Breaking News: Latest Medical Word On Wine

ALCOHOL USE DISORDER (AUD), which essentially means drinking too much, may be significantly reduced when wine is more than 35% of total alcohol consumption, according to a recent Danish study. The research found that wine consumers were less likely to develop AUD than consumers of beer or spirits, which could be related to lifestyle differences or non-alcoholic substances in wine like polyphenols that may have some effect. Reacting to the study’s results, one prominent scientist suggested that the acids in wine, and especially tannins in red wine, make it difficult to consume a lot of wine by itself; and also make it more pleasant to have wine with food. When any alcoholic beverage is consumed with food, the blood alcohol leve l is much lower than without food, often by half. In other words, the inherent nature of wine does not lend itself to abuse. (Stolen unabashedly from the newsletter of the New York State Wine and Grape Foundation -- thanks, Jim.)

Fabulous Red Newt Winemakers’ Dinner

One of the things we enjoy most about our food and wine work is a meal in the company of other foodies and winefolk, and, presented with the opportunity to brown-bag it with winemakers at one of Red Newt Bistro’s winemaker’s dinners, we grab it. Winemaker Dave Whiting pairs the wines (everybody brings a bottle or two from their own cellars, recent production, or any interesting place in the world) with the courses, then bags and numbers them. As the evening unfolds, even he forgets what’s in those bags, and the guesses flow. It’s amazing what perceptive variation there is even in these well-schooled palates and sniffers. A recent dinner at the Newt began with an ooze of Brie en croute with apricots and pecans paired with a fruity Atwater Pinot Gris, the ghostliest of pinks and wonderfully refreshing, and Bellwether Cider’s bubbly, crisp King Baldwin, both new releases from those houses. Atwater’s Katy Marks beamed as the compliments flowed on the Pinot Gris, and the pairing worked well. A spicy arugula salad with lentils, breakfast radishes, and feta with a warmed orange vinaigrette (Chef Deb Whiting is a master of wine-friendly salad dressings) was perfectly paired with a brut Hosmer bubbly that elicited guesses of “France?” and a well balanced Plano (Texas!) Muscat Canelli. A 2006 Bedell Gallery – a blend – was most noteworthy for its long cork and bottle’s deep punt – but the wine didn’t live up to its sexy packaging. Unfortunately, winemaking fortunes have been built on less. A sushi-grade tuna with a hoisin-lime sauce was served suitably rare, with a side of locally grown asparagus, followed by a course of duck breast with a blueberry-red wine sauce and the creamiest of polentas, and at this point, the wine pairings begin to blur in my memory. I do remember a terrific Sauvignon Blanc from Morten and Lisa Halgren’s Ravines Wine Cellars on Keuka Lake, a slightly sweet, full-bodied, and rather rough Ca del Sola (56% Freisa, 44% Barbera, from raisined grapes) another experiment from the creative but not always on-target Randall Grahm’s Bonny Doon Vineyards, a delicious 2000 Pasa Robles Cabernet, and a disappointing Syrah Port from the Yakima Valley. A vanilla-y rhubarb dessert with vanilla ice cream was paired with the surprisingly dee-lish rhubarb equivalent of a late-harvest wine from Montezuma Winery, a small swig of brandy, and a gulp of coffee, and we called it a night – another night of good company, good conversation, good food, and good wine. We thank Dave and Deb for bringing the Finger Lakes wine community together for these dinners. From time to time they sponsor similar dinners for the public (Nine Wines Blind). To find out more about them, contact Red Newt Wine Cellars and Bistro at 607 546-4100. We salute the Newt. Cheers!

Sushi O Sake

Knowing little about Japanese food (except that Wegman’s sushi take-out is closest to the cashier, and a good, quick dinner), we brought along Nanci Trapani, who has spent time in Japan and knows lots more about the food and customs than we. She, of a librarianish persuasion, researched and printed for us a guide to Japanese foods that included basashi (horse sashimi), which had us wondering why we’d taken this assignment. Blessings multiply. We did not find basashi anywhere on the menu, and Sushi O Sake’s veteran head waiter, Sean, quickly set our qualms aside, suggesting we share a bottle of chilled sake and several selections of sushi before ordering our main courses. Delicate, tender slices of octopus, smoked eel, and a sweet, omelette-y egg custard arrived, elegantly draped over ovals of vinegared sushi rice, the custard secured with a girdle of nori, a paper-thin seaweed. The Japanese vegetable roll -- nori and rice wrapped around avocado, pickled radish, cucumber, squash, and pickled burdock -- combined the sweet creaminess of ripe avocado with the crunch of burdock and the sweetness and acidity of the pickled vegetables. An order of the futomaki roll combined many of the Japanese roll’s contents with egg, crabmeat, and shiitake mushroom. A dip in soy sauce spiked with hot wasabi, and extraordinarily crisp pickled ginger added zing to it all. Does the prospect of eating with chopsticks send you into an ohgoddon’tletmelooklikeajerk panic? Fear not – it’s perfectly acceptable to eat these with your fingers. For our first main course, we ordered shrimp and vegetable tempura, which was everything tempura should be – light, fresh, and nongreasy – and how do they get those shrimps to stand up so straight? A beef teriyaki bento box brought a tasting-menu selection including tempura, California roll, gyoza (fried pork dumplings), shumai (steamed shrimp dumplings), and chicken tatsuta age (small pieces of fried chicken), with two very different kinds of seaweed salad. Both entrees were served with delicate miso soup, soy in another of its amazing variations. Our third main was a pair of special rolls, the “Fashion,” a roll of crabmeat, avocado, and cucumber draped with creamy raw tuna, and the “Mermaid,” another study in textures: crunchy shrimp tempura and fresh asparagus, which protruded as the mermaid’s tailfins, and unctuous smoked eel, and an exquisitely laid-out wrapping of mosaic-ed strips of avocado. Among the most popular rolls, we were told, is the “007” – spicy tuna and avocado, the entirety deep-fried and served with two sauces and smelt roe. We are eager to try some of the other special rolls, many of them tuned to the Western palate, with names like Scooby Doo, American Dream, Philadelphia (it’s made with cream cheese and smoked salmon), and Out of Control. But there are so many unusual and delicious-sounding offerings on the menu, from appetizers and salads to dessert (do try the tempura-ed green-tea ice cream with chocolate sauce), as well as a tempting lunch menu, that we look forward to exploring it in future visits. Well lighted by a sparkling of intense little red-glass hanging lamps, Sushi O Sake is a lively place on a weekend night, with friendly service, and while the weather holds, plenty of seating outside as well as in. Inside, there’s always a show at the sushi bar, where two deft chefs ply their craft with enviable concentration, their focus and artistry demonstrated in platter after exquisite platter. The restaurant carries a small but good selection of beer and wine (including two Finger Lakes Rieslings, which would pair well with the delicate flavors of Japanese food), but the restaurant’s beverage focus is on a broad selection of chilled sakes, rated from sweet to dry. We tried a middle-of-the-road selection, found it refreshing, and hope to become better acquainted with chilled sakes. To refresh our memories, we also tried a warm sake, and it was as medicinal and yucky as we remember warm sake being. An offshoot of Collegetown’s popular Plum Tree restaurant, Sushi O Sake is located at 107 North Aurora Street. They don’t take reservations, but you can call 272-1200 for information.

