NOTES
FROM THE WINE CELLAR
BOUCHAINE
By John Mariani
❖❖❖
On this week's episode of my WVOX
Radio Show "Almost Golden," on Wed. November
30, at 11AM EST,I will be
interviewing authorand Zyedeco musician Bryan
Miller on CAJUN MUSIC. Go
to: WVOX.com.
The episode will also be archived at: almostgolden.
❖❖❖
PUGLIA
Part
One
By John Mariani
Melendugno
Once Poor and Its Olive
Trees Dying, Puglia in Southern Italy Now Grows
Rich on Tourism, Fine Wines and Padre Pio.
The
last time I was in Puglia, four years ago, it was palpable that
this eastern toe of Italy bordering on both the
Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas, was quickly
acquiring a reputation for being a region with
the magnetic appeal of being as yet
undiscovered. Since then, Puglia has become
recognized for its beautiful cities, artistic
culture, food and wine, and a slew of very fine,
very high-end palazzos and resorts that have
opened up and down its coasts and in its
interior. The
province’s unique attraction is the Shrine
of Padre Pio (left), the second most
visited Catholic shrine in the world (after Our
Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City), which honors
the revered stigmatist saint who spent most of his
life as a priest in the town of San Giovanni
Rotondo.
Long among Italy’s poor
southern provinces, with next to no industry and
cooperative wineries turning out a bulk product,
Puglia did have a thriving olive oil export
industry, but ten years ago a pestilence began
destroying the trees (below), which since
have been replaced with rootstocks and grafts from
resistant varieties of olives not indigenous to
the area but quickly produce fruit within two or
three years. The region’s history began with settlement
by Greekswho
gave it the name lapygia,
referring to the tribes that emigrated there in
the first century BC, and even today in nine small
villages in the south a Greek dialect is spoken.
Rome dominated Puglia’searly
history, but as in all of Italy, Puglia has had
many masters, from the Saracens and Turks to the
kingdoms of Sicily and Naples, the Spanish and
Napoleon; pirates once sacked the city of Vieste
and left with 7,000 slaves. When Italy was united
in 1861, Puglia became an integral part. Under
Mussolini, the region was developed for
agriculture but suffered under the German
occupation of World War II until liberated by the
Allies in 1943. Its principal port cities, like
Bari, Brindisi and Taranto, were heavily damaged
by bombings. As
with most southern provinces, economic progress
was slow after the war, and many young people left
to find work in the north. But in the last decade
considerable efforts have been made to focus on
the region’s accessibility to beaches, cities like
Lecce of baroque magnificence (left) and
the folkloric trulli structures
found
in Alberobello, dry limestone huts with
pyramid-like corbelled roofs that look like tea
cozies (below; photo by Carlo Elmiro Bevilacqua).
These are now among the five World Heritage
Sites in Puglia, which also include the medieval
Castel del Monte and Sanctuary of San Michele
Arcangelo outside of Bari , the National Gargano
Forest, and,though justover the provincial line in Basilicata, the
unique Sassi cave structures of the town of
Matera, which were featured in the last James Bond
movie, No
Time to Die, though the motorcycle scene
was filmed in nearby Gravina di Puglia. Puglia is largely a flat landscape without
mountains—which means no volcanic
eruptions—although there was an earthquake in
2016—but its long seashore has become a great
attraction for northern Europeans and, recently,
Americans who had heretofore flocked to the usual
tourist centers of Rome, Florence and Venice.
Those who now come to Puglia are also in search of
history and culture very different from those
western and northern Italian cities. What they find are city centers of great
and varied beauty—Bari (below; photo by Joe
Vitone) looks nothing like Lecce, and
Polignano nothing like Monopoli—but all of them
now share a commitment to restoration and
polishing that only enhances the natural sheen and
glow of cities with broad avenues and piazzas that
lead to winding, narrow inner streets of
extraordinary quiet and cleanliness. One of the
reasons for Puglia’s cities not becoming darkened
by centuries of soot and auto fumes, as in other
regions, is that strong, salt-rich sea winds have
had a natural cleansing effect on the buildings’
façades, which are largely soft limestone; and its
streets are kept tidy by the locals. Puglia has its local contrasts that
distinguish it from the overrun tourist cities
like Rome and the maddening, traffic-clogged
streets of Naples. By ten o’clock in a city like
Bari—Puglia’s capital—you may hear little else but
an occasional motorcycle or Vespa passing
by.
