COPIA Center for Wine, Food & the Arts

So I celebrated my birthday (an unfortunately large, round number) at Copia in Napa, which is sort of a wine and food museum. You can read about it below. They showed us how to prepare a great meal in their cooking studio. Here's a picture of our salad. Here I am at the front of the classroom afterwards. The apple log is used to grow mushrooms.

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The North Bay and East Bay Chapters of the Haas Alumni Network invite you and your guest(s) to attend an exciting afternoon at COPIA in downtown Napa. Join your fellow alumni from the Bay Area and enjoy great wine, a three-course lunch, a cooking demonstration, and a presentation by our special guest, Haas alumnus Michaela Rodeno, CEO of St. Supéry Winery.

Saturday, October 18, 2008
12:30 PM to 2:30 PM
COPIA, the American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts (http://www.copia.org)
500 First Street, Napa, CA (707) 259-1600

Cost: $50 per person if registered on or before October 8, 2008
$60 per person if registered after October 8, 2008

Registration will be limited to the first 70 people. Tickets are going fast! Please register as soon as possible.

DESCRIPTION OF EVENT:

Haas at COPIA

The afternoon will begin at 12:30 PM with a 30-minute presentation by Michaela Rodeno, CEO of St. Supery Winery (http://www.saintsupery.com), who will discuss some hot issues in the premium wine business as you sip a glass of wine from her company's vineyards. Michaela is one of the leading women in the California wine industry. November 2008 marks her 20th anniversary with St. Supery, serving as the winery's first and only CEO. During her tenure, Michaela has carefully guided the winery onto the market and through a period of rapid growth. St. Supery's wines have earned critical acclaim and many awards for the winery. Prior to joining St. Supery, Michaela spent more than 15 years at Domaine Chandon, during which time she earned her M.B.A. at the Haas School of Business, in 1980.

Michaela's presentation will be followed by a special edition of the Taste of COPIA, where you can imagine yourself in a live cooking show studio, enjoying an interactive cooking demonstration, garden talk, and a three-course lunch paired with three varietals of wine.

If you'd like to stay after the event, you will have the opportunity to explore the COPIA facilities, which include 13,000 square feet of gallery space for exhibitions of art, culinary history and science, a rare-books library, three and one-half acres of landscaped organic edible gardens for hands-on learning about soils, farming and viticulture, and a museum gift shop, among many other attractions. (General admission is free.) And of course, you'll have the opportunity to purchase wine, food, wine and cooking accessories, books, DVDs and more, so have your credit cards available. You also don't want to miss the opportunity to check out the newly opened Oxbow Public Market adjacent to COPIA. The Market is a Napa version of the Ferry Building Marketplace in San Francisco.

Questions? Contact Jeannine Drew at jdrew@sonic.net.

Lotta Food This Weekend

On Thursday August 14, Marin Agricultural Land Trust. (MALT) had a tour of Hog Island Oyster and Straus Dairy. My brother was a guide. My friend John covered the event for the West Marin Citizen. Afterwards, we stopped by his farmhouse in Tomales for some oysters. Hint for oyster shucking: little pressure, lot of wiggle.

I've posted the tour description below in case they remove it.

HOG ISLAND OYSTER CO. & STRAUS DAIRY
Thursday, August 14

Join local oystermen for a tour of an oyster-growing operation. Taste oysters fresh from Tomales Bay while enjoying great views. Eat your own lunch or pre-order a made-in-Marin lunch from Tomales Bay Foods with your registration. Afterwards, carpool to the Straus Dairy where dairyman Albert Straus will talk about his organic dairy operation. Learn about the methane digester and other energy-producing and -conserving techniques used at the ranch. Watch the cows being milked in the dairy that was converted to organic in 1993.
TIME: 11 A.M–3 P.M.
WHERE TO MEET: Hog Island Oyster Co., 20215 Highway One, Marshall (10 miles north of Point Reyes Station). Carpool to dairy from there.
WHAT TO BRING: Water, picnic, shoes that can get dirty
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: Easy
COST: $30 / $35 non-members ( $20 additional to pre-order made-in-Marin lunch.)

On Friday my brother and I helped his friend Ray in Olema with some farm work in exchange for some superb tomatoes, plums and other goodies. On Saturday, I attended the West Coast BBQ Championship and Tomato Alley in Fairfield. My friend Donna is a Certified Kansas City Style BBQ Judge. The certification is fairly cheap and only one day. At competitions in CA, there are usually a dearth of judges, so they will also solicit non-certified people to help judge. It was quite an experience. I'm inspired to buy a professional smoker (saw a bunch in Donna's BBQ newspaper).

Day trips in West Marin

This Sunday, Aug 3, 2008, the NYT had an article about day trips around Pt. Reyes. That's my brother on the far left kayaking with Blue Waters Kayaking on Tomales Bay. The article is a good summary of things to do around Pt. Reyes. I've pasted it below.

A mere 40 miles north of San Francisco, Tomales Bay is a tranquil coastal estuary that stretches 12 miles along Highway 1. As you drive north, wetlands give way to sandy beaches and calm waters that open into Bodega Bay and the Pacific, perfect for kayak exploration. Rentals and tours are available from Blue Waters Kayaking in the towns of Marshall and Inverness (415-669-2600; www.bwkayak.com).

