Grenache vines at Long Walk Vineyards, which bucks the trend for Pinot Noir in Oregon and specializes in Rhone varietals instead.
Ashland, OR. — Stanford grads Kathy and Tim O’Leary were looking for a second home that would allow them to take a break from their hectic lives in Palo Alto where she was an engineer and he was an attorney.
They started scouting around in a circumference of a 2-hour’s drive away in California before ultimately settling on a spot nearly 8 hours away in Oregon.
That’s why their Ashland winery was dubbed Long Walk Vineyard. Or so the story goes. You can understand why they extended their search so far north, though, once you gaze upon this this 50-acre historic orchard on a hill that they purchased in 2000.
The 2021 Carignane with charcuterie board that includes the winery’s own honey.
That’s what I found when I visited the beautiful property a couple weeks ago, where unlike most wineries in this region, Pinot Noir is not king, but Rhone varietals are.
Poached otoro or medium fatty tuna belly and foie gras blanketed by slices of raw porcini at Mas.
Ashland, OR. — Tucked away in a secluded alley off the main downtown drag, Mas is not a place that one just happens to stumble upon.
But seek it out, you definitely should.
Named one of the New York Times’ “favorite 50 restaurants” in 2022 and a semi-finalist for “Best Chef Northwest and Pacific” in 2023, this $195 per person, tasting menu-only restaurant is all of 16 seats.
The best seats, of course, are at the chef’s counter, where I dined earlier this month as a guest of Travel Oregon. It’s where you can watch Chef Josh Dorcak and his small staff prepare each course with precision.
Chef Josh Dorcak putting the finishing touches on dishes at the chef’s counter.
It’s rather astonishing to realize that the galley kitchen behind the counter, about the size of one in a modest home, is all they use, too. There’s all of one or two induction burners, a combi oven that can cook with steam or hot air, and a fish aging refrigerator off to the side. That’s pretty much it.
The “Chef’s Alchemy” farm-fresh dish at Alchemy in Ashland.
Ashland, OR. — Its moniker may be inspired by San Jose’s Winchester Mystery House because of its expansion in fits and starts over the years, but unlike its namesake the Winchester Inn is as far from kitschy and haphazard as it gets.
Instead, this stately Victorian inn boasts not only real history, but beautifully appointed rooms and suites, as well as a critically acclaimed restaurant on site, Alchemy, that has been honored with a Wine Spectator “Best of Award of Excellence.”
Two weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to be invited to stay and dine there as a guest of Travel Oregon.
The original owners were inspired to name the inn after San Jose’s Winchester Mystery House.
Comprised of a series of historic homes, the inn’s main house was actually the first hospital in Southern Oregon. Back then, it was located on Main Street. But in 1910, it was moved up the hill to its current S. Second Street location.
Salt and pepper tater tots are sure to be your new guilty pleasure.
If you had told me that one day I’d be stir-frying tater tots, I would have called you “crazy.”
But crazy can be mighty good.
And these sure are.
Put your disbelief aside, do yourself a favor, and make these “Salt and Pepper Tater Tots.”
If you’ve ever enjoyed the warm aromatics of Chinese salt and pepper shrimp or salt and pepper spare ribs, then you know the taste sensation you are in for.
This delightful recipe is from “Tenderheart” (Alfred A. Knopf), of which I received a review copy.
It’s the newest cookbook by Hetty Lui McKinnon, the gifted Chinese Australian cook and food writer who now lives in Brooklyn. She’s also the publisher of the multicultural food journal, Peddler, as well as host of its podcast, The House Specials.
There are recipes in this book to be sure. But more than that, there are stories that will touch and stay with you long after you set its spine down.
“Recipe for Disaster” (Chronicle Books), of which I received a review copy, is by Alison Riley. It is the first book by this Brooklyn-based writer and creative director, and founder of the paper and text studio, Set Editions.
It’s a unique collection of 40 essays and recipes highlighting how good food provides sustenance in so many ways through so many trying times. Riley has assembled an impressive roster of big-name contributors who share strikingly personal stories about how food has soothed and assuaged during some of the worst moments in life.
Comedian Sarah Silverman writes about how chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies known as pinwheels were the only thing that comforted her when she first experienced long-term depression at age 13. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse reveals how the throes of the pandemic made her appreciate all the more the beauty of a fresh salad made with the produce grown by her local farms.
Actor-comedian Bowen Yang admits that as a child he didn’t care for his mom’s cooking, but now appreciates it so much that her version of ma po tofu is the first thing he wants when he goes home to Colorado. And in one of the most stirring accounts, broadcast journalist Alex Wagner explains how her simple, hastily made canned-tuna sandwich that she toted to work would turn out to be the only thing to offer any sense of normalcy on Sept. 11, 2001.
