“Deborah Krasner is part of a revolution in food, in agriculture, in nutrition, that is taking place in our nation. Her book is a fine contribution to that revolution, teaching us how to eat more healthfully, how to buy from local farmers, how to cook what they raise.” —Senator Bernie Sanders, from the foreword

“The healing local food movement’s success hinges on artisanal farming and domestic culinary arts. Good Meat takes the mystery out of both in a masterful way, bringing all of us another giant step closer to healing the planet one bite at a time. Beautiful pictures and delightful explanations . . . Everyone interested in local, earth-friendly food will love this book.” —Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm

“Good Meat is a template for all future cookbooks: one that educates on the culinary differences between factory-farmed meats and animals raised on family farms, and the utilization of the entire animal in a sustainable manner.” —Patrick Martins, founder of Slow Food USA, Heritage Foods USA

“Good Meat is the cookbook for all who have made the choice to eschew factory-farmed meat for grass-fed and pasture-raised meat. This book provides the knowledge to make sustainably raised meat a reality at your table.” —Bruce Aidells, author of The Complete Meat Cookbook

“If you want to cook delicious meals from humanely raised meat, Good Meat is for you. It offers superb recipes designed for grass-fed meat, and provides cooks with the first useful guide to ordering direct from the farm. This book makes you feel good about the meat you eat.” —Paula Wolfert, author of Clay Pot Cooking

About the author
Deborah Krasner is a writer and food professional living in Vermont. She hosts culinary vacations in Italy and Vermont, which have been featured in GQ, Bon Appétit, and the Boston Globe. Krasner won a James Beard Award in 2003 for her cookbook The Flavors of Olive Oil. She appears regularly on NPR’s The Splendid Table and contributes to Bon Appétit and Real Simple, among other publications.

Mom-A-Licious: Tasty. Easy. Healthy

Mom-A-Licious is a great cook book  and guide packed full of tips and recipes for busy parent’s looking to provide their families with organic, sustainable, healthy kid-friendly foods. Domenica Catelli is a vibrant, energetic person who is helping parent’s all over the nation get their kids to eat healthy. Her claim to fame is getting children to eat rare vegetables like Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard and cauliflower, without hiding the ingredients!

Domenica has a long list of credentials and accomplishments. Read her biography here or visit her blog to learn more about her food philosophy and get started on feeding your kids right!

Domenica is also co-owner and Chef at Catelli’s Restaurant in downtown Geyserville creating amazing organic fare that is delicious and healthy. Clay Mauritson took us their for lunch and I had the fresh clams in tomato sauce. It was incredibly delicious. The warm sourdough bread with garlic butter and parmesean was to die for. I could have eaten the bread and nothing else, it just melted in my mouth and around my hips! On another visit with Candi Mazzoni, we had the DC’s Salad and Duck Sliders that just melted in my mouth.

Domenica and her brother Nicholas are 3rd generation owners of Catelli’s Restaurant. When Domenica isn’t saving the world one plate at a time, she is cooking at Catelli’s. You can meet them when you dine in their restaurant.

Catelli’s Restaurant
21047 Geyserville Road
Geyserville, CA 95441
mycatellis.com
(707) 857-3471 () ‎

Michael Chiarello’s Flavored Oils and Vinegars

While I was in Napa working with Orin Swift, I ate lunch at the famous Bottega Ristorante, Michael Chiarello’s restaurant in Yontville. After dinner I wandered over to his store Napa Style to see if I could find some of the ingredients and dips I had tried with my small plates.

I walked into heaven! With a wide variety of sea salts, meat rubs, olive oils, vinegars, sauces, spreads, salumi, cheeses, accessories, books and more, I was like a kid in a candy store! Forget purses, clothes, and shoes…this was my kind of shopping!

I picked up several books on my trip and this was one of them. If you have an olive oil fetish like me, and want to learn how to make your own flavored olive oils and vinegars than this is a book you are going to want to add to your collection. Michael gives you a quick education on Olive Oil, how he used to make his own, how it is made, where it is made and how he incorporates it into his everyday cooking. He then lays out how to make your own flavored olive oil’s and vinegars for daily use and then tells you how to use them. Chalked full of tips and recipes, 100 in fact, to please every olive oil addicts habit. It is very user-friendly and fun!

I really appreciate farm to table cooking and friendly cooking that brings people together. I’m a huge supporter and believer in good gastronomy.

Recently, Michael was featured in Wine Spectator and the article gives you great insight into his life and his cooking. He has a great story.

You can purchase a signed copy from Napa Style. I was fortunate enough to run into him and get my copy signed in the flesh.

Judgment Of Paris: California vs. France

Judgment of Paris: The Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine by George M. Taber is a must read for every wine aficionado. George, the only journalist present at the 1976 Paris tasting, documents sip by sip that amazing day when the results of the blind tasting put California wines and winemakers on the map. No longer would California be known for mass quantity, cheap, jug wines, but this single event transformed forever viticulture in California and around the world.

I picked this book up at Stag’s Leap Cellars, their 1973 CASK 23 Cabernet Sauvignon took first place in the Judgment of Paris.