In the small hillside town of Castro di Marina the
street was blocked by a four-foot-high mass of
firewood just delivered at someone’s front door
for use throughout the winter by a homeowner who
was in no hurry to bring inside more than one log
at a time. Maybe his neighbors would help him.
Maybe not. Patience is a virtue in Puglia, and its
residents will tellyou again and again, “Remember, this issouthern
Italy.” I shall be writing in the
coming months about all aspects of Puglia—its
culture, resorts, restaurants, magnificent sea
food and wines that are now among Italy’s best.
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER
KATZ’S
DELICATESSEN
205 East Houston Street
212-254-2246
By
John Mariani
Anyone who goes to
Katz’s for the first time will come
away with sensory memories that will last
forever. Outside, the old neon sign glows
like a beacon, day and night, seven days a
week; Thanksgiving, Christmas and on
weekends twenty-four hours a day. The place
is big, and barebones, unadorned, except for
more than 750 patrons’ photos—including
Mikhail Gorbachev’s—and old New York beer
brand signs like Piels, Schlitz and
Schaefer. The noise
is from people shuffling in and out, pulling
back chairs and tables, ordering, plates
hitting the worn Formica tables. The mingling
of aromas of steaming beef, franks and beans,
pickling juices, sauerkraut, roasting turkeys,
French fries is inebriating. You get a ticket on the way in, the
countermen make your food—all meats are still
hand-carved by masters who have been slicing
for decades—then clip your ticket, and you
move along quickly to get potatoes and drinks.And,
if you lose the ticket, tough beans, you pay a
$50 charge. And then there’s the sound of the swoon
from those tasting the world’s greatest
Jewish deli food. The most famous of swoons,
of course, is that of the very WASP-y Meg Ryan
faking an orgasm for the very Jewish Billy
Crystal over pastrami sandwiches in When
Harry Met Sally (1989),
followed by an older woman customer watching
and telling the waiter, “I’ll have what she’s
having.” There is table service (for which you
can use a credit card, otherwise cash only).
So, you sit where countless others have
plopped down for 130 years—who knows if Jerry
Lewis or Leonard B Bernstein sat there?—and
look down at the massive amount of pastrami,
tongue, brisket, turkey and other meats tucked
into two slices of rye bread reaching a height
of about four inches. To eat at Katz’s is to
become part of a savory immigrant history only
New York could embrace. Katz’s
began in 1888 as a small deli named Iceland
Brothers on the Lower East Side, then the
principal neighborhood for immigrant Jews
from eastern Europe. In 1903 Willy Katz
joined the store, along with Harry Tarowsky,
and the name was officially changed to
"Iceland & Katz.” Then, when Willy’s
cousin Benny joined him in 1910, they bought
out the brothers and it became just Katz’s
Delicatessen and moved across the street in
April 1917. At
first Katz’s clientele was mostly local Jews,
although it was never a kosher deli, including
performers from the Yiddish theater, and the
National Theater on Houston Street. You’ll
still find their photos on the walls. By the
‘30s Katz’s was attracting the show biz crowd
from uptown (many of whom had once lived
downtown).During World War II, with three owners’
sons in the service, Katz’s began thetradition
of sending food to themunder
the (now trademarked) banner, “Send A Salami
To Your Boy In The Army.” Later on, when Willy and Benny Katzpassed
away, the store was left to Benny's son-in-law
