Sweet Petite Confections Shows Off The Earl and the Tarts

Do you make bonbons? No? Neither do I. Or neither did I until I met chocolatier Michelle Lomelin of Sweet Petite Confections in Clairemont. Lomelin, whose first career was in fashion design, began to pursue chocolate making in 2000. She launched her business seven-and-a-half years ago, starting in her home, then moving to a rental kitchen, where she made pastries as well as chocolates. A year ago she moved into her brick-and-mortar shop and decided to pare down to her core focus, making seasonal chocolates and holiday and themed collections, utilizing her merchandising skills to design eye-popping and imaginative chocolates and their packaging.

Currently, her spring collection, themed Flora and Fauna (above), is out, along with a gold-and-yellow First Anniversary collection (below). "I design my chocolate collections like clothing," she told me. "This isn't See's."

The retail/kitchen is a bright, sleek space--just what you'd expect from a fashion designer--even outfitted with a refrigerator decorated with a eye-grabbing huge pink rose graphic behind a mammoth marble island that is the kitchen's anchor. This is where she makes her stylish and addictive bonbons, meltaways, barks (love her best-selling Seaside Bark with Hawaiian sea salt and crisped rice), salted caramels, lollipops, and even custom chocolate business cards for retail customers and wholesale clientele, including The Lodge at Torrey Pines, The Hotel del Coronado, the Bahia, the Catamaran's spa, The Hilton Mission Bay, BMW, Hyundai, and the Farmers Insurance Open. It's also where she conducts classes and tastings. And soon she'll be introducing ice cream daily and pastries on Saturday mornings. Eventually, she said, she'd like to expand to offer cafe-style seating.

Lomelin invited me in to learn her techniques for making bonbons, specifically her tart cherry and Earl Grey tea-infused dark chocolate ganache bonbon she calls The Earl and the Tarts. I spent three enjoyable hours with her and found her to be a thorough, engaging, and patient teacher. For her, the classes, the tastings, and even the shopping are directed to one purpose: "I want people to come in here for an experience," she said.

Lomelin had the dark chocolate for the shell and the foot (the bottom of the bonbon) tempering in her tempering machine. You probably don't have one or need one, so follow the directions for tempering chocolate on a site she recommends, King Arthur Flour.

She also prepped the dried cherries. They were chopped and soaking in Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon in a small red bowl.

So, we got started making the ganache. The first step was to heat the cream with the Earl Grey tea leaves. The mixture reaches the boil, then she turns off the heat, covers the saucepan, and lets it steep for five minutes. After that she strains the leaves and adds back a little milk to return the mixture to the original weight.

Then Lomelin adds glucose syrup and reheats the scented mixture to the boil. At that point, she pours it over a combination of dark and milk chocolate pieces--she prefers Guittard chocolate--and lets it sit for a minute. If you want, you can give the chocolate a head start in melting by putting it in the microwave on high for 30 seconds. Make sure when you're working with the chocolate that you keep it away from unnecessary moisture. At its best, it can be difficult to work with. As Lomelin said, "Chocolate is like a fussy French chef in a bad mood. You have to yield to it."

With the chocolate warmed, you want to stir the mixture until it emulsifies. Lomelin starts in the center of the bowl and works outward in large circles.

Next, she adds the butter and incorporates the pieces smoothly into the mixture. Now you have ganache. Time to transfer it into a pastry bag. Lomelin has a nifty trick to do this pretty smoothly. Get yourself a large cup--along the lines of a 7-Eleven-size slurpie cup--and place a pastry bag or thick plastic ziplock bag inside, folding the top of the bag over the top of the cup. Now you can use both hands to pour the ganache into the bag.

Tie up the top of the bag and place it on its side while you move on to the next steps. If the ganache begins to harden at the tip (if you're using a plastic bag, you'll snip off the corner to create the hole), simply warm it up by gently massaging it.

From here you'll drain the cherries in a sieve and blot them with paper towels. Don't toss the liquid. You can enjoy it in cocktails or custards, or even reduced to a syrup to use over ice cream.

So, here comes the fun part. Putting it all together in molds. You can find chocolate molds at places like Michaels or Do It With Icing or online. Lomelin uses expensive thick polycarbonate molds.

