Muffaletta With The Midas Touch

Ever wanted to learn how to make the Muffaletta sandwich made famous by the Central Grocery in New Orleans?
Now's your chance... at no charge!

Mark ”The Singing Chef,” of Hospitality Catering is presenting a Muffaletta Cooking Show hosted by Idlers in Paso Robles on Wednesday July 23rd from 5:30-6:30. You can check out Chef Mark's Muffaletta recipe at www.GrapevineRadio.net

Chef Mark will be preparing the Muffaletta Sandwich and a Cajun Shrimp Salad. The event also features Cold Stone Creamery & Vista del Rey Vineyards.

Chef Mark hosts a free cooking demonstration once a month at Idler’s in Paso Robles located at 2361 Theater Drive. For more information on upcoming cooking events call Idler’s at 238-6020 or contact Brigitte Faulkner at Hospitality Catering 238-7979.

Epicurious Dictionary
[muhf-fuh-LEHT-tuh] A specialty of New Orleans, this HERO-style sandwich originated in 1906 at the Central Grocery, which many think still makes the best muffuletta in Louisiana.
The sandwich consists of a round loaf of crusty Italian bread, split and filled with layers of sliced PROVOLONE, Genoa SALAMI and ham topped with "olive salad," a chopped mixture of green, unstuffed olives, PIMIENTOS, celery, garlic, cocktail onions, CAPERS, oregano, parsley, olive oil, red-wine vinegar, salt and pepper. The olive salad is what sets the muffuletta apart from any other sandwich of its ilk.

The Lucas & Clark Expedition

This post links to the podcast of Grapevine Radio, Episode 87 (June 21, '08) on which we are introduced to the legendary Louis Lucas of Lucas-Lewellen Winery and learn about exotic wine grapes and their brand devoted to Italian varietals; Mandolina. Next up it's Clark Staub, owner of American Flatbread in Los Olivos along with his new chef, Brian Collins (formerly of Che Panisse).

How to Wine in Hawaiian

People ask me all the time about how I learned so much about wine (practice practice practice) and it's tough to boil it down into straightforward advice. Then I came across this article by Andre Lopez, owner of a wine shop in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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I recently tried to recall the steps I took in my early wine-drinking days to help me better understand wine. The following basics are what I remember. Feel free to use them as a guide in your journey to develop and trust your own palate:

# Talk to people — simple, but powerful. I'm always amazed, initially embarrassed of course, at how much I've learned myself from speaking with customers.

# Experiment with price points, especially the cheap stuff. Buying various wines at different price points, however low and however high (I understand the high is not always possible) allows you to get an idea of quality to price. Eventually, you start to see where your perception of "value" lies, no matter the price point.

# E-mail wineries directly with questions. What better way to learn than getting it straight from the source?

# Spend some time in wine bars. This is a great way to learn. With multiple by-the-glass options at many of these hip new spots, you can hedge your investment in 1- to 2-ounce servings, rather than a full glass or entire bottle.

# Read books. I'm finally admitting that my first book on wine was "Wine for Dummies." It's a great primer for general wine knowledge and if you're familiar with the "For Dummies" publications, you already know they're entertaining reads that take you seamlessly from beginning to end.

# Pay attention a little more on a daily basis to what we eat and smell. A lot of wines' aromas and flavors are very familiar ones that come from things we encounter every day. Many times it's not necessarily things we always put in our mouths. Ever smelled your 13-year-old son's closet? How about Play-Doh? Raw cake batter, Pixi Stix, gas stations, you name it. The literal smells and flavors as well as the mere suggestion of smells and flavors are all around us.

I realize in this hectic day and age, all of this effort can be a little more involved than most people want to be. I often catch myself having this irrational expectation of consumers to have the same desire to employ the same process as I. Could it be that I have my own inner wine Nazi, not yet obvious to the casual observer? In the end I think we all just want to feel good about our purchases, no matter what the reasoning behind the selection process was.
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Andre Lopez is owner and operator of The People's Wine Shop, 1136 S. King St. Reach him at 593-7887 or www.thepeopleswineshop.com.
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Andre goes on to recommend several wines, including one of my favorites, Vignalta Sirio Dry Muscat from Italy. I discovered this gem when the wine maker himself was serving his wines at Monterey Street Wine Co. in San Luis Obispo.

# Vignalta Sirio Dry Muscat, Italy ($15.95). This is a bone-dry version of a wine normally experienced as a sweet dessert wine. Enchanting, floral aromas and a snappy mouth-feel. Cool stuff.

A Sparkling Wine Comes Out of the Cave

TendreBulle - the only gay wine in the village?
June 19, 2008
Sophie Kevany in Bordeaux

France's first gay wine – TendreBulle Gay Vin by Domaine de Boyer – launches on 1 July.

The wine, a sparkling rosé from Languedoc-Roussillon, will show two stylised heads, almost kissing, on the bottle. Underneath are the words 'Gay Vin'.

The letters G and L, for gay and lesbian, will appear on the capsule.

'I added the letters after some women at a wine fair told me the wine is only for boys,' said the wine's creator, Jacques-Edouard Pailles, a winemaker whose property is in Saint Martin de Villereglan, in the department of Aude.

Pailles said he started out wanting to make a rosé wine that would be called the gay wine of Malpierre, one of the local place names, but could not, because of AOC regulations.

'So then I thought it would be fun to make a happy wine, something festive, as in happy which is what gay used to mean in the middle ages,' he said.

Related stories: Ribera 'opens minds' with wine aimed at gay community Californian wines come out

About 13,000 bottles have already been made of the non-vintage, méthode champenoise Gay Vin. The wine will cost €6 per bottle and is available by order from Domaine de Boyer.

MacGourmet is Not a $200 Cheeseburger!

This looks like something every gourmet geek out there will want (provided you're a Mac and not a PC).

Mariner Software, just released MacGourmet Deluxe 1.0, its ultra-modern recipe and wine management software for Mac OS X.
Users can create, edit and share recipes; make wine and cooking notes, and easily import recipes found on the Web and expand their collection.

Recipes can be published to a .mac account or to a personal Web site. MacGourmet Deluxe will also create a shopping list that can be printed or exported to a PDA.

One of the coolest features of MacGourmet Deluxe is a first - the Cookbook Builder. Using a recipe collection, you can build, print and share your own cookbook.

The CookBook Builder allows the easy addition of images, chapters and text pages. A click of the mouse and it's saved as a high resolution PDF! Which means, of course, you now have a file that is small in size (easy to email) is printable and compatible with any computer and operating system.

Wine Whisperer says, "Don't Worry. Be Happy Canyon."

The Wine Whisperer hits the wine trail in search of the 2007 Happy Canyon Vineyards blend of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Mmmmm...a young wine with lots of black fruit, blackberries and currant.
A nice, integrated oak characteristic and it's good acidity makes it a great food wine. And I'll tell ya, partner, it's a perfect partner for pork or lamb dishes. WW found this Happy Canyon Vineyards blend for just $14.99 at the Monterey Street Wine Company in San Luis Obispo.
It's Happy Trails for me as I head off for a 4th of July BBQ at my Wine Cave.

Audio of WW will download if you click on his picture.

Grapevine Radio Show airing Saturday, June 14, 2008

We welcome guest co-host and veteran broadcast journalist, Lynn Diehl to Grapevine Radio and she introduces us to Craig and Nancy Stoller, owners of Sextant Winery. Next, we talk to Chef New, the energetic and talented young master of cutting edge cuisine at our area's newest restaurant/club sensation, Level 4 in Paso Robles.