New Kid on the Block

I’m nearing the completion of my first month here at Charles Communications and already feel like part of the gang. It’s been incredible to tap into the knowledge and experience of the awesome ladies I work with. Between Kimberly, Amelia, Susan and Olga there is no lack of PR savvy, humor and general polish. Our intern, Katie, has also been a huge help to me, as well as being a fun co-worker…sadly, her internship finishes at the end of this month and she’ll be moving on to a summer internship at an international non-profit in Washington, D.C. called the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy. She will intern there through August when she’ll head to the other Washington (state) to catch Tom Petty perform at the Gorge(ous) Amphitheatre, before kicking off her senior year at University of San Francisco. Katie’s been a huge help and everyone at CCA will miss her!* * * Earlier this month CCA organized a blogger tasting at the recently opened San Francisco Wine Center. The Wine Center is a very groovy wine storage facility; they’ve taken the 55 degrees and revamped it for the modern wine collector. SF Wine Center has storage space to fit all shapes and sizes of one’s wine collection, ranging from modest, high-school locker sized, to large wheel in the pallet rooms. As a bonus they’ve also outfitted the joint with two fabulous entertaining/hang-out areas. The more covert communal room is tucked into the back of the facility and has a woodsy, poker-night vibe. This room is dual-purposed; beautifully designed lockers surround the heavy wood table in the center of the room. This would be a great place to host an impromptu gathering; one could head to the Wine Center after work with some friends and open a bottle of wine or two straight out of their locker. The other room, near the front of the building is equipped with a full kitchen, seating lounge area, and an expansive table that can comfortably seat 12. It was in this room, with a terrific San Francisco skyline view that we were able to taste a selection of terrific wines that Brian and Richelle had pulled out for us. My favorite wine was the most delicious Sadie Family 2004 Columella from South Africa, followed closely by the 2005 Pinot from J.K. Carriere, Willamette Valley, Oregon. * * * I’ve been so busy moving into my new apartment and getting the lay of the land at my new job that I’ve hardly had time to take in the incredible arts and culture that San Francisco has to offer-and what enticed me to move here in the first place. One activity I have managed to squeeze in was viewing the Annie Leibovitz show at the Legion of the Honor. The show was more touching than I expected it to be. Disclaimer: at the beginning of the show you’re face to face with a photo of Cindy Crawford dressed in nothing more than boa constrictor. However, the collection also includes a series of photos that Leibovitz took to document her close friend Susan Sontag’s losing battle with cancer, as well as photos of Leibovitz’s dying father. It’s incredibly moving. For comic relief in the midst of all of this heaviness, pay extra close attention to Dubya’s belt buckle in the photo of him and his pals at the White House.

Tonight I’m leaving work a bit early to try for counter seats at Citizen Cake before seeing Program B of the New Works Festival at SF Ballet. It should be incredible!

Wine Judging 101

Eight years ago I was invited to be a wine judge by my esteemed friend Robert Whitley, of Wine Review Online. I had moved to California two years prior and my stated goal having left New York City, was to immerse myself in the world of wine, traveling through vineyards, inhaling cellars at harvest time, witnessing the evolution of the seasons…pretty romantic sounding for a gal who was only recently living in the concrete canyons of Manhattan. Wine judging was a great initiation to California and its rich history of state fairs, and honest and straightforward competition in the agricultural realm, including the vinous vein. Wine judging sounds like an easy job. It ain’t. When I first heard of the Monterey Wine competition, I conjured up in my recent urban transplant kinda way, an idyllic setting of getting up in the town of Monterey on the coast at 9 AM, having a leisurely jog and coffee followed by a 10 AM wine judging with few wines, plenty of breaks and lots of espresso. Little was I prepared for what greeted me those eight years ago, when I arrived in King City, California 145 miles south of South Francisco: a no nonsense and proud agricultural town and the heartbeat of the nearby Salinas Valley where the fairgrounds are the setting for the competition. Intense rounds of wines, sometimes number over 100 in a day create a whole new definition of stamina. We are fueled by the collegiality, the friendly ribbing of our friends and colleagues in the wine industry but most of all by the chicken enchiladas of Rosa, who has been making Mexican home cooking for our grateful judges every Saturday for at least 10 years. Sorry, there has to be some pay off for the grueling judging work: you can only have Rosa’s food if you’re a judge or you worm your way into her heart. Good luck.

