Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2024 i Food & Wine

2023 BISOL CREDE VALDOBBIADENE PROSECCO SUPERIORE BRUT ($26) One of my favorite late-summer activities is sitting in the tree-shaded patio at Popina in Brooklyn during aperitivo hour. A glass of Bisol Prosecco—from a family that’s grown grapes since the 16th century—and a plate of Don Bocarte anchovies and marinated olives make it easy to forget life’s problems for quite a while. 2022 CLAY SHANNON EL COYOTE CHARDONNAY ($17) Made with organic grapes from the Shannon family’s 1,000-acre Lake County estate, this lemon-creamy Chardonnay is rich enough to satisfy old-school Chard lovers yet has enough zip for those who lean more crisp and zesty. Either way, it went spectacularly well with a lobster, chicken, and chorizo paella cooked on a grill by the water in Maine. 2023 DOMAINE TEMPIER BANDOL ROSÉ…

IF YOU’RE NOT going to finish a bottle of wine in one sitting, a set of quality wine stoppers is a must. Wine starts to oxidize the second it’s opened, but resealing the bottle can help preserve its aromas, flavors, and freshness for days or even weeks. From simple silicone stoppers to long-term wine preservation systems that can reseal a bottle for years, here are four of our favorite wine stoppers. For the best results, put your resealed bottles of wine in the fridge. (Let red wines come back to room temperature before serving.) 1. BEST OVERALL VACU VIN WINE SAVER In this two-part system, a silicone wine stopper is inserted into the neck of the bottle, and a small hand-operated pump removes air from the bottle to create an…

ALL BARTENDERS DESERVE your recognition. With some cocktails requiring multiple fresh herbs, several different alcohols, smokers, and very specifically shaped ice cubes, bartending can be a labor-intensive job. Even if you don’t see them working hard on your drink, the effort probably happened before you got there—those housemade syrups don’t make themselves, nor do those heavy kegs in dive bars change themselves. Plus, bartenders do more than serve drinks. They can be taking care of tables and handling the phone and to-go orders while also playing therapist for a needy customer. That deserves recognition, financial and otherwise. So whether your bartender is pouring a glass of wine or concocting a complex cocktail, it’s time to start tipping them properly. 1 HOW MUCH SHOULD I TIP? Gone are the days of…

A California Icon Paul Draper & Ridge Vineyards UP BEHIND THE TOWN OF CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA, there’s a long, steep, winding road. If you follow it, you will eventually come to a graceful redwood building. From there, you can see, far down below, distant and silent, the tech fervor of Silicon Valley. This is Ridge Vineyards. Not long ago, I went there to chat with Ridge’s chairman emeritus, Paul Draper, an icon of California winemaking whose career more or less encompasses the entire modern era of California wine, as does Ridge itself. The winery was founded in 1959 by a trio of Stanford engineers; Draper joined them in 1969. Things were different then. “There wasn’t remotely as much interest in wine in the U.S. at that time,” Draper recalls. “And California…

Charlotte Jenkins holds out a pot and makes it clear that if you want to learn something, it’s time to look closely. “See this rice?” she says. “This is how rice is supposed to be.” SHE’S RIGHT, OF COURSE. The rice is neither mushy nor crunchy. Each grain retains its individuality, but together, the grains have softened toward the optimal threshold for soaking up flavor. Charlotte Jenkins is 81 years old, and she has spent seven of those decades (yes, she began cooking as a child) transforming simple pots of rice into dishes that tell a deep, ancient, and sacred story about where she comes from. Jenkins comes from—and lives in—South Carolina. But more specifically, and crucially, she carries on the culinary traditions of the Gullah Geechee communities of South…

Living History MINE IS A RICE FAMILY. Our weeknight staples are jasmine or sushi rice, but when the occasion feels celebratory, I’ll upgrade to Carolina Gold from Anson Mills, rinsing the starch off the rice until the water runs clear so each grain will fluff up and retain its individual character. Popping the lid off the rice cooker and inhaling the earthy, popcorn-y fragrance of the steamed rice is a ritual to savor, even more so now that I know the origin story of this particular noble grain. Last year, I visited the new International African American Museum on the waterfront in Charleston, which overlooks the harbor that once served as the portal for an estimated 40% of all enslaved people who were brought to these shores. As I learned at…

AS THE OWNER OF LIHOLIHO YACHT CLUB and Good Good Culture Club, two restaurants that thoughtfully draw inspiration from his Hawaiian upbringing, chef Ravi Kapur is uninterested in leaning into stereotypes about the island’s food and culture. “In 2018, I had an uncle pass at his home in Maui, and the night before the funeral, my family and I were just decompressing with tropical drinks and beers by the pool,” he says. “My palate got exhausted from these delicious but very sugary, kind of cloying drinks.” Looking down on the vista and ocean from his aunt’s home, Kapur realized that the sweet, tropical drinks many people associate with Hawaii failed to showcase the island’s indigenous ingredients. The day after the funeral, he headed to the local farmers market and felt…

