the 941

Humble beginnings birth beautiful things. Obama. The Simpsons. Angelina Jolie. And McLaren Vale, a tiny town in South Australia with soft yet powerful wines the size of J Lo’s insured ass.

Tireless pioneer Thomas Hardy planted grapes in McLaren Vale around 1840 and winemaking in the region thrived, until the turn of the century when exports dried up and the demand for bulk port swelled. Around the 1960’s, wine tourism revived the area, stimulating renewed interest in table wines, especially the full-bodied, rich reds made from the Vale’s 100-year-old shiraz, grenache and cabernet sauvignon vines. Now, its comeback complete, McClaren’s wines have burrowed into my spirit.

McLaren Vale’s graceful, feminine wines are known for soft tannins, intense berry ripeness, and fruity, perfumey aromatics. According to Nick James Martin, assistant winemaker from d’Arenberg Winery in the heart of McClaren Vale, they achieve this finesse with good draining, sandy soils, cool nights and a consistent climate. In addition, most wineries farm the land sustainably, shunning fertilizers and tilling under, although they don’t promote these practices on the label. “It just makes sense for the soil… helping us make the best wines we can,” says Martin. Yangarra Estate, in northern McLaren Vale, takes their land responsibility one step further by using biodynamic techniques, bringing a holistic viewpoint to the vineyards.

Maybe the tender treatment of the soil and old-vine fruit is why McLaren Vale wines rock. Their shiraz and cabernet sauvignon are drinkable upon release, but are also capable of napping for ten years. The grenache — which D’Arenberg’s Martin calls “the most interesting varietal to work with — drinks pretty tasty too.

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Memorial Day may have signaled the beginning of grilling season for our northern friends, but down here it’s almost the opposite. As we head into the humid months of summer, big slabs of barbecued meat seem a tad heavy in the scorching Florida weather.

But that doesn’t mean we need to shun the grill. For a recent pool party get-together, I wanted an easy, midday dish that I could cook on the patio, but wouldn’t weigh down my guests.

Refreshing, light and simple. Vietnamese bun salad did the trick.

Bun (often translated as “rice stick” on labels) is simply vermicelli made with rice flour, often sold in organized nests wrapped in plastic in the ethnic aisle of your local grocery store. Cooking these noodles is utterly simple — a quick soak in boiling water is all you need.

For the salad, versatility is the key. I piled noodles in the center of a big bowl and mounded julienned slices of every veggie I had in the fridge — red pepper, jalapeno, carrot, cucumber, lettuce and more. Add a chiffonade of fresh herbs, some crushed peanuts, and a few other garnishes, and you have an incredibly beautiful salad. To make it taste as good as it looks, you need nuoc cham.

Traditionally a ubiquitous Vietnamese dipping sauce, nuoc cham’s bright and intense flavor works great as a dressing. Serve it on the side and let people pour their own — some folks don’t appreciate the pungent flavor of fish sauce.

Vietnamese Bun Salad

1 package bun (aka rice sticks or rice vermicelli)

1 red pepper, julienned

2 cucumbers, seeded and cut into matchsticks

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Ed. note: This piece, by Cecil Adams, will appear in next week’s issue of Creative Loafing.

With the dearth of good real estate on Earth, I’ve been considering alternatives. One obvious candidate is Mars. However, in its current orbit, it’s too nippy and the air is too thin to satisfy anyone except Sherpas. How much energy would it take to move Mars into Earth’s orbit? Would it work better if we moved Venus instead because of its similar size to Earth? Please answer quickly as I need to finalize my retirement plans. —James Borowiec

I have to tell you, I admire the balls behind this concept. We’ve already got one planet pretty much hosed. Why not go for two?

I assigned my assistant Una to look into what it would take to haul Venus or Mars into the same orbit as Earth. Una’s engineering resume is sparse in the planetary relocation department, but I figured it was just a matter of moving some decimal points. To be on the safe side, however, she teamed up with Noam Izenberg, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Results: Assuming (a) Mars doesn’t rip apart from the stress of moving and (b) its moons, Phobos and Deimos, come along for the ride, we’re looking at close to 9.8 x 10<superscript>31 joules of energy to drag it down by us. That’s roughly the same kick as 234 trillion 100-megaton nuclear warheads. Moving Venus would take still more energy — multiply the above by 8.5.

Discouraged? Don’t give up so fast. One idea out there is to change the orbit of a good-sized asteroid or comet — about 100 kilometers in diameter — so that it swings by one of the inner planets and then back out to, say, Jupiter. As the cosmic tow truck passes our target planet, it uses its gravitational attraction to tug the planet in the desired direction, then hurtles back to slingshot around Jupiter, picking up more energy in the process. Repeat a few thousand times with a few score asteroids and there you go: Mars in your backyard.