Wildlife abounds. There are herds of elk on Tomales Bay Point on the northwest side of the bay — part of Point Reyes National Seashore — while harbor seals frolic in the water or lounge on the sand.

Hog Island oysters are grown in Tomales Bay, and you can grill your own at the Farm, the Hog Island Oyster Company’s bayside picnic area (20215 Highway 1, Marshall; 415-663-9218; www.hogislandoysters.com). Nearby Point Reyes Station is home to the Cowgirl Creamery, specializing in organic artisanal cheeses. Among its award winners is Red Hawk, an aged triple-cream made with organic cow’s milk (80 Fourth Street, Point Reyes Station; 415-663-9335; www.cowgirlcreamery.com).

Ten miles north in Marshall, you’ll feel deliciously away from it all at Nick’s Cove, a string of 1930s-era cabins over the water, with an affiliated roadhouse by the San Francisco restaurateur Pat Kuleto (23240 Highway 1, Marshall; 866-636-4257; www.nickscove.com; from $225).Want to bed down even closer to nature? There are several campgrounds in the area, and a handful of permits are available each day for boat-in camping on the west-side beaches (415-663-8054; www.tomalesbay.net).

LA, Korea and Oaxaca

Was down in LA this weekend. A friend took us to Kobawoo House, a Korean place specializing in pork. Angelenos have fanatical opinions about their food, which you can read about on Yelp. Search the comments on Kobawoo for "b*itch" and "Fermat" for some enjoyable reading. We also tried various mole dishes at Monte Alban in Santa Monica. I picked up some Oaxacan drinking chocolate and Elotitos Xtreme candy (Elote is Mexican corn on the cob, usually with butter or mayo and chili sauce). The Juquilita drinking chocolate is in crumbly dry cylinders, which is typical of South American chocolate, but I was disappointed to find that this was pre-sweetened with sugar rather being pure cacao.

That candy sure looks spicy!

The Lazy Locavore

A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss
By KIM SEVERSON, The New York Times
Published: July 22, 2008
A new breed of business serves city dwellers who insist on eating food grown close to home but have no inclination to get their hands dirty.

Also check out The Palo Alto edible landscaping tour in August.

Absinthe, Alameda CA

Sat July 18, took a tour of St. George's Spirits, otherwise know as Hangar One with Amanda and Donna. They have a generous flight tasting of brandies and whiskeys for $10. You can also try the absinthe for $10, which I believe is the only absinthe made in the US as of this time. They don't serve the sugar cube or opium/laudanum though. That evening I also stopped by the Save the Yuba Salmon film festival.

July 4th: Kayaking for Oysters

Took my guests on a kayak trip Sunday afternoon/evening, July 4th weekend. Launched from my brother's house in Inverness across Tomales Bay (about 1 km) to Tomales Bay Oyster Farm and beached there. The ultimate West Marin local food adventure. We arrived 20 mins late and were two dollars short for a dozen smalls and a dozen extra-small oysters, but they sold them to us anyway. The ride back with the oysters was warm and flat/calm. I had never been a big fan of oysters until I had them shucked raw and fresh from the ocean. Very environmentally sustainable too.

#C4 Panch Phoron Plus One

ELEMENT SPICE COMPOUND #C4
Panch Phoron Plus One
Inspiration: Bengal

Panch Phoron (Bengali for five spice) is staple spice combination from Bengal. We add poppy seeds, another common ingredient in Bengali cooking, to lighten this slightly bitter spice combo (mustard, onion, nigella, cumin and fennel) for Western tastes. In this mix, we only crack the slightly, rather than grinding them. Place about 1 teaspoon of Panch Phoron in a skillet with butter/ghee, and heat until the seeds begin popping (a technique called bagar). Use this spice mix in any curry recipe, or simply use it to grill fish or vegetables. Click here for a good generic curry recipe.

INGREDIENTS: Yellow mustard seed, onion seed, fennel, nigella seed, cumin, poppy seed.

#C3 Indochine Eight Spice

ELEMENT SPICE COMPOUND #C3
Indochine Eight Spice
Inspiration: SE Asia

Chinese/Vietnamese Spice is a canonical spice mix. The "five" in five spice supposedly does not refer to five spices but to five tastes, sweet, sour, savory and salty, or five elements, earth, fire, water, air, and metal (see, for example,
Chez Pim. Most five spices mixes do indeed contain five spices however: star anise, cassia cinnamon, fennel, cloves and szechuan peppercorn. Szechuan peppercorn is not a peppercorn at all but a flower bud with a mild numbing/analgesic property. Our modern update, Indochine Eight Spice, also includes ginger, black peppercorn and citrus rind.

The simplest way to use Indochine Eight Spice is to put in a broth. Add 1 tablespoon (5 ml) per liter of broth, then salt/pepper to taste. Indochine Eight Spice also works as a great base for pho (we like this vegetarian pho recipe). You can try it as a beef rub as well.

INGREDIENTS: Cassia cinnamon, cloves, star anise, fennel, szechuan peppercorn, black peppercorn, citrus rind, ginger.

1962 Cessna

The day after I got back from WA, Deepa and I were at work late and Ron was going to pick up his girlfriend in Monterey, so we tagged along. The two of us had never been in a small plan before. We flew from Palo Alto, touched down in Monterey, she jumped in and we headed right back.