Tasting Notes

By Bob Johnson

1998 Merlot California

Using grapes from no less than 14 vineyards, including Sonoma County’s Tanunda Vineyard down Carneros way, winemaker Dennis Hill created a blend with lots of smoky cherry character in the nose and mouth. Fruity, supple, clean, and ready to drink now. Seen for less than $10. Rating: 2.5 corks (out of 4).

1997 Merlot Sonoma County

More complex than the flagship California bottling, this wine offers aromas and flavors of Bing cherry, woodspice, and mild herbs. Sip the California during happy hour; savor the Sonoma with supper. $16. Rating: 3 corks.

1997 Merlot Napa Valley

A dollop of Cabernet Franc brightens the nose of this blend, which draws fruit from five Napa vineyards. To the Sonoma aroma/flavor smorgasbord, add cocoa and plum. Is it worth $2 more than the Sonoma? That’s a matter of individual preference. $18. Rating: 3 corks.

From the July 6-12, 2000 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Cool Cuisine

How to eat when you can’t stand the heat

By Marina Wolf

HAIR, LAWN, and appetite: the first three things to wilt during a heat wave. The first two are beyond the scope of a food article, but what about the appetite? We have to eat, even after the joy of ice cubes, popsicles, and watermelon melts away.

First off, you might try taking your cue from the tropical cuisines of the world, which provide sustenance for their people in much worse weather than ours (it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity!). Much of the food in hot countries includes large quantities of chilies and other zesty seasonings. Pungent flavorings make you sweat, which is part of our body’s natural cooling system. But they also wake you out of your heat-induced stupor, according to chef and author Louise Fiszer. “During the summer your palate is looking for something interesting,” says Fiszer. “The appetite dies down in heat, so you need a little something to wake it up.”

Accordingly, Fiszer makes lavish use of fresh herbs in the summer, basil and mint being favorites that quickly transcend garnish and become primary ingredients. The chapter on cold soups in Fiszer’s Good Day for Soup (which she co-wrote with Jeannette Ferrary in 1996), is full of herbs. Dilled cucumber soup with bay shrimp. Cool minted pea soup. Cream of mixed lettuces, chive, and chervil. Chilled pear and parsley. Cold plum and watercress.

HERBS ARE also a key component in what makes Southeast Asian food a cooling dinner option, says chef and author Joyce Jue. Mint and cilantro are ubiquitous in tropical Asian cuisines, sparked by tartness from citrus or vinegar in dressings or sauces, and punctuated, of course, with chilies. Even the garnishes of Asian salads contribute to waking up the mouth, says Jue. “I love the crispy fried garlic and shallot. They give a real burst of flavor.”

Of course, the salads Jue specializes in aren’t the typical cool, crisp, leafy California salads. Instead, the Asian salads are a savory mixture of minced meats, poultry, and fish, tossed with lots of herbs and often some fruits and vegetables. “Asians don’t treat these salads as a meal, but with a little extra protein and larger servings, they work well in a Western diet,” Jue says.

Asian salads illustrate several cool-kitchen principles. They make frequent use of noodles such as rice vermicelli, which need only to be rehydrated in hot water. One of Jue’s favorite noodle-based salads combines vermicelli with chicken, shrimp, and crumbled sections of pomelo or grapefruit.

There is also a strong tradition in some Southeast Asian countries of fresh salad platters, which are assembled right at the table. Jue mentions the Vietnamese salad platter dai rau song, which usually contains lettuce, green fresh herbs, cucumber and carrot strips, and shredded scallions, wrapped in rice crepes and dipped into a sauced based on peanut, chili, or fish.

If you’re dealing with raw things, you’re in luck. If you must cook, do it in the cooler hours, and then just put it together when you’re ready, says Fiszer. And for god’s sake, take the easy way out wherever you can. “Today there’s almost nothing you can’t get already prepared,” Fiszer says. “From the smallest mom-and-pop store to the biggest luxury market, you can find the food anywhere. All you do is add your touches to it.”

