Is Corkscrew a Yoga Pose?

(Above: My new favorite corkscrew.)
I spent most of last week in the Napa Valley at the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers, to which I’d won a fellowship. The symposium takes place at Meadowood and the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone (CIA) campus, and like other retreats of its kind, it’s an opportunity to step out [...]

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Ninja Saturday

A little Dr. McNinja ass-whoopin’ for Saturday…
The Doc’s on a CIA plane bound for a forbidden island to save the world. The plane’s been attacked, his CIA contact hurled from the gaping hole and the mysterious assailant — dubbed a robot by the CIA agent — has boarded the plane…
Go here to start from the [...]

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Sustainable Seafood, Hipster Street Food & More

Faced with a lack of creativity or inspiration at the moment, I’ve decided to do what blogland does best and link to stuff by other people! I know, hardly original, but whatever.
Iwashi – Best Choice Sushi
Last week, Peter Liem mentioned the release of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s new guide to sushi from its Seafood Watch [...]

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Bumper Sticker Brunello

The other day a colleague of mine expressed his surprise to me when I mentioned that there had been, and continues to be, a scandal of sorts in Montalcino. I meant to get back to him on the subject but owing to the most current and vicious deadline of our publishing cycle, I totally forgot. [...]

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Does Terroir Matter?

(Above: I image googled ‘terroir’ and got this abstract painting* back as a result)
A challenging question apparently, and while I would answer in the affirmative, that yes it does, there are people out there who might disagree. And that’s fine.
But I did drink a syrah the other night that had me wondering for a moment, [...]

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Bubbles & Boom

So I had a delicious Cava last week, the German Gilabert Cava Brut Nature, which I picked up at my neighborhood shop on the way over to a friend’s place for dinner. Prosecco is usually my inexpensive bubbly of choice but for some reason I went for the Cava instead. Maybe it was the geeky [...]

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Biodynamics and Classic Japanese Cars

I couldn’t resist that title, sorry.
Maybe it’s because I grew up in the southern Californian auto business, but I’ve always had a place in my heart for classic Japanese cars. I even drive one, the 1976 Datsun 280 ZX seen below pulled off to side of highway 128 in Anderson Valley.

Anyway, the New York Times [...]

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Bad California Pizza, Killer LA Taco Trucks and Parasite Wine Writers

(Above: The Golden Gate Bridge and entrance to San Francisco Bay as seen from the Marin Headlands.)
I snapped this picture about a year ago during a long ride on a day much like this past Saturday–no big container ships this time, although my friend and I did see a beautifully restored B-17 Flying Fortress soaring [...]

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Rocks, Rain & Coltrane

Rain, water and cooking oil
Greetings from soggy San Francisco! While the recent storms wreaked havoc on the roadways and knocked out power to thousands, the good news is that rainfall levels (and the Sierra snowpack) are somewhat near normal. So, we have temporary reprieve from drought; although that’s no excuse for extended Hollywood showers, [...]

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Friday Linkfest: Greetings From Kinkyland!

Haven’t done a linkfest in a while (see previous post for my excuse), so this one’s over due. But I am managing to get it together on a Friday! And I haven’t been drinking either! So, on we go…

Naming Game
We here at the W&S west coast hq often amuse ourselves by looking out the window [...]

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