Food, Wine, Good (and Evil) Spirits

Though I love wine, I don’t own much wine paraphernalia. Good glassware and a sturdy corkscrew is pretty much all anybody needs. Carafes are nice for entertaining. Aerators a possible necessity if you’re drinking a lot of young red wine, but I generally spend my wine dollars on wine. We have a fairly large cellar and once people find out how many bottles we have - enough to survive a year without buying more, not so much we couldn’t drink it in our lifetime - the first question is always “how much do you drink?” Let’s just say there are two of us, usually one bottle a day…you can do the math.

Leftover wine is rarely an issue in our house. Yet not everyone has a nightly wine buddy and some people just like to have a glass with dinner. Others like to try several different ones at a time. How do you make sure the wine stays as fresh as possible? Once you pull that cork oxygen begins it’s hack job trying to turn your luscious vino into vinegar. I’ve found the “re-cork it and refrigerate it” method works pretty well with most red wine, since - except for very old ones. Most reds could use a little opening up and many are better the next day doing this. However, if you’re not going to get to the wine for a few days you’re really taking a gamble. Especially if you really LOVED it the first night. (Our advice when that happens - drink it all. Seriously.) When it comes to white wines or rose, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be disappointed the next day if you don’t take some precaution against oxidation other than refrigeration.

When I got the chance to try the Savino, I figured why not give it a spin?

I’m sure there are stranger routes that land you on a tour of a winery surrounded by the beauty and quirky history of Santa Clarita, but you wouldn’t think a rare breed of dog (and a college application) would be one of them. I take my dog, who is a white Portuguese water dog, to a play group (don’t judge me) in Pacific Palisades. Jill Miller, a breeder of Rottweiler’s and the lady who surrenders her back yard to be mangled by at least 9 puppies every Saturday happened to mention one day that she knew someone else who had owned my rare breed of dog. At that same time, our daughter Hannah and I recently toured Chapman University and had fallen in love with it. Turns out, that same owner of our rare breed of dog, Barry Goldfarb, also had a daughter who had gone to Chapman and he stayed very involved with the school. Jill insisted we meet.

I dragged my heels for a while, but finally, at Jill’s assurance that Barry was a ‘cool guy’, I called...

He invited Hannah and me to his house. My first thought upon seeing him was: jock. I only mention this because it’s the last thing you expect a vintner to look like, but that was his business. After we talked and he showed me and Hannah his amazing collection of antique slot machines, he was gracious enough to offer my husband Chad and me, along with Amy Ephron and her husband Alan Rader, a tour of his winery, the Agua Dulce Winery.

It was important that Chad and Amy and Alan come. I needed them to come. Not only do I know nothing about wine. I don’t drink. A lifelong teetotaler, if it didn’t taste like Delaware Punch, I was out.

I haven't met an herb I didn't like. Right now in my garden have more than a dozen varieties of herbs growing. I have different uses for all of them. Some I love to use when roasting meats or vegetables, like rosemary and sage. I put parsley and mint in my salads. I also use mint in my teas. I use cilantro in guacamole, which I make almost every week. And of course I have a bush of basil for when it comes time to make homemade tomato sauce.

This year I've tried growing Greek basil and Thai basil with great success. My stir-frys and Thai curries are so much better with the addition of Thai basil, which has an anise-like flavor. For years I've been growing lovage, a perennial herb that grows four feet tall every year. Its flavor is a lot like parsley and celery combined, and its tall stalks look much like celery except that they are hollow like bamboo. You might have come across lovage used in a Bloody Mary but not have known what it was. The stalks make very nice straws.

I'm a tea drinker and I love experimenting with it as an ingredient. I make hot chocolate with tea and use tea to smoke chicken. But I have to admit, I only heard the term cambric to describe tea made with milk, such as chai, at an event recently at the T-We Tea Shop hosted by the California Milk Processor Board. It's an old fashioned term for a combination of tea, milk and sugar often served to children. But that doesn't mean you can't make it into something enticing for adults.

The certified tea specialist and proprietor Christopher Coccagna made a number of wonderful drinks for Winter with tea and milk. Some of the drinks had alcohol in them and others didn't. Some used herbal teas and some used black teas. Some will definitely perk you up while others are perfect as a relaxing nightcap. There's really something for everyone, even kids and teetotalers. Check out the recipes for all kinds of luscious tea and milk drinks including Vanilla Mint Cambric, Lavender London Fog Latte and White Russian Caravan at GotMilk.