California – Page 2 – Deep Red Cellar

MIHO Gastrotruck Coming To Coronado!

MIHO Gastrotruck is coming to Coronado!

On Saturday, June 4 from 4pm-6pm MIHO Gastrotruck will be at Blue Jeans & Bikinis (1113 Adella Avenue Coronado, CA 92118 (619) 319-5858). If you order from MIHO, you will get $10 off to do a little shopping at Blue Jeans & Bikinis.

MIHO Gastrotruck serves fresh, seasonal produce sourced as locally as possible….all natural, sustainable meats raised without hormones or antibiotics…..and crafted street food made from scratch every day (unless it has an * ).

I first found MIHO Gastrotruck when it parked in the back of Casa Artelexia (artsy, uber chic Mexican goods and the friendliest shop owner in San Diego). It was the perfect combination – on Wednesday’s I’d actually go over the bridge, shop at this cute little store and eat delicious, locally grown food in a backyard setting. This fantasy was short lived as MIHO stopped parking at Casa Artelexia and I have to say, I have missed my reason for going over the bridge on Wednesdays.

Imagine how ecstatic I was to hear MIHO was coming to Coronado! I want to make sure they have a great turn out so they will come back. So if you’d like to dine on really tasty, really fresh gourmet food from the trendy platform of a food truck, please come out and enjoy the opportunity.

Remembering Jess Jackson

Jess Jackson who built a wine empire around Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay died in Sonoma County yesterday at the age of 81. Jackson reportedly had been undergoing treatment for melanoma for several years. He was a self-made billionaire and one of the most influential and controversial producers in the United States.

A big loss for the world-wide wine industry and a void in Sonoma County.

The Perfect Eggs Benedict

I know a lot of people across our great country have been enduring highly inclement weather this winter. Being conscientious of those who live anywhere besides Southern California, I won’t mention why I was drawn to ride my bike to my favorite breakfast joint last week (sunny, 75 degrees, crystal clear blue sky).

My “go-to” breakfast place in Coronado is Villa Nueva (956 Orange Avenue). The restaurant has gotten new owners as of the first of the year and improvements are being made almost daily. Owners and sisters, Yoly and Lily, are there with friendly smiles making sure the customers are happy and the place is looking tidy. To my pleasure the menu has remained widely the same. That is important since my order is identical every single time….eggs benedict with freshly squeezed orange juice. The juice speaks for itself but I would be remiss if I, having a wine and food blog, didn’t take the opportunity to write about the eggs benedict.

To me, the main attraction of this dish is the eggs. They are perfectly poached…EVERY SINGLE TIME! As a person who has attempted poaching eggs I am in awe of this feat. In addition, I have rarely found any other restaurant that can perfectly poach both eggs on even one order of eggs benedict. Really that is enough to sell me but not only do they perfectly poach eggs (say that 5 times fast), the english muffin is toasted just enough to give the crust a beautiful golden sun tan and the ham is browned so it has a tasty crunch on it’s exterior. Then there is the homemade hollandaise sauce. The perfect amount of red pepper is used to give the sauce an unexpected and much enjoyed hint of spice within it’s smooth, silky texture.

Besides nailing all of the elements perfectly there is no other secret to this dish but the end product is a beautiful presentation that draws you in the first time you place your fork in the egg. The yolk starts oozing inviting you, daring you to take a bite. Your first bite is almost a moment of silence as you taste the layering of textures and the perfect marriage each component brings to the dish.

This is a dish you definitely want to put on your “Enjoyable Things To Do” list. For those of you that don’t live in Southern California…maybe planning a vacation is in order. Well, if you are a foodie with a hankering for the perfect eggs benedict that is.

P.S. The muffins take second place for my breakfast craving. They are huge, moist and delicious!

Picnic On The Beach

My husband and I recently celebrated our anniversary. It is amazing to reflect back on a life that started as a couple, grew into a family and now is in the thick of tag teaming raising a child. We’ve shared such a full, fun-packed ride. But this is not a Hallmark card so let’s move on….

