Table of contents for March 2021 in Food & Wine

2019 TRIONE SAUVIGNON BLANC ($25) When it isn’t quite spring yet but the first faint glimmerings are starting to appear on the horizon, I start yearning for bright, citrusy whites like this tingly, lime-zesty Russian River Valley Sauvignon Blanc from Trione. (And regardless of season, this would be killer with sushi of any kind.) 2018 RIDGE THREE VALLEYS SONOMA COUNTY RED ($30) “An explosion of berries.” Seriously—that’s what I wrote after taking one sip, and it’s true. If you were standing in a field and the sky opened up and berries of all kinds started raining down, pretty soon the world would smell like this juicy, Zinfandel-based wine. REDBREAST 12 YEAR OLD ($60) I’d say I was going to open this for St. Patrick’s Day, but since I finished…

FIVE YEARS AGO, Lauren Ko had never baked a single pie. Bored with her job as an executive assistant, she started playing around in her kitchen, posting her geometrically stylized pies on Instagram (@lokokitchen). And then she almost burned down the internet, which has, it would seem, a bottomless appetite for beautiful pastry. (See “The Future of Bakeries Is … on Instagram?” p. 16.) “Things went viral quickly—I’m still trying to catch up with it,” says Ko, who lives in Seattle. Her first book, Pieometry, showcases the techniques behind her intricate designs, crafted from dozens and dozens of painstakingly placed fruit and pastry cutouts. But her stunning designs have much more to do with her natural affinity for order than a passion for mathematics. “Math has always been my…

SEARED SCALLOPS WITH POMEGRANATE AND MEYER LEMON ACTIVE 30 MIN; TOTAL 1 HR 10 MIN SERVES 4 Fresh lemon, orange, and pomegranate juices paired with serrano chile bring heat and fresh, fruity flavor to sweet scallops. Quickly searing the scallops ensures each one has the perfect texture: a lightly crisp, golden brown exterior and a tender, nearly translucent center. 1 cup refrigerated pomegranate juice1 Tbsp. granulated sugar1½ tsp. kosher salt, divided½ cup fresh Meyer lemon juice⅓ cup fresh navel orange juice¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided20 large sea scallops (about 1½ lb.), side muscles removed, scallops patted dry¼ tsp. black pepper1 cup pomegranate arils2 small Persian cucumbers, thinly sliced (about ¾ cup)¾ cup navel orange segments2 Tbsp. Meyer lemon segments1 Tbsp. unseeded fresh serrano chile slices (optional)1 tsp. toasted black…

ON SUNDAY AFTERNOONS IN SPAIN, everyone is drinking the same thing. In every town square across the country, bartenders pour a dark red liquid over ice, drop in a manzanilla olive and an orange slice, and la hora del vermut officially begins. While modern vermouth was born in Turin, Italy, in the 18th century, Spain is where this fortified wine has come into its own. Italian vermouth made a splash in Barcelona in the late 1800s, and studious Spaniards wasted no time in turning their own white wine into vermut. Vermouth eventually became so popular that it garnered its own slot in the Spanish mealtime schedule: la hora del vermut, or vermouth time. Spaniards are nothing if not experts at drawing out the pleasure of a meal, and popping into…

ONLY 155 SCENIC MILES stretch from the northern edge of British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley to its southern limit at the U.S. border, but that short distance encompasses a world of wine. The north, with its cool, forested hills and racy Rieslings, evokes Alsace or the Mosel; the south comprises Canada’s only desert, where intense summer heat produces powerful Bordeaux-style reds and lush Rhône-style whites. “The fact that from north to south there are so many pockets with so much potential for certain grape varieties—I don’t think there are very many wine regions like us in the world,” says Emily Walker, wine director at the lakeside Naramata Inn, a recently restored heritage property that has become a central hub for the region’s food and wine lovers. This sun-soaked valley follows…

NEWBORN BABIES IN MY PARSI FAMILY get a little mithu monu (sweets for the mouth) by way of a lick of ravo—a semolina porridge—from their mother’s finger to grant them a sweet nature. Doorways of our homes are marked with chalk outlines of fish for prosperity in the manner of the crown of Cyrus the Great. On special occasions, we ward off the evil eye by circling recipients’ heads seven times with eggs and then cracking them. Grains of rice are used to garnish vermilion dots on our foreheads. The vermilion signifies the sun and the moon; the rice grains are rays of light. They say the more rice that sticks to your forehead, the more bountiful your life will be. As a child, I would pick up fallen grains…

How to Get Out of a Rut SHOW OF HANDS: Who here has fallen into a cooking rut at some point in the past year? You’re on top of your game, planning, shopping, and cooking like a champ, and then suddenly, you find yourself bored. You look into the fridge and shrug. Chicken. Again? Wait, what day is it? Hey, a pandemic will do that to you. Curious about solutions, I called Victoria Albina, a holistic life coach and nurse practitioner in Brooklyn, to ask how to rekindle some cooking passion once fatigue takes hold. “If you feed your brain with thoughts like ‘I’m so bored of dinner,’ then that will be the narrative,” she told me. Her advice: Change the story. “Focus on what’s easy and doable. You…

