During my career I’ve created several different restaurant concepts, from organic pizzerias early on (Tomatina) to taverns (Ajax in Aspen), but the heart of my cuisine has always been Italian as a reflection of my family and all that they taught me to cook. In the past few years, I found myself craving a new challenge, and on several trips to Spain to visit my daughter, Margaux, I found my answer in the vibrancy of Spanish cuisine. Doing Spanish food answered my need to immerse myself in something new, but because Spanish and Italian are ‘kissing cousins’ it is a style whose heart I understand. She now lives in Barcelona, so our research trips include she and her husband, Andres, a 7th generation Catalan. In Barcelona, even the street pavers are drop-dead gorgeous! My team, including Chef Ryan Mcilwraith, have spent numerous trips eating and drinking and observing, from chocolate shops to tapas to fine dining. On one trip, we did 16 meals in 6 days! Tough work, but somebody’s got to do it! My next blog will uncover the research in all its glory.

Everyone needs a bucket list, right? Well, as I mark my 25 years as a professional chef, I am thinking more and more about my influences, early mentors, and people I’d like to spend time more time with. At the top of my professional bucket list, is Sirio Maccioni, the legend behind Le Cirque restaurant in New York.

When I was a young chef, Le Cirque was one of a small handful of restaurant institutions that set the bar for us all. As I traveled and studied, I was lucky to spend time in the kitchens of others like him, such as Lidia Bastianich, Piero Selvaggio and Larry Forgione, but I had always craved time with the man behind Le Cirque. Last month, I was able to share a private lunch during which I cooked for him and asked all the questions I’d wondered about for years. As he described his biggest successes, his thoughts about the current state of the restaurant world, and what he would have done differently, we share family wines from Chiarello Vineyards and the Maccioni family, and feasted on rabbit porchetta with mandarin mostarda. This is a day I will long remember and cherish, and you can watch some of the best moments of our interview on A&E’s Celebrity Bucket List soon. Stay tuned for air times.

I’ve been in the Napa Valley for over 20 years, so naturally my sense of wines and their place in a meal is of great importance to me. Just over 10 years ago, I got the chance to cultivate my own wines from historic vineyards around my home, but before I could make wine, the land needed repair. It had been farmed conventionally, with the typical style of pesticides and herbicides, and some of it had been left alone to die. As I repaired these vines, some of which were planted before prohibition and over 90 years old, I turned the entire property into a sustainably farmed operation. For my project, I enlisted one of the top “old vine” winemakers in Napa Valley, a master at creating rich, dynamic wines from the ultra-ripe fruit of older vines. The 94-year-old Petite Sirah and Zinfandel vines were revived by me and Thomas Brown (2010 Winemaker of the Year, Food & Wine Magazine) using head pruning and dry farming. These two time-honored methods historically used for both Zin and Petite Sirah in California allow the vines to ripen grapes evenly and flourish in the absence of water. I also turned to the organic farmer’s “man in black” as I like to call him, my friend Amigo Bob Cantisano. Its through his decades of wisdom and tireless work that hundreds of acres of farm land have been “returned” to the wiser, safer and more healthy ways of organics, sustainable, and even biodynamic farming. More on him in my next post.

To me, sustainable means leaving the landmore fertile than you found it. We have been sustainable from our first farming day back in 1997. In addition to using all natural means for grape growing, I have taken the next steps. We compost our grape skins and stems and fold them back into the soil. We plant a winter cover crop of fava beans, fetch, clover and wild mustard, which gets tilled into the soil each spring to provide vital nutrients, giving the vines a great boost of energy as they come out of dormancy. And as we prune each winter, we use the resulting ash to create a line of beautiful ash-glazed pottery. It doesn’t stop with the grapes, however. We encourage a balanced ecosystem and natural habitat that plays home to so many wonderful creatures. Brush piles and unsprayed ditches provide safe places for the quail and the ducks to lay eggs. Longer spring grasses are left knee high for the geese. Bat boxes, ladybugs, the list goes on. Finally, living sustainably means taking responsibility for our ranch forman, Lorenzo, and his family in Mexico. We provide him with year-round work and a steady income, allowing him to plan for reuniting his family. Our farming activities are a bit slower at times, but we feel much better about it in the end. All told, farming sustainably affects both what you do and how you do it.

