The occasion was the second annual Napa Truffle Festival. The event encompassed every aspect of truffle culture from truffle cultivation and the business of truffles to cooking with truffles to the subject of truffles and wine. The only truffle-related topic it didn’t touch was the deep connection between truffles and romance. But don’t worry, as the event’s official blogger, I took care of that! You can find my blog post, Truffles: the aphrodisiac science and lore on the Napa Truffle Festival website.

Over the four days of overindulgence in January–what a way to ring in the new year!–I became what I like to think of as quite the truffle authority and connoisseur. I realize that not everyone will enjoy reveling in the details of my personal overindulgence, but here are some of the highlights of what I learned and tasted:

Although we think of truffles as wild treasures, Europe is rich in history of cultivated truffles. I was shocked to learn that over 90% of France’s black truffles are cultivated.

In fact, if you have a couple of spare acres, you can start your own truffle orchard. One of the event’s sponsors, American Truffle Company, supplies oak trees with roots that have been inoculated with truffles to get you started down the path of the gentleman farmer.

Truffles must be fresh. By the time they’re a week old, they’ve lost much of their aromatic magic.

In the case of truffles, more is more. Yes, I was able to scarf down piles of fresh, Perigord truffle shavings every day of the festival without coming close to saturation.

Wild truffles are everywhere… we just don’t know it. They love to grow clinging to the roots of oak, hazelnut, pine and a few other types of trees in most every climate. (At the festival I met a chef from Sweden who sources local, Swedish truffles.)

But how to find the truffles in your back yard? Well, just about any breed of dog is capable of being trained to find truffle. Since I returned from the event, I’ve commenced scent training with my Chihuahua.

Truffles are a favorite aphrodisiac of lovers of fine food. No, we didn’t learn this in one of the event’s seminars but, knowing my reputation, several festival participants felt the need to share their personal testimonials. The stories, I’ll keep to myself but believe me when I say, truffles work!

I’ve been assigned the unbelievably decadent role of official blogger for the 2012 Napa Truffle Festival. As Truffle Festival blogger, I thought it was important to address one of the biggest hot buttons in the culinary world since it involves the famed aphrodisiac of truffles, (or faux truffles as the case may be!) Although the blog post is specific to the Truffle Festival, the topic is one of interest to food lovers around the world:

The Napa Truffle Festival comes only once a year and I know most of you, (myself included), want to enjoy truffles the rest of the year. A few years ago, a product made it big on the gourmet foods market which allowed us all to indulge in truffles at home. But, as is the case with many good things, success spoiled truffle oil and the market became flooded with inexpensive products promising the essence of the rare fungus in a bottle.

It all came to light with the New York Times article “Hocus-Pocus, and a Beaker of Truffles” which exposed inexpensive truffle oils as, essentially, cheap knockoffs. Ever since then, chefs (including many who had previously happily doused their cuisine with the stuff) and most food media have turned up their noses at all liquid truffle essence.

I am writing this post to help clear up a little of the controversy and let you know that there are great products out there that can give you a little taste of truffle at home.

To understand genuine truffle oil, its important to understand the “Beaker of Truffles” the New York Times exposed. Many commercial truffle oils are made by combining olive oil with aromatic molecules manufactured in a laboratory. If you compare one of these oils with the aroma of a fresh truffle, you will immediately notice the difference. A truffle is much more subtle, delicate. Yet the taste of these manufactured truffle oils is similar enough that it fooled great chefs for years. And even now, great chefs, including Chicago’s Grant Achatz, still use a drop or two on occasion to enhance the flavor of truffle dishes.

If you enjoy the flavor of these truffle imitators, then I say knock yourself out! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with enhancing your food with a flavor you enjoy. (I’m not shy about drizzling a little on a well-salted pile of French fries!) Just don’t confuse it with the taste of real truffles, one of the greatest food experiences in the world.

There are a few honorable products on the market that make truffle oil with genuine truffles. They’re more expensive oils and their flavors are much more subtle than what you might expect. But there truffle notes are complex and like no other flavor sensation on earth. Check the bottle’s ingredients for one that lists oil and truffles as the ingredients like Chef Jack Czarnecki’s Oregon Truffle Oil. (I even recommend it in one of the recipes in my new book, Romancing the Stove.) Terms such as “natural truffle flavoring” or “truffle essence” are a giveaway that what you’re holding was made in a beaker.

The best way, of course, is to experience truffles in their natural state. Which is why, if you haven’t already, you should get your tickets to the 2012 Truffle Festival before its too late!

