Saturday 11.21.09

I woke up today with a mild case of heartburn and I was cursing the Lord himself before my feet even hit the ground. Why in holy hell would I get heartburn for the first time in easily 10 months on the morning of the most important food and alcohol ingesting day of the year?? Why do you hate me God? Why? Is it because I produce porn for a living? I know I cut a deal with the devil and that is why I look young for my age, but really? Heartburn on the morning of the food and wine festival? I swear I will never ask for anything ever again.

And with just three tums, my religious spat was over   My faith had been restored.

The guys were installing the TVs at my place and being super duper loud with the saws and the drilling and the white dust flying. HAHA! Yes, I am renting. Oh well, the magic of drywall. I am hoping to have the shit working so I can lay on the sofa with Chris and watch the entire season of Top Chef tomorrow.  I know, its tragic that I have only seen the first episode of this most recent season. I don’t even want to talk about this. And please, no one tell me who wins. Not that I will even know who you are talking about at this point.

We arrived at the festival late for the early admission. Something else I don’t want to talk about. Grabbed our tacky plastic Union Bank plates (Sean, you are so dumb for fighting me on the plate all day… ) and our Viejas wine glasses and off we went.

The first things were rather disappointing. I spit the first thing out of my mouth because it literally tasted  like a Milk-Bone dog biscuit. Of course I know what those taste like. Duh. I would never have fed my dog something without trying it first. She was a foodie, too, she just couldn’t communicate it to me.

The highlights of the day I can tell you were the following:

The lambchop (shit, it’s been a week and a half and I forgot where this was from! oops)

The uni custard puff from Brasserie !! (don’t know what “uni” is? look it up lol)

The amazing bacon and shrimp Gourmet taco from Rubios of all places! I can’t even believe that I never thought to put bacon in a taco. Duh!

(also the raw scallop… very very brave)

The LTP award went to the Westgate Hotel’s dessert… a cheescake type thing with a caramel pomegranate sauce. I don’t like pomegranates nor do I like the restaurant inside the hotel called Fontainebleau … but guess what?  I licked this plate clean. As you can see I am not the only one who fell in love.

There were tons of edible things but nothing truly amazing jumped out at me. It is difficult to pull off a massive amount of something very small in a timely manner. Most places were either too ambitious for the event or not ambitious enough. I know that might not make sense, but this event is getting bigger and bigger every year, so with little of no experience you might just fail. The mini cupcake people have no excuse for failing. How can you fuck up a cupcake the size of a donut hole? Jesus, its only that big, you better make it moist. Sheesh… I just get so bummed out when I gleefully put the red velvet near my mouth and I end up with dry ickyness.

We stumbled back to my place and Sean and Michelle decided they were hungry and wanted to get Mexican food! Whaaat? We engaged in some ping-pong, had several rounds of visitors, tried on wedding dresses, ordered pizza to be delivered from DIRECTLY across the street, and finally went bar hopping to the Chee-Chee, The Local and Bareback. Jarin walked me home at the end of the night because I was speaking in tongues.

Today is the day that my father died 16 years ago. When we were doing something particularly enriching or fun he would say “I wonder what the poor people are doing?”

11.20.09
It is my favorite time of year! Noooooo, not Thanksgiving sillyheads! It’s the annual San Diego Bay Wine and Food Festival. This is by far my favorite holiday. All week long there are events throughout San Diego including wine tastings, classes taught by celebrity chefs, auctions and of course the main event which is on Saturday at the Embarcadero. On Friday Chris, Andreas (boss man) and I went to a cooking class taught by Paul Bartolotta of Bartolotta’s at the Wynn in Las Vegas at the Macy’s School of Cooking. Andreas took Lauren and I to eat at Bartolotta’s about 2 years ago and we ate the most amazing fish on their tasting menu. He is a very picky eater and chooses to only eat at places with the finest ingredients and with the best food. His theory is that if he is going so spend money and ingest things, they better be the finest that they can be. You will never catch him eating fast food, or anything out of a box or a can for that matter. He lives by the rule of only shopping around the perimeter of a grocery store. Or Whole Foods lol.