This leads to my theme of my post, an initiation of a series of places for Wine Judges to eat well while on the road judging. No disrespect to our hosts, but the every curious foodie in all of us judges wishes to break the bonds of the fairgrounds to venture out to try the local fare, and in the towns we visit such as Ontario, King City and the like we are likely to find some of the most authentic and delicious food there is to be had. Many of us are used to fine wine dinners, white table cloth restaurants, superior sommelier wine service, but inside most of us is a deep desire for the pure, soulful simple flavors of places like El Molcajete in Greenfield, CA, along Highway 101 just north of King City. We were directed there by our hosts from Ventana Vineyards in Monterey, who produce a killer Riesling whose 2006 vintage ended up being sweepstakes winner this year at our competition. We were told that the dish to order was the restaurant’s namesake Molcajete, which was a blend of steak, chorizo, chicken, cactus, spicy broth, queso blanco and lime all served in a Molcajete which is a Mexian version of the mortar and pestle of volcanic basalt which keeps the food hot and bubbling for a long time. Let’s just say it was a delicious dish that went down well with a Modelo beer: yum! Unlike our family owned carnitas joint we found at the Soledad Chevron station last year that sadly folded like many small businesses under hard time last December, Molcajete looks like it’s here to stay for a while.

I will be checking our the local fare in San Diego next month and be sure to check back in May when we descend upon Donahoe’s for fried chicken in Pomona…bliss!

International Cycling Stars Hit the Roads for an Exciting Tour of California

20,000 cycling fans witnessed an exciting day of racing on the Stanford University campus as the week-long Amgen Tour of California (www.amgentourofcalifornia.com) kicked off on Sunday, February 17th. The World Champion Fabian Cancellara (CSC) won the prologue Sunday as one of the first major races of the 2008 season commenced. The grand tradition of international cycling has been rocked with scandal of late, with allegations and convictions of drug enhancement eating away at a sport that has a long and storied history.

The Tour of California, in its third year, has become one of the significant showcases in America for the international competitors. Sponsored somewhat ironically by a drug company, the 2008 Tour seemed to give racing a fresh start and new hope, and American fans something to cheers about. With last year's issues causing a number of teams to disband, the deck was shuffled, the players scattered and new teams have emerged.

There are two teams of particular interest to watch. One is the Slipstream-Chipotle team (www.slipstreamsports.com), managed by former pro Jonathan Vaughters, who has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of his beloved sport. With a pledge to ride clean, the new team called ‘America’s New Super Team’ by Velo News (www.velonews.com), features young up and coming cyclists such Americans Tom Danielson, Dave Zabriske and Danny Pate, as well as a UK veteran David Millar, who has returned for a second chance after a suspension for doping. Vaughters has attracted this group to create a team that is strong, talented and willing to undergo public drug testing that is more rigorous than required by the governing anti-doping bodies of cycling, WADA and UCI. They are an example of what can be. (Team CSC and the new High Road with fan favorite George Hincapie, are following a similar, drug-testing regimen.)

On the other side of the coin is a new team of castaways, outlaws, or as a friend put it, the Raiders of cycling, the Rock Racing team (www.rockracing.com). Clad in uniforms that feature a skull and cross bones-type logo created by sponsor Rock & Republic clothing, they are the veterans of swagger, some of whom have a tarnished past, such as Tyler Hamilton and Oscar Sevilla. (Dethroned Tour De France winner Floyd Landis may also join.) While a couple of these riders were not allowed to race the Tour of California due to pending legal situations, the stars to watch from Rock Racing this week are American Fred ‘Fast Freddie’ Rodriguez, long an unsung hero of US cycling in Europe, along with the self-declared ‘Sexiest Man in Cycling’, Mario Cipollini, former world champ (who allegedly owes 1.1 million euros in back taxes.) ‘Super Mario’ returns to racing after a two-year retirement, and at 41 years old, he’s fit and keeping pace with the youngsters, 20 years his junior.

As with any great sporting adventure, you watch because you hope to see something you never have seen before. 2008 will certainly hold true as it’s a new road for international cycling, and the season has just begun - Viva le velo!

For more on the Amgen Tour of California which will finish in Pasadena on February 24th - you can watch the action nightly on Versus Network (www.versus.com) or follow the stages at www.velonews.com or www.amgentourofcalifornia.com.

A Splended Spa Secret

Many people think that a massage is merely an expensive day of soft pampering. I’ve given up on those massages at the high priced, ‘zenned’ out, lavender filled spas. Most the massages have been just OK, and at $150 for an hour I would get far more pleasure in my own home with a bottle of Krug, some good music and a foot massage by my three-year old daughter. For some reason, she thinks this is fun too, so who am I to stop her? Is that bad?

But in all honesty, our bodies do need massage to help rid the us of those nasty toxins. Historically speaking, spas used to be integral part of general health care and have been in existence since the days of the Roman Empire. As for the root of the term spa, there are two theories: one is that spa is an acronym for the Lain phrase salus per aguae meaning ‘health through water’. While others believe the word comes from the Belgian town of Spa which has been known for its baths since Roman times.