The endless days of restaurants and snacks had many highlights, (more to come on Vancouver later), but there were two experiences that shine in my mind as bright as the North Star.

The first was dinner at Providence, my favorite restaurant in LA–one of my favorites anywhere. Providence’s focus is seafood, which I do love, but that’s not what rates the restaurant among my food loves.

Providence Chef Michael Cimarusti is clearly a forager at heart. The focus of his meals are the sorts of ingredients that once upon a time grandparents taught their grandchildren to gather in forests, fields and the surf. Fish may be the star but Providence’s dishes would be nothing without the inspired supporting cast of seaweed, porcini, clams, basil seeds, rhubarb, truffles and the like.

The other aspect of Providence’s cuisine that I so embrace is the simplicity. Rarely does a dish feature more than 5 ingredients (not counting culinary staples like salt and cooking oil). In an era in which chefs are fighting it out to find the most innovative, scientifically advanced use of ingredients, Cimarusti is not afraid to showcase ingredients in a natural state.

Yet make no mistake, Providence’s cuisine is no “farm to table,” add heat to some meat and serve it with the market’s best vegetables kind of cuisine. It is still a fine dining experience, with expertly layered flavor profiles–just ones created from a well-edited palate of ingredients found in nature.

On this visit to Providence, I treated myself to my very favorite thing. It’s a starter of soft scrambled eggs served in the shell with slivers of sea urchin. It is savory, seductive and among the most sensual foods I’ve ever slurped off a spoon. In fact, I was once interviewed by a regional magazine on the “sexiest restaurant dish in LA,” and the egg was, to me not just the obvious, but the only choice.

To follow, I enjoyed John Dory over a smoky eggplant puree with fresh, black figs. It was again a sensual dish, loaded with aphrodisiac ingredients. But it isn’t the tally of aphrodisiacs that keeps me so satisfied with the Providence experience. Its the way the vibrant ingredients, cooked by a nearly perfect hand, harmonize on the plate and in the setting. Its the care with which the food is presented, served and accompanied by wines.

After Providence succeeded in delighting my senses in its near-perfect fashion, I had little expectation that anything on my Vancouver trip could possibly match such an artful meal. But I still planned the trip around food, looking forward to at least experiencing another city’s perspective on modern cuisine.

My friend Nathan Fong, a food writer, stylist and tv host who practically breathes the Vancouver food scene came up with a list of restaurant recommendations from which I chose my reservations. I was particularly struck by the website of a relatively new place called Hawksworth. What I most noted was that the sample menu on the website seemed to exude many of the same sensibilities as Providence.

When we arrived the restaurant, elegant in a somewhat stark, minimalist way, I admired the clean, simple ballet of the servers, the formal yet easygoing style reminding me yet again of my favorite LA haunt.

To start, three of us shared a roasted sweet onion veloute with cubes of compressed duck confit. Sometimes soup is simply soup and sometimes its an adventure of crispy candied leeks, onions pulverized to a silken cream and little nuggets of salty duck goodness.

With this dish, we also ordered something called a 48 hour beef short rib. I am not particularly a fan of beef and I generally don’t care for short rib at all but this, one of the restaurant’s signature dishes transforms a lowly rib into rectangles of meaty magic. But it isn’t done with chemicals and expensive machinery. The beef is totally re-imagined through cooking. Chef David Hawksworth compresses and cooks it for 48 hours to create a savory something so tender it can (quite literally) be eaten with a spoon.

For my main course, I ordered another appetizer of crispy sweetbreads, one of my food obsessions. (I was saving room for dessert.) Oh and boy I was glad I did. Not to glaze over the main course, which was, like the first two dishes, prepared from a small number of well-chosen ingredients to delight the senses with its creativity yet simplicity. But my dessert was a surprising little masterpiece.

Earlier in the day, my mother and I had been having the debate as to whether you could pair chocolate with passion fruit. The consensus was no, absolutely not. (I know. Normal people do not waste their days with these sorts of discussions. But I do.) So when I saw chocolate mousse with passion fruit on the menu why did I feel compelled to order? What can I say? Sometimes it’s good to be proven wrong. The mousse, although made with Vahlrona was light, almost like cream was just kissed by cocoa powder. The passion fruit made a tart, palate cleansing foil for the mousse’s creamy richness. And a garnish of two marshmallowy, passion fruit pillows on the side gave the dish a sense of humor.

In fact, wit is a constant theme threaded through the meals at both Hawksworth and Providence–and possibly one of the greatest reasons why I find both restaurants so remarkable. I do think that, especially in recent years, fine dining is taken far too seriously. I enjoy a meal in which I’m reminded that the chef is human. Great art is supposed to make us laugh as well as sigh, shouldn’t a great meal do that, too?