Fiszer points out one of her favorite summer concoctions–a tortilla wrap with chicken caesar salad–as a perfect example of this. The chicken is already grilled and cut into strips (you can find this in the section where packaged hot dogs are, but don’t let that turn you off). You simply toss the chicken together with romaine lettuce and caesar salad dressing, spread the tortilla with more dressing, and roll up. “I would much prefer to grill my own chicken, but if you don’t have the time and you don’t want to heat up the kitchen, this is the way to go.”

Another salad, which Fiszer recently made for a class, contained prawns, feta cheese, olives, roasted red pepper, penne, and spinach, and the only thing she had to cook was the pasta. Everything else was precooked, precut, precrumbled. Total prep time?

Fifteen minutes.

SUMMER is not the time, in other words, to worry about home cooking, because home cooking is hot work. Use your deli for precooked ingredients such as whole roast chicken or thick-cut roast beef. Don’t forget such cooling vegetarian products as tofu (even that comes in convenience packages, already marinated and/or baked). And remember canned foods such as beans, well rinsed and drained.

Fiszer advocates learning several techniques for salad dressing. “A good salad relies on the strength of the dressing,” she says firmly. But even that can be store-bought and home-improved, with very little effort. “I would never tell you to buy dressing. It’s so easy to make and tastes better, too,” Fiszer says. “But if you had to, you could always buy dressing and add your own lemon juice, herbs, balsamic vinegar.”

And of course, there’s always the last resort. If all this is completely beyond you, do what Jue does: “I make my husband barbecue.”

Lamb Sausage, Arugula, and White Bean Salad

This main-dish salad from Louise Fiszer’s A Good Day for Salad (co-written with Jeannette Ferrary; Chronicle Books, 1999) illustrates how simple dinner can be. Beans out of a can should be thoroughly rinsed; Fiszer recommends beans from glass jars (Whole Foods is her favorite brand), as they are entirely free from that tinny aftertaste.

Cherry tomato and rosemary dressing: 6 cherry tomatoes, halved & seeded 2 cloves garlic 1 tsp. fresh minced rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon dried 1 tbsp. sugar 4 tbsp. balsamic vinegar 1/2 cup olive oil 1/2 tsp. freshly ground pepper 1/2 tsp. salt 1 pound lamb sausage, cooked & sliced 4 cups. cooked white beans 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved 8 cups arugula, torn into bite-size pieces Fresh rosemary sprigs for garnish

In a blender or food processor, mix all dressing ingredients until well blended. In a large bowl, combine lamb, beans, tomatoes, and arugula. Toss with dressing and garnish with sprigs of rosemary. Serves 6 to 8.

Louise Fiszer’s class, “A Good Day for Salads,” will be held at Ramekins Sonoma Valley Culinary School on Wednesday, July 12, at 11 a.m. Joyce Jue will teach a class there on “Asian Salads for Summer” on Thursday, July 27, also at 11 a.m. The fee for each class is $40. For details, call Ramekins at 933-0450.

From the July 6-12, 2000 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Groundbreaking: Winemaker Dennis Hill–blending quality and mass production.

Mellow Merlot

Blackstone Winery specializes in a new California classic

By Bob Johnson

IF YOU WERE TO WALK into the lounge of a fine restaurant, pull up a bar stool, and ask for a glass of merlot, chances are pretty good that the juice splashed in your glass would be from Blackstone Winery. The Blackstone winemaking facility dominates downtown Graton, and is situated a few quick strides across Graton Road from the winery’s tasting room. Blackstone’s flagship wine is its California-designated merlot, but unlike the signature bottlings of other wineries, Blackstone merlot is made in huge quantities.

From the 1997 vintage, some 200,000 cases–that’s 2.4 million bottles–were produced. In 1998, that number swelled to 270,000 cases. And for 1999, it’s projected that Blackstone’s case production of “California” merlot will easily surpass 300,000.

The man charged with overseeing Blackstone’s winemaking is Dennis Hill, who broke into the business a quarter-century ago, working for a much less ambitious concern: Seghesio Winery.

Next came a stint at Alexander Valley Vineyards, then a tour of Europe, followed by more winemaking at de Lorimier Winery and then Mill Creek Winery. Three years after brothers Derek and Courtney Benham founded Blackstone, they persuaded Hill to make what amounted to a career change: from hands-on artisan winemaking to overseeing the production of wine for the masses. That was in 1993.

