Boozy Joy

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Boozy Joy

11.28.07

 

I spied it the other day, proof positive that fruitcake is coming back in fashion. Oh, it wasn”t called fruitcake. It was called Torta della Frutta, and it was made by a company called Gianna’s. But I wasn’t fooled. Especially after I picked it up and felt its solemn, solid weight. Oh yes, this was fruitcake, all right.

It’s about time. It’s been a long spell of jokes about how there’s only one fruitcake in the world that just keeps getting passed around. For decades, we in the know have been smiling politely at the alleged witticisms about how fruitcake makes a good doorstop or how dangerous it is to drop one on your foot.

But savvy saveurs know better. We shun green cherries as the unnatural abominations they are, we understand that “macerate” has nothing to do with chewing or self-abuse, we candy our own lemon and orange peel and we know better than to squander the fruits and nuts of our labor on Philistine palates that can’t appreciate the subtler flavors. Fruitcakes are elegant, costly, labor-intensive creations that, properly made, evoke the very soul of luxurious abundance, well-spiced richness and boozy joy. Making one is an exercise in craftsmanship and, like making your own pie crust, is a satisfying foray into the overlapping territory between cooking and self-righteousness. What’s not to love about that?

If you’re up to the challenge, here are some things to know:

— Start now. This is an important part of fruitcake construction: you must plan ahead, like the frontier women. You want to give your cakes ample time to age in liquor, to let their flavors mellow. As those saintly Rombauer women tell us in The Joy of Cooking, “When [these cakes] are well-saturated with alcoholic liquors, which raise the spirits and keep down mold . . . they have been enjoyed as long as 25 years after baking.” That must require foresight.

— Pick a recipe that calls for a lot of eggs. The richer the batter, the better the cake.

— Real fruitcake has nothing to do with those $2.99 plastic tubs of radioactive fruit that appear on display tables in the produce section each October. Those are only good for reminding you that it’s time to head to the health food store and spend some serious cash on organic dried fruits and delicious nuts.

— The fruit and nut mixture is very important. My personal favorites: prunes, apricots, figs, candied ginger (in polite quantities), pineapple, pecans, hazelnuts and Missouri black walnuts. Avoid raisins and currants; in my opinion, they make the cake taste scorched. If you have a recipe that calls for citron or candied cherries, just substitute real dried fruit pound for pound—fearlessly.

— It is worth it to candy your own lemon and orange or tangerine peel. This is done by blanching the peel repeatedly, starting with cold water each time, until it looses its bitterness, then adding two parts water and one part sugar to the peel and cooking it down to a syrup.

— Spare the hooch, spoil the cake. The best recipes call for macerating (that’s Latin for “soaking”) the chopped fruit and nuts in alcohol for a good 24 hours before baking the cake. In my experience, brandy, cognac and rum go with everything; bourbon is really distinctive. Some people use wine or port. Whatever you pick, you’ll also brush the cake with it once a week, which means you’ll probably drink it at least that often, so make sure it’s something you like.

— After you’ve liquored up the fruit and nuts, make a decadent batter using real butter and some interesting bouquet of spices and flavorings (possibilities include espresso, cardamom, cloves, almond extract and even rosewater). Mix it all together, pour it into wax paper-lined tube, bundt, loaf or mini-loaf pans, and bake the suckers at a low temperature with a shallow pan of water in the bottom of the oven to keep them from drying out over the long baking time.

— Take the cakes out, let them cool, brush them with booze, wrap them up, brush them with booze again once a week until Christmas—et voilà.

Happy friends, happy cook. And no more stupid fruitcake jokes.

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Winery news and reviews.

Food-related comings and goings, openings and closings, and other essays for those who love the kitchen and what it produces.

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Nouveau Marketing

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Nouveau Marketing

New World Attitude: Savvy French vintners, looking at U.S. sales, make fun of themselves.

By Alastair Bland

In America, we’re all aware that the mighty French know everything and more when it comes to the subject of making, selling and drinking wine. However, in the south of France, many winemakers, eager for new business prospects, are at last lightening up as they look humbly west.

Historically a producer of less than glamorous wines on a surplus scale, the Languedoc province has begun in the past five years to shift its focus toward boosting the quality of its wine and spreading the word to Americans, especially as national consumption of wine across France declines. The change of tack has been most pronounced among those who make wines classified as Vin de Pays d’Oc, or “country wine from the Languedoc.”

These vintners have largely abandoned the stodgy French traditions of winemaking and pursued marketing angles far less intimidating and more attractive for American consumers. Their tactics include instituting greater quality control, altering their winemaking techniques, like opting for simpler blends, and trying out fun labeling ideas. Some producers, for example, have adopted brand names like “French Rabbit,” “Fat Bastard,” “Red Bicyclette,” “Arrogant Frog” and other symbols evocative of a very stereotyped France. Americans are tickled. We’re taking the bait, and it tastes good.

Vin de Pays represents a denomination of French wines two steps down from the regal Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) status and one step up from Vin de la Table, or “table wine,” which is often produced in backyards and enjoyed from household to household. Vin de Pays, like other grades of wine, is produced throughout France. No one chooses to make Vin de Pays. The government simply declares a plot of land as excellent, good, not quite as good and even less good. Vin de Pays is, theoretically, the not-quite-as-good wine, but at $9 to $15 a bottle, most casual consumers in the United States consider this a fine value.

Many of Languedoc’s Vin de Pays vintners have taken aim at American wine drinkers as a promising consumer base in the worldwide market, and most of the bottles are entirely free of the complicated flurries of extra vowels and silent consonants that clutter so many French wine bottles and leave English speakers scratching their heads in the supermarket aisle, wondering what the devil all that stuff is supposed to mean.

The front label of Thierry and Guy’s Fat Bastard Chardonnay, for example, bears just one French word—”Chardonnay”—for if there’s one thing that an American wine drinker wants, it’s a good old-fashioned varietal.

“[The varietal] is part of Americans’ reference and what they look for when they look at a wine label,” said Brigitte Barreiro, marketing representative for Domaines Paul Mas, which produces Arrogant Frog wines. “The varietal is a very important element of the label. Look at Sideways—it is all about Pinot Noir and the Merlot.'”