I find that Ina’s recipes rarely call for alteration to boost their health benefits and cut the fat. Although she’s not afraid of using butter, sugar and all the good things in life, she tends to use them far more judiciously than many of her culinary counterparts. However, I was able to trim a little bit of the empty ingredients to help emphasize the surprising number of healthy ingredients this dessert has to offer. And I think I managed to do it without sacrificing a single bit of yum.

2 pounds red plums, pitted and cut in 1-inch wedges
1/2 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 1/4 c all-purpose flour, divided
4 oz fresh or frozen raspberries
1/4 c light brown sugar, packed
1/4 tsp salt
6 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup sliced almonds

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sliced plums, 1/4 cup of the granulated sugar, 1/4 cup of the flour and toss well. (I reduced the total amount of granulated sugar from 2/3 to 1/2 cup. With all that sweet fruit, you won’t miss the extra sugar!) Add the raspberries and toss lightly. (I used a combination of raspberries and blackberries because that’s what I had on hand. Use whatever berries you love.) Pour into a 9 by 12 baking dish.
3. For the topping, place the remaining 1 cup of flour, the remaining 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, the brown sugar (which I reduced from 1/3 to 1/4 cup), and the salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter (the original recipe called for a stick–you won’t miss those extra couple of tablespoons!), and pulse until the butter is the size of peas. (You can do this by hand with a pastry cutter and a little elbow grease if you don’t have a food processor.) Pour the mixture into a bowl, add the oats, and work it with your hands until it’s in large crumbles. Add the almonds and mix well.
4. Spread the topping evenly over the plums and berries, making sure the fruit is covered.
5. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the fruit is tender and bubbly and the topping is golden brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The original inspiration was Nigella Lawson’s Garlic Roast Potatoes from the Food Network site. You can view the original recipe here. But Ms. Lawson is known for her succulence and decadence, not waistline watching. And, although I thought the recipe sounded delicious at a glance, I know it could be easily altered to cut quite a bit of fat without sacrificing flavor.

1 lb baby potatoes
1 tsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
4 clove garlic, do not peel
Kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

1. Wash and dry the potatoes, but don’t peel. Cut them into about 1/2-inch pieces. (The original recipe called for 3 lbs but since I was cooking a romantic dinner for two, I reduced it by 2/3.)
2. Toss potatoes on a baking with the thyme and oil, smulching around with your hands to mix well (this was Nigella’s description and I just had to keep it. Who doesn’t like a good smulch?) The original recipe called for 1/3 c of oil for 3lbs of potatoes. This struck me as a huge amount of oil for these sweet little, delicate potatoes. So I reduced the oil but I added in a pinch of thyme (not in the original recipe) to compensate for any reduction in flavor.
3. Add the unpeeled heads of garlic to the tray, they will lend a subtle aroma as the potatoes roast.
4. Cook for 25-30 minutes, turning once or twice, until crispy and golden but still soft on the inside. When they’re done, remove to a large plate, discarding the garlic, and sprinkle with salt.

bien nacido

As a syndicated wine columnist and EatSomethingSexy’s Editorial Director, I have the wonderful privilege of receiving invitations on such trips quite frequently. But the schedules on press tours are usually incredibly demanding and finding the time to dedicate to the travel can be tough. So I have to weigh each invitation very carefully and I find myself declining far more than I accept.

But this invitation……. well, after a quick juggling of the calendar, I accepted in a hot second.

Over the past few years, I’ve become a bit of a vineyard junkie. Most people fall in love with a specific varietal and region or winery or winemakers style. But I’ve found myself becoming increasingly interested in wines based on vineyards. When shaped under the skill of winemakers with a light touch, the terroir and growing techniques are the absolute heart and soul of a wine. And when a vineyard becomes well enough known that it becomes a buzz word on a label, you can pretty safely bet that the grapes are (almost always) going to be transformed into wine at the hands of a vintner who possesses the appropriate skill and finesse to enhance rather than overshadow.

Bien Nacido is one of those buzz-worthy vineyards that’s been on my radar for a while. And finally, I was going to have the chance to learn firsthand the secrets of the terroir and technique that put this vineyard on the map. Best of all, where there’s one good vineyard, there are usually more. The trip would afford me the opportunity to visit some of Bien Nacido’s neighbors and perhaps uncover a diamond in the rough.

Santa Maria is easily accessible, although a bit off the beaten path. It’s 170 miles north of Los Angeles and 270 miles south of San Francisco in a sleepy little pocket of northern Santa Barbara County. I’d driven through before, but never really stopped to stay awhile.

