Sip & Savor | Fall 2020 by Rosebud Media

Fall 2020

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ADVERTISING INDEX Applebee’s.................................................22

Luna Mexican Cuisine .................................3

Café Dejeuner............................................19

Ostras Tapas & Bottle Shop ......................27

Cartwright’s Market ...................................14

Porters Dining at the Depot.......................11

S TA F F

Grocery Outlet ...........................................32

Shoji’s of Medford.....................................25

CEO & Publisher: Steven Saslow

Jacksonville Inn ........................................17

Wayback Burgers ........................................6

Jackson and Josephine Counties’ Guide to Wining and Dining!

Design & Production: Paul Bunch, John Sullivan & Amy Tse Specialty Publications Sales Manager: Molly Little

ON THE COVER

Sip & Savor is published quarterly by the Rosebud Media Advertising Department 111 N Fir St., Medford, OR 97501 General Information: (541) 776-4422

Porters - Dining At The Depot An appetizer of two perfectly flavored Pacific Crab Cakes grilled to a golden brown with an unctuously delicious lemon aioli sauce.

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on local restaurant & winery gift certificates!

ONLINE GIFT CERTIFICATE SALE 5 DAYS ONLY! Monday, September 14 through Friday, September 18 On Monday, September 14, go to SOGiftCards.com and find gift certificates from dozens of local restaurants, wineries, and local businesses for 10% off face value. On Tuesday, they will be 20% off, and so on until the final day of the sale on Friday, September 18, when all remaining gift certificates will be 50% off. Buy as many as you like, but don’t wait too long - the certificate to your favorite local business may be gone!

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Questions? Please contact the Rosebud Media Advertising Department at (541) 776-4422

Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

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Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

Pantry Organization Make your cooking life easier by creating order in your pantry by Helen Carefoot

With autumn and colder weather around the corner and no end in sight to the coronavirus pandemic, many people may be cooking at home more often during the months ahead. But it’s hard to get inspired when your pantry is a jumble of half-full boxes of pasta, expired canned goods and spices that are long past their prime. How can you know what to cook when you don’t know what you have, or if it’s even usable? Having an organized and uncluttered pantry will make trying ambitious baking projects or cooking up some comforting soups and stews less stressful. We spoke with professional organizers and a food bank employee for tips on how to quickly - and inexpensively - get your pantry in order. Here are their suggestions.

Sort, toss and donate Before attempting to organize your food, go through everything in the pantry and toss out expired products, said Vernestine Laughinghouse, founder of Absoulute Organizing Solutions in Washington, D.C. After that, think about what foods and supplies you’ll really eat and use. Keep those things and donate or compost the rest, she said. Research your local food donation and compost options; when Kacy Paide, founder of the Inspired Office firm in Silver Spring, Md., reorganized her own pantry, she learned that her neighbors had helped establish a community composting initiative in her condominium complex. Local grocery stores and farmers markets often have composting stations, too. The problem of excess food is a privilege, particularly now, as the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged the economy and caused record unemployment. Feeding America estimates that more than 54 million people, including 18 million children, may experience food insecurity in 2020. Organizers suggested donating unwanted - but fresh and

Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

edible - canned and dry goods to local food pantries and organizations. Don’t try to donate expired food or items with dented, compromised packaging. “I’ve seen clients insist on giving canned food that’s way expired,” Paide said. “You don’t want to burden a food pantry with the work of filtering through what’s good and bad.”

Fill shelves back to front Enormous quantities of food move through the storage facilities at Second Harvest Food Bank, which serves Santa Clara County in the San Francisco Bay area. Maya Murthy, Second Harvest’s nutrition director, said the organization served 500,000 households last month - double the number it usually serves - including many people who sought food assistance for

the first time. Efficient organizing helps volunteers and staff get food where it needs to go, she said, and a backbone of that system is putting items with later sell-by dates at the back of the shelf and refrigerator and placing older items closer to the front. (These dates don’t indicate when items spoil, but rather when they are at peak freshness, Murthy added.)

Group ‘like with like’ Creating separate zones in the pantry to store similar items together makes it easy to glance at a shelf and immediately find what you’re looking for. Paide suggests categorizing items by use; for example, keep baking supplies together, and group pastas and canned goods each in their own area. If you’re storing more than sealed

containers in the pantry, research how the foods interact. Storing some fruits and vegetables together may cause them to ripen or go bad more quickly. Murthy doesn’t recommend storing fresh fruits and vegetables in the pantry, because they could rot if you forget about them; store them in the refrigerator, and keep a small amount, if you’ll eat them, out on a counter in a bowl. More hardy vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, onions or garlic, can be stored in the pantry, though storing potatoes and onions next to one another could cause potatoes to develop sprouts more quickly.

Use reusable containers Matching containers look great for Instagram and Pinterest, but CONTINUED ON PAGE 5

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Katrina Green, founder of Badass Homelife in Sacramento, wants to relieve would-be organizers of the pressure of uniformity. Buying matching containers can be expensive and can detract from the objective of the project, which should be to structure the pantry so it’s one less thing to worry about. “It’s about creating a system that makes your life easier,” she said. Buying containers and then having to take time to take food out of packaging and sort it into containers could have the opposite effect. Using containers you already have around the house or repurposing items, such as cardboard boxes from the mail, is a free and sustainable way to create storage within your pantry, Green and Paide said. Look for spare boxes and cover them in decorative scrapbook or wrapping paper to make them look nicer, Green suggests. Laughinghouse and Paide also suggest washing old jars - ideally clear glass ones - and reusing them to store dry bulk goods. Or you can find containers in every shape, material and price range at big-box stores and online. Create simple labels with paper, tape or stickers to identify what’s inside; they don’t have to be fancy or professional-looking. “It’s nice when your pantry looks almost like a kindergarten classroom, because then you can very quickly and easily move through your kitchen without as much guesswork,” Paide said. She adds that you could even write the date you opened or bought the item on the label to easily keep track of freshness. In some cases, removing products from their original packaging may help save space. Some older buildings or spaces with smaller

kitchens may not have perfectly square cabinets, said Patricia Lee and Jeanne Taylor, co-founders of Tailorly Home, an organizing firm based in the San Francisco Bay area. Find containers that stack or can fit into odd nooks and crannies. Paide, who has a small pantry, says she uses little rectangular plastic containers from OXO because she “can’t afford to have a really big jar that’s one-quarter full.” Other items are better left in their original packaging, such as canned, pouched or tinned food, or items with preparation instructions printed on the package, Laughinghouse said. Neatly stack them or place them in containers with the labels turned outward.

Create in-cabinet solutions If you don’t want many individual jars or containers piled up, Laughinghouse suggests getting some larger baskets or boxes and putting separate categories of items in each one to corral them. To tame small items that can easily get lost, such as spices or cooking oils, Laughinghouse, Lee and Taylor all recommended using a rotating Lazy Susan inside a cabinet; get a single or double version depending on your needs. Adding extra shelving, such as a free-standing wire shelf, expands cabinet space vertically and makes it easier to stack items. Installing a pullout drawer or shelf on a rolling track is an easy way to make items more accessible; this works especially well in deep cabinets, Lee and Taylor said. Or add large tubs that pull forward. Every organizer warned against

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creating new spaces to store pantry items, unless there is an immediate and specific need. Even if you have a storage unit, garage or spare room, loading those spaces up with extras won’t ease clutter and could risk creating it, Green said. “You want to make sure space is used smartly because people expand to fill the space they have,” Paide added. Keeping to the available space will help you avoid overbuy-

ing and waste. Ultimately, how much space is necessary to store pantry supplies depends on the household; what’s needed for one adult looks different from the needs of a larger family, Laughinghouse said. “If you’re purchasing anything, think about how you plan to use it before you buy it,” she added. “Have a specific use for it. Don’t just buy it because it’s on sale.” ■

on local restaurant & winery gift certificates!