Even within France, marketing styles are evolving as wine consumers collectively grow less knowledgeable of wine regions and the finer attributes of quality. Whereas wine labels and supermarket aisles have traditionally been organized by the terroir, the area, the history and the estate, new and simpler tactics are coming into play.

“Our wine board for Vins de Pays d’Oc is beginning to advertise the wines according to their aromatics,” says Barreiro. “This is quite new in France.”

Arrogant Frog’s label also represents another brand-new yet increasingly popular approach among French producers in connecting with their consumers, says Barreiro, who pronounces the phrase flatly: “Auto-derision.” The bottle features an illustration of a dapper frog in a purple beret and sport coat, clutching a wine glass, leaning on a cane and sneering at the shopper. He’s a slimy-looking dude, and he’s irresistible. It’s a joke that Americans and Britons are likely to enjoy—important to consider when the French wine market seems to be waning.

“There is big concern about the decrease in consumption in France, and our [government] is making stricter and stricter laws, which encourage the lower consumption,” says Barreiro. “Wine is more and more presented as a drug, an addiction, a threat and not as enjoyment, sharing, culture and health.

“As we do not market our wines in France, we are not as worried as many producers can be,” she continues. “But many others are trying to market their wines abroad, and in many cases this requires a product adaptation to compensate for this loss.”

Meanwhile, the Languedoc became France’s newest AOC on May 3, 2007, and the region’s AOC vintners have gone straight to the consumer to help them find their legs and rise quickly into the serious economy of world-class wines. But first, the Languedoc vintners held an experimental tasting among themselves, sampling 150 bestselling red wines from around the world with the objective of classifying them and breaking the wines down into categories.

In the end, they discerned four distinct prototypes: One, a blend of 40 percent Carignan, 30 percent Syrah and 30 percent Grenache, is fruity, fresh and supple. The next, 70 percent Syrah and 30 percent Grenache, is fruity and lively. The third prototype is half Syrah and equal parts Grenache and Carignan, and carries a concentrated, well-structured black fruit profile. And the last is 60 percent Syrah and 40 percent Grenache: ripe, fruity, toasty and fat.

A consumer survey followed. One hundred wine drinkers in Chicago, 100 in London and 100 more in Paris sampled the four Languedoc prototypes. Overall results suggest they enjoyed the wines, while their more detailed comments and opinions will guide the Languedoc’s AOC vintners in developing blends and labels that appeal to these consumers. The survey marks a sharp turn in upscale and often pretentious French wine marketing methods; it was the first time ever that an AOC inquired with its targeted consumer base before styling its wines.

Two tiers below, among Vin de Pays d’Oc vintners, many wineries are making the shift toward the humorous, light-hearted approach to connecting with consumers in America. “Take a wine on the wild side,” jests the company motto of Wild Pig winery. Red Bicyclette’s says, “The French wine that speaks your language.” And Arrogant Frog’s declares, “Old World wines with New World attitude.”

“The ‘New World attitude,'” explains Arrogant Frog winemaker Jean-Claude Mas, “is an attitude which consists of listening to our customers and understanding their needs, and adapting our wines. This is not very common, even nowadays, in France, but things are changing, especially in the Languedoc.

“‘Arrogant Frog’ is a way to say to the consumers that, contrary to most of the French producer-focused wine, we have made a wine by listening to the consumers and moved away from the traditional French producer-focused approach, which basically says, ‘Taste that wine; if you don’t like it, it’s because you don’t know anything about wines.'”

Certainly, the times are changing as many south of Languedoc vintners in all denominations of quality alter their tactics of business. And in spite of the pompous amphibian, it appears that the French days of arrogance, so infamous, may be coming at last to an end.



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Quick dining snapshots by Bohemian staffers.


Winery news and reviews.


Food-related comings and goings, openings and closings, and other essays for those who love the kitchen and what it produces.


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Letters to the Editor

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11.28.07

Tape heads, unite!

Gabe Meline’s article (“Dolby Days,” Nov. 21) brought me back to those wonderful days when big hair looked great on the ladies (and some of the guys, too) and spandex and leather ruled!

I was in one of those bands that Gabe had mentioned (thanks for the props), and sometimes yearn for those days when there seemed to be a club to play on every corner.

Yes, Gabe, you hit it dead on!

We recorded our demo tapes at Banquet Studios in Santa Rosa, had Geoff Thorp (of Vicious Rumors) produce us, flyered the hell out of every town we played thanks to the copy machine at the place I used to work and were on our way to the big time.

Fifteen years after we disbanded, I will still, on occasion, listen to our demo tapes, remember the good old days, think of all the fun we had and wonder most of all: How the hell did we disregard that damn hissing noise that cassette tapes make?

Mark Oleson (ICE)Rohnert Park

Still persecuted

p>I am appalled by the actions of the district attorney in this matter (“Torturous Geometry,” Nov. 21). “David” is a friend and brother to all the nations, he represents the ongoing attitude still evident after all these years of persecution of the American natives of this land. I feel that making him testify would cause undo harm both to his mental and spiritual life. We have seen the way that people seem to forget how much the natives of this land have had to endure; the system is always against us and we strive to better our lives, yet we are met with hostility and prejudice. We as a people have not been evident in the media. Other minorities seem to have a bigger voice—the term “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” comes to mind—and so we still suffer at the hands of the ignorant and those who place their race above all others, not to mention the local and state governments. We must all try to have our voices heard. He should be exempt from having to testify.

Leesa Miranda Gomez, Proud Apache WomanSanta Rosa

DiFi sell-out

Coming into this century, after Bush was appointed . . . er, I mean, elected president, I can remember thinking that at least we here in Northern California had still chosen our representatives carefully.

Even Dianne Feinstein (Briefs, “Message for Feinstein,” Nov. 21) stood up for the principles that made this country run so well since our forefathers drafted their plan for how a country should be operated. You know, of the people, for the people, and by the people.

I am still quite pleased with the representatives we have here in Northern California. Except it would seem as though Dianne Feinstein likes “the Plan for a New American Century” better than the old one that had worked so well for over 200 years. Can you say “sold-out”? I knew that you could.