Our tour began bright and early on a Thursday morning. We would start with a tour of Bien Nacido (hooray!). Bien Nacido is owned by the Miller family, a generous and gracious bunch of fifth-generation California farmers. True wine industry visionaries, the Millers first planted their property with vines in the early 1970’s.

Obviously, soil and climate play their part in Bien Nacido’s growing notoriety as one of California’s finest cool climate vineyards. But its the Millers’ approach to growing that truly makes this place special.

The Bien Nacido team, led by vineyard manager Chris Hammell, works closely with vintners to customize the growing conditions in their individual blocks.

In a typical, generic situation, a vintner will simply buy the final grapes from what they–hopefully–feel is a trusted grower. The grape price is calculated by weight. Now, the grower wants those grapes to be nice and big, healthy looking and heavy to optimize profit. But those heavy grapes may not have the optimal flavor. Smaller grapes will be more concentrated but selling small, concentrated grapes at the going price per pound could put a grower out of business.

That’s why–or at least part of the reason why–at Bien Nacido, the vintner pays an agreed upon price based on the size of their vineyard block, not the weight of the grapes. That way, the winemaker can make the decision at what point the grapes should be picked, how the vines should be pruned, etc, in a truly customized fashion.

But the unique aspects of Bien Nacido don’t stop there. The Millers are working toward making their vineyard biodymamic, an extremely unusual and bold move for growers who sell their fruit.

Riding through the vineyard, we had the chance to learn about some of the demands of biodymanics that have transformed Bien Nacido from simply a celebrated pattern of vines into a vibrant working farm. There are plots of avocado trees to lend diversity and, best of all, gorgeous sheep and charming goats. Yes, I admit it, petting the young goats was a highlight for me of the Bien Nacido immersion.

The vineyard also serves as a major viticultural nursery, not only supplying new vines on the property but for the entire state. In fact, much of the Chardonnay planted throughout California over the past twenty years comes from Bien Nacido cuttings.

Now, of course, for a wine critic, a proper vineyard introduction can’t end with a stroll among the vines, even if it does include swiping a ripe grape or two!

After the tour, we sat down to taste wines from Bien Nacido Vineyard, the Miller family’s latest project. Here was one of those hidden gems I’d hoped to collect from the two-day excursion. After more than 30 years of growing wine for other vintners up and down the West Coast, the Millers are making their own wine. Having the opportunity to taste their expression of their vineyard with Nicholas Miller helped draw a connection between my brain and my senses of what Bien Nacido is all about. But it was later in the day, when we were afforded the opportunity to taste Bien Nacido-grown wines from labels like Foxen, Alta Maria and Paul Lato that hands-down, no question, earned B. N. a place on my list of Amy’s Favorite Vineyards. (For tasting notes of some of the trip’s highlights, check out this month’s Woman on Wine.)

I could happily end the story here, but as I mentioned earlier, where there’s one great vineyard, it’s usually surrounded by some other impressive vines. And certainly, this is the case in the Santa Maria Valley. The cool, coastal breezes and kisses of California sunshine help make not just Bien Nacido but all the rolling hills beyond a welcoming environment for varietal grapes, most notably Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Our chances to taste Santa Maria grown wines from wineries including Sierra Madre, Nagy, Riverbench, Byron and Kenneth Volk reminded me never to overlook Santa Maria as one of California’s finest cool-climate wine regions.

But just when I thought I had a total handle on Santa Maria, the very last leg of the trip took us to Presqu’ile. I had decided that Santa Maria was a place talented winemakers went to make Pinot Noir–one of the last places in California that an upstart could still afford to create their own label from high quality fruit. But it was not, in my mind, a place you go to taste wine. It was a place wine came from!

the view from presqu'ile

Certainly, when Presqu’ile opens its doors, it will show the way for the future of Santa Maria and its tourism potential. But will it ever be another Napa? There’s a small town, Mayberry sort of sensibility to Santa Maria and I think the locals all like it that way. I believe it will always remain a destination for the more adventurous wine lovers.

But when the day comes that they can visit Bien Nacido to taste Bien Nacido Vineyard wines, they will better understand Santa Maria. And when those visitors have experiences like Presqu’ile plans to offer that are so much than swirling, sipping and moving on to the next stop, they will buy. And they will share those wines with friends. And they will talk about Santa Maria. When that happens, Santa Maria Valley is going to become one of the biggest buzz words in California wine. (I’d consider stocking up now before the secret’s out!)