You don't need those but they were cool to work with. She showed me how to decorate them with colored cocoa butter. First we did some finger painting, dipping a finger in the "paint" and then smearing the mold's interior. Then we did some spray painting.

You probably aren't going to do this, but what you can do after the the bonbons are made is use luster dust, an edible decorating powder, or confectioners glitter--both of which I found on Amazon.

Add a little vodka to a small bowl. Lomelin uses vodka for three reasons--it has no flavor or color and the alcohol evaporates. Using a blush brush, dip it lightly in the vodka, lightly in the glitter, and then lightly brush it on the bonbon.

Okay, back to the process. Remember that tempered chocolate? Well, you're going to pour that into the mold over the paint and then drain the excess (that's why you need to temper so much more chocolate than you'll actually use; save the rest by pouring it on a cookie sheet. Once it hardens break it up and put the pieces in a ziplock bag to store.)

Now you have shells. They need to crystalize or harden. You'll know when they're ready for the next step when they go from shiny to matte.

At that point, get the ganache in the pastry bag and place a dot of it into each cavity. This allows the cherries, which you add next, to stick. Then you'll pipe in the ganache for real, leaving space for the foot.

By the time you fill each cavity, the chocolate will have hardened a bit, so Lomelin warms it up with a heat gun (alternately, use a hair dryer) so the foot will adhere seamlessly. Now you'll add more tempered chocolate to create the foot, sluicing off excess with a scraper.

Okay, almost done. The mold/s go into the refrigerator for about an hour to crystalize. When they're hard, gently tap the mold to release the bonbons.

I bet you think that's it. But not quite. You want to put them in a pretty package, right? Lomelin taught me a nifty trick for getting the chocolates securely into those little paper cups. Use your thumb and index finger to slightly spread open the cup. Place the bonbon squarely in the middle above the cup and lower it until you feel it hitting the cup. Release your fingers, then swiftly but gently press down on the bonbon. It should actually click in. Don't worry if you don't get it right away. This will take a bit of practice, but it's so satisfying when it works.

The Earl and the Tarts

from Michelle Lomelin of Sweet Petite Confections

(printable recipe)

Yield: 66 12-gram bonbon pieces

Ingredients

175 grams heavy cream

10 grams earl grey tea leaves

Whole milk (as needed)

55 grams glucose syrup (available in San Diego at Do It With Icing--or substitute with corn syrup)

155 grams 64% dark chocolate, roughly chopped if not already in pieces or discs

240 grams 33% milk chocolate, roughly chopped if not already in pieces or discs

30 grams butter, softened and cut into pieces

100 grams dried tart Montmorency cherries (available at Trader Joe's), minced 

100 grams Bourbon (Buffalo Trace) or spirit of choice

 2 pounds 72% dark chocolate, tempered (King Arthur Flour explains the process well.)

Directions 

To make ganache: In a medium saucepan, heat the cream and tea leaves just to a boil. Cover and allow to steep for 5 minutes. Strain leaves from cream and return to original weight by adding milk. Add glucose syrup and reheat to just a boil. Place the dark and milk chocolate pieces in a bowl. Pour the mixture over the chocolate and let sit for 1 minute. Using a spatula, stir mixture in small vigorous circles in the center of the bowl until it emulsifies. Stir outward in larger circles to spread the emulsion throughout the bowl. If necessary, heat the ganache for 5 seconds at a time in the microwave until all chocolate is melted. Once all chocolate has melted, add the butter and stir until incorporated. Transfer to a pastry bag.

In a small bowl, combine the minced cherries with the spirit and let reconstitute for 1 hour (or more if desired). Drain through a mesh sieve and lightly pat dry. Save the remaining liquid to enjoy in cocktails or reduce and make a syrup to pour over ice cream.

Prepare the bonbon mold as desired. Using tempered 72% chocolate, create a shell and allow to crystalize. Once chocolate has crystalized, pipe in a dot of ganache, then sprinkle in approximately 1.5 grams of cherries per cavity. Pipe in ganache, leaving approximately 1/8 inch for the foot. Using a heat gun or hair dryer, warm the mold slightly and add the foot. Place in cooler for 1 hour to crystalize. Gently tap mold to remove chocolates.

Sweet Petite Confections is located at 3582 Mount Acadia Blvd. in San Diego.

