, by and large,
it shows in the cooking.
On the other hand, Fabio Hakall
(below), whose
father was Egyptian and mother Sicilian, grew up in Rome
and had a thorough grounding in the cuisine of that
international city, working at two of its best
restaurants, Ambasciata d’Abruzzo and Matriciana. While
not every dish on the menu of his new namesake
restaurant in NYC is Roman, it is all based on the
traditions of vera
cucina italiana, which means the best ingredients
in the simplest renderings.
The
restaurant, set on three levels, is very beautiful,
bright with Italian primary colors--red and olive
green--with good ceiling spot lighting, very comfortable
modern furniture, a live tree, and a stone wall etched
with culinary sayings in Italian. Tables are well
set, and Fabio is always there to tend
to guests. However, the insistent, all-Andrea
Bocelli-all-the-time soundtrack has to go.
Fabio
frets over his guests, offering to make them anything
within reason off the menu. No need, of course,
for the menu teems with enticing dishes, beginning with
unusual antipasti
like hearts of carciofini
(artichokes), either grilled or fried, and a wonderful
tart piled with snow white, sweet crabmeat, served with
pineapple-mango dressing (below). His fried calamari get an
assertive dose of cherry peppers and spicy tomato sauce,
and his minestrone is Genoese style, with pesto and
barley.
I
sampled three pastas, and main portions are generous: fettuccine alla
Fabio is made with housemade pasta with veal, porcini
mushrooms--not dried shreds but good fresh slices--and
black truffles. Bucatini
all’amatriciana--a Roman classic--is superbly
crafted here, with pecorino cheese and pancetta bacon.
And he makes a risotto with black truffles that
you smell coming from the kitchen, heaped on
Parmigiano--one of the best I’ve had in NYC.
Fabio
also knows precisely how to cook Mediterranean fish like
spigola (sea
bass) in the oven, finished with a lustrous lemon sauce.
His filet mignon in a Cognac reduction is all
right, but doesn’t shine among the rest of the
dishes.
In a
city of good to excellent tiramisùs,
Fabio’s is among the winners, as is his ricotta panna cotta
custard with a vanilla sauce splashed with spumante
wine.
The
wine list is little more than adequate, only about 40
selections, and it could use more small estate Italian
bottlings. And prices are high. A 2011 Mastroberardino
Greco di Tufo in the store will run you about $20; here
it’s $65.
Fabio
Cucina Italiana has a casual sophistication about it,
quiet enough for romance or business, and everyone looks
good among this décor and lighting. Put
yourself in Fabio’s hands and he’ll create a meal for
you of a kind you might well have had in the best
restaurants in Rome, not on the Via Veneto, but around
the Vatican or in Trastevere. His food tastes the
way it should because it’s made with a respect for
tradition that will never go out of style.
Fabio Cucina Italiana is
open for lunch Mon.-Fri., for dinner nightly;
Antipasti $10-$18, pastas $19-$32, main courses $26-$34.
❖❖❖
NOTES
FROM THE WINE CELLAR
WITHOUT WATER WILL THEREBE
WINE
IN CALIFORNIA?
By John Mariani
When
you grow grapes to make wine in California, the
mention of “D4” can wither you on the spot. “D4”
is the classification used by the interagency U.S.
Drought Monitor for dry spells so intense they occur
fewer than once in 50 years. And despite last week's
torrential downpour, it didn't make a dent in the
problem.
With more than 98 percent
of California land now considered at least abnormally
dry, such reports are terrifying to every farmer in the
state, but in the wine industry, where irrigation is
critical to raising healthy, bountiful grapes to be made
into prestigious wines carrying $100 price tags, such a
drought has no precedent.
California’s reservoirs now contain only 39 percent of
their combined capacity, which last month forced
officials to cut to zero the amount of water local
authorities would be allowed to draw from the series of
reservoirs that supply 750,000 acres of the
state’s farmland.
The
drought has begun to cause vines to ripen early
(September to October is when harvesting occurs).
Vintners are cutting back vines and planning fewer
plantings, and the equation between the amount of water
and the crop yield is one to one: if you have 80 percent
less water, you will produce only 80 percent of the
normal crop.
In order to
understand what is going on in California vineyards, I
interviewed Doug McIlroy, director of wine growing at
Rodney Strong Estates in Sonoma County.
“Potentially, without rain it could be severe for those
who rely on water from reservoirs that only have surface
water to fill them,” he said. “If they fill their
reservoirs with well water, they should be able to get
along, [but] those with shallow wells potentially will
be impacted as they go dry, or if their Water Rights are
curtailed by the state of California. For those left
without sufficient water this year yields could be
significantly impacted without sufficient rain in the
coming months.”
The photos at the right, from NASA, show the
variance in snow and greenery in California since last
year.
Fortunately,
many growers rely on wells rather than reservoirs in
Sonoma, fed by the Russian River (now at 36 percent
capacity) and Dry Creek (now at 65 percent). Having
planned in advance for drought years, McIlroy feels
Rodney Strong’s vineyards are in fair shape, but many
growers who supply some of their grapes will be impacted
without significant rain. “If it doesn’t rain, we
certainly see some loss of production for 2014 and
potentially for 2015.”
