Food & Wine June 2019

2018 LIOCO INDICA ROSÉ ($20) There’s no doubt Provence makes great rosé—but if you take the fruit from 80-year-old dry-farmed Carignane vines in Anderson Valley and turn it into pink wine, guess what: California does, too. The aroma suggests wild raspberries and watermelon; the flavor has a snap recalling Key limes. Put on your sunglasses and pour it by the pool. 2017 VALRAVN CABERNET SAUVIGNON ($20) Need a good, affordable Cabernet for summer barbecues? I first had this fruit-forward Sonoma bottling—think ripe black cherries and lightly toasty oak notes—at a casual cookout outside Healdsburg this spring. It was an easy decision to keep pouring it for friends right through the warmer months. 2018 DOMAINE VINCENT DELAPORTE SANCERRE CHAVIGNOL ($34) I was lucky enough to taste this flinty Sauvignon Blanc with winemaker Matthieu Delaporte at a…

How We Summer SPEND ENOUGH TIME AROUND your grill, and you’ll know right away that Maui chef Sheldon Simeon’s cooking is something special. At his new restaurant, Lineage, the Top Chef alum (above) grills chicken wings to perfect crispness to serve with seared pineapple slices, bastes steak skewers in a next-level mop sauce made extra-clingy with pulverized toasted barley, and slathers charred corn in a tangy calamansi sauce—each dish a carefully calibrated rhythm of vibrant flavors. And wow, do they turn heads. Simeon’s recipes received serious raves from our veteran test kitchen crew and editors alike. (We went back for seconds and thirds of the Huli Huli Chicken Wings on the cover [recipe p. 90]). As Martha Cheng reports this month in “Aloha, Summer” (p. 82), those big-hearted, full-flavored recipes draw inspiration…

BECAUSE NO ONE wants to eat sprinkles with a side of potential carcinogens (looking at you, Red No. 3), Supernatural makes plant-based, natural cake decorations. Plus, 5 percent of profits from their Girl Pow! sprinkles go to Girls Who Code, an organization that runs computer science programs for girls from third to 12th grade to help close the gender gap in tech. Sprinkle them on a Berry-Buttermilk Snack Cake (foodandwine.com/berry-snack-cake). Using foods like beets, turmeric, and spirulina as the base of the dyes, along with coconut and olive oils, Supernatural has nailed classic colors and crunchy texture with none of the usual additives. Find their sprinkles at Whole Foods or supernaturalkitchen.com. THE OBSESSIVES Winging It Why East Coast oyster royalty can’t get enough of gas station fried chicken RAPPAHANNOCK OYSTER COMPANY might be one of…

SMOKER “A Pit Barrel Cooker is a great entry-level smoker; it’s affordable and makes an amazing gift for someone who wants to get into grilling or smoking at home. Learn how to use it with Kingsford charcoal, then work your way up to different varieties of wood for added flavor.”—SHEAMUS FEELEY, PUNCH BOWL SOCIAL, DENVER BUY IT 18.5” Classic Pit Barrel Cooker ($299; pitbarrelcooker.com) MORIBASHI “These are metal chopsticks, traditionally used for plating sushi. The very fine tapered points give you so much control for small, deliberate actions. The metal makes them heat-resistant, and the long handles keep your hands a safe distance from the heat of the grill. Once you get the hang of them, tongs will seem far too clunky.”—EVAN INGRAM AND BRENNA SANDERS, EFFERVESCENCE, L.A. BUY IT Solid Stainless Steel Moribashi 180mm…

ELLE SIMONE SCOTT is the first black woman cast as a regular on-air contributor on the PBS cooking show America’s Test Kitchen. She also has created beautiful food behind the scenes as a food stylist and culinary producer for the Food Network, Cooking Channel, and Bravo. Scott’s career began in social work, and in 2013 she incorporated SheChef, a networking organization for women chefs of color that she founded and continues to run. JT: What do you wish more people understood about food styling? ESS: It’s not just making food look fantastic; you have to make it appealing to everyone. Appreciating differences without adopting or subscribing to them is a constant life lesson. JT: You’re often in front of the camera. What does that role mean to you? ESS: No more black and brown…

JOURNALIST CAROLINE EDEN’S FIRST glimpse of the Black Sea came through a window of a Turkish bus six years ago. On a summer holiday, she traveled from London to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, passing through Germany, Croatia, Serbia, and then Turkey, where, after a jarring incident involving a road accident, the “reassuring strength” of the water, “its sink and rise bleeding out to the farthest reaches of the horizon,” soothed and calmed her. “That simple moment of first seeing the Black Sea … would become my sharpest memory of the entire trip,” she writes in the prelude to her travelogue and cookbook, which, named for that body of water, was published in the U.K. last fall and arrived stateside last month. “The reoccurring picture in my mind of faces…