Decaf You Can Fall in Love With

It's been decades since I've been able to drink regular coffee. In the years since I first gave it up, the quality of decaf has steadily improved. And yet I can't take for granted that when I go to a meeting or a coffee house, a restaurant or an event that I'll be able to enjoy a cup--delicious or not. In coffee houses, the compromise often is an Americano, which is okay, but not the same as a quality full-bodied decaf.

One local coffee roaster that seems to respect the desire of decaf drinkers to luxuriate in a delicious cup of coffee is Cafe Virtuoso, a 100 percent certified organic roaster that's been in business since 2008. Owners Laurie and Savanah Britton, who run their business out of a sleek warehouse space in Barrio Logan, invited me to come in to learn about their roasting process and taste their decaf varieties.

Daughter Savannah, who manages quality control, explained that they send their roasted beans to Coffee Review for an evaluation (You can see the scores they've received here.) It's a 100-point scale. Their Signature Decaf, mistakenly judged and scored as espresso instead of the intended drip, received a 90, she said. "We don't even look at coffee beans unless they're at least an 84," she added. Coffee Review is correcting the error by rating it again for drip.

She then introduced me to Cafe Virtuoso's head roaster, Nelson Teskey. Teskey, who came to work at Cafe Virtuoso nine months ago from his native British Columbia, began his coffee obsession while in high school and in 2014 became a licensed Q, or Quality, Grader from the Coffee Quality Institute, basically the coffee equivalent of a sommelier. According to Cafe Virtuoso, he's the only Q Grader in San Diego who is also roasting coffee. Teskey is also a Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Lead Instructor, who teaches others how to roast specialty coffee.

We began with a tasting. Teskey prepared both their Signature Decaf and Decaf Vernazza using a pour over technique. "We like to pour over because it releases more delicate, subtle flavors without the sediment that you get from a French press," he explained. He added that if you use a French press after you pour your cup/s, you should pour the remaining coffee in the press into another carafe or Chemex so that it doesn't overextract from exposure to the grounds at the bottom.

I tasted both coffees black, of course. Teskey, not surprisingly, was keen on explaining the various notes of each variety. My palate isn't as refined. But while I enjoyed both, I appreciated the Signature decaf more sans milk or sugar. There was no residual sourness that I sometimes experience with black coffee and the flavor was rich, almost chocolate-like.

Teskey then showed me their impressive stainless steel Loring roaster. All of the controls on this roaster are digital, enabling them to track the temperature of the beans through the various stages of roasting. If Teskey and the Brittons are happy with the results, they can then digitally save the roasting profile so that in the future they'll get consistent roasted beans for that variety. Before they could digitally control the process, consistency was based on the experience of a single person running the machine and the aromas and tastes that person experienced.

Cafe Virtuoso roasts 10 to 15, 70-pound batches a day--the yield following roasting drops to 57 to 60 pounds since the beans give up moisture in the process. When they get in new beans, Teskey said, they'll do a sample roast based on standards for the profile of that bean variety. Then they'll do a cupping, or tasting, of the results. They'll score the sample based on the cupping, but, as Savannah had said, they won't buy the beans if they rate below an 84. Tesky will consult with her about the flavor notes and their goals for the beans they do decide to keep and will then roast the beans based on that.

For decaf beans, the roasting process is different because the beans have undergone Swiss Water Processing, which removes 8 to 9 percent of the water in the beans before they're even roasted. So, said Tesky, the roasting temperatures are lower than the usual 350 to 460 degrees. It's gentler because the potential of burning the beans is more dramatic.

I bought bags of both decaf varieties with the intent of using the Decaf Vernazza for when I want to make a cappuccino or mocha and the Signature for when I want to keep things small and simple--an easy pour over of a single small cup to enjoy black. It's been a great way to start my mornings.

Cafe Virtuoso is located at 1616 National Ave. You can buy coffee beans there--as well as specialty drinks and snacks at their coffee bar. You can also find their coffee here.



Print Page

Jeremy Oursland's Salmon with Vegetables, Gnocchi, and Tomato Fonduta

It's hard to believe, but in August Bottega Americano will have been open for two years. I remember walking around the cavernous restaurant's shell while it was under construction as executive chef Dave Warner explained how there would be different stations lining the walls--one for pasta making, one for making pizza, another for charcuterie, still another for pastry. Once it opened, it was  impressive to see the vision realized--both in the design and the high caliber of the food being served.

