BLOGSCHU

Music Monday: Alternative Holiday Favorites

Like it or not, the holiday season officially begins the moment you scrape the last pumpkin pie plate.

Overnight, every public and commercial space begins bombarding your eardrums with their official holiday playlist.  (Almost all - we are pretty good about avoiding holiday music in the Gun Bun tasting room, with one exception: the day of our annual Toy Drive.) 

So before you are subjected to Santa Baby for the 2,000th time (never, I promise) and don't even want to think about holiday music, let's take a break from the regular Music Monday Archive list and collaborate to put together an alternative Holiday Music Monday list.  Perhaps we can look for songs that aren't in constant rotation.  Then we'll have a playlist that you all aren't totally sick of yet that we can play at the Toy Drive this Saturday!

I'll get us started with five songs I would gladly trade for any of the standard fare:

Let's start with my all-time favorite holiday song, one that rarely gets any radio play, perhaps for obvious reasons.  I completely adore this song, any time of year:

1. Fairytale of New York by the Pogues.

I'll toss in a couple more that further demonstrate my appreciation for a little irony with my mistletoe.

2. Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto - James Brown

3. Father Christmas - the Kinks.

I'll finish off with two of the sincere variety. 

4. 2000 Miles - The Pretenders (the most frequently played on the list, but a gorgeous song)

5. I Believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake (The recording may be a little dated, but I am amazed that this song isn't one of the regulars this time of year.)

So there are my five. More Santa references than I'd realized, actually. Now it is your turn:

Please go to the GunBun Holiday playlist at playlist.com and add your own favorites.  It is easy, though they do make you create a login to the site (it's free). Use the search box above the playlist to look for a song, and when you find it, hit the + button.

Or if you prefer, just leave the song name and artist as a comment and I can add it for you. Then we'll have a diverse list of songs to play at our Toy Drive on December 5th! Hope to see you there, and thanks for your help!

Friends and Heroes: On the Road with Jeff Bundschu

Just home now, from a memorable sales trip that started in Parkslope, Brooklyn and ended up in Beaufort, South Carolina. Usually my trips are to one general region, so it was unusual that this one was to one general time zone. A high-spotting and stream-of conscious-ing the memories of the trip yields the following:

• Tasting wines with internet celeb Gary Vaynerchuk-Springfield, New Jersey
• Drinking beer with new favorite artist Andrea Von Bujdoss - Union Hall, Parkslope
• Hanging with my friend American Dave and fam. -Williamsburg
• Seeing a guy walking 16 dogs-Parkslope
• Eating a Phat Burrito-Charlotte
• Walking by (wish I could say ‘chillin’ with’) Kim Bassinger at the airport-Charlotte
• Learning about the family owned winery program at 131 Main -Charlotte
• Eating roadside fried fish, rice and beans @ Katherine’s Soul Food truck- Rural South Carolina
• Sipping Coffee, eating cookies and wallowing in southern beauty- Spring Island
• Eating Tupelo honey and watching Tyler Florence make Brussels sprouts live at Palmetto Bluff wine festival
• Talking surfing, sailing and family with Beaufort SC, restaurant mogul/surf-fisher and my new BFF Lantz Price

All of these things are story worthy in their own right, but none more so than what happened the last night of my trip. It was to be the last of four wine dinners in a row, at Plum’s in Beaufort, and there were over 50 reservations. The previous dinners had all been in elegant white table-cloth restaurants, and though they were each excellent in their own right, I was relieved to see that this was totally different. There was one big dining hall, with wooden floors, a bar and no table cloths. In other words, a very casual and welcoming place.

I was greeted by Lantz (my knew BFF) and we immediately hit it off. A transplanted surf/ski and wine bum from New Hampshire, Lantz has developed a few successful restaurants in Beaufort. Plums is his low-key waterfront place that serves great low country food and wine to families and their young kids during meal time, and beer and shots with live music to older kids without their families wee into the night. As we milled about before the first course, every table was full except one four-top, where a woman sat alone. Once in a blue moon, a single person shows up at dinner that I am doing and ends up blended into another larger group, often mine. That wasn’t the case here, and so I invited her to come sit at my table. It turned out she was waiting for three more women, all of whom were Marine drill instructors from nearby Parris Island.

Never one to miss an opportunity, as soon as the latecomers arrived, I told them that they were in trouble for holding up the whole dinner and as a consequence had until the desert course to come up with a drill routine with which to lead the crowd. They took it in stride and said, as long as they had wine through the dinner all would be fine. Desert came and after they organized themselves in a hallway out of sight, I announced the special guests to the crowd as three Marine drill instructors from nearby Parris Island, and much to everyone’s delight, in marched these three beautiful women who, once set and in formation, started barking custom, wine drinking orders in to all of us in the room. It was absolutely awesome. We repeated after them as loudly as we could, and screamed appreciatively when they were done.