Best Local Italian Restaurant

The Lucatelli’s facility has been an Ithaca culinary fixture since 1967, when it was founded as the Char Pit. These days, Giuliano Lucatelli holds forth cheerfully in the kitchen of Lucatelli’s Ristorante, as did his father for years before him, with his son, Carmen, working alongside him, producing heaping platters of fine, classic southern Italian food. It’s one of our favorite too-tired/hassled/crabby-to-cook, comfort food restaurants in the area. Low lighting, pervasive bonhomie, and a gracious host welcome guests. Tables are far enough apart to encourage private conversation, and a wall of windows faces out on a small fountain garden, taking guests’ minds away from the commercial clutter of old Route 13. While we usually eat in the main dining room, on review night we had the bar/lounge tables to ourselves. A painted mural depicting Roman architectural highlights covers most of one wall, along with portraits of the founders, and posters and photos of Italian-American heroes – crooner Frank Sinatra, and boxer Primo Carnera among them. An attractive young woman tended bar that night, to the apparent delight of three gentlemen enjoying dinner and a brandy at the bar in good company. Our waitress, professional and knowledgeable, proffered a wine list featuring a good selection of Italian potables, as well as some from California, Australia, and the Finger Lakes. We chose a Montepulciano from an offering of four Italian reds available by the glass, and were delighted with the choice. A loaf of warm bread and a small vat of butter made its way to our table before we made our way to the salad bar, one of the most interesting in the area, with freshly made soup, pickled vegetables and mushrooms, plenty of Gorgonzola to sprinkle on salads, and lots of other goodies. Back at our table, slices of fresh mozzarella flanked a platter of sweet, just-roasted peppers; a bowl of white beans and greens swam in a stock laced with plenty of garlic (begone, winter colds!); steamed mussels danced in a chunky tomato sauce. We looked longingly at the hot antipasto appetizer choice – clams, mussels, shrimp, peppers, and eggplant parmigiana – but realized we’d have to end the meal right there, and there were so many other dishes we wanted to try. On an ordinary night out, we generally opt for Giulli’s spiced-just-right eggplant parmigiana with homemade tomato sauce and his homemade gnocchi lunghi with Italian sausage. Gnocchi lunghi are nothing like the standard dumplingy potato gnocchi, which are also made right there in Lucatellis’ kitchen, but more like spaghetti on steroids. Abandon your Atkins diet, all ye who enter there! He makes his own ravioli and fettuccini as well. We’ve also enjoyed the restaurant’s homemade lasagna, manicotti, and cannelloni Florentine, the latter stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese, and absolutely delicious swimming in a well flavored white sauce. For the more Atkins-minded, there are three choices of prime rib portion, as well as New York strip and filet mignon, a good selection of veal, chicken, and pork chop dishes, shrimp, lobster, sole, and the house special, linguini a la peschatora, with fresh clams, mussels, shrimp, and scallops cooked in marinara sauce. This evening, however, we feasted upon veal rollatini, with prosciutto and fontina cheese, tender and nicely spiced, served with a full-meal-sized bowl of pasta in Lucatelli’s own tomato sauce. (The sides at Lucatelli’s are more than generous.) Pasta con quattro formaggio’s rigatoni swam in a bowl of cream sauce enriched with fontina, gruyere, gorgonzola and Romano – the Italian take on mac and cheese, satisfying to the nth degree. Its side dish was a veritable vat of just-cooked peas and portabella mushrooms. We paced ourselves, but the food seemed to be getting ahead of us, and we hadn’t begun to think of dessert. Our waitress, sensing our distress, offered to doggy-bag the leftovers and we took her up on it. A dessert cart featured a lemon-almond cake, and a dense chocolate confection. We were also offered the homemade tiramisu and spumoni, but opted instead for the over-the-top Tartuffo, a baseball-sized hunk of ice cream dipped in hardened dark chocolate and served with whipped cream and a cherry, and one of Lucatelli’s homemade cannolis. Perfect! Lucatelli’s also offers an after-dinner menu of espressos and cappuccinos. The restaurant, located at 205 Elmira Road, serves dinners from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. seven days a week. For reservations and information, call 273-0777.