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Cliff Roles Interviews Karna Small Bodman

The latest from our boy Cliff Roles:

When Ronald Reagan named Jim Brady Press Secretary, Karna Small Bodman became Jim’s Deputy and subsequently the highest ranking woman on The White House staff. Her last post was Senior Director of the National Security Council. She was also on the air for fifteen years as a TV News Anchor and Reporter. More info at karnabodman.com.

Listen to Karna talk to me about her new book, Final Finesse!

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— The Sarasota Herald-Tribune editorial board calls “game over” on the Orioles spring training deal. For some reason, though, I doubt we’ve read the last about our area’s efforts to land a major league team.

— Manatee County will slash 82 jobs in an effort to cut $32 million from the budget.

— The Downtown Improvement District sets aside work on Five Points Park till another day.

— Kim Cartlidge has a really touching feature on Sarasota High student Josue Delgado, who has suffered through eight head surgeries and yet will still walk onstage on graduation day.

— Continuing on the theme of touching features, MC Coolidge writes about the 10-year anniversary of her divorce: “I don’t have a problem with the fact that I left him. It was 100% the right thing to do — for me, for sure, and I hope for him as well. But I have a problem, still, all these years later, with the fact that I gave my word to stay with him always and forever, till death do us part, and then broke that word.”

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Hold on to your hats, people, because I’m going to hit you with news so amazing you’re going to flip: Congressman Vern Buchanan opposes GM Chrysler’s decision to shut down hundreds of car dealerships around the country. I wonder why… Perhaps it’s because he is part owner of five dealerships, and one of the Chrysler Dodge ones closed by GM Chrysler?

No way, you cynical bastard, it’s a principled stand:

“Each dealership creates an average of 52 neighborhood jobs,” said Buchanan. “This action, if implemented, could put approximately 150,000 people out of work. With unemployment nearing double digits, it makes no sense to put more Americans out of work. The federal government should be working to create jobs and boost the economy, not kill jobs.”

CORRECTION

D’oh! In my haste, I made a grave mistake: Congressman Buchanan owned one of the Dodge dealerships being shuttered by Chrysler, not GM. Sorry, folks.

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Creative Loafing Half-Hour Variety Hour: Episode #13 (Part 1)

Creative Loafing Half-Hour Variety Hour: Episode #13 (Part 2)

Regulators! Mount up! It’s time again for the best banter on the Suncoast!

This week, Food Editor Brian Ries, Events Editor/Staff Writer Tim Sukits and I hit up the WSRQ 1220 AM studios to discuss a bevy of bountiful topics. We start with Tim’s cover story this week, all about the economic devastation hitting the Suncoast’s independent retailers and restaurants.

After that pleasant segment, Brian grabs the mic to discuss some ways restaurants are coping with the hard times and working to lure in new customers. Then he discusses his most recent restaurant review: the Broadway Bar.

Bon appétit!

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THURSDAY, MAY 21 — HILLVIEW, SARASOTA

Spurred on by an early deadline for Memorial Day, I am setting out for Southside Village on a Thursday night. When casting out my net on Facebook today for a weeknight hotspot, faithful commenters pointed me to the Grand Opening Party at New York New York. (Thanks fans!)

Upon entering the spot that used to be The Table, my first impression is shock. The place is completely packed. (more…)

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Cliff Roles Interviews Terrell Griffin

Click the plus sign above to check out man about town Cliff Roles‘ revealing Q&A with local mystery novelist Terrell Griffin.

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The last time I covered a Denis Johnson book for Creative Loafing, reviewing his 2007 novel Tree of Smoke, I was unafraid to use the word “masterpiece” in describing Johnson’s swirling depiction of the depravity and moral confusion of the Vietnam War. With his new novel, Nobody Move, Johnson is setting his sights lower, and has taken on the voice of the classic noir in an effort to get us from page to page as quickly as possible. This is the kind of book with main characters that include a down-on-his-luck gambler in debt to organized crime, an alcoholic dame with the keys to $2.3 million and all sorts of other ne’er-do-wells hovering in the margins.

Needless to say, not everybody survives the fiasco, and those that do aren’t necessarily bound for bigger and better things. Johnson is clearly having fun flexing his writerly muscles and trying out a different voice, with a directness often not there in his earlier, more poetic and oblique books. Nobody Move is a lark, a one-off experiment, but it’s still a gas: a fun throwaway that sounds just the way Raymond Chandler might have if he had lasted into the 21st century.

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