Artie Maxstein and Harry's son
Izzy Tarowsky. A new generation found that
they had no relatives to whom they could give
the store, so long-time friend and
restaurateur Martin Dell, along with son Alan
and son-in-law Fred Austin, officially bought
into the partnership in 1988 on the 100th
anniversary of the store. Alan’s son Jake (below)
officially joined the store in late 2009 and
is currently in charge of all major
operations. Given its history as a true New York
icon, it’s no wonder so many filmmakers have
dragged their cameras into Katz’s for a scene
that immediately establishes a connection to
old New York food culture. The deli was in Contract
on Cherry Street (1977), Donny
Brasco (1997), Across
the Universe (2007), We Own
the Night (2007), Enchanted
(2002), even a French film, Nous York
(2012). Things move swiftly along the counter
line at Katz’s, with a staff of 140
making it run. That counter goes through
30,000 pounds of meat each week, and the prep
process hasn’t changed: "Our
corned beef and pastrami is cured using a
slower method, which best flavors the meat,
without injecting chemicals, water, or other
additives to speed the process. Our finished
product can take up to a full 30 days to cure,
while commercially prepared corned beef is
often pressure-injected (or “pumped”) to cure
in 36 hours. Yep, you read that right. 30 days
vs. 36 hours." What
to order? Anything, but the pastrami and
corned beef are requisite to get the unique
flavor of what Katz’s does better than any
other deli in town. Alas, part of that is a
result of the attrition among delis, which
once proliferated, many strict Glatt kosher,
with strict rules of never serving meat with
dairy. Those were called “appetizing” stores.
Few were as big or so devoted to sandwiches as
Katz’s; most were small and served lox, smoked
fish, bagels and pastries. A few notable names still exist: the
2nd Avenue Deli, Sarge’s and Barney Greengrass
in Manhattan, Frankel’s in Brooklyn and
Liebman’s in the Bronx. To one degree or
another, they all do many items well. But only
Katz’s, which has had well more than a century
to first perfect, then to maintain, great
deli, has every flavor down pat. All the delis are now expensive, but,
as every aficionado knows, you’re going to
bring at least half a sandwich home for
another meal.
Oh, and
Katz’s is likely to be there whenever you go.
They own the building.
Katz’s
205 East
Houston Street
212-254-2246
❖❖❖
ANOTHER VERMEER
By John Mariani
To read previous
chapters of ANOTHER VERMEER, go to thearchive
CHAPTER
FORTY-SIX
David called Kiley, telling him
briefly about their kidnapping and asking what
was new about the Shui case.“Jesus, I’m glad you two are okay. Shui
is a criminal of the first rank, David.Chin’s
been yakking his head off, with counsel, of
course, trying to make as good a deal as he can
with the feds, who have pretty much taken over
that part of the case. We’ve been in charge of
having the Taiwan police and our Interpol guys
over there arrest Shui.” “You got him?” “Not yet, but soon. While you were off on
your pleasure cruise, the cops had a warrant for
his arrest. Turns out that when his thugs, who
I’m sure were local mobsters, didn’t come back
that night, he figured things would move fast
against him. He left his office on Tuesday, and
the cops have been tracking him down since then.
He can’t get out of the country, so it’s just a
matter of time before they nab him.” “Has the news about Chin and Lauden hit
the newspapers?” “Yeah, the Times
and Wall
Street Journal had stories, fairly basic
facts, about Chin and his connection to Shui.