Marc GroahHealdsburg

Love the food you eat

Most of us have limited knowledge of how animals are raised for our food. Factory-farmed pigs and laying hens are destined to live out their lives in unnatural, unhealthy, intensively confined crates.

Picture a pregnant pig, as intelligent as a dog, confined for months at a time, in its confined world. That world is a 2-by-6-foot crate, not large enough even to turn around, lie down comfortably or simply to allow the animal to scratch herself. Picture egg-laying hens living their lives in a space smaller than an 8-by-11-inch sheet of paper, never able to spread their wings.

I wholeheartedly believe that the vast majority of people who eat meat would prefer that these animals live a decent existence before they head for their plate. I believe that if a person knew that they could end some of this suffering, they would, especially if it were easy for them to do so. That chance is now before us to make changes to significantly reduce the suffering of these animals. For more information on how to help, please visit www.humanecalifornia.org .

Lois Shelton, Compassionate-Carnivores.orgSanta Rosa


Death Wishes

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11.28.07

WITH ALL this mincing holiday talk of malevolent toys and war in Iran and U.C. fee hikes, some of us just want a little luxury around the holidays. (Some of us also deserve to be well and roundly slapped.) But for those who don’t want to pronounce “quinoa” when at table or for whom that extra lap around the track just ain’t worth it or for whom cotton has ugly, frugal connotations, we herewith offer our shortlist of once-a-year stuff to die for.

Deadly Sin Artisanal foie gras from Sonoma Saveur

KILLER APP The velvety, fleeting taste and texture of this rich delicacy can, depending on mood, make it seem reasonable to eat large stout slices of it, discarding any thought of arteries (see: clogging), heart (see: stopping) or tummy (see: growing).

WHY IT’S WORTH DYING FOR This rich delicacy is so controversial that owners Guillermo and Junny Gonzalez finally had to close their Northern California storefront due to threats on their very lives from animal rights activists. Their free-range ducks are raised in the traditional French manner and are treated with the highest standard of humane treatment. While, yes, the animals are force-fed, it’s important to remember that ducks ha0ve no gag reflex and that their throats are naturally flexible, making them able to swallow large fish in order to survive in the wild.

But forget all the PETA crap. What we’re after here is consuming enough melting calories of pure duck foie gras—seared and napped with a lovely cherry chutney, spread fresh over toast points or even tucked naughtily into a fresh-ground kobe burger—that just simply keeling over onto a bite-free plate is worth it.

Artisan Foie Gras retails online for $50 a pound, a “lobe” (try not to think of liver’s physical geometry) typically weighing 1.3 to 2 pounds. Each tablespoon of the stuff has about 60 calories, only nine of which do not emanate from the goodness of adipose. Artisan Foie Gras also sells rendered duck fat by the pound for a mere $6.50, and if you haven’t yet had your fries Frenched in hot duck fat, you are not indeed ready to keel onto a bite-free plate. www.artisanfoiegras.com.

Deadly Sin Homemade absinthe

KILLER APP There’s never a better time to die like a 19th-century poet—mad and frothing and bitter and young and beautiful and stained a slight greenish hue—than during a Bush administration. Taken in thoughtful amounts, chances are even you won’t. Best of all, it’s illegal.

WHY IT’S WORTH DYING FOR Homemade absinthe is quite the rage among those who live slightly off the grid in tree-heavy areas, or who just like to boil shit up while muttering, “Wormwood, wormwood,” à la Hamlet. The flavor of homemade absinthe, particularly when distilled by someone who understands herbology, is only slightly medicinal and deeply layered, beginning with the light green hyssop of new grass and descending on the palate through the entire green catalog until one comes face-to-face with the storied fairy. The effect of a small glass of it cut with sparkling mineral water and enlivened with pure white sugar is like having a tiny hit from a pot pipe. Lawd knows you can still cook dinner or do the laundry, but sitting in a chair gazing up at all of those off-the-grid trees is the preferred ingestion position.Homemade absinthe requires a small home still (the Internet is lousy with directions on building your own or purchasing from those mad cats in Kentucky), high-proof alcohol like Everclear or Bacardi and such herbs as fennel, anise seed, lemon balm, hyssop and wormwood. Instructables.com offers detailed directions replete with images of what your homemade Romantic Poet Swill should look like as you go; it also displays the skull and crossbones symbol when it gets to the point where this stuff mixes with fire. The very online Ms. Jekyll (find her at absinthe.msjekyll.com) gives recipes and lore as well as a curious recurring image of a beautiful woman in too much green eye makeup with a butterfly on her lips. Homemade limoncello is so last year. This year, give ’em a blast of Byron. Best of all, it’s illegal.

Deadly Sin Cashmere bathrobe

KILLER APP When one’s clean naked body is entirely swathed in loomed goat’s throat hair (yes, the highest quality comes from the goat’s throat, a terrific brand name), it’s extremely difficult to subsequently put on Lycra items or those warm-up clothes fashioned from recycled liter bottles and go exercise. Indeed, once the cashmere is on, it’s rare that it comes off—particularly as it’s so expensive to clean. You risk atrophying entirely while wearing it.

WHY IT’S WORTH DYING FOR We’re pricing these babies out in the mid-$400s full-price and “on sale” online in the mid-$200s, but what’s money? It never bothered Napoleon, who reportedly gave his second wife, the Empress Eugenie, some 17 cashmere pieces during their marriage. Not only did the woman live to be 94 (obviously he never gave her a robe), but her great elegance and wool-clad beauty so moved the groundskeeper at England’s Bournemouth gardens that he lit her way to the healing waters each night with a trail of small candles, a tradition that still occurs each summer for women wearing far less goat’s throat loom.

If we were buying these in real life and forever forswearing exercise and “career casual,” we’d toy with purchasing from the pashmina emporia otherwise known as www.boutiquejewels.com.

Deadly Sin Bonsai

KILLER APP This is a plant that you control by shaping with wire and cutters, denying its full horticultural potential at every turn and yet, if you do everything perfectly—tending and shaping and cutting and denying—it’ll outlive you by a good century. The irony, the karma, the full-circle joke alone is priceless.

