Full Belly Files | Wine Week Starts Next Week

Credit: Courtesy

This edition of Full Belly Files was originally emailed to subscribers on April 26, 2024. To receive Matt Kettmann’s food newsletter in your inbox each Friday, sign up at independent.com/newsletters.

It’s time to hone your sipping skills, because the Santa Barbara Independent’s second annual Wine Week will be uncorked next Thursday, with more than a dozen establishments offering special glasses of wine for just $10.

While this year’s participants don’t quite amount to the nearly three dozen spots that signed up for the promotion in 2023 — could it be related to the wine industry woes I wrote about here? — we’re still thrilled to be teaming up with some of Santa Barbara County’s best wineries and restaurants to deliver a more affordable way to enjoy the bounty of bottles available to enjoy.

Stay tuned for details, which will all be announced on May 2.

I’ll miss the start of Wine Week myself, but you can find me posting photos from my annual KIA trip with childhood buddies. This year we’re going international in Mexico City.

Recent Ramblings

Though you may have thought otherwise based on the past two weeks of reports from Charleston and Savannah, my travel regime hasn’t slowed much since spring break.

That next week, I chaperoned my daughter’s class trip with Foothill School to Astrocamp, where I joined these brave sixth graders in climbing telephone poles, swinging from sky coasters, and learning the magic of science on what was this year a snowy campus in Idyllwild. I did it with my son a couple years back, and would highly recommend any parents to do the same.

The cafeteria food is actually pretty decent — the cooks are proud of their cuisine, and constantly ask for recommendations — and chaperones get to eat from a special menu. The best meal, aside from the always satisfying breakfasts, was probably the cheesesteak lunch. You’re always hungrier than you expect, even if you’re like me and not accustomed to eating three squares a day.

[Click to enlarge] Matt and his neighbor Don stopped to enjoy beef noodle soup at 1919 Lanzhou in Arcadia, where they hand-pull noodles to order. | Credit: Matt Kettman

The culinary highlight of that mission, however, was on the ride back. I didn’t have to take the bus this time, so my fellow chaperone/neighbor Don and I took the chance to stop for lunch in the San Gabriel Valley, otherwise known as the American capital of Asian cuisine.

After scouring the gazillion options, we stopped for hand-pulled noodles in spicy broth at 1919 Lanzhou Beef Noodle in Arcadia. The noodles are pulled to order right in front of your eyes, and impress on all fronts. The thinly sliced beef rolled in a crispy pancake was equally if not more delicious, no dipping sauce needed. (The only surprise was the gun store with aggressive MAGA signage right next door, which was covered by CNN here for being an example of Asian-Americans getting into gun rights.)

A week later, I was off to Arkansas to report a story for Wine Enthusiast on pairing wild and/or farmed game like squirrel, beaver, duck, venison, and guinea hog with fine wine. That four-day blast was loaded with Southern characters, including Presqu’ile Winery’s owner Madison Murphy. It turns out that he’s like the benevolent king of El Dorado, where his family — who struck it rich on oil, timber, and more there generations ago — endowed the high school with college scholarships for all and redeveloped an entertainment district.

But I’ll save the details for my story that will run in that magazine later this year. For now, I’ll leave you with my Instagram highlights. Domaine Romanee Conte with pig heart anyone?

On the event front, I hosted two of the most educational and entertaining panels in recent memory during the SLO Coast Wine Classic on April 6. We preserved through another rainy Saturday for Saunters & Sips on April 13, and then enjoyed a pleasantly overcast day for the Natural Coast Wine Festival last Saturday, where my planned hour-long stop turned into a nearly four-hour visit with friends old and new.

This weekend, I’m leading two Sta. Rita Hills-focused panels on chardonnay and pinot noir at the Ritz-Carlton Bacara for the 2024 Société Mondiale du Vin Weekend. That’s the annual affair hosted by the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, which claims to be the world’s oldest international gastronomic society due to its creation in Paris a back in 1248.

Aaron Jackson and the other panelists on Matt’s aromatic whites panel during the S.L.O. Coast Wine Classic | Credit: Matt Kettman

Parties to Be

Mark your calendars and get tickets for the following now:

Good Lion will bring their Olive Street Martini to Ventura’s Bank of Italy this weekend. | Credit: Courtesy

Santa Barbara Restaurant Week: I’m not sure why no one sent me any information about this until a couple days ago, but Santa Barbara Restaurant Week runs April 26 to May 5 this year, with 12 restaurants serving prix-fixe two-course lunch ($45) and three-course dinner ($75) menus. See SBRestaurantWeeks.com.

Crawfish Boils @ Little Dom’s Seafood: Carpinteria becomes crawfish town on April 27 and May 4 when Chef Brandon Boudet of Little Dom’s Seafood presents his third annual Crawfish Boils. The menu includes crawfish by the pound, crawfish monica, gumbo, jambalaya balls with creole mustard, and alligator meatballs, as you do. See ldseafood.com.

Good Lion x Bank of Italy Takeovers: On April 28, 4-10 p.m., the bartenders from Santa Barbara’s The Good Lion are trading places with the bartenders from Bank of Italy Cocktail Trust in Ventura to share the top six cocktails from each establishment with their neighboring communities. It’s the best way for us to travel to the top mixology spot in Ventura, and vice versa. Best of all, $1 of each cocktail gores to DignityMoves, a charity focused on the unhoused.

Just 8 Supper Club: The second iteration of this dinner series at Clean Slate Wine Bar in Solvang, which features my wines paired to Chef Melissa Scrymgeour’s delectable cuisine, is on May 9. Just a couple of the eight seats remain available, and this time she’s connecting to her Southern roots, with such dishes as crab beignets, smoked catfish spread, lobster & pimiento grilled cheese, sarsaparilla-glazed pork belly, and duck breast with Louisian rice and pecan pilaf. Click here for tickets and all the details, except for the 15 wines I’m bringing from my stash.

Taste of S.B. Tickets Available: The full slate of events for this year’s Taste of Santa Barbara, the annual celebration of Julia Child’s legacy hosted by the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience, is now online. As usual, there’s a weeklong lineup of dinners, cooking classes, farm tours, and special events, including the wine festival at the Presidio on Saturday afternoon and the film screening with wine (we hope bubbles!) and popcorn on Saturday night. New this year is Friday night’s Soiree at Casa de la Guerra, in which top chefs will craft one-off dishes to share with Santa Barbara County wines. Check out the new website here.