–Michael Chiarello

Location / Restaurant: Casa Pintos, Galicia

Dish: Very classic Pulpo a la Gallega ( Galician Octopus ) dish. The octopus is from the ocean a few hundred yards away from the restaurant but it still gets frozen for a few days to tenderize the meat. The wooden plate that it is served on absorbs the water from the octopus and allows the olive oil to coat the meat. Coarse salt and pimento garnish the plate.

Influence / Memory: It was a great casual way to be introduced to Spain. After almost 24 hours of travelling it was uncommonly warm weather for October and the perfectly simple lunch cooked by the two sisters was warming to our souls. The town itself was decorated with seashells and awash with sunlight. This area is known for simple shellfish dishes but the complex flavor that the shellfish naturally has in this area was something I will remember always.

Date: October 3, 2011

Location / Restaurant: D’ Berto Restaurante, O Grove (Pontevedra), Galicia

Dish: Roe on a female cigala, Dublin Bay prawn.

Influence / Memory: It was an eye opening experience for a chef to see the fishermen delivering the daily catch at 8:30 p.m. to Restaurante D’ Berto.

Date: October 7, 2011

Location / Restaurant: Etxebarri

Dish: Gambas rojas de Pálamos (Catalunya), exquisite grilled shrimp, at Etxebarri restaurant, Axpe, Vizcaya, País Vasco, Spain. Also the grilled Anguila (Eel) which had the flavors of a traditional Japanese Unagi but was cooked on the Asador to unbelievable results.

Influence / Memory: Michael Chiarello said it was “the best shellfish I have ever had.” It’s hard to compare all the different meals we had in Spain because the locale and level of dining was so drastically varied. But when asked, what was the best meal that we had, my mind automatically travels back to this small village in the Basque mountains. The way the Basque chefs use the Asador grill was an awakening to a piece of equipment that I was not familiar with but am now looking forward to using in our new restaurant, Coqueta. This grill could not be farther away from an American style grill than you could imagine with its wheel like lever to lower and raise the cooking area. It is used throughout Northern Spain and parts of South America, mainly Argentina, but I dare say that no one has mastered it the way that Chef Bittor Arguinzoniz has. Every course on our tasting menu was done on his special line of grills that he customized and built himself. He cooks over a charcoal that he makes himself. The dishes were all executed perfectly. They ranged in smokiness and charring in ways that I would never have imagined.

Bittor Arguinzoniz in his kitchen at Etxebarri.

The Asador grills used at Etxebarri

Date: October 8, 2011

Location / Restaurant: Elkano in Getaria

Dish: Whole grilled Turbot

Influence / Memory: This was the most amazing Seafood experience of my life. Again I saw the Asador used to perfection and was surprised to see the grilling station outside every restaurant on the street. The turbot was so fresh and gelatinous and cooked perfectly that there was silence, broken occasionally by a deep sigh, as we consumed it. The town itself located on the ocean with twisting stone streets and famous for a great explorer seemed perfect to have this kind of oceanic epiphany.

Statue of Juan Sebastián Elkano, the first man to command a ship that circumnavigated the globe. Elkano was from the port of Getaria.

Outdoor grill with whole fish, including turbot, sea bass and sea bream cooking at Kaia in the port of Getaria.

Luís Mari Manterola, grill master for 34 years at Elkano in Getaria.

Ryan Mcilwraith at Jatextea (Restaurante) Elkano, Getaria. Observing a packed room enjoying the bounty of the sea.