WHY IT’S WORTH DYING FOR We hope that we’re not the first to break the news, but you are going to die anyway. Spending meditative time forcing nature itself to your own petty will has proven to extend life spans enormously. Plus, with bonsai, there’s so much to argue about! The categories, the technique, the masters … the list is endless. Discretionary income can just sluice from your hands as you tend to and acquire new bonsai, all of which—we labor to repeat—will flourish directly on your grave.

So why not get all your friends a-clipping? Bonsaiboy.com out of New York starts its unusual 48-year-old neri elm at $800, with a mere $95 needed to ship the thing cross-country. But a starter kit, replete with its own 3-year-old juniper just aching for soil, is a mere $24.95.

Bonsai folks go nuts about bonsai but tend to do it in that way that mild cult members go nuts: with clear, steady eyes, glowing skin and genuine smiles revealing well-cleaned teeth. That’s a positive. The inevitable compulsion to exhibit at the county fair is an easily tolerated negative.

Because it won’t, after all, kill you.


News Briefs

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11.28.07

Never Forget

Each minute, eight people worldwide are infected with HIV and another five die from HIV or AIDS. In Sub-Saharan Africa, five people each minute are infected with HIV and four people die. In the United States, someone is infected every 13 minutes, and someone dies every 33 minutes. And there’s particular concern about women. “Many women believe they are not at risk for the disease, but they may not know they are at risk,” says Marion Deeds, of the Sonoma County Commission on AIDS. “Everyone should make an HIV test part of their regular health checkup.” Sonoma County comes together on World’s AIDS Day, on Saturday, Dec. 1, to remember loved ones lost to this disease. Names of the deceased will be read aloud as part of a special memorial quilt display in Guerneville, and during an evening interfaith memorial service. See Events in our calendar, p45.

Cameo Continues

The images will keep flickering inside St. Helena’s old-time, single-screen Cameo Cinema even after mid-December, when Charlotte Wagner is stepping down after more than a decade of running the place. Enter Shawn LaRue of St. Helena and Cathy Buck of Oakville, who are buying the theater, leasing it from landlord Lydia Money of St. Helena. Built in 1915, the building boasts an art nouveau façade with a V-shaped marquee. LaRue and Buck plan to continue showing first-run movies at Napa County’s only upvalley movie house.

Barking at Geese

Corte Madera in Marin County is renting border collies to control more than a hundred aggressive wild geese in two local parks. “They leave approximately two pounds of excrement a day in the park, each goose,” explains Jackie Branch, Corte Madera’s recreation and parks director. “It’s acidic excrement, so it’s not good for the soil.” It’s also not good for children playing soccer and other games in the parks. The town council amended the local laws banning all canines in parks to allow service dogs starting Dec. 20. Branch hopes to begin employing goose-scaring collies soon after that—before nesting season starts. She’s getting bids from two East Bay companies which rent out border collies for goose patrol; one company charges $1,100 a month on a one-year contract. “The dogs will not touch a downed goose,” Branch explains. “They will go to it and point but they will not touch it.” The collies won’t be used after nearby schools have let out for the day. “They don’t want the kids chasing after the dogs.”


Toxic Toy Story

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11.28.07

WANT TO avoid giving children the holiday gifts of brain damage, hearing loss, anemia, kidney problems and a lowered intelligence level for life? Then take a good look at this list: Children’s toys. Children’s crafts. Children’s jewelry. Children’s furniture. Children’s clothing. And then take another.

Why? Because tens of millions of such children’s items have proven to be tainted with lead. Yes, the heavy metal, the poisonous blue-gray that the state of California has been working to get out of imported candies for more than a year. Lead is now showing up on the shelves of stores across the entire nation.

So great is the number of lead-tinged items that within weeks of the time the federal government, just this August, ordered the removal of 967,000 popular Fisher-Price toys, the toys had not even reached storage warehouses before an additional 675,000 additional items—this time, Barbie accessories—were recalled. The problem, to quote the Centers for Disease Control, was that “surface paints on the toys contain excessive levels of lead, which is prohibited under federal law.”

Yet even with the drumbeat of mass recalls, neither the federal nor the state government seems to be able to keep up with the number of lead-contaminated children’s products.

In fact, in recent seasons this latest byproduct of the Clinton/Bush “free” trade agreements—usually negotiated without regard to actual costs to nations’ workers or the world’s health—has continued to spread to millions of other products intended for children. And that’s an immense human health problem, because the same properties that make lead industrially desirable also make it biologically toxic.

For one thing, it’s heavy, at an atomic weight of 207.2 (compare that to oxygen, at a weight of 16), and its structure is huge, with 82 protons and electrons and 125 neutrons, making it the heaviest of the heavy metals. It’s also the softest, most malleable and most able to ooze into just about anyplace. And then it stays put for up to a quarter-century.

Like a large drunken, pouting lout who comes into the house to rest “for just a moment,” settles in, tosses empty chip bags and beer cans all around and squirms until the sofa breaks—and then moves to a chair to repeat the process—lead enters the body, perches wherever it wishes, and never leaves.

And some 20 percent of lead never makes it through the urinary excretion process, remaining in the body. It migrates through the blood, disturbing red and white platelet processes. It settles in bone, displacing blood, cutting bone rebuilding and weakening the bone structure.

And worst of all, lead migrates into the soft tissues, most noticeably the brain. It oozes into the large spaces usually occupied by calcium, a nerve-firing helper, and displaces it, occupying synapse-firing zones and gumming up the ability of neurons to respond.

This in turn produces hearing loss, vision loss, slowing of response time, lowering of IQ, linguistic confusion and progressively more primitive social responsiveness. Lead poisoning victims are not only slower and clumsier, but more likely to misinterpret social cues, be inappropriately aggressive, and randomly exhibit cruelty and violent behavior. And that’s exactly the behavior, some historians have noted, that characterized the last generations of the Roman Empire, which had lined its cities’ water-delivering viaducts with lead.