I was looking through a MINI Cooper magazine my father gave me when I came across an article on picnics – what foods to take, what wine to drink, etc. It inspired me to buy a picnic basket and take my husband on a beach picnic to celebrate our many happy years together. I thought it might be a fun twist to the typical “get dressed up and go to a fancy restaurant” type celebration we usually do.

I searched the internet for the perfect picnic basket. It had to have wine glasses, real plates (plastic was out), silverware and have an overall cool look about it. I was surprised to see so many sites devoted just to picnic baskets but the options became narrower the more I looked. I ordered one but sent it back for poor quality (the challenges of internet shopping) but then I found a second one that was perfect!

Our date started by going to our wine cellar and selecting a special wine. We chose a 2004 Brunello di Montalcino from Il Palazzone. This is a winery I stumbled on too late in our Italian adventures to visit but sent our current landlords there on a recent Italian vacation. Laura Gray*, the estate manager, gave them the red carpet treatment and our landlords in turn brought this bottle of Brunello back for us! Il Palazzone is a very small winery producing only 8,000 bottles of wine a year. Although American owned Laura and her husband, Marco Sassetti, an indigenous Montalcinese live on and run the estate. After enjoying our bottle, I can assure you the wines of Il Palazzone are exquisite and a perfect reflection of why Brunello di Montalcino is a prestigious DOCG wine worthy to be the center of any special occasion (see “Boots And Brunello In Montalcino”). Our Brunello was bold, balanced and complex with a beautiful bouquet of dark cherries and plums along with notes of leather. It was really quite decadent. We were surprised and sad to see the bottle empty so quickly.

Since my husband is into food almost as much as I am, we decided to include shopping for the picnic as part of the date. We went to Boney’s Bayside Market – a quaint market that has healthy and gourmet foods all perfectly wrapped up into one. We spread our blanket on beautiful Coronado Beach and enjoyed our picnic fare as we watched the fog roll in and the dolphins gracefully swim by. It was one of the best anniversary celebrations yet…and we even got to wear flip-flops!

I encourage you to pack your own picnic and spread out a blanket on the beach or a grassy knoll. In fact, I’ll give you our menu as a sample to spark your gourmand within. Don’t forget your wine opener. Now go out there and have fun!

Menu

2 Demi Baguette (perfect size for the basket)

Crackers

Black Peppered Crusted Brie

5 Year Aged Canadian Sharp Cheddar

English Cotswold

Thin Sliced Proscuitto, Coppa & Genova Salame

Pork & Chicken Liver Mousse With Black Truffles

Seafood Pate

Roasted & Marinated Red Tomatoes

Fresh Sliced Strawberries, Blackberries & Blueberries

Chewy Date Nut Bars

Pellegrino And A Great Bottle of Wine

*To make reservations to visit Il Palazzone in beautiful Montalcino, Italy contact Laura Gray at laura@ilpalazzone.com or Tel. (0039) 0577 846142 and tell her Julie from Deep Red Cellar sent you – I guarantee the red carpet will be rolled out for you too! 🙂

Even More Savings On Barrel Blend

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s posting about the exclusive discount offer from Hill Family Estate the extra savings…

In addition to the 15% discount offered exclusively to Deep Red Cellar customers, you get a 10% discount for ordering a case of any wine with Hill Family Estate. That means a generous 25% discount on this great balanced red wine (mixed cases excluded).

Don’t wait….order your case today!

A Surfer’s Wine – Discounted for Deep Red Cellar Customers Only!!!

I am re-posting the below write up on Napa Valley’s “Barrel Blend” wine because the good folks of Hill Family Estate have offered a DISCOUNT exclusively for Deep Red Cellar customers!

15% Discount on a case of Hill Family Estate “Barrel Blend” wine.

Go directly to www.hillfamilyestate.com and put BB15 in the “offer code” section during check out.

This is being offered exclusively for you, the customers of Deep Red Cellar.