But this line was indeed dropped (and so was my jaw). One thing led to another, as is often the case when the word “oyster” is uttered in my presence. The next thing I know, my mother, brother, his fiancee Jill and I are skimming across the water to view firsthand said oyster farm.

This was how I wound up spending an afternoon sorting Cape Cod Jewel Oysters for shutter man turned oyster farmer Paul Craig. Craig, along with his partners from The Naked Oyster restaurant, obtained an aquatic grant to farm two acres in Barnstable Harbor. The team (wisely) chose to farm oysters.

I was a little skeptical when I heard that the farm was in Barnstable Harbor. (Images of motor boats and double decker whale watching ships danced through my head.) How could an area, well known as one of the Cape’s busiest harbors, have water clean enough to serve as a home to healthy, vibrant aquatic life?

It turns out, as I learned as we skipped across the waves in Paul’s open boat, that only a small portion of the harbor is used for boating traffic. While the majority of the boaters headed east through a deep channel, we drove to the west in shallower waters, to a quiet little alcove cut off from the ocean by a stunning sand spit called Sandy Neck. Here, in this private, unpolluted paradise is where aqua farmers work side by side on two acre, tidal plots.

We arrived at Paul’s farm, or rather, a pool of gently rippling water to which Paul gestured. Paul’s land is on a tidal flat and only appears for several hours per day. The rest of the time, it is protected under the waters of Cape Cod Bay.

While we waited for the tide to recede, Paul pulled a long plastic basket out of the water and told us it was time to pet the baby oysters. He poured tiny oysters, each the size of a fingernail or smaller into each of our hands. Jill earnestly pet hers until Paul laughed and said that oysters don’t actually have to be petted to grow big and strong on the farm. I should add that Jill was under the influence of the Rose I cracked open the minute Paul said we’d have to wait around for the tide. Her concern for the oysters was endearing nonetheless.

As the tide receded to reveal a long strip of mud decorated with a clothesline-like system of hanging oyster baskets, we drained our plastic cups of rose, (I’m classy like that).

Hopping out of the boat and into the mud, we headed for a makeshift table Paul set up for the job of oyster sorting. We were to spend the next two hours or so sorting out three-inch oysters, (those legally large enough to sell). Our payment was as many oysters as we could shuck.

The time passed quickly on the mud flat. The sun moved lower in the sky as we sorted and slurped. At some point we took a break from oysters and–just for fun–dug for quahog clams on a piece of the farm not yet developed. (Paul and his Cape Cod Jewels are relative newcomers to the Barnstable farming community. But plans are in the works to expand gradually and eventually supply restaurants across the country with these handsome, northern water jewels of the sea.)

Late in the day both mom and I grew lazy. We slogged our way across the mud, which Paul gleefully pointed out to me as I sunk ankle deep, is loaded with oyster poop. I shrugged him off, figuring it’s probably a better foot spa treatment than money can buy. Hitting the boat, we slumped down to watch two men on the next parcel over farm for soft shell clams. It was fascinating to watch their well-timed dance with a high-pressure water hose used to gently remove the layers of mud covering the fragile bivalves.

Spotting us lounging (and drinking) away in the boat, my brother and Jill wandered over with a pile of oysters. While Paul chatted with some fellow farmers, we sat in his boat drinking the second bottle of the day. It was something called Lobster Claw white, a blend designed for pairing with lobster. Although it’s little more than a savvy marketing technique, I thought the wine went smashingly well with oysters plucked straight from the ocean.

Cape Cod Jewel Oysters are medium-sized and extremely plush. More briny than sweet, they’re little pillows of ocean-flavored goodness.

As my brother shucked and I ate, the moon started to rise. It was fat and round, a ghostly white beach ball in the sky. Since the tide was coming in at a rapid rate, we decided to pack up and call it a night. We helped Paul store the sorted oysters in plastic cages which we loaded, along with the quahogs, onto the boat. (A few stray oysters may have made their way into my cooler.) Paul was pleased. We brought in the largest haul of Cape Cod Jewels to date! Later, he would take them to be inspected before delivering them to his partners at The Naked Oyster restaurant in Hyannis, a few miles down the road.

We were quiet on the ride back to the boat ramp, tired from a day in the sun, not to mention full on wine and oysters. It was my first day of oyster farming–ever–but I hope it won’t be my last, (so long as they always involve wine and a trusty shucking knife!).