The effect on young children is even more profound, since their rapidly forming bodies will incorporate virtually anything ingested. Infants and toddlers ingesting lead commonly develop anemia as the blood degenerates, encephalitis as the brain swells and stunted growth as bone formation and replacement slow. And given that young children stick just about anything they can in their mouths to taste the qualities of the new world they’re exploring, children can potentially ingest quite a bit of lead. In fact, the primary age for lead poisoning is in the range between 12 and 24 months of age.

Avoiding the Gift of Lead

Luckily, some people are taking effective action to combat the explosion of lead contamination of children’s products and have some clear guidance to offer those wishing to avoid giving the gift of lead. One of them is Caroline Cox, research director for the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health.

Cox, who worked on establishing alternatives to common toxic pesticides for more than a decade before joining CEH, advises this: “The first thing to do is familiarize yourself with what toys have been recalled, so you can avoid those” (see sidebar ). She also points out that potential purchasers can look up children’s’ jewelry recalled for lead content in the last couple of months.

Additionally, she counsels shoppers to “look for toys that are not made of vinyl, and aren’t painted.” That’s because lead, being soft, malleable and stable, is still used as a stabilizer in many vinyl products and many other nations’ paints. While lead content in paint was reduced significantly by federal fiat in the United States in 1978, it isn’t controlled nearly as tightly elsewhere—and still isn’t controlled in any vinyl product but mini-blinds, even in the United States. “Lead protects the vinyl as it goes through the various heating processes,” Cox says, so it is often used, despite its dangers, in manufacturing.

And that continuing use of lead, Cox points out, results just as much from U.S. consumer preference as from manufacturers’ irresponsibility. “Somewhere between 80 percent and 90 percent of our toys come from China, but it’s important to remember that this is not solely a Chinese problem,” Cox says. The problem is also American and other consumers’ pressure on retailers to constantly move prices downward, which “emphasizes price over quality. It’s a recipe for problems.”

For testing already-purchased children’s items, Cox mentions home lead test kits, available in paint and hardware stores. Like epoxy glues, these involve mixing two separate tubes of chemical liquid, pouring the mixture on the surfaces of the items to be tested, and waiting to see which color the combined liquids turn.

The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, however, says that they’re not accurate. “None of the kits consistently detected lead in products if the lead was covered with a non-leaded coating,” notes an Aug. 22, 2007, press release. In addition, “of 104 total test results, more than half (56) were false negatives, and two were false positives.” In short, home lead test kits, designed to measure the many times higher level of lead in old peeling paint, don’t seem to read the smaller proportion in children’s products very effectively. For that reason, they’re not a good tool for determining the safety of toys.So what’s the best thing to do overall? Follow the recalls.

Luckily for anyone with web access, that’s relatively simple to do. And it’s about to get simpler, since CEH and other organizations are, as of Dec. 4, 2007, going live with a central one-stop checkpoint for getting the word on unsafe toys. Here is a list of places that will take shoppers right to well-presented, easy-to-read information and recalls and lead toxicity prevention:

Toy safety: Central checkpoint, to be active as of Dec. 4: www.healthytoys.org.

Children’s items lead-related recalls: Federal Centers for Disease Control offers lists, with product photos, of lead-related recalled children’s products. Open page, type “lead recalls” in right-hand search box, first item links to all lists: www.cdc.org.

Overall product recalls: Central checkpoint, courtesy of the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission, for all federal recalls, from air conditioners to children’s wagons: www.cpsc.org.

Overall lead poisoning prevention: From the federal Environmental Protection Agency, a wider view of lead’s most common environmental sources and how to increase effective safety measures in the home: www.epu.gov/lead. Here’s to a safe holiday for all.

Local & Safe Toys

Perhaps the strangest news so far this shopping season is that many parents are ignoring the rash of toy recalls in their post-Thanksgiving consumer frenzy. For shoppers looking to keep their purchases kid-safe, the answer is often to shop local. Here are a few South Bay toy stores putting safety first:

Hicklebees Childrens Books & Toys

1378 Lincoln Ave., San Jose 408.292.8880

Offers games, books, board games by EEBOO, baby toys made of easily cleaned fabrics by Lamaze, Ravensburger toys, sets of audio books, action figures of knights on horses and dragons by PAPPO, and a number of plush toys.

The Wooden Horse

796 Blossom Hill Road, Los Gatos 408.356.8821

Offers wood toys painted with nontoxic natural vegetable oil, plastic toys and organic plush toys.

Legends

925 Blossom Hill Road #1230, San Jose; 408.578.5978

Offers plastic toys and acrylic paint. Products containing lead have visible warnings stating that they are not for kids.

Affordable Treasures

15795 Los Gatos Blvd., Los Gatos 408.356.3101

Offers Silly Putty, play dough, wooden toys and plastic toys.

The Train Shop

1829 Pruneridge Ave., Santa Clara 408.296.1050

Offers all lead-free trains.


First Bite

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11.28.07

Editor’s note: First Bite is a new concept in restaurant writing. This is not a go-three-times, try-everything-on-the-menu report; rather, this is a quick snapshot of a single experience. We invite you to come along with our writers as they—informed, intelligent eaters like yourselves—have a simple meal at an area restaurant, just like you do.

The Wolf House of Glen Ellen received “two forks” in the Michelin guide released a few weeks ago. That sounds impressive, though it really means that the tire company’s restaurant inspectors simply deem it “comfortable and pleasant”—a bit worthier than, say, a phone book listing.

Yet for casual diners who don’t obsessively parse the nuances and tiers of endless guides like Zagat, Mobil and such, seeing the Michelin logo in the window of the restaurant tucked between the historic Jack London Saloon and Jack London Lodge may be all it takes to get them in the front door.

Which would be a good thing. Because while there’s nothing earth-shattering going on in the kitchen here, there’s plenty to like about this place, with its generous portions of California comfort food, reasonable prices and charming chateau setting with a roaring fireplace and creekside views.

Chef Chris Kennedy Aken shines with his use of straightforward ingredients, well-treated and nicely presented, like the absolutely delightful appetizer of “crunchy little fish bites” ($10). Meaty chunks of expertly fried cod, halibut and potato arrive wrapped in a paper menu, plunked in a clever glass box and paired with a thin, bright lemon aioli. It’s a highly addictive nibble.

