Ingredients:

• 1 Cup All Purpose Flour
• ½ tsp. Mixed Spice
• ½ tsp. Baking Powder
• ¼ tsp. Salt
• 1 Cup Unsalted Butter ( 2 sticks ) at room temperature
• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1 Egg, Beaten
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Essence
• 3 Cups Oats
• 1 Cup Chopped Walnut pieces
• 1 Cup Chocolate Chips
• ½ Cup Dried Cherries

Preheat oven to 350 deg. F

In a medium bowl, sift flour, mixed spice, baking powder and salt.

In a freestanding mixer, with a whisk attachment, mix butter and sugar until softened. Add beaten egg and vanilla essence. Mix. Add flour mixture and mix on low speed until combined.

Add remaining ingredients and mix until just combined.

On a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper, drop tablespoons of dough, spacing them well.

Cook for 16 minutes. Cool.

The Craftsman Inn

1213 Foothill Boulevard
Calistoga, California 94515
707-341-3035

When I was a freshman at UCLA a decade ago, the school was considered ahead of its time - and ranked as one of the nation's top college campuses for dining - thanks to its "high end" cafeteria embellishments like a DIY pizza bar and made-to-order omelets on weekends.

And we wonder why these kids prefer wine to beer.

Spend enough time in a wine country brew pub and you'll sooner or later hear the favorite mantra of wine country bartenders, "It takes a lot of good beer to make great wine."  And while beer's popularity with the winemaking cognoscenti may not come as a huge surprise, its affinity for cheese probably does. That's right, like wine beer can pair beautifully with an array of fromages from Muenster to Morbier, and often does so even more gracefully than vino itself.

And so in the spirit of this site - and given the wealth of microbreweries and artisan cheese makers who reside in and around wine country - I've compiled the following suggestions to help you test-drive these low-profile partners' affinity for each other against the backdrop of the land of the vine.  So you can feel less guilty about abandoning your precious vino for a cold one, and get on with your degustation.

Partner Perfect

Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog & Napa Valley Brewing Company Calistoga Wheat Ale - The tangy, earthy flavors and round body typical of wheat beer are echoed in much-lauded Humboldt Fog's tangy-sweet goat milk center and creamy outer layer.  Fittingly, both producers are pioneers:  Humboldt-based Cypress Grove put domestic goat cheese on the map, and Calistoga's Napa Valley Brewing Company was one of the first wine country-based breweries.  

Bravo Farms Western Sage Cheddar & Bear Republic Brewing Company Racer 5 India Pale Ale - This full-bodied, raw milk cheese from the Central Valley's first artisanal cheese maker is flavored with sage, making it a great fit for Bear Republic's award-winning IPA.  The Healdsburg-based brewer crafts its hearty ale with special Pacific Northwest hops known for their floral qualities, which echo the sage in the cheese.  

Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk & Anderson Valley Brewing Boont Amber Ale - Situated an hour north of San Francisco, Cowgirl Creamery has drawn international acclaim for its unique cheeses such as this full-flavored, washed-rind triple cream whose red rind seems tailor-made for pairing with AVB's similarly full-flavored ale, the 2003 Silver Medal Winner at the Great American Beer Festival in the American-Style Amber/Red Ale category. 

Rinconada Dairy La Panza Gold & Third Street Alesworks Blarney Sisters' Dry Irish Stout - This Santa Rosa-based brewer's classic Dublin stout boasts rich flavors of coffee, malt and caramel that echo notes found in this aged, washed-rind sheep's milk cheese from San Luis Obispo's Riconada Dairy.  Over time the award-winning cheese -recognized by the American Cheese Society as a leader in the Farmstead

Sheep Milk Cheese category - develops its signature golden color and fruity, caramelized flavors that seem tailor made for stout. 

Point Reyes Farmstead Original Blue & Russian River Brewing Co. Salvation Ale - This award-winning Marin County cheese maker's Original Blue is a winning partner for a dark ale such as Salvation, whose hops and sweet, concentrated flavors masterfully offset the salty notes so abundant in blue cheese.   The bottle-conditioned Belgian-style ale (it undergoes a second fermentation inside the bottle just like Champagne) is a favorite at Santa Rosa's popular Russian River Brewing Co.

Breakfast in a gulp, lunch on the go and dinner on the run. Life in the fast lane seems to have bypassed the slow, ancient pleasures of the table. However, an amiable group of gastromes hopes to put an end to our nuke-it-and-eat-it culture.

With a charming chiocciolina (small snail) as its mascot and a philosophy that advocates the defence of pleasure, Slow Food, an international organization with 30,000 members in 35 countries is helping members rediscover the flavours of regional cooking and fresh local produce. The group believes that small doses of sensual pleasure preserve us from the fast and frozen food, the enemies of contemplative cuisine. A project called the Ark of Taste names foods that are in danger of disappearing from our table such as Macedonian yogurt, Scandinavian lamb, centuries-old orange trees in Nice, red-violet skinned peaches from Provenance and Californian zinfandel vines, among others. The group also hopes to preserve artisanal food preparation by sustaining demand for these products. Without this effort, the group foresees the homogenization of foods, citing the example that at the turn of the century, there were 30,000 varieties of rice in India. Now, there are only 12.

Several trends point to the promise of the movement in North America including the emergence of microbreweries in a market long dominated by a few beer monoliths. Small wineries are also experiencing unprecedented popularity. The "cult cabs" of California such as Grace Family, Screaming Eagle and David Bruce together produce what would likely fit on one of Gallo's delivery trucks, yet they cannot meet demand for their wines, despite stratospheric prices.