The Journal
will follow up with more as an international
business story.” “So, did the newspapers make the link of
Shui to the Vermeer auction?” “Chin said he didn’t know anything about
that. He was just a hired gun. Shui never told
him why he wanted Lauden out of the way. The
less Chin knew, the better.” “Anything about Correia?” “Not yet. But our sources say Stepanossky
is recovering nicely and he’s gonna find out
about Shui soon enough, and I wonder what that
will ignite. Nothing new on Dorenbosch or
Danielides.” “Well, Gerry, I may have you or the feds
make another arrest tomorrow.” “Who’s that?” “John Coleman, editor of Art Today.” “How’s he
involved?” “Well, for one thing, he warned Shui that
Katie and I were convinced Shui was behind the
criminal activity. What we don’t know yet is if
he had any inkling of that before we flew to
Taiwan. I don’t think he’s an accomplice in any
of the attempted murders, but he’s in deep shit
just being associated with Shui.” “You think we should pick him up?” “I’d appreciate it if you don’t do that
for a day or two. Coleman probably doesn’t know
Shui wanted to murder us, and Katie will have
some choice words for him. Me, I’m going to
break his neck, if Katie lets me.” “Hey, it’s my bedtime, David. I’ll sleep
on it and we’ll talk tomorrow.And,
David, I’m really very
happy to hear you and Katie are okay. I’d hate
to have to drag Taiwan Strait to find you.” “Glad we—or at least the Hong Kong
police—saved you the trouble.So,
get a good night’s sleep, Gerry.” “What time is it there?” “About 10:30 in the morning.” “Okay. Hey, David, if you need a new
suit, I know a tailor in Hong Kong who’ll whip
one up for you cheap in two days.” David thought that’s the last thing he’d
be doing in Hong Kong, until he realized that
all his and Katie’s clothes were still back at
the Grand Hotel in Taipei. “Not a bad idea,” said David. “Gimme the
guy’s name and address,” thinking Katie was
going to have to do some serious shopping, too. Katie waited for David to fill her in on
the news before calling Dobell, knowing he’d
still be in the office closing the next issue of
the magazine. When she did reach him, she said,
“Alan, you’re going to be so
happy with this article.” “What happened?” asked her editor. “David and I almost got tossed into the
Taiwan Strait wearing handcuffs and sandbags on
our ankles.” “What the hell are you talking about?” “I’ll call you with the details tomorrow,
but for now I’ll just say that our dear Mr. Shui
tried to have us killed, by drowning.” “Well, goddamn it, Katie, this is
going to be a great story!”
Michael
Curren’s home was indeed spacious and
beautifully decorated in an amalgam of Chinese,
American and personal styles, and the guest
rooms were extremely comfortable in a familiar
way Katie and David were craving. Mrs. Elizabeth
Curren was gracious in the way that diplomats’
spouses enjoyed their roles. “Consider this your home,” she told Katie
and David. “Whatever you need, just ask. I’ve
provided you with some casual clothes—I had to
guess at your sizes—and I’m happy to go with you
to buy some new ones. “We have a kitchen staff who loves
nothing better than making our guests happy, but
feel free to putter around in the kitchen, if
you like.Robert’s
always out of the house by six a.m., but there’s
no reason for you to wake up when we do.” Katie asked Curren if it was all right
for her and David to visit Hong Kong at their
leisure. “I assume we’ll be safe from any
repercussions from the kidnapping,” she added. “Oh, Hong Kong is a very safe city,” said
Curren, “and they love Americans. I can’t
imagine Shui has any roaming assassins over
here.From
what I hear, he’s trying to keep completely out
of sight. They should pick him up soon though.” Mrs. Curren gave her guests tourist info
on what to visit in the city as well as a list
of her favorite restaurants, which included a
few American, Italian and French selections—“in
case you get tired of going out for Chinese.” Having gathered her thoughts and calmed
herself, Katie was ready to call John Coleman,
hoping to get him at home.As
soon as he picked up the phone, before he had a
chance to say hello, Katie ripped into her old
friend. “It’s Katie, John. Surprised I’m still
alive, you little shit?” Coleman stammered, “Katie, you’re okay?
Oh, thank God. When I didn’t hear from you, I
got worried.” “You got worried? So you’re saying you
didn’t know that your friend Shui tried to have
us murdered—twice?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Really?You send David and me to interview Shui,
knowing the guy has already tried to kill a lot
of other people?” “Katie, I didn’t know that until you told
me before you left. You said Lauden and
Stepanossky were targets. Who else?” “Maybe every person on the list of seven,
the one I gave you and no one else but Interpol
had. How is it that Shui was targeting those
people?” “Come on, Katie, Shui would know the
biggest players among his billionaire friends.