On Monday, September 14, go to SOGiftCards.com and find gift certificates from dozens of local restaurants, wineries, and local businesses for 10% off face value. On Tuesday, they will be 20% off, and so on until the final day of the sale on Friday, September 18, when all remaining gift certificates will be 50% off. Buy as many as you like, but don’t wait too long - the certificate to your favorite local business may be gone!

ONLINE GIFT CERTIFICATE SALE 5 DAYS ONLY! Monday, September 14 through Friday, September 18

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Questions? Please contact the Rosebud Media Advertising Department at (541) 776-4422 Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

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Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

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Wine Windows Restaurants in Italy are reopening ancient ‘wine windows’ used during the plague

by Dave McIntyre

Special To The Washington Post

In the 1300s, Europeans lived in fear of the plague claiming lives across the continent. In 2020, Europeans face the threat of the coronavirus, a pandemic that has killed more than 728,000 worldwide. While much about life has changed between the two cataclysmic health crises, one thing has not: mankind’s thirst for wine. Between the wrath of the Black Death in the 1300s and the Italian Plague in the 1600s, wine merchants in the Italian region of Tuscany built “wine windows” to protect buyers and sellers from coming into close contact. The socially distant precaution was ahead of its time. “It’s kind of amazing, because people didn’t know about germs in those days,” said Mary Forrest, one of the founding members

of the Associazione Buchette del Vino, or Wine Windows Association. The association is a nonprofit established five years ago to document and protect the

“There’s this infinite variation in this very simple thing, and [it] makes you realize the human imagination knows no bounds.” historic structures. “People didn’t know where the plague came from; they didn’t discover that till much later,” she says.

The windows fell out of fashion over the centuries, but the coronavirus outbreak has inspired their comeback. Businesses in Florence are opening their wine windows once again to sell wine, cocktails, gelato and coffee, Lonely Planet reported. In May, Osteria Delle Brache restaurant and bar posted photos on its Facebook page of an employee passing an Aperol spritz through its wine window, marked with an Associazione Buchette del Vino bronze plaque confirming its authenticity. “We continue the traditions,” the post reads. Travelers looking for the historic wine windows can use the Associazione Buchette del Vino’s interactive map that marks the locations of known landmarks. The map updates nearly every

week, as people hear about their project and contribute. Forrest says they’ve documented at least 150 in downtown Florence alone. Forrest says she’s unsure whether the trend will be able to keep growing, as many of the wine windows aren’t located in businesses, but in former palaces that are now offices and private family residences. But whether wine windows continue to remain functional after the pandemic, travelers can admire them for their individuality. “There aren’t any two alike, it seems,” Forrest says. “There’s this infinite variation in this very simple thing, and [it] makes you realize the human imagination knows no bounds.” ■ Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor 7

A Safe Workout Outdoor stairs or stadium bleachers offer an excellent all-around COVID-era workout by Lorne Opler

Special To The Washington Post

There is no better place to be in this summer of COVID-19 than outdoors, where fresh air and open spaces reduce the risk of contracting the novel coronavirus. And that applies to exercise as well. “Taking your workout outdoors is the smart way to train,” says Ann Li, family physician, certified personal trainer and assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. “Exercising outdoors is where we can distance ourselves the farthest and safest,” she adds. We’re not just talking aerobic exercise such as cycling, running or walking, but resistance workouts, too. Because if you’ve got some stairs nearby, you can create a regimen that rolls three workouts in one: cardio, strength and plyometric movements such as leaps, jumps and bounds. Using stadium bleachers, the entry staircase at your local school, or steps in parks, playgrounds and nature preserves, you can get an outdoor workout that improves heart and lung functioning, builds muscular strength and endurance and does so safely within social distancing guidelines - and all free. That’s what sold Christina Delzenero, 41, of Erie, Colo., on stairs training. “I’m a trail hiker, but with little social distancing on the trails I use, I needed an alternative workCONTINUED ON PAGE 9

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out that challenged me yet could be done safely,” she says. Her trainer, Jim Bathurst, strength coach and head of fitness of the online coaching program Nerd Fitness, is an advocate for underused training methods in the age of COVID-19. “When we can’t control our environment, but we are flexible with new ways to exercise, we are better able to stick to a workout regimen and ultimately to maintaining a healthy lifestyle,” he says. “Outdoor stair workouts address this situation perfectly.” Especially if your preference is cardio. That’s because stairs offer so many options to kick your cardio to the next level of performance. “One of the immediate aerobic benefits of stair climbing is it gets your heart rate up quicker than running, jogging or walking,” says Ajay Rampersad, professor of exercise physiology at Humber College in Toronto and founder of the health promotion website MyWellnessSchool.com. “Since you’re moving against gravity during stair climbing, your heart rate increases, which means your heart is working more efficiently to pump oxygen and blood to the muscles,” he adds. “And being on an incline, stairs engage hip muscles more than workouts performed on a flat surface.” This is especially important these days, when staying indoors means we are sitting more and using our hips less. From a pandemic perspective, stair workouts provide another carry-over benefit, too. “Stair climbing is very functional and translates well to our day-to-day life,” says Dixie Stanforth, associate professor of instruction in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin. “Compared to an elliptical or even stair machine, a stair workout mimics the biomechanics of what we do every time we take the steps,” she says. With elevators being a potential risk factor in the spread of the coronavirus, stair workouts are a great training tool for developing the muscular strength and endurance to handle multiple staircases as a potential alternative to elevator use. Stair workouts are ideal for the time-crunched athlete, as well. Tim Hughes, certified strength and conditioning coach and owner of Hughes Health and Wellness in

Toronto, prefers stair workouts to strenuous distance runs. “Compared to running long distance, stair climbing counters the pull of gravity, forcing me to work harder and burn more calories in a shorter amount of time,” he says. And you don’t have to be a top-tier athlete to reap the benefits of working the stairs. “Stair workouts can accommodate people of all ability levels from beginner to advanced,” says Bathurst. One group of people who should approach stair training with caution, however, is those who have a history of leg and knee trouble. “Stair climbing can be an excellent exercise to build both cardiovascular fitness and leg strength,” says Monica Graham, physical therapist at Insideout Physiotherapy and Wellness Group in Toronto. “However, if you are currently experiencing back or knee problems or find that climbing stairs causes knee pain, you should consult with a physical therapist or other appropriate health-care professionals before determining if it is the right exercise for you.” If you are stair climbing for the first time, Bathurst advises taking it slowly. “You may think you need to sprint up the steps for an effective workout, but that’s not so. Walking up the steps to start can be decidedly challenging for many. Pumping your arms at the same time, gets your upper body working, too, and further elevates your heart rate. “ When that gets too easy, Bathurst suggests taking the steps two at a time and for an upper body exercise, add some incline push-ups. To perform, get into a push-up position with your hands on an upper step and your feet several steps down. Lower the body by pressing your chest into the step. Or try the challenging workout he created for his client Christina Delzenero: Climb the steps two at time for 60 seconds (if it’s a short staircase, go up and down for the same duration; careful on the descent!). Rest 15-30 seconds. Then perform a set of jump squats for 30 seconds. Repeat the cycle four times, two to three times a week. “These workouts have increased my leg strength and endurance, so I’m able to climb faster without getting winded as easily,” Delzenero says. “Consequently, I finish the workout feeling pretty strong and

proud of myself.” Progressing up the chain of difficulty, Stanforth suggests adding side shuffles by ascending the stairs sideways, which works the underutilized gluteus medius muscle (side hip muscle). “Mix that with tricep dips for a complementary upper body movement,” she advises. And if you’re ready for a high-octane workout, Hughes recommends doing a HIIT routine, such as sprinting up the stairs for 30 seconds then recovering by walking back down for 30 seconds. Repeat the cycle three to four times, progressively adding more cycles and/or incrementally adding more time to the work phase. As an alternative to HIIT, the well-seasoned athlete might also want to try plyometric training. “Plyometrics involve movements like leaps, bounds, and jumps,” says Rampersad.

