No need for an intervention

You may have heard the rumor that I have been averaging three BLTs each week, and might be thinking that it is time we had a sit-down and discussed whether or not this is really wise menu planning.

I will point out that in about a month there will be no more T's and the BLT well will run dry.

Fortunately the weather is turning towards the wood-fired, slow cooked pork loin with rosemary roasted potatoes. Otherwise I would not know what to do.

By the way, the best way to celebrate late summer/early autumn is to take a ripe black fig, make a slit the long way in one side, stuff the gash with good goat cheese, wrap the whole thing in pancetta and grill over a wood fire. Try to stick to under ten in one sitting. I dare you.

Or, if you really want to have a good meal, go to The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards in Livermore. Not to scoop myself (the review comes out next week, as the photographer was not available for this week), but Wente put themselves into a group that only one other restaurant has ever attained (the other restaurant, by the way is Porky's Pizza Palace in San Leandro - go on a Thursday night when the Oakland Banjo Band performs) - four stars. Not three and a half (the first half star is the easiest to lose. A single blip of tough stuff in a sausage, or a little bit of hard kernal in my sweatbreads will do the trick. It's why I never seem to be able to write in the /ipoint "four stars."), but four, whole, undivided stars.

Obviously the dining experience at Wente is different than the dining experience at Porky's, but what they have in common is that they have mastered the class they put themselves in. Perfection at the level they aspire to.

If you are doing a trip to the Bay Area, put them on your list along with French Laundry, Oliveto, CHAPEAU!, La Folie, Dona Tomas, and L'Osteria del Forno. There you have it: if I had six nights in the Bay Area I would go to Wente and the first five for dinnner, and have lunch at L'Osteria the day I went to to Dona Tomas. Of course you will have to schedule in some major hikes to work off the food (not to mention a good budget for such things). For more details email me at EKeilholtz [At] aol [dot] com for an updated Keilholtz Guide to Oakland and the Bay Area, which will be revised this weekend.

PS. I did mention that Wente has an excellent cigar menu, no? Including a properly stored pre-embargo Cuban.