Hello blog! Nice to see you again. SO MUCH to mingle about. (be prepared for a novel!)
Firstly, let me get my weekly confession out of the way and admit that my "no wheat" diet is more like a "less wheat" diet, but I'm hanging on! I did break down and have a faaaabuous fatty bowl of Kashi Autumn Harvest shredded wheat the other day because it is my favorite cereal, and the only one I will eat (go figure the ONE cereal I love is stripped from me like a loose dollar at the Spearmint Rhino) but I'm learning to manage; even if bitterly. I did try the quinoa pasta and it was surprisingly really good! Rob ate it too with no fuss so that says somethin for it! OK, enough diet talk! Let us move on....
I have to tell you (all) about today's events becaaaause... I think you will be interested! (slightly anyway). Where to start.. I guess we'll jump to the part where Rob, Milana, and I picked up my Mom from the Alisal where she lives/works and headed to Dos Carlitos for a faaaabulous early dinner and margariiitas! Let me say that NO ONE can do ceviche like Los Peruanos (The Peruvians). That said, for the USof A, Dos Carlitos makes a meeean Fresh Halibut ceviche tosatada with gorgeous guacamole, tart limes, juicy tomatoes, and shredded greens that is too tasty for this Senora to pass up! I've only been there twice and have ordered it both times. The margaritas... let's not play around here folks. If you want a true margarita without the sugary bullshit (pardon a moi), this.is.your.margarita. It's what every margarita strives to be, but so many fail to become. It's fresh. It's clean. You get the sweet tartness of the lime, then the warmth of the smooth tequila, it dances on your tongue and then...it does what it should do. It goes down smoothly. You get happy. Life is where it is supposed to be.
Why such fuss over a silly cocktail? Because, if you have had the vast assortment of disappointing slurpee's calling themselves margaritas that I have, you would understand.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/dos-carlitos-santa-ynez
Moving along shall we?
So after I was mellowed out from a lovely dinner/lunch (dinunch? luninner? whatever) we headed to good old Los Olivos for some wine and olive oil tasting at Scott Cellars and Global Gardens. We had originally planned to only swing by Scott Cellars to get a corked bottle of 06' Syrah replaced, but he is so dang wonderfully inviting that he suckered us in for a tasting on the house and a full lecture on wine making. If you have not been to Scott Cellars, please go. The wine is great and if you have ever been treated like crap or ignored at a tasting room, he will more than make up for it with his endless talks of yeast, fermentation, terrior, blending, and aging. Really a nice (albeit long winded) person with plenty of wine knowledge to share. If only I could get Wes Hagan of Clos Pepe on a roll like that with me sometime I'd be thrilled!
http://www.scottcellars.com/
http://www.clospepe.com/
Wes's blog:
http://www.winemakermag.com/blogs/another-year-in-the-vineyard-wine-blog-by-wes-hagen-week-17-diversity-and-darwin.html
After our wine lesson for the day we moseyed across the street to the Wilderness Art Gallery which was new for me. They had an exhibit of Lundgren's on display, but since I am not qualified enough to make comments on art other than to say what I think is pretty, I'll leave it at that (and no Mom, a semester in Italy studying art history does not count, that just means I can tell you what sfumato is and who Giotto was). I was more excited about the olive oil tasting anyway because I was ready to go mingle about the olives! Just so happens that my Mom's best friend works there, so we got free olive oil tastings and saved ourselves the whole $3 tasting fee (not complaining).
Rob and I were both pleasantly surprised as we walked around the shop, no bigger than our daughter's nursery, and found plenty for our eyes and nose to feast on. Is that toasting walnuts I smell from the back? Wait... am I getting a whiff of that lavender sachet over there? Oh yes, the nose was tingling, the eyes were happy, now time to taste. Wow, thank you Debbie for a wonderful time learning so much about the oil I adore most and use almost exclusively (along with walnut oil).
Listen people: Olives are interesting. Damn interesting! I never realized that olive oil was blended like wine with different varietals to make the perfect cuvee. This Greek woman who owns the shop has done a fantastic job with her line of local olive oils and infused vinegars. Everything we tasted was so unique and different that about 6 bottles of vinegars and oils went home with us. I am excited to try them out in the culinary adventureland that is my kitchen. I'll report back to you here with any new findings.
We drove away en route to Solvang to hit up New Frontier's Market for some organic beauty products and shampoos and remembered that it was Concert on the Green Thursday. Now, many times this is overlooked by me due to the old farty-ness of many of the bands playing and lack of anything new and fresh. I mean, how many times can you hear the same covers done in bad pitch? Well, I got a smack in my snotty face tonight from a band I totally dug called Champange Sunday. They were fun, energetic, very quirky, had great tunes and vibe, and were an overall pleasant surprise. There were a few old peeps around me that weren't too impressed, but hey, they get the green every other damn weekend! Let us non-golden-agers have a chance at enjoying some tunes too!