“These movements improve power output, which is the ability for muscles to move as fast as possible over a distance.” To increase your power, Rampersad suggests performing leaping body squats up the staircase; start by crouching into the squat position, then leap onto the next step landing on both feet. Pause. Squat. Leap. Repeat. Regardless of one’s level of athletic ability, however, all stair climbers should follow Stanforth’s parting advice: “Careful and cautious on the descent to avoid injury.” ■ Opler, is an adjunct professor of fitness and health promotion at Humber College and a certified strength and conditioning specialist in Toronto. Visit his website at: www.trainerlorne.com.

Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

PAID ADVERTISEMENT

Porters: “Don’t you know me I’m your native son.”

The Railroad Depot where Porters resides today is one of the most important historic buildings in Southern Oregon. Porters, which opened its doors in 2001, is nostalgically named in honor of all the men and women who have worked professionally aboard passenger trains bringing food, drink, courtesy and a warm smile to their traveling patrons. After extensive renovation to authentically restore the building to its Craftsman style glory as Porters restaurant and bar and a designation as a National Historic Landmark, the original 1910 train depot still proudly serves the community as the anchor to historic old town and downtown Medford. The interior of the 7000 square foot building gives a sense of comfort and security with the 16 foot high ceilings, two spacious dining rooms with plenty of space allowed between tables and several private booths. A conference room located in the former Station Master’s Office is ideal for special company dinners and private parties. The large bar reflects the sense of history with the original Passenger Ticket Counter serving as the centerpiece of the bar itself. The 5000 square foot patio is romantic, shaded and breezy with large trees, wisteria vines and a view of the architecture of the historic

Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

building. The entire Porters property is beautifully landscaped and covers two city blocks, with 100 parking spaces available in two large parking lots on either side of the building. While closed in the Spring of 2020 due to the pandemic the crew at Porters took an extra month for the opportunity to clean, paint and refresh the entire building. A new floor was installed in the freshly scrubbed and painted kitchen and restoration was done on the bar, back bar and all woodwork throughout the restaurant. After opening on June 15 the restaurant and bar continues to offer top notch professional service and excellent chef driven cuisine with an emphasis on local produce, meats, wines and beers, and, of course, a plate for every pocketbook. Porters serves extra aged beef including 30-day dry aged cuts, lamb, chicken and pork, Northwest seafood, pasta and vegetarian dishes. New this summer for Porters is an all day every day Happy Hour Menu and a Curbside Dining Selection for easy, take-home 3 course dinners. Since its inception as a restaurant and bar in 2001, Porters has always been mentioned in the “best of the

best” list in several categories and has received more than 30 awards for cuisine, mixology and service. The wine list has been an “Oregon Wine A-list” award recipient multiple years and continues to advocate for Oregon Wines. The wine list includes rare wines and the drinks list includes hard to find spirits and many regional beers. Medford exists today thanks to

the railroad. The Railroad Depot where Porters resides today is one of the most important historic buildings in Southern Oregon. After 19 years of business success, the crew at Porters is eternally grateful for our loyal following. We are honored by the many awards bestowed upon us over the years and are proud to continue the strong lineage to the history of our valley. ■

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Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

Divorce Design Inspired by her own divorce, a designer creates a formula for a home that heals.

by Marissa Hermanson

After a sudden split from her husband of 10 years, Stevie McFadden discovered firsthand that our surroundings play an influential role during times of crisis. The residential and commercial designer found herself in need of a home where she could overcome her heartache and create a new life for herself. McFadden, who has a graduate degree in organizational behavior - the study of human behavior within an organization - and an innate eye for design, owns the interior design firm Flourish

Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

Spaces in Richmond, Virginia “It’s a thread that we try to weave through all our projects,” she says. “What are we putting in people’s surroundings that evokes emotions of belonging and feeling supported and cared for?” Her work with nonprofits in Richmond has helped her understand the principles of trauma-informed care in physical spaces, whether it’s designing sober-living apartments for the new Caritas homeless shelter or a teen center at

the Boys & Girls Club. “What are the messages in that space that they are worthy and spark their imaginations and make them feel supported?” McFadden said. After separating from her husband, McFadden bought a 120-year-old brick rowhouse in the capital’s historic Jackson Ward neighborhood. Just two blocks from her office, the 2,300-square-foot home provided McFadden with a blank canvas to design the backdrop to her new life.

“We all have a narrative identity about who we are, our place in the world and our relationship to others. And when your story changes, you have to figure that all out,” she said. “Maybe a chapter ended very unexpectedly, and you have to rethink the next chapter and the implications for your identity.” No longer living with her husband but left with the possessions from the life they CONTINUED ON PAGE 13

created together, McFadden felt grief-stricken. “I didn’t feel a sense of control. Everything just happened,” she said. “There was a lot of self-doubt and fear.” Fortunately, because of her line of work, McFadden knew the steps she needed to take to pick up the pieces and cobble her life back together. “I’ve been a nester all my life,” she said. “When my own personal life got disrupted in such a way, I felt like I knew how to do this. I was trying to start my own process of healing and moving forward with my life.” McFadden walked herself through a four-step plan to design a home where she could overcome the grief of her separation - and through the process, she learned how a space can heal and unlock potential. After the initial split, McFadden bunked in a friend’s guesthouse until she found a new home. She put all of her possessions in storage, which gave her the space she needed away from all the memories. But when she moved into her new house, all the things that reminded her of the life she created with her husband came back. And the grief came flooding back with it. “It was so emotional,” she said. “Boom - there were all the contents of my life deposited right in front of me.” McFadden had ended up with half of the couple’s belongings, and she started to do an inventory - what she needed to purchase and purge. She found she had a surplus of sideboards and needed a bed. “The places we inhabit - that is the stage where our lives take place,” McFadden said. “The stuff in our homes, it’s the artifacts of our lives and our stories up to that point. So what do you do with that stuff?”

To do this at home: Start with where you are and consider where you feel stuck. Evaluate how each space makes you feel, inventory items and assess their function. McFadden started to ponder what her solo life required. She wanted her new home to show her connection to family, especially her parents and grandmother. Those positive relationships reinforced a joyful part of her identity that she wanted to celebrate daily. “My husband is gone, and my friends and my family aren’t. What does it look like to create memories in this house?” McFadden said. “What do dinner parties look like? What might it look like to have another relationship one day? And what might it look like for me to be alone? I went from thinking fearful to thinking hopeful. When I could physically imagine the people in that space, it made me excited to build it.” When planning out her new home, McFadden also was on the lookout for aspirational pieces - furniture and decor that was a reflection of who she wanted her future self to be and that represented the life she wanted to build.

To do this at home:

What do you imagine the next chapter of your life could look like? What possibilities exist that maybe you never let yourself consider before? Imagine your future self, how you feel when you come home and how the space makes you feel. McFadden pondered her emotional connection to each piece of art, decor and furniture. “What stays and what goes?

What goes away for a little bit?” she said. “That’s how grief works. The pain doesn’t go away, but you integrate it back into your life in a different way.” It was difficult for McFadden to look at certain photographs, gifts and mementos from trips. She didn’t want them on display, but she didn’t have the heart to throw them out, so she tucked them away until one day she can associate the objects with positive memories. “If I threw away everything that reminded me of that part of my life, it felt like saying that decade of my life didn’t exist,” McFadden said. “What parts of this are important to who I still am? What items remind me of good times or important milestones? Grief is grief. Even objects that remind you of good times can still conjure up feelings of pain and suffering, so I thought really intentionally about that.” McFadden also created a new narrative for other items that were connected to her past. For instance, two pieces of art that were wedding gifts are grouped together. “Now when I look at them, I think about the people who gave them to us, not the fact that it was a wedding gift,” she said. “Sometimes you have

to reinterpret the meaning of things.”