But isn't trying to get people to spend hours preparing homecooked meals naively out of step with our time-crunched culture? There's a trendy answer to that too: the personal chef. A personal chef may cook for ten families, depending on the size of the business. After an initial meeting to determine dietary preferences, a personal chef usually visits each family's house every two weeks and spends the day buying the groceries, preparing the meals, labeling them for the freezer, cleaning up and setting the table.

So instead of wandering up and down the grocery aisles at 6 pm with a glazed look of hunger as you try to figure out what to cook for dinner, imagine walking into your home to the heady aroma of herb chicken and butternut squash. Your personal chef has been here today so you sneak upstairs, slip into your fuzzy slippers and read a chapter of the latest John Grisham novel before dinner.

When you and your family gather around the table, it is for an elegant meal that's as fine as those in restaurants. The only difference is that you eat in the comfort and privacy of your own home without having to make reservations or wait in line for your table.

Who hires personal chefs? Professionals with children who not only have demanding careers, but also the added pressures of soccer practice, music lessons, after-school meetings. Given a choice, they'd rather spend their evenings with their kids than the cheese grater. According to Judith Madill, a professor at Carleton University, the growing popularity of personal chefs boils down to taste, convenience, healthfulness and priorities. "People are looking for strategies to cope with "role overload" - too little time for too many roles such as professional, father, wife, cook and so on."

Fueled by these changes, a spectrum of "home replacement meals" has developed from high-end take-out meals from restaurants, delis and caterers to freshly prepared meals in boutique areas of grocery stores. According to one caterer, 70 percent of the meals purchased from her take-home food store are for regular meals as opposed to special occasions and parties.

Madill adds that meals are tightly wound with family traditions; increasingly, people feel they regain a stronger sense of family life by sharing a home cooked meal -- even if they didn't cook it. This ties into the heart of the slow food movement that says time spent in sharing a carefully prepared meal allows us to rediscover one of our lost rituals. While you can't stop the clock, you can certainly unwind at the dinner table, savoring the timeless pleasures of the earth's bounty and one another's company.]]> tag:discover.winecountry.com,2008:/food//14.577 2008-03-25T18:55:19Z 2008-05-06T00:39:38Z

 

                By Vincent Nattress, Culinary Consultant to Napa Free Range Beef

FOOD+WINE PAIRING
Although Cabernet Sauvignon is often heralded as the perfect foil for steaks, a wine such as Merlot, with softer and fruitier notes and lower acid, is a better match for beef prepared with saltier, sharper and more savory marinades.

INGREDIENTS

Serves 2-4

• Two 10-12 ounce New York steaks
• 1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

]]> Chef's TIPS ON GRILLING:
Grilling is traumatic for beef. Exposing muscle fiber to high heat causes the fiber to contract, which is why if you leave a steak on the grill on one side too long, the steak will begin to curl. High heat also dries out meat and forces the remaining juice into the center of the steak. For tender and moist NY steak:

1.Well before grilling, pull the meat out of the refrigerator, marinate it with the garlic, thyme, soy sauce, olive oil and cracked pepper, then let it come to room temperature. Having the meat closer to grill temperature will make for better grilling.

2. A good, moderate coal base is better than one of nuclear heat. A lower, more even cooking will give you a moister, more tender steak. Only by cooking low and slow can you cook the perfect rare or medium-rare steak. And if you prefer medium or well-done, you will be shocked at how moist the steak remains.

3. Let it rest. Once you have cooked your steak to the desired temperature, pull it off the grill, put it on a plate, place the plate in a spot that is just warm and let it sit for at least 5 minutes. Why? Because even if you have followed the directions for long and slow cooking, you have still displaced juices that are in the outside of the meat and pushed them into the center. Allowing the meat to rest allows those juices to redistribute themselves more broadly in the steak. When cut in half, the cross section shows a gray, charred margin, but the rest of the steak is rosé red from margin to center, and the juice stays inside, not running all over the plate.

WINE PAIRING PICKS
-Delicato Merlot California 2003
-Sterling Merlot Central Coast Vintners Collection 2002
-Chateau St. Jean Merlot Sonoma County 2001
-Paloma Merlot Spring Mountain 2002

Wine Pick Details>>

 

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During a recent trip to the Pebble Beach area it struck me - this place is actually pretty nice. Sure, postcard views of the rugged coastline and storybook houses in the hills are a dime a dozen here. But beyond that obvious stuff, there's a lot going on in Pebble Beach. I took time in between watching actors act like they know how to play golf (who am I kidding, most of them are a hell of a lot better than me!), to explore some of the region's finer establishments for culinary delights and the occasional beer. The list can take a month's worth of columns to fill, and I will devote the necessary time to that venture in due course.

Among the big names cooking for the event are Tom Colicchio, Gary Danko, Gérard Boyer, Thomas Keller, Jacques Pépin, Charles Phan, and Charlie Trotter. Wineries represented include Château Margaux, Harlan, Screaming Eagle, Opus One, PlumpJack, Silver Oak, and Veuve Clicquot. This heavy-hitter event, which was created to replace the wildly popular but now shut Masters of Food and Wine, is a rare opportunity to capture all this eating-and-drinking star power on a single peninsula.

Numerous ticket packages are available in a range of prices. Check out www.pebblebeachfoodandwine.com, or call (866) 907-3663 to find the one that best suits your Pebble Beach palate.