I did take some cell phone videos, but if I posted them, you would a) get dizzy from my lack of stabilization on a plastic table, and b) think that they sounded like bumblebees and pots clanging. Not what they want people to hear. Instead, I'll just post their link and reccomend you check out their cd called North with songs like Fallin, Long Day, So Inclined, and Bonsai Kitty, and a few songs on the newer album, Random Acts of Blindness, like Blue Skies. Some of the vocals are off here and there, but for an original band with original songwriting, I was more than happy to check them out and enjoy a great evening with them on the green.
http://www.champagnesunday.com/
After leaving Solvang we had a teething melt-down that caused the planets to fall out of orbit, but since that is the stuff that brings us all back to reality, I won't take you down that path. It was one hellava night getting someone to bed though. Ugh. I'll take UCSB finals week over that any day.
OH! Guess what! My (our) 8 year anniversary is coming up soon! I am surprising my hubby with 2 bottles of the Malbec he fell in love with while we were travelling in Argentina in 08'. I believe it was the chicken nacho night in San Telmo that we stumbled upon this baby called Alma Negra. No No, it wasn't! But I have to tell you about this night anyway! Have you ever had a memory so perfect, so divine, that anything it touches turns to gold? That is our San Telmo night and later our D'Oro night in Buenos Aires.
After getting lost on the back cobblestone streets of Buenos Aires, searching for the dinner and tango show place I had made reservations for, we finally found it after closing our eyes, listening for the music, and hoping for the best. We find the place which had the FULL drama going on with draped red velvet curtains, girls in dresses that should be called laces, and guys with the slick back dark hair and suits that belong in a film noir. It screamed seedy sexy. This was no high class tango show, no we found the back alley tango show that was
absolute perfection. Fast forward to the after party. We are officially toasted, tipping waaaay too much for our bank account's comfort, and ready to party like rockstars. We mosey down the cobbled way and come accross hoards of other people in the same rockstar boat. We sit down at a random place that I WISH I could remember the name of because the meal that is to follow is never to be repeated in it's wonderment. It was the chicken nachos and Guinness beer combo that just about took me towards the white light. Ya, I was toasty I admit that, but people I kid you not when I tell you of this heavenly delight. As told to my girlfriends by me today "if the sun and a black hole were to make a love child, only the flash from that event could be as spectacular as the combo of those chicken nachos and Guinness."
Wait, what does this have to do with Alma Negra Malbec you ask? Absolutely nothing, I was caught in a memory. Sorry. No, Alma Negra comes in along with a fantastic bottle called El Felino Malbec from a night in Buenos Aires on Peru St. It was at a restaurant called D'Oro that we closed down with the owners. I have never had an Italian dining experience so good, and let me remind you... I lived in Italy for 4 months. How the Italian immigrants to Argentina perfected Italy's cuisine I'll never know, but they did. This isn't to say that I didn't have fantastic food in Italy (don't get your panties in a bunch Ital-o-philes), I absolutely did, one of our favorite restaurants in the world is located there called I Tari in Amalfi, but THIS, this was a whole different take on it. With frutti di mare that sang hymns when you bit into it, and un'insalata that did not understand the word salad, it wasn't just the food, it was the whole experience. While the malbec flowed and the sweet waiter chatted, my hubby and I were treated to an Andrea Bocelli concert on a giant projector screen that the WHOLE restaurant sang along to, including the chefs who made cooking look like a tango itself with all the sexiness and fire a tango commands right there in front of the tables. After every guest had left except Rob and I, the owner/chef came over brought us some left over deserts, and invited us to their Italian festival the next weekend. You can imagine my disappointment in the fact that Rob was leaving that day and I was to leave the next. Broke my heart. We had had a perfect night together with perfect food and ambiance, but all perfect things must come to an end, so this was our final taste of D'Oro.
You know, it has never been the $250 bottle of Peju Cab or the $100 bottle of Pinot Noir that are featured in the memories my husband and I cherish most. It is always the bottle that lends itself to our experience rather than tries to be the experience. If you buy a bottle of the Malbec I suggested, it may not be something you are interested in, but for us, it brings us right back to the spot where a restaurant serenaded us, and an accordian at a tango show took us to another time. This is why I love wine.
Ciao for now
Listen people: Olives are interesting. Damn interesting! I never realized that olive oil was blended like wine with different varietals to make the perfect cuvee. This Greek woman who owns the shop has done a fantastic job with her line of local olive oils and infused vinegars. Everything we tasted was so unique and different that about 6 bottles of vinegars and oils went home with us. I am excited to try them out in the culinary adventureland that is my kitchen. I'll report back to you here with any new findings.
If you are wondering why I take on this masochistic venture, ask my Mother. According to her and her hippy friend's books/doctor, wheat is an enemy to my digestive system and blood type (type 0). This sounds insane, but after reading a bit of it I can see what it's saying. My digestive system hasn't evolved to handle wheat very well (along with a laundry list of other scrumptious favorites frequented in the American diet) and it causes problems when my body tries to break these things down. Thus it turns to a spare tire fitted lovingly around my middle and hangs there only to increase in size as I get older. Yay for me, such luck! 
