 Northern Territory
“Is that a fish?” Sage diners enquire, when spotting barramundi on the cool season menu. It is a fish, Lates calcarifer — large-scaled, hermaphroditic, estuarine, and aggressive — the premier freshwater game fish of the Outback. A cousin of the Palmer or giant perch, barramundi can grow to 125 lbs. and reach six feet in length, yet they leap clear of the water, thrashing, fighting and shaking their heads like Labradors when hooked. They are carnivores, with pink eyes for nocturnal feeding and serrated, razor sharp gill covers to slice up their prey—shrimp, crayfish, crab and mullet. They dwell among the mangrove roots or under giant lily pads in the vast, remote, crocodile infested wetlands of Australia’s tropical Top End. During the dry season, when water courses stop running, barramundi thrive in the freshwater impoundments, or billabongs, that remain; anglers in high-sided aluminum boats, who vary the direction of their casts, stay dry, and leave their dogs at home, may net one before a croc gets it. But during the intense heat and stifling humidity of the season Aboriginals call Gunemeleng, October to December, the monsoon leaves India and crosses the Timor Sea, and bursts of rain and lightening storms connect the billabongs. The barramundi migrate downriver to spawn, to the swamps and shallows of the Daly, Adelaide, Roper, and Mary River mouths, where commercial fishermen await. Their firm, white, dense, sweet-tasting flesh is served in high-end restaurants from Darwin to Perth, and is available now at Sage Eastbluff and Sage on the Coast.
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Winter Bounty
Ah, winter! The freezing fog; the sooty winds; the low, slanting, pesky, impossible daylight swamped by abrupt, abundant and revanching darkness. But this harsh and diminished time of year is assuaged by the bounty in the Sage pantry, where there are squashes curing, hachiyas deliquescing, and bushels of brilliant winter greens: sunny dandelion leaves, ruffled mustard greens, spicy arugula and crisp, heavily textured spruce-colored kale. Pomegranates are halved and thuddingly unseeded for salads and sauces. Bulbs and tubers are roasted for celery root puree and fennel and Jerusalem artichoke soup. Butternut squash, the beacon of the seasonally-affected, is roasted for soup, added to risotto and served with wild salmon or barramundi (the fish drizzled with brown butter and pumpkin seed oil) and pureed with maple and bourbon and served with veal scaloppini. Chef Rich flings his tender, pink-freckled cranberry beans into hearty roast heirloom tomato soup and heaps his entrees with Swiss chard, orange pin-striped Delicata squash, and mild acorn-sized Brussels sprouts. Mark bakes sweet pumpkins into cheesecake and bread pudding, and turns Meyer lemons into tarts and custard cakes. Locally grown, tree-ripened pears are poached and served with duck breast and pear sauce at the Coast, while Eastbluff boasts a lovely pear-almond tart with cheesecake ice cream.
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Season’s Greetings from Chef Rich
It’s been ten years and I would like to make a special point to thank Greg, Pedro and Francisco, who stuck it out with me and have helped us get to this point. And especially thanks to our friends, our long time customers, who have made this journey an enjoyable one. Happy Holidays and Thanks.
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 You Who
You’re as cuddly as a cactus. You’re as charming as an eel. But who wouldn’t be grinch-ish? How else could you feel? What with the parking and hiking, the queuing and swiping, the wrapping and taping, the swagging and stapling. And look at the time! Where can you go? With your dander up and your blood sugar low? If you’re fed up with festooning, with twinkling, with chiming, with boots and with beanies, with ribbons and rhyming, just get yourself (and whoever you’re fighting with) over to the Dessert Happy Hour at Sage on the Coast. From 8:30 until closing, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, you can order Robert Le Sage’s desserts for only $5. Five dollars! Eggnog Crème Brûleé with Russian tea cookies! Dark Chocolate Truffle Cake with raspberry sauce! Root Beer Float with chocolate chunk cookie! Can you feel your heart growing three times as big? What about a Meyer Lemon Chiffon Tart or Apple Tart Tartin with caramel-swirl pear ice cream?! Order any three for only $12! Still a rotter, Mr. Grinch? Then cast a jaundiced eye over the dessert cocktail list, each one only $5. Pineapple upside-down cake, lemon meringue pie, gingerbread, and chocolate raspberry cake are all conjured from flavored vodkas, liqueurs, cordials and schnapps and served in martini glasses. A dessert and dessert cocktail combo is only $8. On chilly Who-ville nights, try the Blueberry Tea with grand marnier, amaretto and hot tea, the Hot Apple Pie with hot cider, Tuaca and cinnamon schnapps, or the Chocolate Chip Mint Latte. Now back to Mount Crumpit, you merry old thing!
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 Winter Me
Between December and February on the Niagara Peninsula, frozen grapes are plucked from withered vines by ungloved hands in the frigid pre-dawn hours. The grapes — Riesling, Vidal, Cab Franc — may have frozen and thawed several times. But they are harvested and pressed while still frozen, so what little water content they have remains in the press as ice crystals and only a whisper of concentrated juice is extracted. Fermentation is slow, months-long, and ceases naturally. It is an arduous process, unsurprisingly German. Late-harvest grapes can rot over a mild, rainy November. Even the noble rot, botrytis, may either intensify sweetness and or just ruin the whole crop. But the Teutonic monopoly on Riesling Eiswein has been challenged by dozens of wineries on the peninsula between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, where the latitude, 43 degrees north, is roughly that of Chianti and Northern California. Karl Kraus and Donald Ziraldo were the first to see the potential for growing European grapes here, where the air currents from Lake Ontario circulated off a southern escarpment, keeping the vines cool and dry in summer and preventing them from freezing in winter. They founded Inniskillin Winery at Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1975, naming it after an Irish regiment, the Inniskilling Fusiliers, stationed there during the War of 1812. Their ice wines are renowned, even in France, for being complex, tantalizing, subtle and luscious nectars that finish with a bright, cleansing acidity. They are sweet without being cloying, and can taste of peach, apricot, nectarine and pineapple. They pair brilliantly with salty, tangy blue-veined cheeses, and their bracing acidity balances the fat in the cheese. Or try the Riesling with Sage’s pear tart, the Cab Franc with Chocolate Truffle Cake, or the Gold Oak Vidal with Butterscotch Crème Brûleé. Vibrant and sumptuous, Inniskillin Ice Wines are a festive finishing touch to any holiday meal.
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Merry Christmas
&
Happy Holidays
to all our friends
and loved ones.
You're the best gift ever!
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Join the Sage team!
Sage baseball caps on sale now, both locations. Only $12
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Gifts for Home Cooks:
Amelia Saltzman's Santa Monica
Farmers' Market Cookbook
is on sale for $22.95
at Sage Eastbluff & Sage on the Coast
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