I've enjoyed a lot of terrific meals there and was happy to visit one recent late morning to meet with sous chef Jeremy Oursland to learn how to make a new dish on their spring menu. They just call it Salmon, but it's a seared salmon filet with caramelized fennel, gnocchi, sugar snap peas, and Swiss chard, dressed with a tomato fonduta--Italy's version of fondue.

Oursland has been with Bottega Americano since it opened. Previously, he had worked with Warner at JRDN in Pacific Beach following a two-year hiatus during which he had moved to Santa Rosa and gone to school. Before that he'd worked at Rainwaters on Kettner while helping out his grandparents. Oursland grew up in the restaurant business. His dad had been a chef at a country club and Oursland started out there as a kid working as a dishwasher. Like many who start with doing the dishes and sticking with it, he got a chance to cook, first making brunch and breakfast, then dinner.

"I learned about catering and banquets. I learned about fine dining from my five years working there," he said.

Everything was prepped and ready to go when I got to the restaurant. First, Oursland showed me how to make the fonduta, filling a saucepan with half a lemon, wine, garlic, shallot, fresh herbs, peppercorns, and a roma tomato. Cream had been warmed in another pot. Once the mixture was reduced and strained, he added the cream, tomato paste, and butter, which yielded a rich yet slightly acidic sauce. In fact, this makes enough so that you can use some to serve with the salmon and vegetables and have more to enjoy over pasta, other fish, chicken, roasted vegetables, or (Oursland's suggestion) cheese curds. Or use it as a dipping sauce for bread.

Then Oursland cooked the salmon. In your home, use the stove. At the restaurant, Oursland takes advantage of the searing heat of the pizza oven. First he heated the cast iron skillet in the oven. Then he carefully added some canola oil and slid a salmon filet, skin side down and away from him onto the pan before pushing it into the oven. He also prepared a version on the stovetop.

Oursland suggests purchasing skin-on salmon from a specialty seafood market or Costco. He prefers wild or sustainably farmed salmon. When prepping it be sure to pat the skin dry so that it will get crispy. And only salt the fish just before you put it in the hot pan. "If you season it and let it sit, the salt will pull the moisture in the fish to the surface and the sear won't be as crisp," Oursland warns. He suggested using a fish spatula because its thin edge makes it easy to get under the fish without tearing the skin or the flesh--and it's easy to clean.

He also makes sure he blanches the vegetables before sauteing them. "This seals in the flavor, adds crunch, and brings out vibrant colors," he noted. "Make sure all the veggies have a chance to dry thoroughly before sauteing," he said, adding, "Thomas Keller has a chapter in the French Laundry cookbook about big pot blanching. It's well written and a fun read. I enjoy preparing vegetables. It can be a little time consuming but if you do so with respect for the product it will show in your dish. I find it very relaxing and rewarding.

"If you pay attention to the minor details it makes for such a better result," Oursland said.

Salmon with Caramelized Fennel, Gnocchi, Sugar Snap Peas, Swiss Chard, and Tomato Fonduta

From Jeremy Oursland of Bottega Americano

(printable recipe)

Serves 4 to 6, depending on portion size

Ingredients

½ pound sugar snap peas

1 bunch rainbow chard

2 fennel bulbs

3 ounces canola oil for caramelizing the fennel, and sautéing the gnocchi and the salmon

1 teaspoon butter

Kosher salt

6 ounces per person of gnocchi (You can substitute pasta like fusilli or penne. You can also buy house-made gnocchi at Bottega Americano)

1 teaspoon olive oil

2 teaspoons crushed garlic

6 ounce portion per person salmon filet, skin on 

1 cup fonduta (see below)

For Fonduta:

Yield: 3 cups

3 cups white wine-preferably one you wouldn’t mind drinking but not too expensive

1 bay leaf

2 sprigs thyme

2 sprigs tarragon

8 garlic cloves

1 large shallot roughly chopped

2 teaspoon peppercorns

1/2 of a lemon

1/2 medium tomato 

1 cup cream, slightly warmed

1 tablespoon tomato paste  

1/2 pound butter, cut into pieces 

Kosher salt

Instructions

To make the fonduta, combine the wine, bay leaf, thyme, tarragon, garlic, shallot, lemon, and tomato in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and reduce by half.