If he wanted to get to them, he didn’t need the
list.” “Hold on, John. You told me that your
arrangement with Shui was just to fly over and
interview him and get his side of the story,
right?” “Right.” “But when you wrote the profiles of
everyone else on the list you were really rough
on them and their backgrounds, but Shui got off
easy.” “I mentioned his shadowy past.” “Barely,” Katie replied. “And then, after
you hooked us up with Shui and I told you about
our suspicions about him, you called him and
warned him we were going to try to really dig
into what he was doing.” “Who told you that?” “Shui did, John, just before he had his
thugs take us away to be drowned at sea.” Katie
heard Coleman gasp. “And that was after he tried
to gas us to death in a hotel room he planned
for us to stay in, but we had already moved to
another room. So, two other Americans died
instead of us.” Coleman was stammering, saying, “Oh My
God, Katie, you’ve . . . you’ve . . . got to
believe I had no knowledge, not an inkling, of
what happened to you. I swear to God, Katie.” “Maybe you didn’t, John, but you telling
Shui we were coming after him caused him to set
our murders in operation by the time we were on
the flight over.Had you not told him what you did, we
might have gotten away with just a no-comment
interview. Instead we were almost murdered by
the bastard.” Coleman just kept repeating “Oh, my God,
oh, my God,” feeling totally bewildered by
finding out only the barest details of Katie and
David’s close call.“Katie,
what can I say? I’m so, so sorry.” “Just tell me what did
happen with you and Shui. The whole thing.” Coleman couldn’t think fast enough. It
hadn’t yet hit him that he was an accessory to
at least four attempted murders. So, instead of
shutting up, he began telling Katie everything,
maybe hoping she would understand he had nothing
to do with the crimes. “All right,” he said, “here’s what
happened. You remember that Art Today
was the first to break this whole Vermeer story,
right?” “Yes, you said a woman was calling you
with the information.” “At first it was, but she was one of
Shui’s representatives.” “You never spoke to Shui?” “I did, a little later, and he said he’d
do anything to get the Vermeer. I never in a
million years thought he meant he was willing to
murder anyone. He told me he’d pay me very well
if I helped him get the news out about the
Vermeer and then, when I got the list of his
competitors from you, he said he wanted me to
write highly negative profiles of them all.” “All except him.” “Yeah, all except him.I can
see now that he was getting me and Art Today
to sully the others’ reputations so that they
would drop out of the auction, rather than face
further press coverage of their past and present
dealings.” “Even though they would probably be
bidding secretly, through other people or by
phone?” “I don’t know, but maybe Shui figured who
would and would not attempt to bid on the
painting.” “And the ones he thought most likely
to—Saito, Lauden, and Stepanossky—needed to be
eliminated.” “I don’t know about Saito,” said Coleman.
“He died before I had the list. I assumed it was
just natural causes.” “Helped along with a little arsenic. So,
what else did Shui tell you when you flew to
Taipei?” “Just that he appreciated what I’d been
doing on his behalf and—” “And what, John?” “And that he had set up a bank account
for me with the International Bank of Taipei
that I could draw money from without anyone
tracing it.” “And just how much blood money was
there?” “Oh, please, Katie. I didn’t know what
was going on. The money was beyond what I make
in a year at the magazine. It was a chance for
me to get out of the business and start fresh at
something. ” “Well, I can guarantee you, John, when
this all spills out, you will be
out of the business forever and your next job
may be sorting laundry in a federal prison.
That’s if David doesn’t drown you in the Hudson
River first. You better save your money for a
good criminal lawyer.” Katie slammed
down the phone and said, “Shit!
Shit shit shit!”
KNOWN FOR ITS
SIGNATURE PINOT NOIRS,
BOUCHAINE HAS A LOT MORE TO OFFER
By John Mariani
Many
Napa Valley wineries can
claim a long history, despite successive
ownership, and Bouchaine lays claim to being the
oldest continuously operating winery in Carneros,
at the southern tip of Napa Valley.