Purchase new or used on Amazon.com

Mondovino

Mondovino is another docu-film every wino should have on their self. Great movie! Staring:Albiera Antinori, Lodovico Antinori, Michael Broadbent, Battista Columbu, Lina Columbu

The ultimate film about wine and wine culture, Mondovino offers an unprecedented look into the conflicts, conspiracies and alliances of the wine trade. Filmed by award-winning director Jonathan Nossiter, Mondovino has sparked controversy in its theatrical run among wine producers, distributors and consumers as it shed light on the esoteric world of wine. Hailed as “Fahrenheit 9/11 for the grape” by MSNBC.

An epic exploration into the modern world of wine, Mondovino was filmed across three continents, in five languages, over a three-year period. With an insider’s access and an artist’s eye, Nossiter weaves together multiple family and multi-generational sagas, all stemming from the production, distribution and consumption of one of the oldest, most respected and still-affordable luxuries. Juxtaposing artesian wine growers with multi-national conglomerates, and peasants with billionaires, the film gives voice to those who create, critique and are involved in the commerce of wine, offering up a surprisingly prismatic, varied and sometimes controversial glimpse into something everyone enjoys but few people know much about.

Bottle Shock

Starring: Alan Rickman, Chris Pine, Bill Pullman, Rachael Taylor

Bottle shock is based on a true story, Jim and Bo Barrett and was a great movie. It was cowritten by husband-and-wife team Randall Miller and Jody Savin, who did a remarkable job given that they were working with a very small budget.

Every wino should own this DVD! Purchase Bottle Shock on Amazon.

Bottle shock describes what can happen to wine as it travels from place to place. Set in 1976, Randall Miller’s widescreen docudrama concerns the real-life showdown between California’s wineries and their French counterparts. Napa Valley’s Jim Barrett (Lost Highway’s Bill Pullman) has been plugging away for years with minimal success. A former attorney, Barrett runs Chateau Montelena with his wayward son, Bo (Chris Pine, the Star Trek prequel’s Captain Kirk), who would rather do anything than assist his stern father. Bo’s co-workers include Gustavo (Six Feet Under’s Freddy Rodríguez) and Sam (Transformers’ Rachael Taylor), who long to produce the perfect chardonnay. Naturally, the young men compete for the favors of the beautiful blonde (the movie’s least interesting angle). Across the Atlantic, Steven Spurrier (Alan Rickman) struggles to keep his Parisian wine shop going (cheapskate American Dennis Farina is his only regular customer). Then Spurrier conceives a contest to attract customers; surely, his beloved French growers will put those upstart Yanks in their place. He flies to Napa to look around, and persuades the Barretts to compete. Miller and his wife, screenwriter Jody Savin, previously worked with Pullman and Rickman on Nobel Son, but decided to release Bottle Shock first. Though comparisons to Sideways will be inevitable, the filmmakers take more of a historical look at California wine country. The “Judgment of Paris” changed the face of the business forever, and they’ve found a lively way to recount the tale. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

Women of Wine: The Rise of Women in the Global Wine Industry

Women of Wine: The Rise of Women in the Global Wine Industry is a must have book for every female wine oenophile!

Written in 2006 by Ann B. Matasar, this book is packed full of history and an eye opening perspective on how women have not only impacted wine making but the consumption of wine too. Is it any wonder that in the U.S. women make 77% of the wine purchases and consume 64% of it.

Wet your whistle with chapter 1: Women Need Not Apply

Persistent superstition compounded the problem. In some French wineries to this day, women are not allowed near fermenting wine because of the belief that if they are menstruating the wine might turn to vinegar or referment monthly. One French woman winemaker vividly remembers this biased treatment: “When I started, there wasn’t a field more sexist than vine-growing and enology! At that time, it was said that a woman shouldn’t get into a wine cellar, because if she did, her ‘petticoat’ would make the wine turn sour.”

Ironically, there is at least one physical distinction that should have worked to the benefit of women: the sense of taste, including the sense of smell. In two olfactory sensitivity studies, one conducted at the Clinical Smell and Taste Research Center of the University of Pennsylvania and the other at the Social Issues Research Centre of the University of Cardiff in Wales, women consistently outperformed men in odor identification and sensitivity on the Smell Identification Test, regardless of age, ethnicity, or cultural background.27 Additional research on taste perceptions conducted by Dr. Linda Bartoshuk, professor of neuroscience in the ear, nose, and throat section of the Yale School of Medicine’s Surgery Department, established three categories of tasters: nontasters (a projected 25 percent of the population), medium tasters (50 percent), and supertasters (25 percent). The group of supertasters, who had the most taste buds and the greatest sensitivity to taste differences, was made up predominantly of women.

A Perfect Glass of Wine

A Perfect Glass of Wine is an international guide to wine by Brian St. Pierre. This is one of my personal favorites and an easy read for the person who just wants to get more comfortable with wine. It is also loaded with some outstanding photography by Deborah Jones.

Pick it up today for your wine drinking pleasure. Click here to order.

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