I asked McIlroy
about a proposal to truck water into the vineyards, and
he replied, “It would work only for very small
vineyards, and even then it will be expensive.”
Many vintners I’ve spoken with in
California, South America and Europe have serious
concerns about the demonstrable effects of global
warming. “It was the long-lasting heat wave of 2003 all
over Europe that made us realize something was going
on,” says Axel Heinz, director of production for Tenuta
dell’Ornellaia winery in Tuscany. “The weather is now
getting more and more extreme and unpredictable, with
sudden heat spikes, long-lasting drought periods and
violent and unpredictable rainfalls.”
Such spikes make it difficult for
winemakers to adapt quickly. When grapes get too much
heat and not enough water, they develop off flavors and
lower acid levels, higher alcohol levels at earlier
stages, and become more susceptible to sunburn and
disease. Wine grapes actually shut down their
development when the temperature becomes intensely hot.
Unlike so-called “broad acre” crops
like soybeans and wheat, “wine grapes are really a
‘niche crop’ that can only been grown in certain areas,”
says Dr. Gregory V. Jones, professor and research
climatologist in the Department of Environmental Studies
at Southern Oregon University. “The issue today is, when
we talk of global warming, we talk about humans’
contribution, which is occurring at a much faster rate
than in recorded history. What we used to consider a
one-in-50-years drought is now more commonplace.
The extreme heat of 2012 in the U.S. was a
one-in-1,600-years event.”
McIlroy
agrees: “Most climatologists reporting on the current
drought say that it is something that historically
happens in California, even though [this one] could be
the worst in living memory for California.”
Fortunately,
Rodney Strong’s vineyards, whose founder, in 1959,
retired from a career as a professional dancer to become
a vintner, has long been committed to being certified in
the California Sustainable Winegrower’s Alliance, and,
through solar power (left)
and other practices, has actually lowered its carbon
impact to zero.
Every
sensible vintner is hurriedly devoting time, money and
research into combating the climatic uncertainties of
the near future. “Drought-tolerant rootstocks are
already used in low-water areas,” says McIlroy, “But
they only help so much. There is work at University of
California Davis being done to improve the options.”
Yet, even if the drought ends this year, he warns, “the
state most likely won’t see much relief without an above
average year next year, or a normal pattern returning
for more than a year.”
❖❖❖
SO THE NRA IS PROTESTING
THE INCIDENTS AS HARASSMENT
The
TSA's list of “notable incidents,” includes the report
that at Hartford’s Bradley airport, the Advanced
Imaging Technology body scan found a .38 automatic
loaded with eight rounds in an ankle holster of one
passenger attempting to board. At Boston’s Logan
airport, officers discovered a fully disassembled
30-30 rifle concealed within the lining and taped to
the straps of a checked bag, and in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, an automatic handgun loaded with 10 rounds
was found hidden beneath the lining of a carry-on bag.
In total, 1,813 guns were found in carry-on luggage at
airport checkpoints last year (81% were loaded) an
increase of 16%. This is a stupefying statistic, since
if
AND AS ANY READER CAN TELL YOU, THIS IS NOT A GOOD
WAY TO BEGIN
A RESTAURANT REVIEW
"As any
pseudo-intellectual can tell you, some questions are
best left to the confines of the dorm room. Questions
like: `What is art?' `Does art imitate life, or is it
the other way around?' or `Why are these cookies my
friend sent me from Denver making me appreciate Rothko
more?' "--Zachary Feldman, "Saul Dazzles on Plate and
Palate," The
Village Voice.
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but
let me proudly say that it is an extensive
revision of the 4th edition that appeared more
than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular
cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and
so much more, now included. Word origins have been
completely updated, as have per capita consumption
and production stats. Most important, for the
first time since publication in the 1980s, the
book includes more than 100 biographies of
Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat
and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to
Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.
"This book is amazing! It has entries for
everything from `abalone' to `zwieback,' plus more
than 500 recipes for classic American dishes and
drinks."--Devra First, The Boston Globe.
"Much needed in any kitchen library."--Bon Appetit.
Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square Cafe,
Gotham Bar & Grill, The Modern, and
Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites:
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." THIS WEEK: SIX
THINGS TO LOVE ABOUT SYDNEY
Eating Las Vegas
is the new on-line site for Virtual Gourmet
contributor John A. Curtas., who since 1995
has been commenting on the Las Vegas food
scene and reviewing restaurants for Nevada
Public Radio. He is also the
restaurant critic for KLAS TV, Channel 8 in
Las Vegas, and his past reviews can be
accessed at KNPR.org.
Click on the logo below to go directly to
his site.
WWW.EATINGLV.COM
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).
nickonwine:
An engaging, interactive
wine column by Nick Passmore, Artisanal Editor, Four
Seasons Magazine; Wine Columnist, BusinessWeek.com;
nick@nickonwine.com; www.nickonwine.com.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani.
Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani, Robert Mariani,
John A. Curtas, Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein,
Suzanne Wright,and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,
Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.