In the late 1880s, a Missouri-born settler named
Boon Fly planted grapes and fruit trees on the
property, then in 1927 an Italian winemaker named
Johnny Garetto bought the land and farmed it until
1961, when he sold to Beringer, which used it as a
storage facility until purchased in 1981, along
with other acreage, by Gerret and Tatiana
Copeland, who built it into a leading label, now
with 100 acres. Recently
Bouchaine installed
Cisco Industrial Asset Vision sensor technology to
be more precise not just in its water use but in all
its growing decisions. The result, for those
visiting the winery, is an opportunity to experience
a “Taste of Technology” that looks at the winery’s
farming practices and technology. The winery also
offers “Wine and Cheese: The Perfect Match” on
Saturdays at 11 a.m.
Bouchaine is well regarded for its Pinot Noirs,
which are balanced and terroir-based, and their new
Single Clone bottlings (Dijon, Swan, Pommard and
Calera) are singular examples. As Gerrett Copeland
puts it, “I have always adored
the softness, roundness and the fleshiness of a great
Pinot Noir. It is a wine of unique charms. In my
family, wine was not part of our lifestyle—it was in
our blood!”But
Bouchaine
is doing a wide range of varietals, including Pinot Noir,
Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Gris, Pinot Meunier,
Syrah, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, most of
them sold at the winery. To find out what Bouchaine is doing now and for
the future, I had dinner in New York with winemaker
Chris Kajani.
What was your
background before joining Bouchaine? What did you
bring to Bouchaine?
I
worked in biotech after graduating from UC Davis.A kismet
meeting with a winemaker at a friend’s dinner party
led me to look into UC Davis again for a Master’s in
Viticulture and Enology.My first
winemaking position was with Pahlmeyer.Lucky for
me it was the first year they made Pinot Noir.Once I
stuck my nose in those tanks, I was hooked and knew
what my focus would be. After two vintages, I moved
over to Saintsbury and began to fully focus on
Burgundian varieties (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay).With nine
vintages at Saintsbury under my belt, and a deep
knowledge of all things Carneros, I came to
Bouchaine ready to not only oversee winemaking but
also take on the role of GM.
Photo: Brandon McGanty
What evolution has
taken place since you came aboard?
I was given
the opportunity to push our viticulture to a higher
level and replant parts of our vineyard, upgrade the
winery and equipment, gain county approval and build
a new hospitality center—and craft an awesome team
to help get it all done!
Bouchaine
makes more than 20 wines, but your single-clone
Pinot Noirs are your stars. Tell me about the new
line.
Pinot
Noir clones are like roses, there are almost
unlimited characteristics. We bottle a Swan Clone
which is graceful, perfumed, and showcases fresh red
fruits.Contrast
that with our Pommard bottling, which has an almost
creamy texture and is driven by plum and mocha
notes. Then the Dijon bottling goes to the dark
side, briar and spice with incredible density and
layers.
Your
Pinot Noirs avoid the huge, overripe style of so
many California Pinots. Why and how is that
achieved?
Our
estate in Carneros overlooks the bay to San
Francisco; we are only 35 miles north.The wind,
fog, and maritime influence off the bay keeps
Carneros cool during the heat of the summer. This
allows for long, even ripening and bright acidity in
our grapes.
You
said that at Pahlmeyer, where you worked, you went
for a massive style by design. How was that
achieved?
Jason
Pahlmeyer was a big personality and he wanted to
make big wines to match that.We picked
riper and focused on additional pump overs and
warmer fermentations to increase extractions.
What
percentage of your wines are sold at the winery
and tasting rooms?
We
sell about 80% of our wines from the tasting rooms.
In
how many states are your wines available?
Twenty-five.
Are
they sold through a wine club?
Absolutely,
we
love our club.
Are
higher alcohol levels inevitable?
I’m
lucky to be making wine in Carneros, where I drive
into a fog layer almost daily.This is a
wonderfully cool site.To answer your question, heat certainly
increases sugar levels in grapes and these sugars
are converted to alcohol.However,
you can chose to pick earlier at a lower sugar
level, resulting in lower alcohol.We also
see more shade cloth being used and vine canopies
with less leaf removal, both of which decrease sun
exposure on the grape, allowing for slower ripening
and less raisins.
What
isCisco
Industrial Asset Vision sensor technology? What is
“Wine and Cheese: The Perfect Match.”