A whole rodaballo, turbot, fresh off the grilll at Jatextea (Restaurante) Elkano, Getaria.

Aitor Aregui, a maestro at fileting turbot, fresh off the grilll at Jatextea (Restaurante) Elkano, Getaria.

Txangurro, a classic spider crab dish, at Jatextea (Restaurante) Elkano, Getaria.

Location / Restaurant: San Sebastian, Barcelona and Madrid

Dish: Various

Influence / Memory: These photos are all moments when we were experiencing the art of Tapeos. Tapeos is the action of going from one bar to the next to mingle, drink and eat a few dishes usually before dinner or in place of dinner. Tapas have caught on in America as small plates to be eaten sitting down with a fork and knife. Roaming the Old quarter of San Sebastian from one bite and sip to the next was an eye opening experience to what we are missing about the experience. Standing at a packed bar in San Sebastian grabbing a pintxos, skewered tapas, throwing the skewer on the ground in the trough and drinking a cold glass of Txocoli was another epiphany of this trip. Not all of the experiences of eating tapas in Spain can, or should, be exported to America but there is much we still have to learn about this fine art.

Ryan Mcilwraith and Michael Chiarello sampling dishes at La Cuchara de San Telmo, Casco Viejo (old quarter), San Sebastián, October 8, 2011. Photo by Gerry Dawes ©2011 / gerrydawes@aol.com.

La Cuchara de San Telmo, Casco Viejo (old quarter), San Sebastián, October 8, 2011.

Setas (mushrooms), grillled and served with foie gras and an egg yolk as a sauce, Ganbarra, Casco Viejo (old quarter), San Sebastián, October 8, 2011.

Kokotxas de merluza rebozada, battered and pan-fried hake “cheeks,” Ganbarra, Casco Viejo (old quarter), San Sebastián, October 8, 2011. They were translated on several menus as cheeks but it is actually a muscle underneath the jaw of a hake.

Olives with mussels and pimientos, El Mercado de San Miguel, Madrid

Quimet y Quimet tapas bar, Barcelona.

Chefs Michael Chiarello and Ryan Mcilwraith of Bottega Napa Valley at Quimet y Quimet in Barcelona.

Montaditos, tapas served on bread, along the basque coast.

“Working with the gentle yet precise advise of our advisor, Amigo Bob Cantisano and I walk the vineyards every month, and devise the solutions to problems that nature can best address. Sometimes our allies are critters, sometimes a plant, sometimes a matter of timing our activities to a stronger part of a natural cycle, and therefore yielding an advantage over the situation. Whatever the challenge, I can count on Amigo Bob as a leader and a friend. He is simply one of the most important thinkers of our time in ways of gentler, low footprint farming, ways that we simply must adopt with seriousness and speed regardless of the crop or stock.”

– Michael Chiarello

Reflections on Amigo Bob Cantisano – “West Coast Field Poet”

“Shawn Corey Carter (aka Jay-Z), refers to his genre of music, not as rap or hip-hop, but as “East Coast Street Poet.” Semantics? Perhaps not. Jay-Z does have his own deal and style going. This leads me to Amigo Bob Cantisano, Chiarello Vineyards’ enigmatic viticultural consultant (grapegrower), you might say is a “West Coast Field Poet.” Only refer to him as Mr. Cantisano if you’re awarding him the Nobel Prize; Bob if you’re being formal. Otherwise, he’s “Amigo” (as nicknamed by his high school sweetheart back in the days of Jimi Hendrix). We love Amigo, and well, so does everybody else, including Mother Earth. Why? He’s a wine whisperer. And Amigo is more than sought-after. He’s in demand, as one of California’s foremost experts on organic agriculture. Amigo’s been farming organically since 1974. He helped to start California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF), the Ecological Farming Association’s annual conference (EcoFarm), and Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, Aeolia Organics, Organic Ag Advisors, the Felix Gillet Institute and other social change projects. To find out more about the man, the myth, the legend, do as Amigo instructs all inquisitors, “…just Google me…”

– by Chiarello Vineyards Winery Sommelier, Brandon St. Martin

Our 2012 Chiara Bianco and Chiara Rose, both named for my mom, were bottled at Outpost Winery in March, and we are releasing them to you at the end of April. I thought you’d enjoy seeing a bit of the journey during bottling time.