There was a 5 page print out on the table of all the things we were about to try and they immediately brought us a glass of wine. Chris accused me of inviting Andreas only because that was the only way I would get out of work early on a Friday in order to drink wine in the middle of the afternoon. Ha! Funny, but so not true. Sometimes Andreas and I have martinis during lunch, so there! (sticks tongue out) The course was designed to teach us about seafood, vegetables and olive oil and as I skimmed over the menu Paul (I am on a first name basis here simply because it is easier than typing Bartolotta each time) was explaining to us that he struggled (as I can imagine most chefs doing) with writing down a recipe on paper. I would assume that any decent chef would prepare his dishes from memory, experience and common sense. He started his class by explaining the three things that make a dish: time, temperature and a balance of ingredients. Makes sense, right? (just wait til I actually start cooking later on this year in my new place and I blow the kitchen up) His success is based on the fact that good ingredients make good food. He began to teach us that “unfussy is the new cool.”

Bartolotta has worked in 15 restaurants all over Italy (most were along the coast) and then worked in many restaurants in France. He learned his technique in France and learned all about the delicious rustic ingredients while in Italy. He suggests low energy cooking, less violent, and you will keep the food tasting more to it’s natural taste. At Bartolotta’s you will be served fish flown in from the Mediterranean each and every day. Paul spends his mornings texting, skyping and tracking his fish every 20 minutes to see exactly where they are. He says that if his fish arrives “looking not so sexy” he will have known that they took a jaunt to London by accident. All of his fish are line caught because if you catch them by trawling them they will drown and become waterlogged. Makes sense. His fisherman will literally email him photos from the Adriatic Sea and and ask “Do you want this fish?” Paul responds with “How much?” and the fisherman responds with “If you have to ask you cannot afford it.” And so the journey begins.

Our first taste was “Isalata di Piovra”: Octopus with fingerling potatoes in olive oil. First off, Andreas and I were convinced (and still are) that there is no place in San Diego that sells whole octopus. I hope someone proves me wrong and makes this for me one night at Top Chef: Loft Edition because even though I don’t even like octopus, I would have eaten 87 pounds of this dish. It was fucking incredible.

The second course was “Brodetto di Vongole e Porri”: Tiny Clams in a White Wine Broth with Leeks. This was also delicious and I found myself wanting to chuck the clam shells over my shoulder to get to the ones on the bottom faster.

Third course was “Trigilia All Ponentina” (I might be making the “a” a capital when it is not necessary): Red mullet with capers, ligurian taggiasche olives, tomato and roasted bell peppers. Red mullet is a fish that I have never tasted and it was a little fishy but still good. Would I order it again? Probably not.

Course 4 was “Ricciola con Radicchio e Salsa D’Acciughe”: grilled amberjack with wilted radicchio and anchovy sauce. Again, this is a fish that I have never tasted….. I think we have had it in sushi form, but the name escapes me now. Anyone? Beuller? Here the anchovy sauce can be made with a food processor but is traditionally made with a mortar and pestle.

At this point I would like to introduce the LTP Award. The “Lick-the-Plate” award of the afternoon. Holy shit the anchovy sauce was out of this world.

Course 5 was “Mazzancolle e Cannellini”: flavorless tiny prawn with undercooked beans. Ok, ok , that is not what the dish was called, but that is what it tasted like. I think the idea was right, but perhaps he wasn’t prepared and didn’t do what he was supposed to do with the beans. After all, this was an hour and a half class and beans take forever.

The Greek man sitting next to me (Andreas) asked Paul what his opinion was on Greek olive oil versus Italian olive oil. Paul chortled, the crowd went wild. It spawned a conversation about where the olives come from, what color they are and how very different they are. It’s an age old debate about the difference and which is better. The bottom line is they do taste different and until you know what the hell you are doing, choose the most expensive one. The more expensive it is, the less you have to use and the more flavor it will have. It is oil, after all, and the less you use, the better off your thighs will be. It reminded me of the time I was in Greece, drunk in a bar with locals and asked them if it was true if the Greeks like anal sex. The local replied “Anal? Oh that’s the Turks!”

It was a wonderful experience and it made me want to hop on a flight to Vegas to go eat at his restaurant the next day. I highly recommend it to anyone… did I learn something? Of course I did! Will I retain any of this by the time I get off my fat ass and start cooking for myself? Doubtful.

In closing, I want to share the one question that thankfully was uttered out of Andreas’s mouth ONLY for me to hear:
“Hey Paul, who would win in a fight… you or Mario Battali?”

If you are really interested in the recipes email me and I will get them to you. howilearnedtolive@gmail.com

also check out Slow Food