Why Bottle Wine? ... When you can have someone do it in your Parking Lot?

The van I was riding in pulled off the highway in Lompoc, California, amid vineyards and processors in Santa Barbara County. As we turned onto Industrial Way, I encountered a type of outsourcing I didn't know existed. 

Parking Lot Bottling.

A large 18-wheeler size vehicle was opened up like a giant food truck, with big awning flaps propped open.  From the rear, a team of men were unloading boxes. 

The static sounds of a cranked-up boom box spewed a peppy song in Spanish with lots of drum beats and horns. A crew of workers lifted cartons from a conveyor hooked to the back of the truck, and carried them over to smaller transport vans. 

The winemaker who was about to take my friends and I up to the hills to see the vineyards stopped to explain to us that the truck is a mobile wine-bottling facility. Inside the truck is a fully automated operation.  You can see through the wide sides that a carousel rotates around, pumping the bottles full of wine. 

Labels are applied and then the bottles are corked. 

At the end of the process, the bottles are placed in cartons and slid down the metal conveyor where the workers stand outside to receive and carry them to waiting vans. 

It struck me as a clever alternative, so that a small winery need not maintain its own bottling equipment. It's outsourcing at its best. Literally outside. In the parking lot.

 

The Order of the Tasting at Domaine De La Cote

 

I'm partaking in a wine tasting. Four bottles are offered. I would have thought that we would start light and finish with heavy. Nope. 

The wines were offered in the order in which the vinter had just finished leading my friends and I through the vineyards. We toured Domaine De La Cote in Lompoc, Santa Barbara County, California, a few minutes earlier. We started with Memorius. That was the field on top of the property, with the most expansive views of the valley. 

Bloom's Field (photo credit: Laura Lang)

We next moved down to Bloom's Field. From that vantage, we looked down the steep hillside -- La Cote. And finally, she pointed across the expanse toward the plantings below a large chestnut tree -- Sous le Chene. 

Winemaker Julia Wiggin

Tasting Room (Photo Credit: Laura Lang)

Us, learning that the delicious wines we are tasting are sold out.

Cool Heads at the Cook and the Cork

Random discovery of a restaurant in Coral Springs, Florida. I searched online for a place to meet up with family halfway between our two locations.

The Cook and the Cork Yelped at me. It checked all the boxes. Outdoor table (COVID necessity). Locally sourced food. Creative menu. Founder/Chef/Owner graduated from the CIA (that is, Culinary Institute of America). Check Check Check Check Plus.

The food was delicious and everything about it was charming. (Of course, everything seems better in balmy weather). At the end of dinner, chef stopped by to chat. He apologized. "For what?, we asked." The kitchen staff was forced to improvise with camping stoves and propane cylinders, cooking part of the dinner in the parking lot. There had been a utility gas line rupture nearby, so their gas feed had been cut off. What a coolheaded guy! As unrattled as he acted, he might as well have been in the other CIA.

Golfing in Florida...Or...Working Around the Wildlife

I don't love spectators; especially not that one

Lead the way, please

This would be amazing except there are dozens more who look like him (or her?)

18th Hole: Time to take off

Amar is Born (and Kunafa is the Star)

All along Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach, Florida, there are lots of places for good food. But when COVID forced people to stay home, it also crushed several eateries. Although some restaurants succumbed to the stress and uncertainty dished up by COVID, a new place was born. Amar Mediterranean Bistro, a genuine Mediterranean eatery opened smack in the middle of the pandemic. Nicholas Kurban, the owner/founder is of Lebanese descent. 

My husband and I walked up without a reservation and asked for a table for two. The hostess studied the bookings and shook her head, apologizing that there was no availability. A confident-looking lanky man, well-pressed-dressed, glided over to the entrance stand and peered over the hostess’ shoulder. I figured he had to be the owner, working it to squeeze us in. He pointed to the seating chart, spoke softly to her and then addressed us. “We can seat you but the table turns in 90 minutes for a reservation. Could that work?”

“Of course,” I said, “We’ve been married for decades. We don’t need to talk. We can just eat.” We were hungry. 

The waitress brought us warm, puffy, just-baked pita with a dish of thick homemade hummus to munch on while reading the menu. Top notch. And, we learned later, Amar runs a commissary nearby, selling them. 

When I opened my menu, I headed right to desserts. They serve Kunafa. That clinched it for me. The first and only time I ate Kunafa was in Amman, Jordan while on the Global Scavenger Hunt. Kunafa is on my list of reasons to be alive. It’s melted gooey salty cheese, topped with a hardened crust of pistachios and sugar (think creme brûlée only exponentially better).

When Amar’s owner, Nicolas Kurban swung by our table to check on us, I chatted with him to get the scoop. He has an impressive background in food and hospitality. When the pandemic hit, he was a vice president for Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants and traveled all the time. Before that, he was corporate VP of food and beverage for Four Seasons Hotels in the Asian Pacific . Earlier roles included  fine dining operations for Wynn Resorts, and director of operations for top chef Thomas Keller's Bouchon restaurants. Obviously, the guy knows his way around the restaurant world. 

The pandemic cut off his business travel, so he used the opportunity to open this restaurant with his wife near their South Florida home. Several recipes are from his dad’s restaurant in Lebanon and his grandmother’s specialties, with input from his Venezuelan wife. His goal is for all people, not just Lebanese, to appreciate the food. 

Oh boy. Did I ever. And the best of all was Kunafa for dessert. It’s rich. It’s sweet. Just as delicious as I remembered.