Oktoberfest

My friend's birthday is October 6th, and his fiance was asking me for suggestions as to what kind of party we should have. I threw out a few suggestions, one of which was an Oktoberfest party. She loved the idea and we came up with a menu. I would handle everything relating to cooking bratwurst, she and another friend would get cheese and bread, and she would bake a couple things.

The girls got all kinds of cheese - one of the best cheese selections I have ever seen. I made a red cabbage salad and caramelized some sweet onions with chives and balsamic vinegar. I got brats at Schreiner's in Montrose and cooked them in a big tub of beer, then briefly touched them on the grill to get grill marks. They were oustanding.

My friend put on an amazing display of baking skills: she made a German potato pancake that I could happily eat with every meal for the rest of my life, and a Linzer torte, a classic Austrian pie. I do not like pie - I do not really like any kind of dessert - but this was spectacular.

This was unquestionably the best Oktoberfest festivity I have ever attended. Great food, lots of beer, and watching college football on TV instead of Oom-pah bands or drunk morons doing the Chicken Dance. It was even a better meal than the surprise birthday dinner we had for him the night before at, God help me, Sizzler. (I couldn't make that up.)

Fast Food Review: Wendy's Spicy Chicken Go Wrap

Despite how it may look on this blog, I don't eat fast food very frequently. There was a time, say, my freshman year of college, when it was not unusual for me to eat it twice in one day (there was an In-N-Out a few blocks from campus) but now sometimes months go by when I don't have any. However, as I have written before, I am a sucker for a new fast food promotion. Usually they aren't very good and they disappear from the menu, but sometimes, like the Del Taco mole chicken taco, the item is really good.

Well, the spicy chicken go wrap is easily the worst item I have ever had from Wendy's. The breading around the chicken was rock hard, as if it had been fried the day before and left out. The chicken was tough and the cheese was dry and brittle. I took a bite and spit it out, then took a bite from the other end. It was the same and I spit it out, too. The wrap cost $1.49. The 99-cent chicken nuggets are far superior to this.

The Oinkster

A friend of mine saw my entry for The Oinkster on my barbecue blog a couple weeks ago and wanted to eat there. Saturday we decided to check out the Americana at Brand for the first time so we stopped in for lunch. (By the way, I was completely unimpressed with the Americana. As far as I could tell it was just an uglier version of the Grove, with residential space. Yes, it's nicer than the Galleria, but so are most crack dens.)

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I ordered the Oinkster pastrami (with Gruyere cheese, caramelized onion and red cabbage slaw) and my friend got the chicken salad sandwich. I had eaten this pastrami sandwich shortly after Oinkster opened and I remembered it as being pretty good, which is why I was shocked when I took a bite. It was horrible. The meat was as salty as any pastrami I have ever tasted, and I could not taste the onion or the cheese. The fries were decent as usual. My friend let me have a bite of her sandwich; it was much, much better than mine.

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We each ate half our sandwiches and put the remaining half in a box. The next evening I took mine out of the fridge and figured I'd give it another shot. I kid you not - it was fantastic. The pastrami was completely balanced by the caramelized onions, the sweetness of which were very apparent the second time around. This was the sandwich I remembered from a couple years ago. I even took a piece of pastrami out of the sandwich and ate it by itself - it wasn't salty either. I cannot explain why this happened, but then again I've never been terribly bright.

My Own Olive Oil

Last Christmas my friend gave me perhaps the coolest gift I have ever received: a first edition copy of one of my three favorite books of all time, Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales. I gave her a guide book about Pasadena. (I am not the greatest gift-giver.) I doubted I would ever get a better present than that.

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Well, I did. The same friend adopted an Italian olive tree for me for the length of one year. In the spring I received an adoption certificate telling me the location of my tree, and several containers of first-pressed olive oil, at least some of which came from my tree. (They can't guarantee that all of it will come from your tree, because usually they can't get that much oil out of a single tree, but they do say that at least some of it comes from your tree.) Not surprisingly, it is the best olive oil I have ever tasted. My friend Tracie, who lived in Italy for years and is my guru on all things Italian, concurs with me.

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In the fall - two days ago to be exact, although this 90 degree weather doesn't exactly feel autumnal - I received my second shipment: three flavored oils. They are lemon, mandarin, and Sicilian chili. They are all exceptional. Sometimes when you purchase a flavored oil, it has an almost chemical taste to it, and you can imagine some scientist in a lab mixing up a recipe to make the oil taste like something else. (Trader Joe's garlic oil, for example, tastes to me like many things, but garlic is not one of them.) This oil tastes like the fruits were picked just a few minutes earlier and mixed with the oil. The chili oil, shown in the last picture, is perfect with some bread and cheese.
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Tomorrow I will be going to the South Pasadena farmers market and making a dinner that features these three oils. I'm sure there will be pictures....

Laetitia Vineyard & Winery

My five favorite places in America, in no particular order, are:

- Powell's City of Books, Portland, Oregon

- Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee

- Central Park, New York City

- Garden District, New Orleans

- Laetitia Vineyard & Winery

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Laetitia, in Arroyo Grande, is set up on a hill just off Hwy 101. When I was a kid it was called Maison Deutz and it was always a stop on family vacations on the central coast. My parents would taste wine and my brother and I would eat cheese and roam around the grounds. About ten years ago they changed the name to Laetitia and started making wines in the Burgundian style. They also produce wines under the Barnwood label, which are available in their tasting room.

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Laetitia is one of the few wineries left on the central coast that still does a complimentary tasting, however they also offer a $10 tasting that allows you to sample from a much nicer list. It is well worth the $10, if only because you get the chance to try the Barnwood Trio Reserve. The 3200' Cabernet (the elevation of Barnwood's vineyards) is available at Whole Foods for $17.99 and is one of the best values you will find. I bought a bottle for my friend's father - a Francophile who hates California cabs because "they all taste the same" - and he declared it oustanding.

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The grounds of Laetitia are beautiful. There is a bocce ball court between the parking lot and tasting room, and there are several separate picnic areas, including one in the rear of the property under a giant tree, with a view from the sea to the hills to the valley. You would be hard pressed to find a better picnic location anywhere in California. If you want to head back inside and buy a bottle to drink outside and let the moment last longer (you will), I recommend the Temperanillo.