Food & Wine October 2021

2020 FRITZ HAAG ESTATE RIESLING TROCKEN ($20) Weingut Fritz Haag is one of the undisputed stars of Germany’s Mosel River valley, and what a super deal this crystalline-minerally, dry Riesling is! It’s one to buy by the case and serve all autumn long—possibly with pork tenderloin roasted with apples. 2019 REVELSHINE RED ($15) This light-bodied, freshly fruity blend, which Limerick Lane winemaker Jake Bilbro makes from organically farmed grapes, comes in an unbreakable, recyclable aluminum can. It’s a great choice for camping trips, beach cookouts, and lowering your carbon footprint, too. 2015 SEI QUERCE RANCH HOUSE CABERNET SAUVIGNON ($79) Sei Querce is another winery working to offset its carbon emissions. I had this Sonoma Cabernet on a cool night in Maine, and its rich, dark-berried fruit and supple tannins were stellar with a rib eye…

For the Love of Restaurants A GRIZZLED RESTAURANT CRITIC once advised me “not to join the Army in order to cover it,” but by then I was already in too deep—I’d been embedded in restaurants since I was 18 years old, starting with a gig making sandwiches at Jersey Mike’s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For the next 12 years, I went back and forth between working in restaurants and newspaper newsrooms before I chose the media business full time. What I learned about restaurant people during my time in professional kitchens—that they’re creative, scrappy, big-hearted, and resilient—has only solidified during my four years at the helm of Food & Wine. It’s one of the reasons I look forward every year to the making of this annual Restaurant Issue, where we…

CRISPY PROVOLONE OSPI, LOS ANGELES IN JACKSON KALB’S evolution of the mozzarella stick, provolone replaces mozzarella, and the deep-fried appetizer is supersized into a puck large enough for two. It retains all the gooey, melty cheese magic, but with a slightly nuttier flavor. Kalb serves it with a mouthwatering vodka sauce that made me wonder why deep-fried cheese is ever served with anything else. BUTTER TERRINE LUTIE’S, AUSTIN I AUDIBLY GASPED each time I encountered this butter terrine, first gently melting on a stack of pancakes, and again when it arrived on a plate as part of the bread service at Lutie’s. Chefs Bradley Nicholson and Susana Querejazu alternate layers of cultured and brown butter in a pan, chill it until it’s solid, and then cut slices off of the terrine to reveal a beautiful…

EVEN BEFORE the Great Disruption of 2020 necessitated short trips closer to home, one of my superpowers was booking vacation rentals that met (or exceeded, even!) my every whim. I’m that person who trawls booking sites for hours on end, poring over every detail of a listing, its photos, and reviews. I look for design-forward interiors and curation with character, lots and lots of natural light, a comfy bed, generous entertaining spaces—but above all, a well-equipped kitchen. I’ve especially honed this skill during the past year. With international travel off the cards and a cautious avoidance of planes and hotels, my husband and I took to the road. What kinds of things did we look for in listings before we booked? Beyond the obvious descriptors, there are a few key giveaways…

FOR KURT EVANS, chefs are akin to first responders who meet an urgent social need to make an impact. In his case, that need is decarceration in the United States. “I have experienced mass incarceration through friends and family members,” he says; his mission is to positively impact returning citizens. Evans grew up in Philadelphia, shadowing his grandmother in the kitchen. “She would say, ‘I’m going to show you how to make this once, so you better get it,’” he says with a laugh. Needless to say, he did. From an early career start alongside Robert and Benjamin Bynum, whom Evans praises as the longest-tenured Black restaurateurs in Philly, Evans has become an authority in what he calls Black heritage cooking. He makes a mean fish and grits, but what he…

THROUGH DEEPLY PERSONAL MEMOIRS and compelling biographies, this fall’s new releases feature authors, celebrity chefs, and industry personalities delivering a sharp view of why they cook—and behave—as they do. Host of CNN’s Searching for Italy Stanley Tucci shared his obsession with Italian food with two previous cookbooks, but his forthcoming memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food ($28, Gallery Books), takes readers to the beginning of this love affair with cooking, both as a child and later as an actor in food-related films like Big Night and Julie & Julia. Similarly, in You Had Me at Pét-Nat ($28, Hachette), independent magazine publisher Rachel Signer explains how she became consumed by the allure of natural wines, first as a journalist and waitress in Brooklyn and later after falling in love and relocating to…