Another appetizer of paté ($9) was as rustic as they come, the chunky-creamy slab wrapped in bacon and decorated with candied red onions plus a dollop of grain mustard to spread on bread (though I wasn’t sure what to do with a silly tower of carrot curl stuck with frisée that was plopped on the plate).

I’ve eaten flocks of lamb chops over the years, but the Wolf’s ($29) stand out for their basic goodness—top quality meat, perfectly roasted and glistening with enough fat and drizzles of kalamata jus for deep flavor. Sides of tempura portobello fries and a flaky tomato tart soaked up the juices.

The most creative thing on my evening’s menu was the ahi ($25), seared and sliced over white shrimp-stuffed wontons and miso-marinated asparagus. It was also the least successful: the wontons went soggy under a heavy sour apple “froth” that was more like bubbly cream, and oversalting ruined the vegetables and bland fish.

Yet the simple seasonal salads were wonderful, like a tumble of roasted beets, green and yellow beans, snap peas, shaved fennel and avocado turbo-charged with fistfuls of Pt. Reyes blue cheese ($11). Another plate of cantaloupe, honeydew and yellow watermelon ($9) was sparked with sharp pickled ginger, cucumber and red onion curls under a drizzle of Sonoma Valley olive oil.

It was no surprise to see classic chocolate soufflé ($7) for dessert, and no shock that it was delicious. In old-school style, the crunchy-capped round melted into a thick liquid center, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a tiny pitcher of hot chocolate sauce served alongside.

This Wolf House is a nice beast—friendly, familiar, fairly priced and in a delicious storybook setting. For most diners, that warrants a pretty high rating.

Wolf House, open for lunch, Tuesday&–Friday; dinner, Tuesday&–Sunday; brunch, Saturday&–Sunday. 13740 Arnold Drive, Glen Ellen. 707.996.4401.


Quick-and-dirty dashes through North Bay restaurants. These aren’t your standard “bring five friends and order everything on the menu” dining reviews.

Family Feud

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Family Feud

11.28.07

HIS winter carries the usual heavy cargo of oversize emotions, love that lasts through many lifetimes, noble wars, dead wives, dead husbands, dead children: the dark end of the year’s rich, fatty cinema. And yet the biggest surprise of the holiday movie season, which keeps on giving well into the new year, may turn out to be something relatively lean: a French cartoon. (Remember, opening dates are always subject to the whims of distributors.)

Persepolis (Jan. 11) represents a huge improvement on Marjane Satrapi’s popular graphic novel about growing up in Iran. The animation revives the power of UPA Studio’s work from the 1950s and demonstrates the graphic power of extreme blacks and whites, simple forms and two dimensions.

Satrapi’s work was a bestseller for many reasons. The bluntest one is that she makes the complex subject of Iran in the 20th century completely understandable to self-obssessed American young people. The princessy, very Westernized narrator learns that self-willed blindness isn’t enough to protect you, and ultimately, Satrapi’s book memorializes her grandmother.

But the holiday’s other high points offer a fiesta of toxic families. The best of them, Atonement (Dec. 7 in S.F., expands Dec. 14), is the exact opposite of Merchant-Ivory. This compelling, unusually flexible and intimate epic is drawn from a slightly intractable Ian McEwan novel. The spur of action is a little girl’s willful malice. Because of her storytelling, she forever blights the happiness of her elder sister, played by Keira Knightley at her most glamorous and attenuated best as an art-deco English lady. The film links two vastly different plots: a scandal at an English manor house in the 1930s, and the unpleasantness at Dunkirk, May 1940. Director Joe Wright’s show-stopping scenes of the Big War are extraordinary. They look like a combination of Alfonso Cuarón’s tracking shot in Children of Men, the art of Belgian symbolist James Ensor and a good dose of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.

Speaking of dangerous sisters, Margot at the Wedding (Dec. 7 locally) boasts two of them. In the new film by Noah (The Squid and the Whale) Baumbach, ulterior motives are in play as two very estranged sisters (Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh) reunite at Leigh’s nuptials to a bristly and porky oaf (Jack Black, as hilariously good as he was in High Fidelity). Talented newcomer Zane Pais plays the adolescent son Kidman smothers halfway to Oedipusland. This film will appeal to those who can stand unadulterated rancor.

The lean Australian Kidman also stars in the franchise-starter The Golden Compass (Dec. 7), based on Philip Pullman’s trilogy of novels about an alternative England shadowed by a vast and ruthless conspiracy: a church in the books, a “Magisterium” in the no doubt more God-fearing movie.

The Philip Seymour Hoffman/Laura Linney vehicle The Savages (Dec. 25) is sweeter than Margot, though good and mean and bleak. It chronicles the Sideways-style bitterness of the brother and sister, twin failures yoked into dealing with their ornery, senescent father (Philip Bosco). They stash him in a nursing home called Valley View, probably because there is no view and no valley. The soundtrack (in which Brecht and Weill’s “Solomon Song” figures prominently) is even better than Wes Anderson’s eclectic music programming for The Darjeeling Limited.

There Will Be Blood (Dec. 26 limited, expands Jan. 4) is Paul Thomas Anderson’s much anticipated drama of Cain and Abel&–worthy strife between brothers in the Texas oil fields, with Daniel Day-Lewis as a moral-free tycoon.

The Perfect Holiday (Dec. 12) has a little girl petitioning Santa for a husband for her momma. Lance Rivera (The Cookout) directs. The advance word on Juno (Dec. 21) is rapt. Stripper-turned-writer Diablo Cody came up with a pregnant teen trying to find the perfect family for her baby; Ellen Page (Hard Candy) plays the pregnant teen; Jason Reitman of Thank You for Smoking directs.

Something I can vouch for is the first-rate horror film The Orphanage (Dec. 28 limited, expands Jan. 4), an elegant Spanish screw-turner that proposes that her child’s death is only the beginning of a mom’s worries.

The Kite Runner (Dec. 14) has strife between two young Afghan men, one who has joined the Taliban. For further family feuding, admittedly among a family of rodents, we get the resurrection of Alvin and the Chipmunks (Dec. 14) in time for their annual source of royalties, “Christmas, Christmas.”