So like I said, I’m done with the fancy spas. Four years ago, while I was in Los Angeles with some friends, I was introduced to Korean massage. We drove into Korea Town and parked in large lot that overlooked a golf driving range on the top of the covered parking lot. Strange indeed but I was again reassured that the Olympic Spa would not disappoint. The building is nothing fancy and very basic, clearly there’s little spent on decor. You order a trio (a scrub, massage and hair wash all for the fair price of $80) from women at the front desk who do not speak any English. Clothing is left in the locker room and you enter a steamy room filled with several soaking tubs, it truly is another world. After spending a good hour steaming all your impurities from life’s vices, you’re escorted to a long line up of massage tables. Drop your inhibitions because every crevice of your body will be scrubbed leaving you with the shiniest epidermis you’ve ever seen. While the scrubbing can be painful, at the same time you feel as though you are ‘turning over a new leaf’ or washing away your past sins. This is all followed by one of the strongest and deepest massages that will rock your world. I’ve never felt so clean and void of toxins. Maybe it was the dirty layer of skin which was scrubbed off my body or the cold and hot soaks that made your skin tingle, or the masseuse that climbed on my back and made every bone in body crack. Whatever the case, I was hooked.

Back in SF, I mourned the fact that we did not have a Korean Spa. In my travels to NY, I found a Korean Spa which was slightly more expensive ($120) but offered the same blissful treatment that I received in LA. Juvenex spa is located above a Karaoke bar in the heart of NY’s Korea Town (almost as strange as the golf putting course but I promise you can’t hear anyone singing). I indulged myself in what I considered to be a spiritual ritual on any occasion that found me in NY or LA, however late last year my dream came true. The beautiful Imperial Spa opened up in San Francisco, not by a driving range or karaoke bar but next to a KFC on Geary. For a paltry $80 you get the works.

This is not for the faint at heart but if you like to scrubbed, scraped and you're willing to surrender to this ancient spa ritual, then this is for you.

My Month As a Vegan (Sort of...)

Oh the power of literature. We often take for granted the influence the written word has upon our daily lives. Little did I know when I received a simple cookbook as a Christmas gift that it would launch me into 2008 with an entirely new diet. The book: Skinny Bitch in the Kitch: Kick Ass Recipes for Hungry Girls Who Want to Stop Cooking Crap (and Start Looking Hot!) True, it’s one long title, but conveys the point of the book pretty well, except for the fact that all of the recipes are vegan. Scanning through it on my flight back to San Francisco, I discovered how simple the recipes were. So, in my attempts to reverse a year’s worth of decadent eating and over-imbibing on San Francisco’s finest wine, cuisine, and artisanal cocktails (as well as a year of culinary school in the mix), I decided to give this vegan diet thing a go. I had always been a healthy and conscious eater, and I was already somewhat well-versed on vegan-ism from my own curiosity as well as learning from friends and peers who were vegan, so I didn’t feel I was going about this blindly. On January 2, 2008, my first day back in San Francisco, I embarked upon a vegan diet.

Skinny Bitch in the Kitch is the sequel to Skinny Bitch by Los Angeles vegans Kim Barnouin and Rory Freedman. The prequel takes a look at our disproportionate portions, the government’s lack of concern for our nation’s health, the chemicals, preservatives, and other unnatural additives that go into the food on our grocery store shelves, and Their foul-mouthed, sassy writing style and frank opinions about the meat, dairy, and egg industry (all vegan no-no’s) are enough to make even a staunch omnivore laugh out loud and maybe even think twice about what they’re putting in their mouths. Their message is simple: to provide a new way of life that is healthy, clean, and simple and to debunk the myths that a vegan diet has to be expensive, inaccessible, or only for tree-hugging hippies. Of course, skeptics abound. One critic even called the book ‘militant indoctrination’. Both women come from the Ford Modeling Agency (Barnouin a former model, Freedman a former agent), and while they’ve both studied health, diet, fitness, and nutrition for over a decade, only one holds a degree in Holistic Nutrition, and they don’t offer up where that degree came from.

Still, I was up for giving the vegan life a chance. I wasn’t so much rooted politically or ethically into the idea of vegan-ism, but enough so in both directions to believe I could still be healthy, strong, and decide whether or not I would return to the life of an omnivore again. I didn’t think this would be too hard. Once culinary school ended last fall, I had returned to my old diet, which skimped on meat and poultry. And after a year of living in the most socially conscious region in America, thoughts of hormones and antibiotics being pumped into the meat I ate was starting to turn me off from meat-eating already unless I knew the exact farm where my grass-fed beef was raised and the farmer’s name who owned the land. I headed to the grocery store the night I got home and piled as many veggies, fruits, tofu, beans, soy milk, and veggie cheese I could into my shopping cart.