Hill makes no apologies for his present station in life.

“Whether you’re talking about 250 cases or 250,000, the same basic winemaking skills are involved,” he says. “Rather than working with a single vineyard or a specific appellation, my job is to draw upon numerous fruit sources and work toward creating consistent aromas and flavors from vintage to vintage.

“We buy grapes, we have wine contracts with other wineries, and we also tap the bulk market somewhat,” Hill explains. “Since 1997, we’ve focused more on buying grapes. It’s not always easy to get the flavors and aromas we’re looking for, but since we can access so many sources, we’re able to maintain an identifiable style.”

Tasting Notes: Reviews of three local merlot bottlings.

HILL SAYS Blackstone buys grapes from some 25 vineyards in Napa Valley alone. “Most of the fruit is from the southern part of Napa, where it’s relatively cool and merlot does really well,” he says. A good chunk of Blackstone’s Sonoma County fruit is sourced from the Alexander Valley, which Hill says provides “depth and richness to the overall blend.” Russian River Valley fruit, which Hill says is “more elegant, with a lot of high notes,” also is utilized.

A limited amount of Sonoma County fruit was used for the 1998 bottling. More will find its way into the ’99 blend.

“We also use grapes from Mendocino, Santa Cruz, and the Central Coast,” he adds. “And in the future, we may buy some grapes from Lake County. We’ve identified growers who have nice developments at the higher elevations. I think we’ll be able to produce some wines with more structure, color, and fruit than have typified Lake County in the past.”

What is Hill’s goal each year when he begins working on the Blackstone merlot blend? “Blackstone is a wine that’s made to be consumed within the first year or two of bottling,” he says. “We’re trying to make a wine that’s respected for its complexity, appeals to a wide range of people, and is versatile with many foods. We want it to be soft and very drinkable.”

What does Hill mean by “soft”?

“The primary focus is on bright, forward fruit,” he explains. “We keep the oak influence to a minimum; we want it to add roundness, but not overpower the fruit.”

After all of the individual vineyard lots have been assessed and the final blend assembled, Hill fines the wine with egg whites “to eliminate the more angular tannins.” That process also contributes to the wine’s softness.

Does Hill get as much satisfaction out of producing a mass-market wine as he did out of crafting much more limited quantities at Seghesio, Alexander Valley, de Lorimier, and Mill Creek?

“Maybe more,” he claims.

Really?

“Really. Take single-vineyard wines. Yes, they can be fun to make because they can express the unique characteristics of a vineyard. But that’s also limiting, to some degree. There’s only so much you can do as a winemaker to make the wine better.

“With the blending we do here, it’s much more challenging to achieve the aroma and flavor profile we’re looking for because every vintage is a little bit different. We have so many sources of fruit that the right blend is always there–it’s just a matter of finding it, and that can be like putting a puzzle together.”

So is bigger better?

“I wouldn’t say it’s better, necessarily,” Hill says. “Different? Yes. Better? No. Worse? No. Just different. I think what it shows is that you can make very good wines regardless of quantity. What you hear so many winemakers say is true: it all begins with the fruit.”

And in the case of Blackstone Winery, it ends with an always dependable, and affordable, glass of merlot.

From the July 6-12, 2000 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Reading Recipes

The historical significance of community cookbooks

By Marina Wolf

COMMUNITY cookbooks. Most of our mothers had at least one of these rickety assemblages of “tried-and-true recipes,” collected by a committee, plainly published, and sold by the stack to raise funds for some unspecified charitable project. My mom has one mimeographed volume dating from 1956, whose cover is charred in a spiral pattern that bears a suspicious resemblance to an electric burner. But in spite of this fascinating mark, I never wondered about that book, or even about what my mom was cooking while she was burning the cover off. Now I’m rethinking my obliviousness, thanks to some scholars who are mulling over such seemingly mundane material.

Recipes for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories (University of Massachusetts Press, 1997) takes a good hard look at the questions a curious reader may find in community cookbooks. Why do some contributors to these cookbooks use their husbands’ names and others use their own names? Why do some cookbooks not mention names at all? Why is one dish included five times? Why are instructions usually so terse? Why, for example, are there nonkosher recipes in a Jewish women’s auxiliary cookbook?