THERE ARE A FEW THINGS IN LIFE I simply won’t tolerate. People speaking with their mouths full, ranch dressing on pizza—we all have our boundaries. These also apply to coffee. I would never have married a man who regularly drank crappy coffee. Luckily, I married an Australian. The notion of a sophisticated coffee culture Down Under may seem strange, but it’s a nation that learned from the best in the business: Italians, who sailed south after World War II and found their way to the neighborhoods of Sydney and Melbourne with their espresso machines in tow. For a nation desperate to throw off the shackles of its British colonial past, Italian espresso represented something alluringly cosmopolitan that was also a direct departure from British tea. And so, a hard-core coffee…

RECIPE FROM TZUCO CHICAGO I NEVER EXPECTED to walk into a Mexican restaurant in Chicago on a chilly evening, only to spend the following months evangelizing the French onion soup I had there to anyone who would listen. But that’s exactly what happened after I ate dinner at Tzuco, chef Carlos Gaytán’s stunning re-entry to the city’s bustling dining scene. The restaurant is an ode to the chef’s hometown of Huitzuco, Mexico—but with a French twist, a nod to his experience in haute cuisine. The menu is filled with showstoppers, but the dish I still find myself daydreaming about is that simple bowl of soup. At Tzuco, the French onion soup arrives to the table piping hot, topped with a bubbling layer of Gruyère cheese—no surprises there. Hiding under the blanket of…

FOOD & WINE PHOTO EDITOR DAN BAILEY is an artist and musician who transplanted to Alabama in 2018 after two decades in New York City. He is still mostly a vegetarian, though life in the South has expanded his culinary curiosity. He has embraced his new home with such fervor, his colleagues consider him Birmingham’s unofficial ambassador. Here are his favorite weekend spots to see, shop, and dine in the Magic City. (Just don’t call it “B’ham.”) THE THREE-STOP BREAKFAST “I drink my coffee straight-up black, so it has to be good quality. Nobody in Birmingham does it better than Domestique Coffee (domestiquecoffee.com). You can hit up either of its two cafés or the roastery. At home, I grind Domestique Single Origin Haiti beans to jump-start my mornings.” “For…

EGG DISHES ARE OFTEN the stars of internet video breakfast challenges. There’s always some chopping, whisking, and plating, but the ones with the most likes and views tend to include a body roll or a shoulder shimmy. In fact, millions of people have viewed, liked, or shared a meme using “Breakfast Challenge,” a percussive track by Spence, a Los Angeles–based DJ and actor. The song samples the cacophony of dicing, eggs cracking, and sizzling. Spence adds handclaps and clanging pots to an acoustic guitar hook as the backdrop for a perfect omelet filled with onions and cilantro and topped with a lighted birthday candle. Since Spence dropped “Breakfast Challenge” in 2019, it has become the soundtrack for thousands of food-prep videos for dishes around the world. Users sync the…

SOBA NOODLES JUST A DECADE AGO, Sonoko Sakai was burned out. That’s when she washed her hands of a career in the film industry to focus on something more restorative: the art of making soba noodles. Even after writing an award-winning cookbook, Japanese Home Cooking, and leading countless workshops and webinars on soba making, Sakai still cherishes the process of kneading, cutting, and preparing the Japanese buckwheat noodles by hand, which requires a special focus. “All of my senses are working—that’s what I love about soba. You have to be particularly alert,” says Sakai. For Sakai, the process of making soba is a soothing act that’s all about trusting her senses, whether that’s running her fingers through crumbly buckwheat flour and making slight adjustments to the dough, or tasting and…

ALTHOUGH BROWNIES aren’t typically included in the canon of classically Jewish food, for Jake Cohen, they’re integral to his Jewish identity. Cohen is a New York–based food writer and a serious entertainer; pre-pandemic, he hosted communal Shabbat dinners for 100 people at a time. For a crowd-pleasing dinner, he’d serve sheet pan brownies—but found dinner guests were divided on them. “They fell into either Team Cakey or Team Fudgy,” Cohen says. “I wanted to create a brownie that was going to please everyone.” And that’s exactly what he did in his new cookbook, Jew-ish: Reinvented Recipes from a Modern Mensch. Using coconut flour instead of wheat flour, Cohen created a brownie with a consistency that’s simultaneously tender and dense, while also keeping the brownies gluten-free and kosher for Passover. Then,…

“WHAT CAN WE DO NEXT?” is a question that André Hueston Mack seems to ask himself constantly. He left a career in finance to become one of the best sommeliers in the world. He worked at some of the top restaurants in the country, launched a wine label, owns a restaurant, and, as of the time of this interview, is about to open a bakery. Here, Mack talks about his career, the styles of wine he loves, and his hopes for the future. F&W: How did you first get interested in wine? AHM: After leaving finance, I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do. I spent most afternoons on the sofa, and I would watch back-to-back episodes of Frasier. I was mesmerized by the rituals they had…

MOST AMERICAN PANTRIES are filled with a few staple grains like wheat, rice, and barley—maybe a little quinoa and farro—but those are just a tiny fraction of the vast variety of amazingly delicious grains eaten throughout the world. Some are crunchy and nutty, others starchy and satisfying, and still others bring heartiness to your plate. Introducing new grains into your diet is an opportunity to pack in robust textures and add satisfying depth to your meals (while also offering a nutritional boost by way of protein and fiber). Looking for something chewy and pleasingly starchy? Grab some sorghum (see p. 68) for a bright salad. For an earthy twist on silky pasta dough, turn to teff (p. 75). For speedy weeknight meals that come together in just minutes, make…