Another drive-by post, but worth the rapid-fire detour, at least if you like your wine local, good, and cheap, because I just found two ridiculously cheap wines that won't last - a $25 RRV Chard for $10, and a $35 Sonoma Mountain Pinot for $12.50 - and if you've wasted any time at all on this site, then you won't want to miss them, because we probably agree that to suggest that one can have too much good, cheap, Sonoma County wine is oxymoronic.
Continuing upheaval at the Santa Rosa farm market
K & L fire closes restaurant temporarily
This dish came about, like so much of what transpires here in the PK, because it was the obvious thing to do: Driving home with my eldest daughter, we stopped by the small but exceptional Tuesday market. We had very little time and were already behind schedule for dinner, so prep time had to be short. And, of course, the ultimate test for any kids' meal: Would the little monsters actually eat whatever I put in front of them?
I've said plenty of nice things about Costco in the past, and regular readers will have seen my specific product recommendations in the Costco Reports that I post on this blog, but I have no special agenda in support of Costco shareholders, and I don't pull my punches, so today - as I pour another badly needed but instantly regrettable cup that tastes very distinctly of incinerated carbon- I have to call them out: Dude, your Kirkland coffee really sucks.
Think of the very best "cult" wines from the Napa Valley floor, shoot them up with enough steroids to power the Tour de France and Major League Baseball combined, and then somehow balance all that bulging, bronzed muscle with enough subtlety and grace to keep everything harmonious - imagine The Incredible Hulk dancing a perfect Swan Lake, or The Situation passing abstract algebra - and you'll have some idea of what Quilceda Creek's freak-of-nature wines are all about.
SoCo's mobile caravan is gearing up for Munch Monday
Pistou is seriously good stuff. Made in minutes, from very few (and entirely raw) ingredients, it turns a vegetable soup transcendent, transforms pasta from simple to sublime, and, perhaps less conventionally but no less successfully, it works wonders with certain seafood. The problem is, unlike in the case of its far more famous (and near-mystical-when-done-properly) cousin, pesto, there seems to be no clear agreement on what actually constitutes a true pistou.
Santa Rosa family deli will shutter in December