Underneath these seemingly trivial questions, however, are real issues: What does a collection of recipes reflect about its community’s group dynamics and aspirations? What is the effect of ethnicity or economic status on the language and content of the cookbook? How does the process of creating these cookbooks dovetail with the creation of women’s communities?

In answer, the scholars set out a veritable feast of possibilities in the field of women’s culture. One Recipes for Reading essay examines the syntax and semantics of pie recipes to provide a linguistic background for the communities that created and used them. Another deconstructs Like Water for Chocolate as a complex blend of community and self in the kitchens of Mexico.

In her own contribution, editor Anne Bower identifies narrative elements of community cookbooks that combine to tell stories of history, moral triumph, or the integration and assimilation of a smaller community into the larger society.

THE ASSIMILATION plot line was common in community cookbooks before World War II, according to Bower. Until then, books produced by women from various ethnic backgrounds called upon Mom, God, the flag, and eight recipes for apple pie. It was a natural phase of the immigrant experience, says Bower: “These women were asserting themselves as middle-class Americans. They wanted to show that they ate whatever was current and that they lived the good life.”

Later, as wars and international politics sped up the globalization of American tastes and tolerances, immigrant communities felt more comfortable, and their cookbooks began to include native recipes, native languages, and a palpable sense of ethnic, cultural, or religious pride.

Meanwhile, women’s roles in the home changed, which necessarily affected the tone of their community cookbooks. Early books emphasized the power of women to affect the physical and moral health of their families through the meals that were served. Bower writes, “They used a lot of terms like ‘domestic scientist’ or ‘minister of the family state,’ ” perhaps as a way of compensating for or distracting women from the constricted sphere in which they lived.

In time, women edged out into the world of business, and the standards for domestic mastery expanded to include speed and convenience as well as healthfulness and taste.

Most cookbooks, however, still enforced the notion of the woman as the cook, regardless of her social or professional standing (witness the defensive title of the 1955 National Women’s Press Club cookbook: Who Says We Can’t Cook?).

Today, many community cookbooks have occasional male contributors and a much-heightened awareness of health and ecological issues. But in fact, says Bower, the cookbooks still display old attitudes about women and cooking.

“It’s still mostly women writing the books, and they’re still in charge of our health. We still believe that we can make the world a better place by what we feed our families.”

THIS WAS certainly true of my mother, though she was never very skilled as a cook. I recently went back to her charred cookbook to see what culinary stories she had picked up as a young woman. The cookbook came out of Utah in the mid-’50s, so women were the kitchen authorities, gentle tyrants of the stovetop, feeding hungry men and eager children (as depicted in the crudely drawn cartoons at the front of each chapter).

There were the scientific-looking tables of measurements, the chapter full of thrifty household hints, and the obligatory poem on how to keep your husband happy–important reading for my mother, who was a single student at Brigham Young University at the time. With the pressure surrounding unmarried women of that time and place, she surely would be studying the pages of these and other cookbooks not only for guidelines, but also for fantasies of the wedded life to come.

MY MOTHER, being a newcomer to this congregation, contributed no recipes of her own, but, like many a dedicated student of other literary genres, she wrote copious marginalia, noting prices of various cuts of meat and cutting recipes by two-thirds, her singlehood revealing itself.

The community she joined consisted of sturdy, practical women whom she would come to know well (relatives of her friend and soon-to-be sister-in-law were major content providers). Most of the recipes were modest and made large quantities; their directions assumed competence and Mormon utilitarianism, with the possible exception of the desserts, which took more pages than any other category.

Perhaps the contributors wanted their friends to think they made desserts often, or maybe this was just a manifestation of a dream, an image of the sweeter life that everyone wanted in those postwar years.

Maybe on my second reading I can get to a discursive analysis of the salad dressings. Someday I might even get Mom to confess to the circumstances of the burnt book.

But I’ve read enough to recognize this fading set of recipes for what it is: a rich primary text for the story of my mother’s life.

From the June 29-July 5, 2000 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.