To do this at home: Acknowledge the provenance and value of each item as you determine its future in your home. Ask yourself how each item makes you feel. Purging burdensome things that remind you of a painful memory will liberate you, and displaying decor that makes you smile will raise your spirits. To bring her new space to life, McFadden had to get creative with the furnishings and decor she was left with after her divorce. “I had to make it work,” she said. “There is nothing worse than a space that feels downgraded.” Hand-me-downs and pieces from her old house had to be reimagined. The china hutch from her nana that was once in her dining room now sits in her bedroom and is filled with books. By simply adding a coat of paint, furnishings were transformed and given new meaning. Bold peacock-colored chairs with citron cushions that previously sat in the foyer of her old house were toned down, painted in a crisp white CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

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so they fade into the background. “They now feel more sophisticated and calming,” McFadden said. She repainted her many sideboards, too. One that was previously in her old kitchen is now painted navy blue and acts as the bar under her staircase. “People may think redoing can feel like such a luxury when you don’t have excess money, capacity or energy, but it’s so important for your well-being, healing and moving on,” she said. The kitchen and two bathrooms got a facelift, “but on a serious budget,” McFadden said. She replaced all the kitchen appliances with used ones off Craigslist. All other rooms got cosmetic updates with new paint and light fixtures. Her lamps, coffee tables, occasional tables, Oriental rugs and kitchen island were found on Facebook Mar-

ketplace. “This is the house that Craig built,” McFadden said of buying a majority of her furnishings off Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. “You can go looking for those things and find them on the cheap. Beauty is not expensive.”

supported and safe during times of uncertainty is necessary. “People are fearful of how to put a space together. They need to trust themselves,” McFadden said. “If there are things that

bring them joy or that have a great story or that they just like because they are beautiful, don’t feel afraid to incorporate them. An interesting home is a beautiful home.” ■

by Dave McI

Special To The

To do this at home: If you’re feeling stuck and attached to items, ask for a friend’s opinion to help you wipe the slate clean. Repurpose items and paint them as needed, but consider palette. Purchase to fill the holes. As we experience the collective trauma of the novel coronavirus pandemic, McFadden hopes her process can help people reconfigure their spaces to make room to recover. Our surroundings matter more than ever, she says, and creating a home where we can feel happy,

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Mis-Labeled Wine labels can be vague, and drinkers are thirsty for clarity by Dave McIntyre

Special To The Washington Post

Keto. Low-carb. Sugar-free. Clean. No hangovers. These are some of the claims wine brands use to convince you that their product will fit your active, healthy lifestyle, suggesting that you’ve felt bloated, sluggish and ill after dinner because of additives, added sugar, pesticides or other impurities in your wine. Instead of, you know, eating or drinking too much. Brands such as Avaline, the new label from actress Cameron Diaz and entrepreneur Katherine Power, are using these assertions to put wine in the wellness or “better for you” category. FitVine wines postulate that a truly “dry” chardonnay is unusual, and perhaps scare you about added sugar in wine. Several other brands make similar health claims. Wine is losing market share to hard seltzers that

list not just their alcohol level, but also calories and carbohydrates. While such health proclamations are at least disingenuous and perhaps dubious, they highlight two problems facing the wine industry. The first is that the image of wine as a luxury beverage, a symbol of the good life, no longer matches the aspirations of today’s consumers who want to know what goes into their bodies. Farm to table, organic and “healthy” are more about what we drink than how we look while drinking. The second problem is transparency. We’re told that wine is food, to be enjoyed at the table. Yet, while we’re accustomed to checking ingredients on food labels, and maybe avoiding those with higher sodium, fat or carbohydrates, we find no such labels on wine. There

are reasons for that, but the lack of ingredient transparency leaves wine open to questionable assertions and marketing of “clean” wines. When Diaz rails against the “more than 70 additives” wineries are allowed to use, she essentially cancels sustainable, organic or biodynamic certifications as meaningless. That’s unfortunate, because those certifications aim for the same transparency Diaz is arguing for. A few wineries, such as Ridge and Bonny Doon in California, have listed ingredients on their labels, but that never caught on. Earlier this year, the European Union proposed requiring ingredient labeling for wine, raising the issue again here on the other side of the pond. “The one grocery store item that gets away with revealing nothing

about its contents is wine,” W. Blake Gray wrote on wine-searcher. com in May. “Food products are required by law in most countries to reveal everything in them. But wine has always gotten a pass.” Gray argued that smaller wineries would have the most to gain by added transparency, because they are less likely to use additives. Well OK, but let’s take one of my favorite foods, Tate’s Chocolate Chip Cookies. These are made according to a recipe that never changes. Every batch is the same crunchy deliciousness; the ingredient list and nutrition information remain the same. Contrast that to a winemaker who, in any given vintage, might need to add tartaric acid to balance a wine. Foods are regulated nationally; alcohol is regulated by the states. Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

A change to a wine label might require several different regulatory approvals, at considerable expense to the winery. That burden would fall especially heavy on smaller wineries. This argument was made by Adam Lee, the founder of Siduri winery, and now proprietor of Clarice wines and a consultant with several wineries. He responded to Gray’s article with his own on wine-searcher.com arguing against requiring ingredient labeling. “Smaller wineries, who adjust their winemaking to adapt to the unique vintage conditions, would be disincentivized to do so,” Lee argued. “Labels must be printed months ahead of time, and if a smaller winery decides afterwards that the wine would be better with an acid addition, they couldn’t do so without being in violation of the law.” Lee suggested wineries put a QR code on their labels that consumers could scan with their smartphones to learn about how a wine was made. “Have those [codes] lead to a winery’s website, where they list ingredients, additives . . . and processes,” Lee wrote. “These websites can be updated after the wine is bottled (and long after the labels are printed) and aren’t reviewed by state authorities, thus not costing smaller wineries additional dollars.”

This approach would also allow wineries to “reflect the care and concern they put into making their wines and tell you fully not only what they are doing but why they are doing it,” he wrote. I think this is a terrific idea, and I hope the industry adopts it. It would be so much better than the

S AV E U P TO 5 0 %

silly apps that have wine labels “coming to life,” because we would actually learn more about the wines we are buying and consuming. Instead of wine geek stats such as total acidity and residual sugar, it should include calories and carbohydrates, the information real people are interested in. This

would require wineries - especially smaller ones - to be more adept and forthcoming in their web presence, something they are notoriously bad at. That would be good for the wineries and for us. ■ McIntyre blogs at dmwineline.com. On Twitter: @dmwine.

