How y’all doing on there in the land of pumpkin spice, eggnog, and peppermint? I was pretty damn happy in the land of grower-producer Champagne last Thursday at Arlequin Wine Merchant’s annual Champagne Celebration—if you need to pick up some special bottles for the holiday, they have you covered with some beauties!
We missed some of you at our Family-Style Vietnamese feast with chef Rob Lam and Ernest Vineyards last Friday, that was such an awesome night! Was so good to see you and enjoy chef Rob’s fantastic bun rieu with you. And wings. And skewers. What a feast! That’s why we work with Feastly. :)
I’m getting ready to head down to my family’s place, since Saturday is our big fish fest/Cenone for Christmas Eve. Bring on the baccalà and mussels and anchovy and bread crumb pasta (sadly that treat is only once a year). There are some places I listed in the Bay Area hosting their own version of the Cenone (also known as La Vigilia or Feast of the Seven Fishes), and one more to add is Mina’s Test Kitchen, where I experienced their seafood-centric (and very delicious) Postcards from La Costiera menu last week—ends up they are hosting a seven fishes feast as well, and lucky you, the superb spaghetti alle vongole is on the menu. Buon appetito!
In today’s column, I’m listing a bunch of places where you can go for New Year’s Day brunch, it’s a pretty fun lineup. I was hoping to have time to list New Year’s Eve spots as well, but pretty much every single restaurant is doing something, so I say think of your favorite places and check ‘em out. If I find some time later this week to list something, I’ll blast it on social media for ya (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram).
So, this is a little bit of behind-the-scenes/under-the-hood tech news (and why I have been extra-busy this week) but I’m really excited to announce we have moved tablehopper to a new mailing list service (Emma), and this is the first newsletter with the new system! Look for some cool features to come in the near future, including a new newsletter layout (yassssssss), but for now, I just wanted to mention it in case there’s any email funkiness that happens today. I’m hoping the data transfer happened perfectly, but there was a little bit of a time gap between the two systems, so you never know. Please let me know if you notice anything off or have any issues to report! Hopefully it went smooth like buttah.
One last note: I’m taking next Tuesday December 27th off for a holiday break, so the next tablehopper issue will be on Tuesday January 3rd (with my annual rant, the bore, of 10 things I don’t want to see in the New Year, oh you know it).
What I do want to see more of in the New Year is YOU! It has been so great to see a bunch of you at recent tablehopper events, thanks for coming and for all your support. Even though I was away in New York for most of the year, it has been great to catch up and get to know many of you.
There are so many things to be grateful for this holiday season. A big one on my list is my community. I love and appreciate you all so much—you bring such happiness and joy to my life, so I want to send my gratitude and best wishes to you and yours. Enjoy some time sitting by the tree, or your fireplace, or your menorah, or your winter solstice candles, or just with the people you love—they have so much light and warmth to cast, and so do you. Shine on.
Buone feste and see you in the New Year! XO! Marcia Gagliardi
Buckwheat doughnuts with whiskey crème anglaise at The Morris. (Not for Santa, but for me!) Photo: © tablehopper.com.View tablehopper Newsletter from Tuesday, Dec 20 2016
