Stir Food Group’s Director of Wine and Spirits, Elli Benchimol
Yes, you already know that this is my favorite time of the year, including my favorite holiday, Halloween… always a goth girl at heart. With the fall season comes some great closeout specials on wine. As vintners are beginning to release their new vintages, the warehouses don’t have room for both in house, so they run some amazing specials, that we pass on to you. There are a few hints to follow when bargain shopping…
Normal rules of thumb: try not to …

Executive Chef, Bryan Moscatello
I am a firm believer in scratch cooking, I think you should make everything yourself as long as space and equipment permits.  Don’t get me wrong there are a lot of very good artisanal products out there but when you eat house made products compared to their store bought counterparts there is a distinct difference.  That difference may not be a positive one for your product straight out of the gate but the beauty is that you can adjust, refine and tweak until you feel the …

Stir Food Group’s Director of Wine and Spirits, Elli Benchimol 
This is my favorite time of the year!  The weather is finally agreeable, the cool nights warrant wearing a sweater again, the leaves will be changing colors soon, and all of the fall fruits and veggies are laid out on the farmer’s market tables like precious gems.
My favorite holiday of the year is on its way, Halloween.  Trick or Treating, homemade costumes, tons of candy, and fresh apple cider… with some bourbon preferably.  It’s cold out there at night, you need …

Executive Chef, Bryan Moscatello
Over the past two weeks we have begun to serve lunch at Zola Wine and Kitchen.  The overall idea is to serve a very fast lunch at very reasonable prices.  The twist is that these items being prepared are directly from local farms (the majority not the minority) and all of the items are made by us.
So the veal pastrami is first brined then peppered and smoked, the bacon is cured with apple and brandy before being smoked, burgers and meatballs are ground to our spec. as …

 Executive Chef, Bryan Moscatello
I had been very excited about doing this event Outstanding in the field for some time now.  I was however uncertain about many of the logistics like what does my mobile kitchen look like, what do the service platters look like, what happens when it rains, etc.  so I put together a list of propane equipment and began to figure out my back up plan and started production. 
 
Since this dinner depended on the local area farms to be our grocer we about a dozen different farms providing …

Stir Food Group’s Director of Wine and Spirits, Elli Benchimol
After a long day of work, and fighting the new added back to school traffic on your way to and from, picking the kids up from soccer practice, then karate, and who knows what else, there is rarely time to think about dinner, let alone food and wine pairings with dinner.  Not to sound like a lush, but there is nothing more relaxing then that well deserved glass of wine after a busy day, that first sip, everything else melts away, …

Stir Food Group’s Director of Wine and Spirits, Elli Benchimol
School’s back in, weather is cooling down, fall fruits and veggies are out, and the wineries are going into harvest…
There’s nothing better to get your mind off of school shopping, and the approaching holidays, then a grape harvest and a flight of wines to taste…If you’ve never attended a harvest before, it’s definately a must do experience. The hard work, the back breaking lifting, and the harvest dinner parties, with lots of wine… Celebrating everything that the land has to offer …

Stir Food Group’s Director of Wine and Spirits, Elli Benchimol
On the road, and passing through my home town, I realized how ugly California is this time of year, everything is brown and dried out, perfect time of the year for those grass fires you always hear about on the news.  It makes you appreciate that California really is seasonal, despite the jokes from east coasters, there is warm, hot, and really hot, with some rain scattered in between.  This weather is what forced me to move to the beautiful micro-climate …

Executive Chef, Bryan Moscatello
I am extremely joyous today because the weather is turning making it easier to design a fall menu. It’s a refreshing break from the development of those lighter weekly summer specials.  Keeping in mind that once you write it you must cook and taste it until you feel that it is right.   As for myself, I believe it to be a welcome break; this is because those autumnal flavors and style of cooking is my preference.  Don’t get me wrong I love a great tomato salad, chilled …