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Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

Forget Neflix: Tune in to the feathered soap opera outside your window. Special to The Washington Post WASHINGTON - One of the lesser casualties of the coronavirus pandemic is gossip. Many of us are suddenly leading very boring lives: baking banana bread, learning TikTok dances, watching the full contents of Netflix. Even the celebrities are dullsville these days. Sensing our desperation for scuttlebutt, they’ve retreated into their luxurious villas, which they quickly learned not to flaunt. Now who are we supposed to talk about, judge and live vicariously through? Birds. Seriously, these feathered freaks have no shame. A family of pigeons has been visiting my balcony since March, and their lives are dramatic. It all started with the male, Mr. Whitebutt, seducing Ms. Whitebutt right on my railing. Not long

afterward, Whitebutt Jr. showed up - begging for food from his harried parents, even though he could have easily pecked it up himself. Later that very day, I saw Mr. Whitebutt strutting and cooing at a lady pigeon who was most decidedly not Ms. Whitebutt, as this temptress’s butt was dark gray. What. A. Snake. Ms. Whitebutt, if you’re reading this, you deserve better. That’s a lot of excitement for a 10th-floor balcony, but suburban yards are even better. At my friend’s house in Arlington, Va., I’ve seen a cowbird con a pair of robins into raising her baby, a family of woodpeckers get evicted by starlings, and - way up high - a bald eagle yank a fish from the talons of an osprey. It’s wild out there, and the wilderness is closer than you think. Of course, what I am talking about here is birdwatching. In

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Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

the Before Times, many people saw birding as weirdly inert. Now, the fact that you can do it without going anywhere is one of birdwatching’s major attractions and birding is trending in a major way. From March through June, a record-breaking 186,377 folks signed up for accounts on eBird, a massive database where birders report their sightings. That’s a 68 % increase over last year, according to Ian Davies, who coordinates the project through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. In the Washington area, the DC Audubon Society has seen a massive spike in newsletter subscriptions, a chapter in suburban Maryland reports a big increase in members and one in Northern Virginia has seen a spike in webinar attendance. Everyone, it seems, is turning to birds for entertainment - including some tabloid celebrities who should really be focused on entertaining us. I’m looking at you, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag. Stop obsessing over your hummingbird garden and do something outstandingly dumb. Why else are you even around? In the meantime, here are some tips for spying on birds. Get good binoculars Tuning in to the natural world is as simple as looking out your window, but you have to really look. That’s easier (and more fun) if you have a pair of decent bins. A few good, relatively inexpensive options include Celestron’s Outland X 8x42 ($79.95) and Nature DX 8x42 ($139.95), Nikon’s Prostaff 3S ($129.99), and Tasco’s Essentials (Roof) Binoculars ($51.95). If those are too expensive, look for used ones online, or look for an old pair in your relatives’ drawers. Practice on easy targets If you’re not wearing glasses, extend or twist your binocular’s eye cups to their full length. Then, adjust the distance between the two barrels so they fit your face. Find a conspicuous target, like a pigeon or a squirrel. Turn the middle wheel to bring the image into focus. You know you’re doing it right if you’re

looking through a single circle and the image is ultra 3-D. Download Merlin The free Merlin Bird ID app by Cornell Lab (for iOS and Android) will help you identify any bird you see with an easy-to-navigate decision tree. Or just snap a picture of the bird and it will use machine learning to identify it for you. Another great free app is BirdNET (for Android), which is basically Shazam for birdsong. Record some chirping and it will tell you what kind of bird is making the sound. Wake up early Songbirds sing their little hearts out first thing in the morning, so that’s the easiest time to find them. Don’t fret, late risers. You can bird too, but your focus will be on out-all-day species, like hawks and waterfowl. Pick a sit spot One of the best ways to get to know your local critters is to find a comfortable place to sit outside and stay there for as long as you can stand it. Set up a chair in your backyard, or find a dry log in a park. In as few as 15 minutes, the wildlife will relax and go about their business as if you aren’t there. You can also walk and bird, of course, but don’t forget to stop and look. The longer you stay still and quiet, the more you’ll see. Know where to look Birds are all over the place, but they can be stealthy. As you scan the environment, keep an eye out for movement and for anything that stands out. Pay particular attention to snags (dead trees), the edges of forests and fields, and any kind of shoreline. Bring the birds to you A bird feeder can provide hours of entertainment. Truly, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen woodpeckers duel like American Gladiators while hanging upside-down from a suet cage. But before you put out a single seed, set up a squirrelproof pole-and-baffle system. You CONTINUED ON PAGE 19

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attract birds is with a DIY birdbath. Pour water into a shallow dish, place it outside and call it a day. Explore eBird Want to know what kinds of birds live in your favorite pocket park? This app (probably) has the answer. That’s because birders around the world report some 100 million observations each year through the eBird app and website. Scientists tap this data to track migration and watch how climate change is affecting bird populations. Birders use it to find nearby hot spots and track how many species they have seen so far this year. If you get really into it, you might make the leader board for your county, state or region. ■

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can make your own or buy one. I recommend the Squirrel Stopper SQC05 ($180.99). It’s expensive, but you’ll save a fortune on birdseed in the long run. Next, make or buy yourself a few bird feeders: a thistle feeder to attract goldfinches (No/No finch feeder, $19.98), a suet feeder for woodpeckers and nuthatches - upside-down to keep the greedy starlings at bay (Nature’s Way, $19.99) and a tube feeder for everyone else (Gray Bunny, $16.97.) Mail-order birdseed is often stale, so consider picking some up from a local supplier or getting it delivered from Wild Birds Unlimited. One last note: You have to wipe down your feeders with disinfectant once a week to keep birds from trading diseases. If this all sounds like too much trouble, another way to

1108 E. Main Street, Medford Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

Soothing Cocktails It’s hot, we’re stuck and everything is terrible. These cocktails can swizzle your worries away. by M. Carrie Allan

Special To The Washington Post

When my laptop camera came up on Jay Correia, sitting outside the Swizzle Inn in Bermuda for our interview and clad in a breezy tropical shirt, I almost sighed out loud. I could see the breezes moving palm trees behind him, and as he briefed me on the situation in Bermuda - they seem to have successfully contained the virus, their curfew’s been lifted and they’re open for business - I experienced a pang of longing. What must it be like to be living in such a place, surrounded by waters of a color paint companies name shades of blue after, unmasked and safe thanks to good governance, drinking rum swizzles? I could only wistfully imagine. Of course, the picture wasn’t that rosy. As Correia told me, while Bermuda is open, it’s got barely a trickle of the usual visitors. “We’re worried about the U.S.,” he said. “Our livelihood is pretty much dependent on American tourists. We all want you guys to get it sorted so you can come back.” I assured him the feeling was mutual. I’d called Correia to get the scoop on the drink the Swizzle Inn is named and known for, the rum swizzle. “Swizzle Inn, Swagger Out” goes the pub’s slogan. Like many a tropical drink, the rum swizzle camouflages a solid whack of booze under layers of sweet and innocent fruit juices; the “swagger” turns to “stagger” when you swizzle too heavily.

Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

Correia Inn’s versi but where into existe taken on a “Rum swiz part of the Bermuda,” “Anytime ty, there’s there’s liq always sw swizzle rec ent house Everyone it. The con are always rum, oran ple juice, all over th The Swi at least the willing to parasite lik and is mad each of Go rum and G juice of tw each of pin juice, 2 ou falernum a Angostura they use is holic syrup (You can m num or fin but I got g John D. Ta contains a But Cor might be a what they Inn. And a says, “peop apricot bra kinds of di ers here ha sweet toot Bermud only one w ry. The Qu - which is - came out 1920s, and cocktail wo evolved in