I have some good news! I have found a really good wine that does not taste like it was made for every wine drinker on the planet. You may think that is NOT good news, but I say it is. After living in Italy for 3 years, I came home to America to find most of the “everyday drinking” wines tasting the same – all geared toward ease of drinking but lacking in complexity and finish. But alas, I have stumbled on a really great everyday wine that has some depth to it.

I was happy to see a new wine store in my town called Wine Styles. They carry many reasonably priced bottles of wine, have a monthly wine club and offer special events like tastings, pairings, etc. It was about day 3 of being in town that my husband and I walked into this store to purchase some wine (afterall, a hotel room with no wine is not really a hotel room at all). I was signing us up for the wine club, and my husband started talking with one of the employees. Turns out, the employee was professional surfer, Kyle Knox, who just happens to have a passion for wine. So much so, in fact, that he teamed up with Hill Family Estate to make his signature “Barrel Blend” wine (the pun is intended).

I bought a bottle to try and was very impressed. Gone was the overly fruit forward taste that had drained me of all hope in finding reasonably priced, reasonably complex California wine. This wine is really good. It is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Petit Verdot and Malbec. Sounds enticing doesn’t it – a great blending of varietals. This wine is all about balance. Hill Family Estate winemaker Alison Doran puts it best: “The nose has a great ‘wow’ factor – unmistakably Napa in its elegance, but with an earthy blackberry and vanilla appeal that really makes you want to take a sip. And the palate is lovely, balanced, seductive and interesting, with plushy berry fruit and vanilla scented oak playing backup on tannins.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I also tasted plum. Whatever the case, this wine will be coming home with me often. I may not drink it literally everyday (retails for about $20 a bottle) but as often as I crave a balanced, interesting wine.

*tasting note source: http://business.transworld.net

A Surfer’s Wine

*tasting note source: http://business.transworld.net

Hello America

I have now been in America for a little over a week and I gotta tell you…it feels pretty darn good. I enjoy my times living abroad but I have a heart that’s American to the core. The best part of this move is that it’s back to sunny Southern California where I was before going to Italy. It feels like home here and I am enjoying settling back into this part of the country – not to mention orderly driving, parking spaces, people in straight lines patiently waiting their turn, closets, etc. Although, I have not been back for very long, there are definitely some things I love about America:

1. I love that there is a brain-crushing amount of choices in everything – especially food and wine.

2. I love that the food portions seem like they are prepared for giants. It is not that great for the waistline, but it just cracks me up.

3. I love that I can buy fabulous, homemade sushi at the grocery store.

4. I love American pizza – it’s different from Italian pizza and indeed delicious in it’s own right.

5. I (am trying to) love that much of the everyday American wine is blended, fruit forward and easy to drink. It’s a harder transition than I thought since many Italian wines are not blended or barely blended and have what I call a more “raw” taste.

6. I love that there are always healthy eating options (and can splurge on my own time frame).

7. I love that there are wine clubs that let you pick up or deliver bottles of wine to your house every month. It’s a great way to explore wines you would not normally think about. And yes, I’ve already signed up for one through my local wine shop.

8. I love that it is actually an option to order whole wheat crusted pizza and brown rice at restaurants.

9. I love that there are quite a few nice wines for $10 and under. I was pleasantly surprised as I envisioned a life of sticker shock in my wine drinking future.

10. I love that I can eat burgers again. I missed them so much! My town has a restaurant that serves grass fed burgers and they are incredibly tasty.

11. I love that I pay in US Dollars instead of Euro for my food and wine.

12. I love the juices. There are a veritable plethora of combinations and tastes.

13. I love that there are such diverse ethnic food choices and places to eat.

14. I love that “organic” has become more of the norm.

15. I love how good I am eating. I am staying at a hotel temporarily and “forced” to go out to eat for many meals – it is the highlight of my day.

16. Finally and I’ve said it a million times, I love that America has not disappointed in maintaining it’s place as “The Land Of Plenty.”

Cheers and Dig In!