Awake (Nov. 30) is a horror film about a man paralyzed yet conscious during heart surgery. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Dec. 21) features John C. Reilly and director Jake Kasdan parodying Walk the Line and a whole lot of other musical biopics. The Walker (Dec. 14) is Paul Schrader’s newest. Woody Harrelson plays a gay escort from Washington, D.C., working the wealthy crone trade.

In National Treasure: The Book of Secrets (Dec. 21), Nicolas Cage seeks the missing 18 pages of John Wilkes Booth’s diary in order to clear the name of a relative who was supposedly in on the Lincoln assassination; trailers suggest a larger conspiracy, too huge for Lyndon LaRouche even. Charlie Wilson’s War (Dec. 25) stars Tom Hanks as the ex-Texas politician who helped bankroll the Afghan rebellion against the Soviet invaders. It’s heavy on the opera bouffe politics—the late Mollie Ivins, who knew Wilson, said the source material is like a cross between Tom Clancy and a Flashman adventure. Unfortunately, like the book, the movie looks negligent on the part of how Wilson and his other commie-busters gave the Taliban their start in life.

When you think of communists vs. Taliban, it’s a natural jump to Aliens vs. Predator—Requiem (Dec. 25), a gift for people who would rather avoid anything that smells like Christmas whatsoever. Similar bloody-mindedness occurs in two other films: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Dec. 21), Tim Burton’s Victorian fantasia with Johnny Depp as the avenger/baker. Truly, it is the first cannibal-themed musical since, eh, Cannibal! The Musical. On a much gentler level The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Dec. 25) is Jay Russell’s CGI cartoon about a boy who befriends a Loch Ness Monster look-alike.

It’s a tragedy to be alone for the holidays, as Will Smith learns the hard way in I Am Legend (Dec. 14). Fortunately, this unhappy last man on earth has some surprise guests to cheer him up: an army of unstoppable vampires.

Rather be drained from the tear ducts instead of the neck? The rom-tradges P.S., I Love You (Dec. 21) and The Bucket List (Dec. 25 limited release) have a common source, one imagines: those self-help books that list the things to do before you perish. In the former, Hilary Swank is led around on a journey to Ireland by her demised Irish squeeze. Must be a Celtic cross between Ghost and Once. This plot was a tear-siphon back in the days of the TV movie Sunshine, where John Denver’s ballads got the audience in the proper mood for it; My Life Without Me did it again. A thick-enough soundtrack of Irish keening might liquefy the audience.

The latter, The Bucket List, is a geriatric bromance helmed by Rob Reiner: as men without much time left, ornery Jack Nicholson and angelic Morgan Freeman take care of that list of things they wanted to do before they kicked the bucket.

Dec. 21 (limited release) brings us The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel’s true story of a paralyzed man unable to communicate except with the blinking of one eye. The Great Debaters (Dec. 25) has Denzel Washington as a legendary debating coach who rallied a small Texas school to beat the best of the Ivy League. If you haven’t been softened enough, Grace Is Gone (Dec. 14) deals, in neorealist style, with the tragedy of the patriotic father of two children (John Cusack) whose wife perished fighting in Iraq. Buy a ticket, or the terrorists have already won.


Fierce Parade

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Fierce Parade

music & nightlife |

Illustration by Nathalie Roland

By Gabe Meline

L ast month at Hollywood’s famed Troubadour club, the Velvet Teen unveiled a new lineup, new songs and a new abrasion. With frontman Judah Nagler on bass and new recruit Matthew Izen on guitar, it was clear that a completely different and complex band had emerged. The more confused members of the wall-to-wall audience, apparently unaware of the Santa Rosa–based band’s evolution since their lilting debut, Out of the Fierce Parade , could take pleasure in at least one new song, a bouncing ditty utilizing pop-song chord changes and guitar hooks. Absent of the discord that has marked the band’s recent recordings, it helped highlight a set that by now, after a month on the road, should be honed to perfection. They appear at Petaluma’s Phoenix Theater Dec. 1.

The Velvet Teen have curated their homecoming show with a smattering of new local bands, all of which deserve mention. Not to Reason Why, named after a roadside flower stand in Cotati, is the newest star on the scene to specialize in orchestral indie rock reminiscent of Explosions in the Sky or Godspeed You Black Emperor. As overexposed as their chosen genre has been in recent years, Not to Reason Why nonetheless kick against its imagined barriers and create near-perfect soundscapes from piano, guitar, bass and drums.

Also on the bill are Moggs, a husband and wife duo of drums and guitar who both define and minimize angularity. The band’s album, The White Belt Is Not Enough , was recorded in their home studio, a completely analog setup anchored by the very mixing board used for the blockbuster film Titanic . But the music of Moggs is as distant from Celine Dion as Mitt Romney is from the Church of Satan.

Litany for the Whale continue to make their viciously loud mark in the modern metal underworld, so committed to perfection that they recently scrapped an entire album before release. New songs have been drawn up and added to the set list, with previously absent vocals guiding the band’s journey through epic, distorted, feedback-laden territory. Don’t expect to make it out unscathed.

Chores are a fun-loving trio of guys in their early twenties whose dual screaming and odd forms owe equally to the attack of the Blood Brothers as to the avant-garde freedom of Archie Shepp. The first time I saw them was in a kitchen, and people were literally dancing upside-down on the ceiling during their set. As musical chefs of unusually long and exploratory hardcore compositions, Chores plunge in the knife, swirl it around in circles and watch the results writhe and convulse.

The Velvet Teen, Not to Reason Why, Moggs, Litany for the Whale and Chores appear on Saturday, Dec. 1, at the Phoenix Theater. 201 E. Washington St., Petaluma. 8pm. $10. 707.762.3565.




FIND A MUSIC REVIEW

The Island of Recalled Toys

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0

11.28.07

This is a brief, partial list of some of the most-recognized brands of toys recently found tainted with lead. It does not list all recalled or lead-tainted toys, and is meant only to serve as an introduction to the scope of lead-related recalls. Please see federal Centers for Disease Control and Consumer Product Safety Commission websites&–listed at the end of the main article&–for more complete listings of recalled toys and other children’s’ items.