Afterwards, they thanked the Beaufort community for supporting all the Marines on Parris Island and then led us in a moment of silence to commemorate all the deployed Marines- those who were- and weren’t- coming back. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and I get chills even now recalling it. It was one of those moments, frozen in time, where a good-time experience transformed briefly, seriously, and directly, into something totally meaningful and memorable. I think those moments are more frequent than we realize, or recognize and we are too distracted to notice them. Not so with this one. It didn’t take the 3 hours of post-dinner wine and stories for those woman to become heroes to me (they had me at ‘okay we’ll do it!’), though it helped me really understand what they do and hear firsthand about the sacrifices they make on behalf of all of us. My new friends Sgt Joanna Mendoza, Sgt Nicole Allen, Sgt Sadys Corcino and Joan Petrucci, and their husbands (two of which are in Afghanistan) and families, will always be welcomed here. Look for an impromptu cell-phone video and the transcript of drill under Wine Creed on our Facebook fan page. 

Now for some orders for you: Next time you have the opportunity to pour yourself and/or your friends a glass of wine, toast all the Marines and service people out there—to their health, their sacrifice, to their safe return and your gratitude for it all. And then hope to be lucky enough, once your earplugs are in and your hatches battened down, to repeat the toast again to their face some day.

Break Time

Have a great holiday!

What's your ABC (Alternative Beverage of Choice)?

Wine, coffee and water pretty much sum up my beverage consumption, with the occasional beer thrown in the mix. It's a rare thing for me to drink other beverages, not (just) because they are non-alcoholic, but mostly because they don't go with food. 

Sodas are too sweet, fizzy water is salty to me, and carbonation in general is not my friend. Juice? Usually too sweet to have with a meal.

On those occasions when I just need more flavor than water, I tend to go for the Arnold Palmer - half lemonade, half iced tea, absolutely no sweetener.  This is pretty much only a restaurant choice, and when it works, its a great balance of sweet, sour and bite that is perfectly refreshing.  But it is almost always served out of balance. Too much of one or the other, or the lemonade is fake, the tea overwhelmingly tannic,or additional sweetener has been added.  Invariably the server tops up with one or the other and throws the whole thing off. Funny how picky I am about this. I've tried every bottled version too, the only one of any value is Nantucket Nectar's Half & Half. I'm just too lazy to make my own.

Last night I went to a local taqueria for a quick dinner, and their agua fresca of the day was sandia (watermelon). Aguas Frescas are often really sweet, the most common choices being tamarind, pineapple and horchata, a cinnamon and rice water that is more dessert than beverage. 

When I see one of those big plastic barrels tinted pink, I'm always hopeful, but usually its a cloying strawberry. On those rare occasions when it is watermelon, it makes my day. And this one was perfect - the watermelon juice, already lighter than most fruit juices, is diluted with water and ice to a perfectly quaffable level, with little added sweetener. 

This is perhaps the most refreshing beverage ever. It makes me wonder why, with all the ridiculous flavored waters, juices and teas on the market, is there almost no commercially available watermelon-based drink on the market? Is there? Can someone make one, please?

Besides coffee and water, which I consider necessities, what is your non-alcoholic beverage of choice?

Pandora's Box

I've become addicted to Pandora. I'm so utterly sick of my whole ipod I can't choose anything to listen to that doesn't have me hitting skip every two minutes. So lately I've been spending my commute plugged into my phone listening to custom built radio. Now the music industry is really in trouble, as my free-spending itunes albumist days are numbered.

Last week Anne D turned me on to the Silversun Pickups. Rather than go buy a record or two, I plugged them into Pandora and have been listening to a playlist that mixes up their music (~20%) with others like them. Not only have I grown to love this band, I've learned that I should have heard them ages ago, seeing as I own virtually every record Pandora links to them. (Except Death Cab for Cutie, I really just can't get into them, and they seem to suck up my max 6 skips an hour.)

Another benefit of this week's Pandora listening, I finally learned the name of the pleasantly-insidious tune that heretofore I've referred to as 'that song with the bridge that sounds like A Flock of Seagulls.'

Its called 1901, by a band called Phoenix.  Listen to it, then listen to Space Age Love Song. Is it just me or is the Korg synthesizer enjoying a resurgence? I feel like I'm hearing echos the 80s a lot more than usual. At least I enjoy that more than the second coming of the stirrup pant, or heaven forbid, a wine cooler.

Getting Sticky

I have what you might call a savory tooth. I'd rather have seconds, or perhaps a cheese plate, than almost any dessert. But not surprisingly, I do like to drink dessert. 

In the marathon that is the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, there's just no passing up any part of the experience.  By the time the pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie and who knows what else comes out, it doesn't matter that you've had four helpings of turkey and trimmings and that the number of empty bottles of Gundlach Bundschu Gewurztraminer (the well-documented ideal pairing for the holiday menu) is higher than the guest count. You're going to have dessert. And since our gewurz is bone dry, you'll need a different wine for that.

So I always use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to buy a nice bottle of a white dessert wine, something I rarely do, but enjoy. Not Yquem or Royal Tokaji nice, but say, Dr. Loosen Riesling-nice. A few years ago I bought a Nittnaus Trockenbeerenauslese just because the name is possibly even more fun to say than Gundlach Bundschu Gewurztraminer.  It was delicious.  I'm curious, are you planning to serve a 'sticky', and do you have any favorites to recommend?