CHILES EN NOGADA IN LATE SUMMER, as poblano chiles ripen and grow to their fullest, chef Iliana de la Vega’s mind turns to chiles en nogada. Each September at her Austin restaurant El Naranjo, she features the dish to highlight the season. To make it, de la Vega roasts whole poblano chiles until they blister, then stuffs them with a picadillo of sautéed ground beef and pork, tomatoes, apple, candied pineapple, cinnamon, and raisins. The chiles are blanketed in a silky sauce of pureed walnuts, crema, and cream cheese. With local ingredients representing the red, white, and green colors of the nation’s flag, chiles en nogada have become emblematic of Mexico and are often served as a celebration of Mexican Independence Day. De la Vega says that contrary to popular…

I NOTICED IT WHEN I STEPPED OUT OF THE AIRPORT in Launceston: Tasmania smells fresh. Parks and wilderness cover 40% of the island, and much of the rest is farmland. Swept by the Roaring Forties—intense westerly winds that buffet the southern hemisphere—the atmospheric station at Cape Grim in the state’s northwest corner regularly records the earth’s most pristine air. Down here in Australia’s southernmost state, not far from Antarctica, simply taking a breath is delicious. But that’s not all that’s delicious. Grapes retain mouthwatering acidity in the chilly, maritime climate of Tasmania (or Lutruwita, as it’s called in palawa kani, the local Aboriginal language). Having loved Tolpuddle Vineyard’s earthy Pinot Noirs, full of cranberry and orange-peel flavors, back in New York, I’d made a pilgrimage to the island for its…

CHEF FERMÍN NÚÑEZ’S Sunday to-do list looks a bit different than most. While most people are folding piles of laundry and fighting off the Sunday scaries, Núñez, chef and co-owner of Suerte and Este in Austin, is busy cleaning out his porrón and preparing ingredients for a giant chicken, chorizo, and seafood paella—one large enough to feed 80 people. That’s the minimum number of folks who show up to the 2021 F&W Best New Chef’s legendary Dominguitos parties. Dominguitos, Núñez’s Spanish pet name for “Sundays,” is the chef’s way of reclaiming Sunday by making it a day for community and celebration instead of a churn of chores and stress. He threw the first Dominguitos three years ago. “I was trying to figure out who I was as a person and…

CHOOSING A WINE to go with a specific dish is usually all about flavor. But when it comes to pairing wines with spicy food, you need to consider more than your taste buds. The foods we tend to categorize as spicy don’t just impart flavor—they cause a physical reaction. Which wines work best with spicy dishes—whether it’s mapo tofu with its tingly heat, sushi with a dab of nose-zapping wasabi, or tacos liberally doused with Cholula—depends on what type of spiciness you’re working with. Chiles gain their heat from capsaicin, a naturally occurring chemical compound. Numbing spiciness—think Szechuan peppercorns—comes from an entirely different source. And the pungency you encounter in ingredients like mustard and horseradish comes from yet another compound. Each elicits a different physical response, which in turn impacts…

START WITH GREAT BEANS, cook them right, and pair them with crunch, acid, and richness from oils or cured meats—that’s the dinner plan from Steve Sando, founder and CEO of Napa heirloom bean company Rancho Gordo. In his new cookbook, The Bean Book, Sando shows us how to build brilliant bean-centric dishes that are great for weeknight mains or side dishes. Here, he shares his Black Bean and Carrot Salad with Lemon-Garlic Vinaigrette (recipe at right), which pairs ribbons of carrot and fennel with creamy black beans, as well as a hearty salad where nutty chickpeas come together with slices of sausage, roasted red bell pepper, and a zesty apple cider vinegar dressing in 10 minutes flat (recipe opposite). Sando also shared his proven method for cooking high-quality dried beans…

IN AUTUMN, one of my favorite places to be is at the farmers market in front of a table piled high with grapes. But while I love them, I often find myself thinking: I want to buy these, but what do I do with them? One option is to worship them. Winemaker Eduard Tscheppe of Gut Oggau in Austria once told me, “There’s something divine about the fruit of the vine.” Fair enough. Winemakers like to wax poetic about anything related to wine: soil, rocks, photosynthesis, you name it. But Tscheppe was enraptured by the nature of Vitis vinifera vines. “A vine’s roots can go 30 feet deep into the ground, and the plant’s tendrils reach up toward the sun.” I agree with him; there is just something life-affirming about…