Location / Restaurant: La Maquina

Dish: Fabada and Sidra

Influence / Memory: The principality of Asturias was another unique area of Spain. Although we only spent one day we experienced an amazing amount of artisanal cheeses and products from this area. The two experiences that really stuck out for me were drinking cider at a Sidreria and eating Fabada. Although the typical Spanish cider, or sidra, is a bit yeasty for my inexperienced palate I truly enjoyed the spirit of the Sidreria’s and the action of drinking a cider there. The bartender pours you a small amount into a special flat bottomed cider glass from a height of about 3 feet without looking at what he is doing. The process aerates the cider which is meant to be consumed quickly. The Fabada is a traditional stew of Faba beans, large white dried beans, with chorizo, morcilla ( blood sausage ) and other delicious pork pieces. The beans are swirled slowly as they cook so they don’t break and they and the broth absorb all the delicious flavor of the pork and the color of the pimenton. Truly a bean dish that should be just as popular as the famous Spanish rice dish the paella.

La Maquina restaurant​’s famous fabada asturiana, fabada bean stew with chorizo and morcilla

The meat from the Fabada, it is served on the side at La Maquina but is cooked with the beans

MMMMM…delicious!!!

Cider pourer at Tierra Astur, an Asturian cider house.

Date: October 14, 2011

Location / Restaurant: La Maquina

Dish: Paella

Influence / Memory: This is the paella that we use to judge all others. The Socarrat, crispy caramelized rice bottom, was flawless and the flavor and texture of the rice was perfect. They cook the paella over dried grape vines in carbon steel paella pans. There are many versions of paella in Spain, the one they do at Cas Elias is arros con conejo y caracoles or thin layer paella with wild rabbit and local snails. Casa Elias is in a small village called Xinorlet outside Alicante.

Ryan McIlwraith of Bottega, Napa Valley, making a rabbit-and​-snail paella at Casa Elias outside Alicante.

Most of these Photos provided by Gerry Dawes, copyright 2011 / gerrydawes​@aol.com.

The quick and dirty secret is that serving wine at the right temperature is EVERYTHING when it comes to enjoying the wine. A $75 wine served at the wrong temp can taste like a $20, and conversely a $30 wine served at the perfect temp will be enjoyed like a $50 wine. Temperature affects how you taste fruit and acidity, so watch my tips on an you’ll be happy all summer long! Then stock your wine cellar for the summer season before the” heat shipping holds” start.

We’ve mapped out three months of research — not of dishes, but of techniques.  We’re going to start if off by braising for the first two weeks.  Beef shanks, lamb shanks, goat shanks, oxtails, pork shoulders — all in various liquids like broths, vegetable-rich braises, confit, sous vides, goat’s milk, and sheep’s milk. Each day we’ll pair one type of meat with one type of braising, and we’ll measure our success over the weeks to determine which technique works best for each protein.  None of these are dishes that will be served to the customers; they’re the genesis of techniques that will later become the ideas for dishes.

Two weeks later we’ll try alternative flours for pasta and their best shapes, followed by whole fish cooked in salt crust, cooked in pastry dough, whole roasted or whole poached.

The intention is to build a trend in the low season to carry us through to the high season.  Techniques developed in low season, and the results of these techniques, will be applied to various dishes during the busiest time of years.  The idea is to take time when we have time, so we can save time when we don’t.  And hopefully, we’ll benefit with 12 months of recipe development.

I’m curious what my other Chef friends do to solve the same problem.  How do you maintain your creativity throughout the year in a busy kitchen?