We
began a wonderful relationship with Cisco during the
shutdown by holding virtual tastings with their
customers and employees.When they
were releasing this new sensor technology, they
asked if they could use our vineyard as a living
lab.So
we now have Cisco sensors throughout the vineyard,
giving us access to temperature, humidity, wind
speed, soil moisture and additional data that allows
us to dial in farming techniques and water use.As
California is in a perpetual drought, mitigating
water use is a big focus for us. And a stressed vine
makes better wine. So keeping vine water stress
within certain levels is a good thing.
You seem to be
showcasing Riesling more from yourLas Brisas
Vineyard. Why?
We
love Riesling.We love it so much that not only have we
worked with Las Brisas Vineyard for over a decade,
we also planted Riesling on our estate in 2017.It’s a
wonderfully intriguing variety and pairs so well
with food.Our
obsession with Riesling is just getting started.We now
have it in tank, barrel, and even clay amphorae in
our cellar.
❖❖❖
FURTHER SIGNS OF
THE DECLINE OF
WESTERN CIVILIZATION
French dairy
makers are outraged by reports that Brussels wants to
force all food shops in the European Union to adopt
the voluntary French scheme that labels each item with
a color code determined by an algorithm that assesses
calories, fat, sugar and salt. According to the London
Times: "Traditionalists fear that consumers will
shun authentic French cheeses because they receive red
or orange codes, which imply that they are less
nutritious than chicken nuggets, on light green,
frozen pizza and vanilla ice cream on yellow, or
McCain’s oven chips, which have the best possible
dark green rating."
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
The Hound in Heaven
(21st Century Lion Books) is a novella, and
for anyone who loves dogs, Christmas, romance,
inspiration, even the supernatural, I hope you'll find
this to be a treasured favorite. The story
concerns how, after a New England teacher, his wife and
their two daughters adopt a stray puppy found in their
barn in northern Maine, their lives seem full of promise.
But when tragedy strikes, their wonderful dog Lazarus and
the spirit of Christmas are the only things that may bring
his master back from the edge of despair.
“What a huge surprise turn this story took! I was
completely stunned! I truly enjoyed this book and its
message.” – Actress Ali MacGraw
“He had me at Page One. The amount of heart, human insight,
soul searching, and deft literary strength that John Mariani
pours into this airtight novella is vertigo-inducing.
Perhaps ‘wow’ would be the best comment.” – James
Dalessandro, author of Bohemian
Heart and 1906.
“John Mariani’s Hound in
Heaven starts with a well-painted portrayal of an
American family, along with the requisite dog. A surprise
event flips the action of the novel and captures us for a
voyage leading to a hopeful and heart-warming message. A
page turning, one sitting read, it’s the perfect antidote
for the winter and promotion of holiday celebration.” – Ann
Pearlman, author of The
Christmas Cookie Club and A Gift for my Sister.
“John Mariani’s concise, achingly beautiful novella pulls a
literary rabbit out of a hat – a mash-up of the cosmic and
the intimate, the tragic and the heart-warming – a Christmas
tale for all ages, and all faiths. Read it to your children,
read it to yourself… but read it. Early and often. Highly
recommended.” – Jay Bonansinga, New York Times bestselling
author of Pinkerton’s War,
The Sinking of The Eastland, and The Walking Dead: The Road To
Woodbury.
“Amazing things happen when you open your heart to an
animal. The Hound in
Heaven delivers a powerful story of healing that
is forged in the spiritual relationship between a man and
his best friend. The book brings a message of hope that can
enrich our images of family, love, and loss.” – Dr. Barbara
Royal, author of The
Royal Treatment.
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, The Modern, and Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to two 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."
Eating Las
Vegas
John Curtas has
been covering the Las Vegas food scene since
1995. He is the author of EATING LAS
VEGAS - The 52 Essential Restaurants,
and his website can be found atwww.EatingLV.com. You can find him
on Instagram: @johncurtas and Twitter:
@eatinglasvegas.
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher
Mariani, Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish.
Contributing
Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical
Advisor: Gerry
McLoughlin.