But for sit down meals, I find most of the choices predictable, middle of the road, with a New England spin on the sort of food and atmosphere that went out of fashion at least 10 years ago as far as the rest of the country is concerned. I’m really not trying to be a Cape Cod hater. Mediocrity is simply an unfortunate truth in many tourist destinations. Don’t get me wrong; I adore my Cape. But with the exception of dining at Chillingsworth, which offers French-inspired cuisine in the charming setting of a historic home—and is critically acclaimed one of the finest restaurants in New England—I’ve always found the dining largely uninspired in both cuisine and atmosphere.

However, each year I try to find at least one new restaurant to try. This year’s selection, PB Boulangerie Bistro in Wellfleet, was not only a cut above, it offered a positively transformative experience. I’d actually known the owner, Chef Philippe Rispoli, from his previous post at the helm of the kitchen in legendary Chef Daniel Boulud’s Las Vegas outpost. Apparently Chef Rispoli felt a longing for a taste of home because in this buzzing little bistro opened last year, he’s managed to create a tiny corner of France.

I dined at the bar, which offers a window into the open kitchen. I was surprised by how welcoming the space felt in warm colors and soft wood accents, but more than that, I was shocked to see that the kitchen brigade was half female! I don’t think I’ve ever before seen a kitchen in which there are equal numbers of male and female staff.

During the day, PB runs as a boulangerie, producing what may be the best bread I’ve had on the Cape. A cheese and bacon bread is a deliciously deadly combination of carbs and fat, the olive bread includes plump chunks of kalamata but in my opinion, the slightly sour, seed-crusted multi-grain is the best of them all. (The only, if slight, disappointment was that the cranberry bread could not hold a candle to the aforementioned cranberry rolls from Pain d’Avignon in Hyannis.)

In the evening when the cheerful little bakery transforms into a chic bistro, the bread is, of course, also in abundance but it’s served as an accompaniment to remarkably traditional French fare. The highlights of my Night in Provence as I’d started to call it in my head included Wellfleet oysters with Champagne, fois gras pate the texture of silk paired with a Middle Eastern spiced pain de mie. It was served as a part of an impressive charcuterie plate in the style of Lyon, Rispoli’s home. With bone marrow topped with something called short rib “jam,” I sipped a classic rose, a combination that was a positive party in my mouth.

However, as much as I enjoyed the food, it was the total experience Chef Rispoli has created that charmed my pants off, (thank god I was wearing a skirt.) The bistro is charming in a stylish way, with a blend of frivolous and functional French antiques and local arts and crafts that reminded me of something you’d find in a small city in France’s south. The staff was efficient but warm, the chef most charismatic of all. He had that whole, French, flirtatious body language perfected, the sort that makes both women and men melt in his presence—and believe me, he spends the whole night working it! He’s a man with a certain energy and style and it oozes from every nook and cranny of his dining room.

For those of us who can’t manage a year in Provence, at least we can indulge in a quick fix in Wellfleet.

The day of the actual hurricane dawned gray and sort of fluffy, the sky resembling the fuzz of a baby chick. A mild, non-menacing wind whipped through the air as I drove to the Dunkin Donuts for a quick cappuccino fix. (My mother and I, sharing one of the three guest rooms at Chillingsworth, were prone to waking up at dawn and couldn’t wait for everyone else to join us for our morning buzz!)

When Annette and Chrysta joined us a couple of hours later, we enjoyed strong coffee from the Chillingsworth kitchen with warm Pain d’Avignon croissants and muffins. Owner Pat Rabin joined us briefly to escort us into the kitchen for the pate a choux lesson. (Pate a choux–or shoe pastry as I think of it because of its durable texture–is the slightly chewy, eggy, golden pastry used to make profiteroles, eclairs, croquembouches, etc.)

I’ve spent time in many restaurant kitchens but as I followed Pat through the swinging door I realized that, although I’ve been eating at Chillingsworth since I was eight years old, I’d never before set foot in the kitchen! It was sort of like going behind the curtain to see the wizard but don’t worry, this wizard was no disappointment. In fact, like the rest of the estate, it combine state-of-the-art functionality with the history and energy of French and American antiques.

Annette unlocked the mysteries of making choux in changing climates for us all by showing us how, unlike most pastry, the final product could be eyeballed. In other words, rather than one by one adding all the eggs into the mixer as called for in the recipe, reserve the last couple. Add them by hand one, or even half an egg at a time until you can draw a trough through the center of the mixture that slowly closes on itself. Depending on the weather, the number of eggs it requires to get to this dough may vary by a couple of eggs or just a couple tablespoons of liquid, but the difference is critical in getting the pastry to puff to just the right consistency.

