Christina Waters

You thought maybe the fruitcake fiasco was going to get me down? Ha!

I’m on to my next artisanal exercise—orange bitters, the old-fashioned way (another pun I simply couldn’t resist, but only serious tipplers will get it).

First I had to locate Seville oranges, whose sour rind is one of the basics of any decent orange bitters. A Berkeley specialty produce store had some, so I had my agents rush over and get some.

Grain alcohol was another de rigueur ingredient (even the words “grain alcohol” bring back queasy memories of fraternity party punch bowls). That was pretty easy. EverClear—which comes with no fewer than three “highly flammable” warnings on its label.
Coriander, caraway seed, cardomom, gentian extract — you practically trip over these semi-exotic ingredients thanks to our profusion of fine natural foods emporia.

But quinine powder.  Hmmmmmm - I’m still looking.

Meanwhile, I dried the orange peels in a very low oven. Then added them, plus seeds, to two cups of 100 proof alcohol. Now the infusing takes place. Two weeks worth, until the next step. (to be continued…)

Everybody with a grocery list and a shopping cart knows how food costs have skyrocketed. The price of a loaf of bread (okay, a loaf of locally-baked, organic, whole grain bread) makes me actually gasp. Coffee? Unbelievable. Chicken that has been raised humanely costs an arm and a leg (apologies to the poultry). So of course the costs of running a restaurant have gone through the roof.

I sympathize.

But I am not going along with the program of lowering standards.

If you have a house specialty, e.g. the jalapeño cornbread at Zachary’s, that has become a beloved signature of your dining establishment, don’t mess with it! Cut corners somewhere else. Or cut down the portion size. Just don’t change the recipe and offer some lesser dish in its place.

I’m one of those consumers with such a strong loyalty to my favorite places, that I wouldn’t mind seeing prices raised a bit to cover costs — rather than substitute ingredients, or lower the quality of the overall product. Many restaurateurs have told me that patrons will not tolerate prices going up — but my experience tells me that patrons will be even angrier if the product quality goes down.

Times are going to be tough for a while longer. But life is short. Make the decisions you, and your conscience, (and your clientele) can live with.

So many artworks, so little time. Make plans to visit the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery this month.

In the main gallery, prolific alumna Katerina Lanfranco unveils a gallery-sized installation, Natural Selection.
In the adjoining gallery, a group show Clear Cuts features work by Beatrice Coron, Kota Azawa, Matt Farrar, Felicia Gilman, Lauren Scanlon, Jill Sylvia, and Kara Walker.

Across the portico, in the Porter Faculty Gallery, enjoy an exhibition of Laser Cut Relief Prints by Richard Wohlfeiler. All of these shows are free and open to the public.

For details visit the Sesnon website.

In his gorgeous new film, director David Cronenberg [see post below] has taken an enormous bite into the unconscious cravings of those struggling to fit into “polite society.” But he also works to unpack some of the deepest conflicts—between Freud and Jung, for example—which plagued the new field of psychoanalysis in the early 20th century.

Was the new “science” to be based upon some rational architecture of the irrational? the Oedipal desires, repressed sexual connections afflicting family hierarchy, and diagnostic answers based upon the inner logic of illicit sexual desires—as Freud insisted? Or were there even deeper channels within psychiatric patients tapping down into archetypal roles and tensions shared by all humans, archetypes such as the Wounded Warrior, and tensions uniting love and death in an eternal embrace—as Jung was beginning to suspect?

A Dangerous Method is now playing at the Nickelodeon.

Here’s what you’ll find:

1) this stunning film oozes Viennese sophistication, with ravishing costumes you would swear were designed by Gustav Klimt. (more…)

The formative youth of psychoanalysis, with all of its nascent uncertainty, longing, paranoia (the field, not the patients) is transformed into a disturbingly sensual film, A Dangerous Method, by cine-maestro David Scanners Cronenberg.

If you thought you were curious about this film simply because of leading actors Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortenson, you’d only be half right. You’ll end up smitten by their characters, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, just as much as the mesmerizing performers. In the years just before the first World War, the intellectual life of eastern Europe was second to none. It was the time of Mahler, Wittgenstein, Hödler, Strauss, and hypnosis was being used as an experimental therapy on patients whose illness had been vaguely characterized as “hysteria.”

Freud was already the giant in this new field, (more…)

Fran Grayson’s mobile dining table is preparing to make some new stops - at the Live Oak Farmer’s market. Starting January 29, you’ll be able to stop by the roving silver food dispensery and order up apple fritters for breakfast, or fish tacos, arepas, rice plates and myriad kimchi possibilities.

As always, Fran’s gourmet goodies are all made fresh, fast and fully affordable. To taste is to fall in love.

Live Oak Market (Eastside,Capitola,Pleasure Point), open every Sunday, year-round from 9am to 1pm. The market is located at 15th and East Cliff in the parking lot of the East Cliff Village Shopping Center.

A French kiss of a film, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo enfolds its cinematic heart in a bittersweet quest for redemption. It seems that the feisty film director still remembers what it was to be a child, and to believe in artistic magic with a child’s appetite for adventure and delight.

Astonishingly, Hugo is filmed in non-gratuitous 3D that actually moves the film along its kinetic tracks.
The atmosphere of Paris between the wars is exuberantly painted right down to steaming cafe au lait and seamed stockings. The child of the title, (played by Asa Butterfield) is an orphan who lives high atop a train station tower where he daily sets the intricate clockworks.Watching the bustling world below from his perch behind the face of the station clock, young Hugo mourns the loss of his father (Jude Law), a clock maker and engineer who left the boy an unfinished mechanical figure as a legacy.

Hugo, himself an eager mechanical tinkerer, undertakes the completion of this project. Thanks to parts pilfered from the repair shop of an eccentric (more…)

If you’ve seen both of these films then you know what I mean — Hugo and The Artist make terrific side-by-side movie experiences. Each deals with the enchanted, tumultuous world of filmmaking. Each is riddled with the ecstatic triumphs and the anguished failures of the studio system. And, to the credit of the filmmakers, each is obviously a labor of love.

Yet, as I discovered once again last week….timing is everything.

Once I had seen Martin Scorsese’s agile love-letter to pioneer silent film director Georges Méliès—Hugo—I was unable to fall under the spell of The Artist, no matter how seductive and winning its leading man, and his scene-stealing little dog. After Hugo, The Artist was small and thin. A tasty amuse l’oeil, but not the generous feast that was Hugo. Perhaps because I am an addict of actual silent movies in all of their historical richness, period authenticity and frame-by-frame atmosphere of discovery, I found The Artist lacking save as a vehicle for Jean Dujardin, an actor who could give charm lessons to George Clooney.

Oh French director Michel Hazanavicius’ deserves (more…)

A sweeping show of coastal landscapes will fill the Davenport Gallery, starting this Saturday, January 14 (reception from 4-7pm).

The exhibition will offer works by top area painters including Andrew Purchin, Frank Galuszka (Cliff, o/c, r.), Ray Ginghofer and others, including a rarely-seen artist who moonlights as a wine writer. Take advantage of the spectacular weather—and the spectacular coast. Davenport Gallery is next door to the Roadhouse, on Highway One.

Davenport Gallery - 450 Highway One - open Wed - Sun, 11am - 5pm

Maybe it’s just me, but it’s going to take more than three bright green patio umbrellas and a glut of signage to convince me that Mex-Italian cuisine is a sound idea.

When a restaurant, for all the good will in the world, is consistently empty….it might occur to the management that “it’s the concept, stupid.”