New to me!

Today is a carpool day, and since I am riding with a winemaker, we got here eaaarrrly. By my standards at least. She got to sleep in. But now its time to go and - gasp - I haven't posted my Music Monday choice yet. So a quick call to Anne Dempsey went like this:

AD: Are you ready to go?

me: Not yet. What song is in your head right now.

AD: The one we talked about this morning, from the About a Boy soundtrack.

me: A Minor Incident? I can't put that on blogschu, way too depressing. The song's a suicide note. I need a music monday track.

AD: Well we were listening to Silver Sun Pickups before.

me: Awesome, I've never heard of them!

So here dear readers is a song that I will hear for the first time along with you. I hope it's a good driving tune. Thanks Anne, let's go home!

In praise of texture

We talk about texture in wine sensuously; silk to describe pinot, velvet for merlot, suede or leather for cab (by the way, the perfect outfit for each too, but that's a totally different post).

Food texture seems to be described most often in negatives terms, like mushy or slimy, or, for example, as an explanation for one's dislike of oysters or liver. As in, 'It's a texture thing.' 

Last weekend I had an exceptional meal that was all about texture, in a good way.

Though bushi-tei is 15 min from my house, has been open for four years and has earned a Michelin star, I am a bit embarassed to admit I never heard of it until last Saturday. I was in search of a quiet place in a quiet part of town to avoid San Francisco's Halloween mayhem and take my husband on a date, and the good people at open table found me a gem.

The people were lovely, the tiny space beautifully decorated, but it was all about the food, billed as French California fushion. Everything was delicious and so original, but the thing I noticed most was that Chef Seiji Wakabayashi is a master of texture. 

While the flavors were wonderful, what I kept commenting on were the great textures - the crab and lobster salad with chysanthemum leaf, papaya and small cubes of chewy bacon was my hands-down favorite. One for the 'last meal' menu, easily. A rich shrimp risotto topped with strips of rare-seared ahi and fried shallots was cruncy, creamy and fresh all at once. Slices of duck breast topped with mascarpone mustard, dried chutney and mizuna. Such unique combinations of flavors and textures, all of which worked really well. We chose a white rhone that itself had a fat, melony texture but pretty crisp finish that played nicely with both the rich and delicate flavors of the dishes.

This is the reason I love to eat out - here was a meal I could never reproduce at home. A delightful discovery.

Music Monday: Unconventional Day of the Dead

posted by Susan Sueiro

A warm, still night is a rare thing in San Francisco, rarer still in November, so it would have been a crime to stay in last night. It was one of those spectacular evenings, complete with a full moon, that gets every restaurant in town to drag tables onto the sidewalk and inspires thousands of locals to take an evening stroll.

My husband and I headed to Mario's in North Beach, a tiny bar/cafe overlooking Washington Square Park that has been making simple, utterly perfect foccacia sandwiches in a pizza oven behind the bar since the Beats hung out here.

The far end of the bar was packed with people who seemed to be carrying Halloween over an extra day, dressed in crazy hats and garish costumes, loudly toasting and tossing back cheap chianti in juice glasses.  We looked around to see six of the cafe's eight tables were full, and one more was stacked with three accordians and a snare drum.

We made a bee line for the remaining table, and asked the bartender if a band was planning to play. "I have no idea," she said, "this carnival just rolled in."

Upon closer inspection, the "carnival" group of about a dozen oddly-clad baby-boomers included several whose faces were painted as skulls, and it clicked. This was a Day of the Dead party.

I love this holiday, with its tradition of celebrating lost family members with their favorite food and drink.  Years ago we held a Day of the Dead celebration at the winery, building an altar with photos of the first four generations of Gundlachs and Bundschus, leaving them cups of Rhinefarm wines of course, and inviting guests to decorate sugar skulls and spread marigold petals. On that day, my then-five-year old nephew, little ham that he is, sang a song about el dia de los muertos to the crowd in spanish and english. 

I was trying to remember the tune to that song while tucking into my eggplant sandwich, when one of the accordion players hopped on a chair and started directing the other musicians. The plan was to start by playing Spanish Ladies, then listen for Lou's cue to lead them into the Beer Barrel Polka.  Two thoughts caused me to spin around in my chair. First, what on earth do those songs have to do with Day of the Dead?  And second, was that Lou, as in Big Lou the Accordion Princess, who played for club members at our German Wine Garden harvest party?  Why yes it was, and she was leading the procession out the door and down the street. I shouldn't be surprised, how big is the accordian community in the Bay Area anyway?

After dinner, we strolled around the park and neighborhood for a while, and we kept crossing paths with Lou and her skeleton crew, still repeating those same two tunes in each cafe and restaurant they visited like some odd mexican-polka-pub-crawl.  I guess we should have dined in the Mission if we wanted a traditional celebration.

With that annoying polka chorus stuck in my head hours later, I went online determined to find my nephew's song. No dice, but I was fascinated to find that there is a song about the holiday by my one of my high-school-era favorites, Siouxsie and the Banshees.  Probably about as appropriate as polka, but far preferable, to me anyway.