Annette, Chrysta and I had plans to stay in the kitchen after the lesson and stock them up on pastry basics. Unfortunately, while the choux was baking, a bout of nausea I’d been fighting for a few days came back with a vengeance and I had to excuse myself from the kitchen. The leftovers of a migraine, my stomach was beating me up pretty badly. I’m sure all the decadence I’d consumed the day before like Champagne, butter and fried food didn’t help!

So when the pastry puffed up and Pat suggested a bracing, pre-hurricane walk on the beach, I jumped at the chance to stay out of the kitchen a little longer.

The walk to the beach was lovely, a cool wind whipping up a tropical storm warning, (Irene was already downgraded). On the beach, the sand was beginning to blow but only in short gusts… at first. The Cape Cod Bay was eerily calm and warmer than usual between our toes. Then suddenly, without warning, sand started pelting our legs, arms and even eyes and fat droplets of rain started splatting on the ground. Luckily, Pat drove down to meet us and we all made a break for her car.

By the time she pulled up to her house, mere minutes later, the rain was over, the air once again calm. Was that it for Irene?

Pat’s husband (and Chillingsworth’s chef) Nitzi appeared at the door with an armful of fresh watercress and spicy arugula as well as burrata. Pat pulled out a couple bottles of Sauvignon Blanc and we enjoyed the little vegetarian feast with fresh garden tomatoes and pinches of pink salt.

Then their daughter Ashley appeared with a pile of Brewster Pizza boxes, just as Irene’s winds whipped up for a second go. Although my stomach could only handle a couple bites, warm pizza and cold wine on this bitter afternoon seemed like a perfect combination. We sat, along with Ashley and her visiting friends, around a wide, wooden table for hours, enjoying the storm and the company.

Finally, it looked as thought Irene had passed us by for good and we decided to return to the restaurant, pack up our belongs and head back to our beach to assess (if any) storm damage. Mom and I were anxious to see if the predicted unusually high tide and storm surge had made it as far as our deck.

But just as I took the first of our bags out to the car, Irene decided to come back around for another round. I remember leaning into the car’s trunk with a bag in hand and feeling twigs smack into my sides and, if you can imagine, stick into the waist band of my pants. I was so distracted that I dumped the bag to take a look at the scratching on my side when clonk, the wind smashed the car lid on my head.

I don’t remember a whole lot after the hit except blubbering to my mother that it was scary outside and I was attacked by killer twigs. The next thing I knew, I was in bed with a pain killer and a lump. (The lump was Irene’s gift that kept on giving as I still feel it when I try to brush my hair.) This part of the story has absolutely nothing to do with food nor is it a ploy for sympathy but it is the explanation of why we chose to stay at Chillingsworth for another night.

At some point I crawled out of bed and Annette and I formulated a plan to spend the rest of the day making the promised pastry. I was just going to take a quick shower… and then in the middle of my shampoo we lost power. Finally, we were getting a true taste of Irene’s wrath.

Wondering if there was any chance of getting a bite to eat before the night closed in, we went downstairs to the bistro, where the chef had just popped his head out of the kitchen to check if he could make us anything before he shut the place up for the night. Since my stomach was still out of sorts, he recommended the half chicken which he promised was the best thing on the menu, despite the old rule about restaurant chicken. I also ordered a bloody mary, hoping the hard alcohol and spice would whip my stomach back into fighting shape.

We sat in a light-filled corner and watched the wind whip the trees as we sipped our drinks and nibbled the warm olives sent to us from the kitchen. The last of the daylight started to fade while we enjoyed the meal. My chicken was, as promised, just what the doctor ordered. Juicy, with a golden, crisped skin it was simple yet flavorful. After dinner, the staff packed up plum and berry crisps for us to enjoy later in the night and we adjourned to the bar for an after dinner drink with the chef by candle light.

In case of just such a power outage, I’d brought with me my new board game, Eat My Trivia (basically trivial pursuit for people in the food business). From chef to bartender to Annette to Chrysta to mom to me we all passed a flashlight and bounced questions off one another like, “True or False: Lobsters can be left or right handed?” As we played, the staff lined the stairs to our rooms with tea light lanterns and lit the bedrooms with oil lamps. Under different circumstances, it would have been quite romantic.

Tired of the game, still without power, we let the staff go home and headed up the stairs in the twinkling light. While Chrysta and mom wound down with glasses of Pine Ridge Chenin-Viognier and Annette and I gobbled the crisp with its fat chunks of plum and sweet raspberries, the blustering out the windows began to wind down, so ending the saga of Hurricane Irene.