Brief Glance, Recalls By Brand

Aqua Dots by Spin Master 4.2 million recalled; beads, made to fuse to create 3-D shapes when sprayed with water, contain chemical which converts to date-rape-type drug in the body; induces dizziness; cases of coma following ingestion. Do not purchase; if purchased, remove from child immediately.

Baby Einstein Color Blocks 35,000 recalled on Oct, 4, 2007; lead in surface paint.

Barbie Accessory Toys 675,000 recalled on Sept. 5, 2007; lead in surface paint.

‘Big Red’ Wagons 7,200 recalled on Nov. 7, 2007; lead in paint on wooden surfaces and handles.

Cub Scouts Totem Badges 1.6 million recalled on Oct. 9, 2007; lead on surface paints.

Curious George Plush Dolls by Marvel 175,000 recalled on Nov. 8, 2007; lead in face and hat paints.

Disney Deluxe Winnie-the-Pooh 23-Piece Play Sets 49,000 recalled Oct. 11, 2007; lead in surface paints.

Dollar General&–distributed Children’s Sunglasses 51,000 recalled on Nov. 8, 2007; lead in yellow surface paint.

Dollar General&–distributed Super Wheels, Super Racers pull-release car toys 380,000 recalled on Nov. 7, 2007; lead in surface paint.

Dora the Explorer toys 967,000 recalled on Aug. 2, 2007; possible excessive lead in surface paint.

Duck Family Collectible Wind-Up Toy 3,500 recalled on Nov. 7, 2007; lead in surface paint.

Jeff Gordon Mini Helmet 2,500 recalled Oct. 11, 2007; lead in surface paints.

Kidnastics Balance Beams 2,400 recalled on Oct. 11, 2007; lead in surface paints.

Pirates of the Caribbean Medallion Squeeze Lights 79,000 recalled on Oct. 4, 2007; lead in surface paint on leather strap.

‘Robot 2000’ Collectible Tin Robot 2,600 recalled on Nov. 7, 2007; lead in surface paints.

Sesame Street toys 967,000 recalled on Aug. 2, 2007 (same recall as Dora the Explorer, above); lead in surface paints.

SpongeBob SquarePants Address Books and Journals 250,000 recalled on Aug. 22, 2007; lead in paint on spiral bindings.

Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Toys 1.7 million recalled on June 13 and Sept. 26, 2007; lead in surface paints.

Winnie-the-Pooh Spinning Top 69,600 recalled on Aug. 22 and Nov. 7, 2007; lead in surface paint on tops’ handles.

Brief Summary, Other Recalls

Branded and Generic Children’s Garden Tools Kits Nearly 500,000 kits and individual items (rakes, shovels) recalled; lead in paint on surfaces.

Generic Children’s Jewelry Sets Nearly 200 million metallic jewelry items, including rings, necklaces, key chains, charm bracelets, spinning pendants, earrings and even religious ornaments (fish symbols), marketed primarily to young girls, recalled; lead in metal products and clasps.

Children’s Ornately Painted Battle Toys Nearly 2 million generic and minor-brand “Elite,” “Ultimate” and “Invincible” type small metal battle toys and sets recalled; lead in both paint and products themselves.


Boozy Joy

11.28.07  I spied it the other day, proof positive that fruitcake is coming back in fashion. Oh, it wasn"t called fruitcake. It was called Torta della Frutta, and it was made by a company called Gianna's. But I wasn't fooled. Especially after I picked it up and felt its solemn, solid weight. Oh yes, this was...
Read more

Nouveau Marketing

New World Attitude: Savvy French vintners, looking at U.S. sales, make fun of...
Read more

Letters to the Editor

11.28.07Tape heads, unite!Gabe Meline's article ("Dolby Days," Nov. 21) brought me back to those wonderful days when big hair looked great on the ladies (and some of the guys, too) and spandex and leather ruled! I was in one of those bands that Gabe had mentioned (thanks for the props), and sometimes yearn for those days when there seemed...
Read more

Death Wishes

11.28.07WITH ALL this mincing holiday talk of malevolent toys and war in Iran and U.C. fee hikes, some of us just want a little luxury around the holidays. (Some of us also deserve to be well and roundly slapped.) But for those who don't want to pronounce "quinoa" when at table or for whom that extra lap around the...
Read more

News Briefs

11.28.07 Never ForgetEach minute, eight people worldwide are infected with HIV and another five die from HIV or AIDS. In Sub-Saharan Africa, five people each minute are infected with HIV and four people die. In the United States, someone is infected every 13 minutes, and someone dies every 33 minutes. And there's particular concern about women. "Many women believe they...
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Toxic Toy Story

11.28.07WANT TO avoid giving children the holiday gifts of brain damage, hearing loss, anemia, kidney problems and a lowered intelligence level for life? Then take a good look at this list: Children's toys. Children's crafts. Children's jewelry. Children's furniture. Children's clothing. And then take another.Why? Because tens of millions of such children's items have proven to be tainted with...
Read more

First Bite

11.28.07Editor's note: First Bite is a new concept in restaurant writing. This is not a go-three-times, try-everything-on-the-menu report; rather, this is a quick snapshot of a single experience. We invite you to come along with our writers as they—informed, intelligent eaters like yourselves—have a simple meal at an area restaurant, just like you do.The Wolf House of Glen Ellen...
Read more

Family Feud

11.28.07 HIS winter carries the usual heavy cargo of oversize emotions, love that lasts through many lifetimes, noble wars, dead wives, dead husbands, dead children: the dark end of the year's rich, fatty cinema. And yet the biggest surprise of the holiday movie season, which keeps on giving well into the new year, may turn out to be...
Read more

Fierce Parade

music & nightlife | Illustration by Nathalie Roland ...
Read more

The Island of Recalled Toys

11.28.07This is a brief, partial list of some of the most-recognized brands of toys recently found tainted with lead. It does not list all recalled or lead-tainted toys, and is meant only to serve as an introduction to the scope of lead-related recalls. Please see federal Centers for Disease Control and Consumer Product Safety Commission websites&–listed at the end...
Read more
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