Add the cream and whisk in the tomato paste. Reduce by a third, then strain the mixture through a sieve.

Return the sauce to the saucepan and whisk in the butter over medium-low heat. Season to taste with kosher salt. Strain again. Set aside.

For the vegetables:

Prepare an ice bath. Wash the rainbow chard thoroughly in cold water and dry. Remove the stems and dice the leaves into ¼-inch by ¼-inch pieces. Blanch in salted boiling water for one minute and then place in ice bath for a moment to shock them. Remove from the water and set aside.

Prep the sugar snap peas by removing the “string,” grabbing the outer edge where the pea was connected to the vine and pulling it away from the pea. Remove the tip where the pea connected to the vine, too. Blanch and then shock in the ice bath. Remove and set aside.

Cut the top and bottom of the fennel bulbs. Remove the core. (Save them to include in a simple vegetable stock). Julienne the remaining parts of the bulbs into ½-inch strips. Sauté in canola oil over medium-high heat until it has a nice caramel color and becomes soft. Finish with a touch of butter and season to taste with kosher salt. Set aside.

Blanch the gnocchi, then sauté on medium-high heat in canola oil until golden brown and crispy. Season with kosher salt. (If you’re using fusilli or penne, cook according to directions and skip the sautéing.)

Sauté all the prepared vegetables together in a pan with a little olive oil and crushed garlic. Add the gnocchi or pasta (or skip this step and add them while plating). Season to taste with kosher salt. Set aside.

To cook the salmon, first pat the skin dry to help the skin get crispy. Heat a cast iron or non-stick pan over medium-high heat. Add canola oil. Season the fish with kosher salt just prior to placing in the pan (again for a crispy skin). Lightly lay it in the pan skin side down and placing it in a motion away from the hand holding the pan to avoid splashing the oil on yourself. Let it cook approximately five minutes. Using a fish spatula, flip the filets carefully, tilting the pan away from you to avoid the oil splashing, and cook another two to three minutes on the other side. Remove from heat and let it rest a couple of minutes before plating.

To plate, place the vegetables and gnocchi on each plate to form a bed for the salmon. Place the salmon on top. Sauce the plate with the fonduta and serve immediately.

Bottega Americano is located in downtown San Diego at 1195 Island Ave. 

Print Page

May 21 Foodie Fest Encinitas Packed with Great Chefs

What are you doing this Saturday? How about heading over to The Lumberyard Encinitas for the Foodie Fest Encinitas? The event, which takes place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., features food and drink of North County San Diego, including:

• Fifteen chefs demonstrating how to prepare farm-to table fare on three different stages
• Six chefs competing in a TV-style competition
• Thirty-plus restaurants serving up gourmet tastes
• A Barefoot Bar, boasting a dozen craft beer, wine, and spirit vendors

Foodie Fest Encinitas, which benefits the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, will also have live, local music and a multi-media Art for the Cure exhibition. There will be face painting and interactive garden booths for kids.

I got to enjoy a preview of the event last week at the Oceanside Museum of Art, where mostly Oceanside chefs had booths filled with tastes. 

Among them were Barrel Republic with bacon-wrapped pork belly on a stick:

Expect smoked salmon on house-made seaweed crackers from them on Saturday.

From Mission Ave. Bar and Grill was Hawaiian poke:

Masters Kitchen and Cocktail offered goat sope that got huge raves that evening:

Local Tap House served up irresistible deviled eggs with Asian flavors:

Willy Eick of Real Bar & Bistro in Encinitas served up crispy duck skin tacos:

And Jessica and Davin Waite of Wrench & Rodent Seabastropub and the Whet Noodle were handing out Chinese takeout boxes of gorgous veggie-laden noodles:

Bistro West was ready with a variety of desserts:

And Cheryl's Caramels had plenty of samples of her sweet wares:

Other participants include Angel's Salumi & Truffles, Blue Ribbon Artisan Pizzeria, Chandler's Carlsbad, The Cork and Craft, Duke's La Jolla, FishBone Kitchen, Flying Pig Pub & Kitchen, Jake's Del Mar, Moto Deli, Nibble Chocolate, Q'ero Restaurant, and Swell Coffee among many others.

You can buy tickets on the Foodie Fest Encinitas website. The Lumberyard is located in downtown Encinitas on Highway 101 between F and I streets.


