 Fruit Cocktail
Power-muddler Kristin Markley Woodward of Culinary Cocktail Catering will create two cocktails exclusively for Sage this summer, using the fresh seasonal produce Chef Rich hauls in every week from the Market. Kristin stole the show at last October’s Three Chefs dinner with her hot pumpkin-buttered rum with Chantilly cream and pumpkin-brittle rim. Her inaugural summer cocktail will be a Weiser Family Farms Heirloom Melon Margarita with candied citrus salt rim. Try it at either location and watch this space for updates to the repertoire. |
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 Trip to Bountiful
In the spirit of summer adventure, Chef Rich invites a small phalanx of friends and admirers to accompany him on a field trip to the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market one upcoming Wednesday, followed by a dinner that evening at Sage Eastbluff. The date and price will be determined by the number of inquiring calls to 949-718-9650. Owners of larger vehicles and sea worthy craft may volunteer to carry others, reducing the expedition’s carbon footprint. The plan is to depart in the dewy morning, arriving at the market while the farmers are still fresh. This is your opportunity to stride the market shoulder to shoulder with a Big Name Chef—pumping him for arcane bits of culinary wisdom and lore, or just heckling and second-guessing him as he goes about his business—rather than skulking furtively behind with your opera glasses and notebook as usual.
With his command of the local patois, Chef Rich will introduce his suppliers and translate in harrowing detail the sacrifices made to their appalling, totemic and elusive Sustainability. Then watch as he throws the tarp off crates and sticks his head into the gaping darkness of produce  trucks in his search for the sweetest corn and ripest tomatoes. Should fatigue set in, your guide knows where to find fresh juice set deep within hidden pockets of ice. Revived, you proceed on, and still on, to the Place of Prepared Foods, where a local Big Name Chef (approach deferentially) offers spare but hospitable dishes of surprising refinement. Attempts to “go native” with lengthy side-trips to the Diesel store are strongly discouraged. The evening’s feast will brook no delay, as Chef Rich culls from that morning’s bounty course after course for the surviving members of the party. Call today and sign on to the Sage Market Day Excursion ’07.
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The Joy of Rombauer
 Two hours before sunset, two days before the solstice, the salt spray clung mistily to the rocks at Crystal Cove in that summery and instantly nostalgic way that mollifies troubled spirits. It was as if the guests entering the patio at Sage on the Coast for the first dinner featuring the wines of Rombauer Vineyards, polished and disabused as they were, veterans, possibly, of long campaigns, left their cares and sorrows like rifles stacked in a corner, and below the flanks of some vertiginous and long besieged battlements raised their tents, set their genial tables, signed their treaties and toasted their ambassadors. It was time to be grateful for a little peace, for fresh air, small votives, waning sunshine, the nearness of cool, many-petalled flowers, and a chardonnay golden with summer light.
It was Rombauer’s Carneros Chardonnay that had brought, well, nearly everyone, and its honeyed salubrity was echoed in the pearly drop of citrus remoulade on the tempura shrimp and Copper River salmon cakes sent out by Chef Rich and Chef Kris to accompany it. Longtime Sage friend James Heinemann, now at Rombauer, who brought five wines for the dinner, was struck by the beauty of Crystal Cove (as if St. Helena were Upper Dogpatch), and gave a  history of the winery, including the introduction of Carneros fruit and malolactic fermentation in the winning 1994 Chardonnay, and the tardy discovery of the family connection with Irma S. Rombauer and Miriam Rombauer Becker of The Joy of Cooking.
Then dinner arrived: a first course of Ahi “Wellington”—rich, tender ahi wrapped in flour paper, with aromatic morel mushroom duxelle and sweet merlot sauce—accompanied the ’04 Napa Merlot. A great ’03 Cab was served with red wine braised veal short ribs and gorgonzola polenta, and a stunning ’05 Zinfandel redolent of blackberry and pepper came with perfectly cooked lamb loin, English peas and tangy grilled red plums (don’t say you weren’t invited!). Luscious Port-Zinfandel (like clockwork, those waiters) made a treat of a Spanish bleu cheese called La Caseria, and, after a long, dun and breathless dusk, came a cool breeze, a sapphire sky, and a dark chocolate tart.
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Vin Gris
 Wine pasha David’s first choice for summer dining is the 2005 Alma Rosa Pinot Noir Vin Gris, a youthful dry pink wine from Santa Rita Hills trailblazer Richard Sanford and winemaker Christian Roguenant. A Vin Gris, or “gray wine,” is a white wine made from red grapes, often but not exclusively pinot noir. The confusingly similar Pinot Gris is a wine made a different grape, blue-gray to pinkish orange, mutated from the pinot noir and grown famously in Alsace (Tokay d’Alsace), Northern Italy (Pinot Grigio) and Oregon.
Sanford and his wife Thekla have dedicated their new venture, Alma Rosa, to organic farming and sustainable agriculture. The pinot noir produced in their Rancho El Jabalí is pressed and allowed a short period of contact with the skins, giving the finished wine a light coppery color. Aromas of summer berries and white flowers, a little fruitiness on the palate and a bone dry finish make it a great match with spicier foods—Sage gazpacho, spicy bratwurst, curried lamb with couscous, ahi tuna, even the tempura battered squash blossoms or fettucine with porcini mushroom cream. Perfect for patio dining in the dog days of summer. |
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 Signature This
It’s been almost ten years since Sage opened its doors in Eastbluff. Think back. Way back. Ally McBeal was new. South Park threatened civilization. And a small restaurant with the charm of a bright and airy conservatory specialized in what it called Creative American Cuisine. There were delicate watercolors, tall, mahogany framed windows, blond flooring, lacy young trees, and bentwood chairs painted from a palette of sage leaves and flowers. An extravagant cappuccino machine stood behind a black granite counter hosting ten wooden stools and, during playoffs, a derelict television with aftermarket antennae. There could be crushing noise on busy nights and scant shade on the patio on sunny afternoons, but it was a cozy eatery in a quiet neighborhood that had lost several, and its denizens were determined not to lose another. A Dunkirk-like mobilization of courageous Eastbluffians returned again and again, never losing hope, patiently awaiting upgrades to the wine list, the landscaping, the acoustics, the patio, the T.V. Now it’s time to share your stories about Sage. To celebrate the tenth anniversary Chef Rich would like to hear your reminiscences—a favorite moment, an outstanding dish, an instance of unexpected solicitude. Be frank, detailed, and emotionally complex. Email them to memories@sagerestaurant.com with My Sage Story in the subject line. The author(s) of the winning story will receive a dinner for four including wine pairing at their favorite table. Runners up will win dinners for two. Thanks in advance for writing. Thanks for coming back, and thanks for a great decade! |
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CATERING BY SAGE
Call Sage for any sized gathering.
Call 949-683-3184
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SAVE THE DATE — AUGUST 12
Join us for a book signing and dinner with author,
Amelia Saltsman, of The Santa Monica Farmers' Market Cookbook.
www.ameliasaltsman.com
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