What did I miss the most you might wonder? No, not my good friend Kathryn’s rosemary crusted rack of lamb. And not my probiotic yogurt I had grown so attached to over the past two years. It was the little things. Like honey. I drink tea religiously and pour honey into it the same, so when I realized my Green Jasmine and Cream Earl Grey had to go without, I felt the rules and boundaries creeping in. And what was I to put in my salads to bulk them up? Surely not tuna! Beans and legumes became my best friends at lunchtime. The tofu stir-fry dishes became a bit monotonous after the first two weeks, but the book helps you be creative with dishes you would have otherwise cooked with meat. The book served as a reminder that you can eat the same things you used to eat (minus the lamb and real egg omelets), but be a little more inventive. But watching my roommates slice aged cheddar, smoked gouda, and spicy pepper Jack had me salivating for a hunk of creamy, tangy goodness placed atop my favorite cracker. I went to my room and pouted over the loss of one of my favorite food groups. Soy-based Veggie shreds were just no comparison.

And just like a spouse who starts to stray, I too became unfaithful to my vegan oath. Like a couple that realizes they have nothing in common, I just wasn’t rooted enough in the foundations of vegan-ism to make it last forever. I never tried to get anyone to join my vegan bandwagon, nor did I scorn what they ate in front of me or ask them if their buffalo wings were from a free-range chicken. But when the soy became too plenty, and the cheese became too tempting, I fell off the wagon. I wasn’t disciplined enough to commit myself to a lifestyle that didn’t allow me to eat cheese, and I wasn’t ready to say no to the things I loved because I didn’t believe in it. Still, it won’t stop me from making the book’s dried fruit muffins sweetened with Sucanat (Su = Sugar, Ca = Cane, Nat = Natural), Big Ass Veggie Burrito, or the Bitchtastic Brownies and Cheezecake.

So, I’ve succumb to and fully accepted that I’m a cheater. Until the day I can fully eliminate eggs, dairy, and any animal product or bi-product, I won’t, and can’t, call myself a full-fledged vegan. But I can't say I didn't try.

Eat at Floyd's: The Pelican Bar in Jamaica

Recently I was lucky to chance upon a watering hole that’s truly right in the water. You don’t belly up to this bar, you sail to it (you could also swim, though it would take longer). And while there’s no menu, an incredible meal can be had as well. On a trip to Jamaica’s tranquil and less traveled south west coast is the town of Treasure Beach. During the two and a half hour drive that winds south from Montego Bay’s airport, our driver, O’Neil, advised us to check out the Pelican Bar, merely saying it was in the middle of the water. Taking his advice a few mornings later, we arranged the visit through Jakes, our low key-high charm resort. We were merely told to walk down to the beach and meet our ride.

As promised, at the tiny beach we met our gregarious captain, Bernard (sporting a Boston Red Sox cap, but insisting, in case we were from NY, that the B stood for Bernard) and first mate, Zeb, sporting a “Mr. Nice Guy” T-shirt that I soon figured out was the uniform of the eponymously named boat that would take us to our destination. Bernard and Zeb helped us scramble over some rocks and wade through the shallow water to board the brightly painted Mr. Nice Guy.

We set out in a south-westerly direction and were lucky to have some dolphins for company for part of our route. After about 30 minutes of motoring, the Pelican Bar came into view. Situated about a half mile from shore, it is a wonder of carpentry and creativity. Balancing on a set of thin, almost insectile stilts was this round hut surrounded by nothing but water.

We docked the boat, swam up to the Bar and climbed its wobbly stairs. Inside was an empty bar and no furniture other than a table and wooden bench. The bar’s sole decoration was a plaque from of all people, the band Little Feat, acknowledging Floyd, the bar’s owner, for creating one of the coolest places to have a beer in the whole Caribbean. There were of course no windows, no doors, and no facilities But there was plenty of charm in hanging out in what’s best described as an aqua tree house. Outside in all directions was nothing but sparkling turquoise water, below, if you peeked through the floorboards, you’d catch glimpses of fish and stingrays. Above, the pelicans who perch on a nearby reef and give the bar its name, were circling overhead, angling for lunch. What’s true in Manhattan was true here: location, location, location!

As we were soaking in this Robinson Crusoe bar adventure, Floyd and his sous chef/first mate arrived in yet another colorful boat, toting a cooler full of beer and another full of provisions. As the cooking commenced, we jumped into the waters for a quick swim around the bar. Once back inside and within minutes of opening our first Red Stripes of the day, we could smell the zesty aroma of Caribbean spiny lobster tails cooking over charcoal. Soon enough we and our fearless crew were feasting on lobster in jerk sauce with steamed vegetables over coconut rice. Using little more than a bit of backyard barbecue equipment and, as we say in the restaurant industry, fresh and local ingredients, Floyd had cooked us the most memorable meal of our trip. Tipsy, stuffed and thrilled, we swam from bar to boat for the return trip, and with a smoky puff from the motor, the Mr. Nice Guy was off.