Print Page

Sushi Class with Chef Nobu Matsuhisa

So I get this email invitation last month asking if I'd like to attend a private sushi and hand roll class being taught by Chef Nobu Matsuhisa at Nobu San Diego.

Do you even have to guess what my response was?

Now I've taken sushi-making classes before. I enjoy them even if self-awareness dictates that all I'm doing is combining seafood with sushi rice and perhaps nori, with a dash of wasabi. Hey, I've watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi. What I create is in no way sushi--not as an experienced sushi chef would claim. Certainly not Nobu.

But here I was at Nobu San Diego with eight other local food writers and Nobu himself, who turns out to be a nice, funny man, very patient, and an excellent teacher. The set up was sweet. Each of us had a sushi-making station with a little plate lined with slices of tuna, halibut, yellowtail, salmon, and shrimp. There was a second little plate to the left with imitation crab, a slice of cucumber, and a slice of avocado for making a California hand roll. And a third little plate to the right with two slices each of tuna and yellowtail for two more hand rolls. We had a black lacquer container filled with sushi rice, a mound of wasabi, sliced scallions, a bowl of water, sesame seeds (which we didn't use), a rack for the hand rolls, and a damp towel for wiping off the rice that stuck to our hands (which it did--a lot). Three of us each shared a container holding nori. Off to the sides of the tables were several deep containers of water to use to rinse and wring out the towel.

Oh, and there was champagne. Just because.

Nobu started off the session by explaining that he follows a six-step process for making nigiri. Essentially, with moistened hands you pick up a slice of fish and lay it on the four fingers of your left hand. Then pick up a hefty tablespoon or so of rice with your right hand and manipulate it into an oblong shape to put on the fish slice. Then add a smear of wasabi. I never did get the order of that quite right since it felt like I needed a third hand. In any case, using your first two fingers on your right hand, you gently press down on the rice, shape it, turn it around, shape it, turn it over, shape it again. All in six steps.

My first go at it was pretty messy. My hands weren't wet enough.

Nobu conveys the technique better in this video I took:



By the time we finished making our fifth piece, we were, well, adequate. Nobu himself laughed at the idea that we were making sushi. "I make sushi," he said, smiling. He didn't say what we had made.

But we moved on to making hand rolls.

First up was a California roll. We each took a piece of nori and placed it on our left hand, shiny side down. Then came the rice--twice as much as for a piece of nigiri. Then a smear of wasabi. Then the imitation crab--or surimi--slice, along with avocado and cucumber. Then you pull the bottom right corner over and up to the left and start rolling it from the bottom until you have a cone.

We repeated this to make a spicy tuna hand roll and finally a yellowtail scallion hand roll.

Making sushi well obviously takes far more practice than the hour we had with Nobu, but it was great fun and who wouldn't want to learn skills by one of the great masters?

Once we had made our "sushi" we ate our creations, drank more champagne, and got to ask Nobu some questions. I learned a few things to share here.

First, when you make your nigiri, work fast. You don't want the fish to get warm in your hand. Nobu says it takes him about seven seconds to make one. "It's important to do it with your heart," he says.

Don't press the fish too hard into the rice. Even in the few seconds it takes for the nigiri to make its way from the sushi chef to you, gravity will help sink the fish into the rice. Be gentle.

When eating sushi, don't use too much soy sauce or wasabi. You'll mask the flavor of the fish. If you do dip nigiri into soy sauce, turn the piece over so that you dip the fish not the rice into the liquid.

Nobu was surprisingly forbearing when it came to the "right" way to eat sushi. He lives in L.A. (with a sushi bar in his home) and recognizes that Americans just do it differently than traditional Japanese. So he doesn't have the same hang ups other Japanese chefs I've met have about our barbarian traditions--although I don't think he's keen on our habit of mixing wasabi into a bowl with soy sauce. He probably wouldn't like my parents' practice of dipping nigiri into a bowl of ponzu either. But he believes that as long as you don't mask the flavors of the fish with too much sauce or wasabi, do what you want. Live and let live.

As for what to drink with sushi, in Japan he likes to drink sake. Because it's made of rice and has umami, it's a good pairing. But in California, he likes a good chardonnay, tequila, and, yes, champagne.

Here's how I did. Don't judge too harshly.

Print Page