Low On the Hog Is High On the Hog

Andy and I love eating at Palate, because we never know exactly what will transpire, what we'll get to sample and who we'll be privileged to spend a pleasant evening with. This past week's dinner party brought together people from an array of backgrounds with a common thread--we all love good food, good wine and good conversation. And we had plenty of all the above.

We sampled an array of sublime French cheeses and wines--essentially, whatever Todd set in front of us disappeared down our happy, grateful gullets--followed by a succession of small plates from the CUI category, that is, Cooking Under the Influence of Cheese. We had ricotta gnocchi, scallops with fennel and a rich croque monsieur with a layer of "salumi butter" inside. Each of these three dishes was nestled under a blanket of delicate summer truffles shaved so thinly they had only one side. It's a good thing we were all sitting down--we were swooning and giggling like preteens at a concert.

Just when we were beginning to feel that life couldn't get any better, what should show up on our table but a juicy, succulent, flavorful pork belly, overlaid with a golden, crisped skin. You'd think that with Los Angeles' international population and its cultural and culinary diversity, this type of meal would be fairly easy to have. But until Palate came along, pork belly was nigh impossible to find here. Accompanying it was a generous dish of succotash of beans, potatoes, zucchini and corn freshly snipped from the cob, flavored with the internal organs of the very pig who's belly we stuffed into our own. It was inspired and inspiring, both soul food and soulful food.

Of the seven of us at the table there was overlap of acquaintance, but no one person knew everyone else when we all arrived. Sharing that amazing meal was a great ice breaker. It gave us something more significant to talk about than the weather, safer to discuss than politics and more fun to ponder than the latest celebrity shenanigans. The owner stopped by our table to chat, and throughout the evening so did the executive chef, the wine merchant and the cheese guy--completing the circle of those who planned the feast, those who prepared it and those who enjoyed it. We talked until well after the food and wine were gone, lingering until we realized that it was a weeknight and we all really did have to go home.

This is a typical Palate experience: Often the unexpected lands on your table, and you never know who will drop by to chat. No matter how often we go there, we're always surprised by something--and always in a good way.

We look happy, eh? Don't worry--we shared!

Grape: From Soil to Sip

This past Saturday, the last of September, was a great day for getting into the wine spirit. I started by trekking up into the Santa Monica Mountains early that morning to visit the vineyard of a local winemaker, someone who actually grows wine grapes within Los Angeles proper. I’m discovering that, as it turns out, a number of people do.

The angle of various aspects of the mountains to the sun and their proximity to the ocean create varied micro climates which produce an array of wines in a relatively small area. Backyard vintners are beginning to craft wines that, while not on the production scale of the big boys in the outlying areas and upstate, are artfully done and quite special. And, truthfully, these people are not interested in competing with the big boys. This is an enterprise of love.

Cabernet sauvignon and merlot grapevines hugged the steep mountainside as the sun bore down on them--and on us--with the intensity of a summer reluctant to depart. The grapes we sampled were sweet and juicy and filled with the more complex flavors of grapes that are NOT intended for juice production. Our host instructed us to press the grapes in our mouths with our tongues and push the seeds to the side. After we'd savored the grapes, he told us to bite into the seeds themselves to register their bitterness on the sides of the tongue. Adequate bitterness and astringency in the seeds, he explained, are the real indicators of whether the grapes are ready to harvest. They still had just a bit of time to go before picking, he said.

Peek-a-boo! Netting over the grapes prevents birds and most bees from getting to the fruit, while allowing the sun, soil and vine to work their magic.

Row upon row of these veiled vines have a wacky hillside-full-of-Miss-Havishams look about them.

This was an admire-the-vines visit, not a tasting visit. I'd mentioned to one of my fellow visitors, Susan, that Andy and I planned to do some wine tasting that afternoon. She immediately suggested Palate, a new restaurant in Glendale. It turns out her husband Octavio is the chef/principal. By the time Andy and I arrived at the door a couple of hours later, he and wine director Steve were waiting for us!

Palate is not just a restaurant, not just a wine bar and not just a wine store. It's all of the above, along with wine storage facilities and even a food and wine library!

It was a lazy Saturday afternoon, and we had the wine bar to ourselves, as most people converge on the place at dinnertime. Steve, who is filled with equal parts wine knowledge and wine passion, clued us in on the pedigrees of the wines we sampled and later selected to carry home.

Andy & I appreciate a wine bar where you can consider the offerings on the chalkboard while you're sipping and sampling.

We spent a pleasant couple of hours sampling their wines, which were all appealing, decidedly eclectic--and affordable!--and munching on a variety of artisanal cheeses, salumi, Berkshire pork rillettes, delicately pickled vegetables and homemade butter. (If you've never given butter a second thought, just go looking for the good stuff. You won't want to bother with smearing it on bread--you'll want to eat it right off the plate with your fingers!)

Homemade butter, homemade bread . . .

Pork rillettes, pickled onions and pickled lemon cucumber, backed up with buttered, toasted bread sliced so thinly that it seemed to have only one side!

These guys even feature lardo on their charcuterie plate.
Why would anyone ever trim away the fat--except to showcase it like this!

Chef Gary Menes stopped by with an armload of salumi for his appreciative audience. We ooh'd and aah'd respectfully as thinly-shaved slices of porky heaven melted on our tongues. (Sorry! I'll try not to wade so deeply into Ruth Reichl's food porn territory!)

Chef Gary and enough spicy, cured pork
to keep L.A.'s food enthusiasts purring for awhile.

After sipping and sampling and chatting with Steve, Octavio and Gary, we made our wine purchases, and then trundled home for our postprandial snooze. We didn't eat anything the rest of the day. We didn't need to, as we were quite satisfied with the quality and quantity of our midday meal.

From grapevine to wine stem, it was a good day to be a wine lover.

P.S. I spotted a bucket of wine corks sitting on a window ledge and had to shoot a couple of pix. This is the new desktop photo on my computer.