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

Correia says the Swizzle Inn’s version is the original, but wherever it first swizzled into existence, the drink has taken on a life of its own. “Rum swizzle is an ingrained part of the social fabric of Bermuda,” says Correia. “Anytime locals have a party, there’s beer, there’s wine, there’s liquor, and there’s always swizzle. And that swizzle recipe can be different household to household. Everyone likes to play with it. The consistent ingredients are always Gosling’s Black Seal rum, orange juice and pineapple juice, but after that it goes all over the place.” The Swizzle Inn’s recipe (or at least the one Correia was willing to share with a media parasite like myself) serves six, and is made up of 4 ounces each of Gosling’s Black Seal rum and Gosling’s Gold, the juice of two lemons, 5 ounces each of pineapple and orange juice, 2 ounces of Bermuda falernum and a good hit of Angostura bitters. The falernum they use is a spiced, nonalcoholic syrup sold in Bermuda. (You can make your own falernum or find versions online, but I got good results from the John D. Taylor brand, which contains alcohol.) But Correia hinted there might be a few other secrets in what they actually pour at the Inn. And around Bermuda, he says, “people put mango juice, apricot brandy, grenadine, all kinds of different stuff. Islanders here have an enormous sweet tooth.” Bermuda’s swizzle is not the only one with a long history. The Queen’s Park Swizzle - which is less fruit-forward - came out of Trinidad in the 1920s, and in the modern cocktail world, the swizzle has evolved into a whole style of

drink, created in a particular way: tall, overflowing with crushed ice, and usually both sweet and boozy. The Chartreuse Swizzle is one of my favorites. The word “swizzle” describes both the drink and what you have to do to make one. Even if you’ve never had a swizzle, you’ve almost certainly held some version of a swizzle stick. Those tiny straws that show up in rocks drinks and jammed into sea turtles’ noses, the longer versions topped with animal figures or buxom mermaids, are all just modern iterations of the original swizzle stick - a literal stick from the Quararibea turbinata, a shrub native to the Caribbean islands. Dried and trimmed, the shrub’s multi-pronged branches made it useful - for driving farm animals, for example; one botanical history database suggested they also made good hatracks. I prefer their bibulous use: The tip of the stick (a “bois lélé” in French-Creole-speaking islands like Martinique) spreads into what looks like a medieval weapon and is terrific as a cocktail-mixing device. “The backand-forth motion while also raising and lowering the stick makes sure you’re integrating and chilling everything,” Martin Cate, owner of the award-winning bar Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, told me in an email. Use of the stick has disappeared from the Swizzle Inn, where they now just shake the drink with ice. But Correia says when his dad took over the Inn in 1962, “every swizzle was served at the table with the jug, the ice, and the swizzle stick was put into it to foam it up for the guest.” Now, he has only one real swizzle stick left, on display behind the bar.

I sure hope I can see it for myself one day. In the meantime, I’ll be here with the rest of you, worrying and swizzling in place. Here’s how to swizzle with the best: - Stick it to them. You can find real wooden swizzle sticks at some good cocktail supply stores and online at Cocktail Kingdom. “The bois lélé is key because of the forks at the end that help agitate the drink much more effectively than a straight stick,” says Cate. In fact, he says, “the classic Hamilton drink mixer that’s so key to the preparation of exotic cocktails is really just a bois lélé attached to a V8.” - Or use a cocktail spoon. If you don’t feel like shelling out for a real swizzle stick, you can get a decent approximation by using a cocktail spoon - preferably one with a fairly broad bowl - in a similar way. Sink either tool deep into the drink and the crushed ice, rolling the long handle between your palms and moving it up and down gently within the drink. “The primary goal is to chill, dilute and froth your drink through the rapid movement of the swizzle stick . . . and to create an aesthetically pleasing frost on the outside of the glass,” says Cate. Once the drink is good and cold, you can top off the glass with more crushed ice, then garnish it. - Don’t skip the crushed ice. If you’re not lucky enough to have a fridge that makes it, you can crush ice by giving it a very quick spin in a blender (you want it cracked, not slushy) or crack it yourself with the back of a flat metal spoon. “The ice has to be crushed for two reasons - the ease of moving the stick through the drink and the increased surface area of the ice, which promotes fast-

er chilling,” says Cate. “It’s a great show for your guests who appreciate the effort and attention to detail in the preparation of the drink. . . . All of these special touches are part of what makes bending elbows at your favorite watering hole a pleasure and a reward, and why we all look forward to taking care of our guests again as soon as we can.” Amen to that.

SUNSET SWIZZLE 1 serving A vision in orange, this drink takes the bright tropical notes of passionfruit, rum and lime and gives them a little bittersweet kick of neon Aperol. Passion fruit syrup is available at some liquor stores and online (Small Hand Foods and BG Reynolds both make good versions), but if you can’t locate it, you can make your own (see NOTE). Ingredients 1 1/2 ounces white rum 1 ounce black blended rum 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice 3/4 ounce passionfruit syrup 1/2 ounce Aperol Crushed ice 1 sprig fresh mint, for garnish (optional) Steps Combine the rums, lime juice, syrup and Aperol in a highball glass, then fill the glass three-quarters with crushed ice. Insert a swizzle stick or bar spoon into the drink and swizzle the drink, then top with more crushed ice to overfill the glass. Garnish with the mint, if using, and serve. NOTE: To make passionfruit syrup, in a small saucepan over low heat, combine 1 cup CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21

commercial passion fruit juice (such as Ceres) with 2 tablespoons sugar, and heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Continue to cook the syrup over low heat, stirring from time to time, until the volume decreases by about a third. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature, then transfer to an 8-ounce bottle with a cap and refrigerate until needed. (It can be refrigerated for up to 1 week.) Nutrition | Calories per serving: 270; Total Fat: 0 g; Saturated Fat: 0 g; Cholesterol: 0 mg; Sodium: 0 mg; Total Carbohydrates: 20 g; Dietary Fiber: 0 g; Sugar: 19 g; Protein: 0 g. (From Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan.)

KAIETEUR SWIZZLE 1 serving Named after a waterfall in Guyana - the source of the blended rum that cocktail expert and bar owner Martin Cate recommends for this cocktail - the swizzle gets its spice from the clove-and-lime liqueur falernum and its sweetness from maple. Ingredients

2 ounces blended aged rum, such as El Dorado 3/4 ounce fresh lime juice 1/2 ounce pure maple syrup 1/2 ounce falernum liqueur, such as John D. Taylor’s Velvet or Bitter Truth’s Golden 2 dashes Angostura bitters Crushed ice 1 slice lime, for garnish (optional) 1 sprig fresh mint, for garnish (optional) Steps Combine the rum, lime juice, syrup, liqueur and bitters in a highball glass, then fill the glass three-quarters with crushed ice. Insert a swizzle stick or bar spoon into the drink and swizzle the drink, then top with more crushed ice to fill the glass to the rim. Garnish with the lime over the edge of the glass and/or mint, if using, and serve. Nutrition | Calories per serving: 220; Total Fat: 0 g; Saturated Fat: 0 g; Cholesterol: 0 mg; Sodium: 5 mg; Total Carbohydrates: 15 g; Dietary Fiber: 0 g; Sugar: 11 g; Protein: 0 g. (Adapted from “Smuggler’s Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum and the Cult of Tiki” by Martin Cate. Ten Speed Press, 2016.). ■

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Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

‘Chef’s Table’

tackles the smoky spectrum of barbecue in its latest mouthwatering season

by Tim Carman

The new season of “Chef’s Table” takes viewers out of the spotless, stainless-steel kitchens where the Netflix series has made its bones and leads them into more smoky environs where men and women are keeping the ancient flame of barbecue alive. Yet over the course of four episodes, the show’s producers have done something else, too, even if they didn’t mean to. They’ve raised the age-old question of “What is barbecue?” The series doesn’t answer the question as much as it complicates it. “Chef’s Table,” which debuts Wednesday, visits places that most folks would recognize as barbecue joints, including Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, Texas, and Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston, S.C. But the producers also travel to Australia and Mexico to shadow two cooks on opposite ends of the spectrum: Lennox Hastie, a fine-dining chef in Sydney who pushes the boundaries of openflame cooking, and Rosalia Chay Chuc, a home cook in the town of Yaxunah who strives to preserve the pre-Hispanic tradition of slow-roasting pork in an earthen pit with fire-heated rocks. “We felt like we couldn’t do [the subject] justice in a single episode, so we wanted to show kind of a broad spectrum of barbecue,” David Gelb, creator of “Chef’s Table,” says during a phone interview. “Yes, of course, the subject of what is real barbecue is something that is hotly debated among aficionados,” he continues. “We’re not taking a perspective on, ‘This right or this is wrong.’ That’s not our place. We’re filmmakers. We’re not experts on the subject so much as we are storytellers trying to tell the points of view of our characters.” True to the approach that Gelb developed with his documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” - the soft-focus lighting, the string-quar-