Just a note to my friends affected by Irene’s wrath inland, I in no way mean to make light of the storm’s fairly severe impact. We on the coast were fortunate that Irene chose a path in which we were far from her grip. I share this story because I know well how fortunate I was to ride out what could have been a very bad situation in such gourmet digs. There are many drawbacks to a profession in the food business but there are also some pretty stellar perks!

When the news started hyping up New England’s first major hurricane in 20 years, I happened to be in our family’s beach cottage on Cape Cod–awaiting the arrival of Chrysta Wilson, author of Kiss My Bundt: recipes from the award-winning bakery and my dear friend Annette Tomei, chef instructor at the French Culinary Institute and author of EatSomethingSexy’s Eat & Tell column who were scheduled to spend the weekend. But because our cottage is situated on a dune between the ocean and a tidal salt marsh, we decided it wasn’t exactly the safest place to ride out what was billed as a monster storm.

We jumped at the invitation to move to higher ground at our friends’ restaurant, Chillingsworth, considered the best fine dining establishment on Cape Cod. The restaurant has three guest rooms which were, thanks to Irene, going to be empty for the weekend, abandon by tourists fleeing what turned out to be little more than hype. The only payment asked of us was that Annette would teach a choux pastry clinic as the pastry chef was ill and the staff was having trouble producing the dough in the extraordinary pre-storm humidity. It was a brilliant trade off in our opinions!

But first, the cottage had to be storm shuttered and prepared for the storm. My mother decided that the preparations must include eating everything perishable in the refrigerator, in case of loss of power. Annette whipped up some open faced duck and morel sandwiches as well as tatziki and golden beets on sourdough. She also refreshed some left over whole wheat pappardelle and used up the remaining veggies in a tomato and sea bean salad. Chrysta served one of her specialties, hot red velvet cake served with the cream cheese frosting I’d made and chilled in the freezer, on the side. It was all washed down with two bottles of Lucien Albrect Rose Sparkling Wine, which helped ease the pain of putting up the all-weather shutters. (Technically, it was a bottle and a half as I wound up wearing a good part of the first bottle, when it decided to shoot up like a bottle of Sprite spiked with mentos.)

Then, throwing a little extra wine in the car for the long weekend ahead, as well as the meyer lemon bundt cake Chrysta made from fruit my mother had brought from California, we headed to the historic town of Brewster for our gourmet hurricane party.

We arrived in time for dinner Saturday at The Bistro, four women, two dogs and a lot of appetite. (The restaurant boasts an elegant bar and a bistro as well as a fine dining room. Since my mother and I had celebrated her birthday in the dining room only two days prior, we felt it would be far too decadent to repeat the six course meal a second time in the same week.) We allowed our table to order a few appetizers and boy, that table was a pig! In addition to an order of truffle fries, the table had a lobster pizza drizzled with cognac cream, stuffed figs bundled in prosciutto over greens, escargots in a sauce I called hammonaise (something like hollandaise but with that distinct, salty note of ham) and one of my Bistro favorites, crispy rock shrimp. After the table’s orgy of butter, fat and goodness, we each only needed an appetizer to finish off the dinner. I chose panko-crusted oysters over just barely crunchy, pickled vegetables on a bed of wakame seaweed (which is, oddly, one of my favorite things). What my mother and Annette ordered is, at this point, a blur but I do remember Chrysta ordered one of my childhood favorites, the lobster bisque. I probably won’t ever forget that bowl of bisque as my mother, a little too enthusiastically, encouraged Chrysta to “stick her face in it,” which promptly led to everyone at the table, between the fits of giggles, to try to convince me to change the title of my upcoming book from Romancing the Stove to this fabulous new catch phrase.

We sipped Four Graces Pinot Gris (a fitting wine, we thought, for our party of four) followed by a simple and elegant French rose–perfect for pairing with the fried dishes. To finish, we agreed to split a sticky toffee pudding but the table insisted upon adding chocolate bread pudding to the order. Frangelico and Calvados rounded out the meal because this was, after all, a hurricane party! (Bear in mind that the hurricane was still at least 12 hours away.)

We adjourned to the bar, fat and happy from our perfect, pre-hurricane meal. Many of the owners, Pat and Nitzi Rabins’ friends had gathered to blow off steam after spending much of the day, as I had, battening down the hatches, so to speak. The group talked, danced and played with merriment (and enjoyed Chrysta’s freshly baked bundt) until we simply had to let the staff go home. The crowd all moved on to the old local haunt, Brewster’s Woodshed, but our little, homeless foursome had simply dined too well for partying and we adjourned, dogs in tow, to the antique appointed rooms above the restaurant’s dining room.

Read Part Two