tet soundtrack, the slow-mo camera pans, the deep character studies, hallmarks so familiar they’ve inspired imitators and parodies - the “Chef’s Table” crew gets up close and personal with the four principals at the heart of the new season. The crew’s art lies less in its ability to frame a dish in mouthwatering ways (though, god knows, some dishes will make you inch closer to the screen, as if you could inhale their aromas) but in its ability to get people to open up. Time is the ally of any storyteller, and the “Chef’s Table” team spent two weeks with each cook in the barbecue series, sometimes in communities and cultures that don’t easily spill their secrets to outsiders. But the directors and producers coaxed stories, often heartbreaking ones, from each of their subjects: Tootsie Tomanetz, the 85-year-old pitmaster at Snow’s, talks about the death of her husband and son; Rodney Scott talks about the estranged re-

lationship with his father; Hastie, the perfectionist behind Firedoor, talks about how his career path alienated his Michelin-starred mentor; and Chay Chuc talks about her fear of rejection from those outside her tight-knit Mayan community. Their quotes are intimate and sometimes raw, the kind of anecdotes teased out of people only after a sense of trust has been established between the person in front of the camera and the crew behind it. I asked Gelb how the “Chef’s Table” crew pulled it off. “It’s just spending time together, talking,” he says. “You know, we share our own stories with them. We are not at all guarded about our own journey, in terms of getting here. That’s kind of our interview style or at least it’s my interview style. . . . If we’re going to ask something that’s difficult, we present something analogous in our own lives, if we can.” “We share about ourselves so

that it becomes a conversation,” he adds. The series begins with an episode on Tomanetz, the silver-haired octogenarian with the bowlegged gait and the soft Texas drawl. In 2008, Snow’s - named for owner Kerry Bexley, known as “snowman” as a boy - leapfrogged all the famous smokehouses in the state to find itself atop Texas Monthly’s best barbecue list. Tomanetz instantly became a celebrity in her senior years, not that it went to her head. She still works as a custodian in the Giddings Independent School District during the week, but wakes up early each Saturday morning to drive to Lexington and cook seasoned meats over hot coals, which she personally shovels under the custom-made pits. Born during the Great Depression and raised on a farm, Tomanetz has been running barbecue pits, off and on, for nearly 50 years. When she says that CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

barbecue has the ability to bring people together, she doesn’t offer up this cliche as a way to market Snow’s. Tomanetz has, quite literally, lived through all the great distractions of the past century: television, video games, the internet, cellphones. She knows how customers behave when they dig into a platter of her barbecue. Phones get tucked away (well, after that requisite Instagram post) and the conversations get started. Barbecue’s communal atmosphere is the ghost that haunts this series. All the episodes, says Gelb, were filmed before the pandemic settled in for the long haul. There is no mention of the coronavirus, yet viewers are painfully aware of the virus’s effect on their ability to jump on a plane and visit one of the featured places, assuming they are even open to the public. (Snow’s is 24 Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

not, though you can have meats shipped to your house.) “When we were filming it, these stories had been untouched by that event. It hadn’t happened yet. It seems not exactly relevant to the stories as they were being told,” Gelb says. As such, the creator adds, this new season “plays almost like a period piece.” Perhaps that’s appropriate. Barbecue is often about preserving traditions that date back generations, if not centuries, whether the whole hog techniques that Scott learned by his father’s side in rural South Carolina or the long, painstaking process for making cochinita pibil, the Mayan dish in which everything is made by hand: the marinade, the tortillas, the earthen pit. Even the hog is butchered at Chay Chuc’s home before being prepped for the hot stones. Only Hastie at the Firedoor is working without an old

ragged blueprint: He has developed methods to fire-roast or smoke red kangaroo, burrata, Tasmanian octopus and countless vegetables grown on Australian farms. “We’re still trying to keep some of that fine-dining DNA that we initially featured,” Gelb says. “But it’s certainly not the focus of the show anymore. The show is about people.” “Chef’s Table” was moving beyond rarefied, tasting-menu kitchens - and the exclusion that often comes with them - well before the racial justice movement started shaking up the system in America. But Gelb says recent protests have reinforced the producers’ resolve to evolve the series even more in the future, once they can figure out how to safely shoot during the pandemic. “We can use our platform to help move the culture forward, by

presenting more female chefs and creating role models for young people,” Gelb says. “We’re trying to think about how we can help present stories that can inspire more people, more non-White chefs, to realize that you can make it at the highest level.” Scott may be one of those role models. The only son of parents who ran their own variety store and part-time smokehouse, Scott now is the face of his own barbecue business, which already has two locations and is aiming to open a third in Atlanta. When he saw the rough-cut of his episode, Scott says it “blew my mind. I was like, ‘Who is this person? That’s me! Wow!’” “I never knew,” he adds, “how interesting my life was.”■

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Fall 2020 ▪ Sip & Savor

Blender Dilemma

How to choose between food processors and blenders for your cooking projects.

by Becky Krystal

Food processors and blenders tend to get lumped together when people talk about kitchen appliances. After all, you can throw a bunch of ingredients into each and come out with something pureed. That is certainly true, but these two staples for home cooks work differently and excel at different things. Here’s how to differentiate them - and decide which one is right for you, or your recipe.

How they work. Food processors and blenders are similar in that both typically involve a motorized base and a repository for the food (bowl or jar) fitted with a blade. With their tall, narrow jars, blenders work by creating a vortex that continuously sucks food down to the blade. The 26 Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

food processor’s wider bowl means it relies more on the longer blade to slice horizontally through the food as it rotates. “The major difference is the way they operate,” says Mary Rodgers, director of marketing communications for Cuisinart, which offers both types of appliances. Primarily, that relates to speed. Food processors operate at around 1,700 revolutions per minute, while blenders start at around 17,000 rpm and can go even higher than 30,000 rpm. More on the significance of that below.

How they differ. In general, a food processor is more multifunctional than a blender, thanks to its slower speed and variety of blades that can be used for slicing, grating, making dough and more. (High-end models such as the Vitamix are pushing

the boundaries of what a blender can do, but considering the price tag and what’s still in many home kitchens, we’ll focus on the more traditional style of appliance.) Because the food processor goes slower, Rodgers says, it gives you much more control over the texture of your food. You can do everything from a brief pulse to full-speed processing, giving you food that runs the gamut from coarsely chopped to pureed. The faster speed of the blender blade means food is broken down at a much quicker pace, so you begin to cede control over the size of the food and how quickly it’s being worked. You can, for example, pulse ingredients for salsa in a blender, but if you think about the shape of the jar and the way food tends to ricochet up and around it, you’ll begin to understand why the chopping will never be as even as it is in a food processor. Let’s take the tomato prep in another direction to further

illustrate the difference. Rodgers says if you compare pureed tomatoes made in a food processor versus a blender, you may get small specks of skin in the food processor because of the slower speed. The puree is more likely to be completely smooth in a blender, thanks to its faster blade. Similarly, it’s much easier to chop an onion in a food processor. “If you put an onion in a blender, it’s going to be onion juice,” Rodgers says. Rodgers notes that even if you were to make the same recipe in both appliances - say, hummus you would find that you need to add more liquid to the blender version to ensure the food moves freely around the jar and over the blade. More liquid prevents cavitation in a blender, that annoying phenomenon when an air pocket forms above the blade and keeps it from coming in contact with the food. CONTINUED ON PAGE 27

jects.

How to pick. Food processors and blenders are different enough that, if you can, it’s helpful to have both in your kitchen arsenal. But budgets, kitchen sizes and other factors make it possible to turn this into an either/or proposition, which is fine, too. And even if you have both, sometimes you need to decide which to pull out. Pay attention to your cooking style, Rodgers says, or what your particular recipe is trying to accomplish. If you want a tool that can replicate a lot of knife work, go with the food processor. “It’s not easy to do any type of dough in a blender,” Rodgers adds. “You cannot slice or shred in a blender.” Those are common tasks to keep in mind as well. If you need something primarily for beverages, the blender is absolutely the way to go. Smoothies, frozen drinks, horchata and agua fresca - the blender excels at them all. Manufacturers typically do not recommend breaking down ice in a food processor.

Pureed hot soups are a possibility in both appliances, though you need to pay attention to the fill lines in each. Again, you’ll achieve a somewhat smoother consistency in the blender.

Other considerations Price is one driving factor.

Blenders tend to have a lower point of entry, and you can reliably find reasonably priced, well-performing models for less than even a no-frills food processor. You can, however, look into a mini processor as another option. Speaking of size, think about how you will store your appliance. Both types can be stashed on the counter or in a cabinet, assembled

or broken down into their two main parts. Food processors skew heavier, while blenders run taller. As far as life span, I have run through a couple of blenders while I’m still on my first food processor. But much depends on your model, how much you use it, how you care for it and more. Focus on your needs in the here and now, though, and you won’t go wrong. ■

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In the pandemic,

Distilleries get creative by opening taps on music and food Special To The Washington Post Division Street is a nondescript stretch in Patchogue, a village on the south shore of Long Island. A five-minute walk from the Long Island Railroad station, it’s dotted with houses, the intermittent deli and a custom apparel shop. So on a recent Sunday, it was hard to miss the Better Man Distilling Company’s parking lot, where people were lined up at food tents. The smell of vegetables sizzling on a grill and grains cooking floated far down the block. Each food option was more tempting than the last: live-shucked bivalves by Tallmuthashucka (“They’re four hours old,” owner and oyster farmer and eponym Keenan Boyle told me); vegan eats from Peach &amp; Pine Cafe, whose plans to open a storefront nearby were waylaid by the pandemic; and fresh sorbet and vegan ice cream from Fete Desserts. I took a plate of local oysters to the back patio, where people and a few dogs - sat around liberally spread-out tables. A guitarist singing mellow covers of classic rock songs was perched beside neatly stacked barrels of whiskey. Abby Gruppuso, head of operations at her family’s new distillery, brought over a flight of Better Man’s four spirits and explained each one, including a dry gin and Elysian Fields, a captivating lavender gin. She guided me to the vast entrance of a warehouse-esque building behind me and showed me the still it was all made on. There are more than 2,000 craft distilleries in the United States. Many switched to hand sanitizer production at the onset of the pandemic, effectively putting liquor production on hold. Then as shutdowns halted tasting room sales and wholesale orders from restaurants and bars plummeted, revenue streams dried up. In most states, distillery tasting rooms are subject to the same reopening legislation as bars and restaurants,

Sip & Savor ▪ Fall 2020

which means that even as they open, indoor visitors are largely prohibited. According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade organization, craft distillers are projected to lose $700 million in annualized sales, a loss of 41 percent of total business. But entrepreneurship runs deep in the distilling industry, and quite a few owners are finding creative ways to stay in the game while keeping safety top of mind. Like Better Man, many distilleries around the country have taken social distancing and capacity restrictions and turned them into an opportunity to team up with local producers and make their site into a community gathering place. Food trucks, bakers, provisions-makers and musicians

are all invited - as long as everyone promises to keep a safe distance and sanitize. Cooper’s Daughter Spirits is set on a Hudson Valley farm that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. When the coronavirus shuttered New York distilleries in March, it launched a pop-up drive-through selling food and bottled cocktails. Once the distillery was allowed to welcome back guests in June, it expanded the patio to create what it calls the Cocktail Garden, a tented setting where people can sip cocktails made with their farm-to-glass spirits accompanied by local food truck fare. “When we wrote our business plan, we intended to have a place that was collaborative - where we

could host local artisans and hold small craft fairs. A lot has changed from that plan, but collaboration is the one thing we always held on to,” said Sophie Newsome, a co-owner of the family-run operation. “There’s a real sense of community here.” Snapping into action to organize came easily to Albany Distilling Company founder John Curtin, who had hosted artist events in the past and helped establish the Capital Craft Beverage Trail, which encompasses 53 producers - eight of which are distilleries - across eight upstate counties. Making use of his expansive patio, he set up socially distanced seating and corralled local restaurants. Selling their food at the distillery has been a boon for eateries with

limited outdoor dining capacity. In Rochester, Black Button Distilling and various food producers petitioned the city to shut down a road where they created the Railroad Street District. A street-festival vibe defines the setup, which offers food and drink. The distillery features concerts and cocktail and bourbon-blending classes. Community is especially critical for distilleries such as Prohibition Distillery in the Catskills, a region battered by decreased tourism. According to owner Brian Facquet, food and drink operations form an interconnected network that keeps business flowing from one to the next. “When you understand community, you understand everyone’s different capabilities. We can all push people to visit different parts of the county when they’re here,” he said. Guests get a taste of other businesses at his bar. Honey from local beekeepers, coffee from an area roaster and a heady bloody mary mix from Van Smokey, his friendly neighborhood smoke house, are featured in his drinks. They’re sold from a walk-up bar with a plexiglass front in his “Good-to-go Garage,” the name he has given to his retrofitted setup. His ample property allows for vast distances between tables, making it a popular destination on the weekends when he hosts local musicians. A safely distanced live-music component is a priority for Wyn Ferrell, founder and owner of Mile High Spirits in downtown Denver. The sprawling space has long been a nightlife attraction, known for hosting marquee-name disc

jockeys and Grammy Award-winning musicians such as Ludacris. Food was an afterthought. But in early spring, they welcomed a food truck from the cultishly popular restaurant Chicken Rebel to create outdoor hangout options. The tremendous distillery encompasses a sprawling patio, where a mellow crowd gathers on Saturdays to watch live bluegrass, and a tasting room, which has 20-foothigh ceilings. It has reopened to guests, albeit at 10 percent of its normal 500-person capacity. “Tourism has fallen out, but we’re not going to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves.” Ferrell said. “Alcohol was made to be fun, so let’s create the most fun place we can where people can enjoy themselves.” Now he speaks of Mile High as a sit-down restaurant, which was never the case before: “We want to come out of covid more dynamic and accessible.” Hanson of Sonoma Distillery, set amid grape vineyards, had an eye to the future when it recently enhanced its dining offering. The massive custom wood-fired pizza oven that was installed outside is a new attraction for the culinary-focused clientele, who have long been lured with menus by Miche-

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lin-starred chefs making guest appearances and vodka pairings with area purveyors, such as a caviar company. Of course, a chief reason for visiting distilleries is to get a glimpse of the art and science of the spirit-making process. But with the tight confines of so many distilleries, tours are a lost cause. High West Distillery has found the next best thing. The Park City, Utah, outfit, which features a destination-worthy restaurant with ample patio seating, appropriated a space for a socially distanced “sensory experience.” A tour guide takes seated guests through the whiskey-making process with the help of individual samples of raw ingredients, a contained display of fermentation, a demo on a miniature still and a tasting flight.

But perhaps the distilleries best positioned to keep visitors arriving are the ones with other safe-from-covid enticements built in. Royal Foundry Craft Spirits, a vast 15,000-square-foot distillery in Minneapolis, is known for two things: its British-inspired spirits and its Cycle Speedway course. The small, oval, traditionally English clay course accommodates up to four people riding bikes without brakes. (They’re available to rent.) Co-owner Nikki McLain said they just got a license for their own food truck, Brixton’s British Pub Grub. With a gin and tonic, fish and chips, and a view of the action from socially distanced tables on the patio, you can almost imagine yourself far, far away across the pond. ■

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