When an artist makes an abrupt 180 in her style, it’s always time to sit up and notice. Penelope Gottlieb has become synonymous with nature, especially the freakiness of nature, of extinction and mutation. Her acrylics and oils took a modern approach to Audubon-era nature painting, either by adding a crazed overlay, or by applying those old techniques to flora that make it look as though it was disintegrating before our eyes.
“Portraits in Air (A Series Revisited)” isn’t that. At all. And it’s not new. In fact, this short series of paintings dates from 2004, long before nature crept into the scene. In this exhibition at Edward Cella’s satellite gallery at Cabana Home, there’s little to tie these works to her current series, except for anxiety.
I love writers who dare and care to talk about the world we live in,” says Robert Egan, head of the Ojai Playwrights Conference, which starts its 16th annual event this coming Wednesday. “Sometimes those voices are not celebrated and nurtured because quite frankly, many theaters are afraid of those voices.”
Those voices will have nothing to fear at the conference. It’s a five-day event in which playwrights bring their new work, perform it or bring actors to do so, then sit in with the audience and fellow writers to hear feedback. Plays that started at the Conference have gone on to success in New York, Los Angeles, and cities in Europe. Playwrights have made breakthroughs. Careers have moved on to the next level. And everybody has been entertained.
While this week no doubt brings out margarita cravings, we here at Drink of the Week couldn’t help but talk to some of our bartenders about non-marg business, seeing what else was up in the cocktail world. Cecily Barrie gets to play around with new and old ingredients behind the bar at Cielito, and is well aware that Fiesta is here. So she’s come up with the Verdi Gris, which takes the tastes of Old Spanish Days and reworks them into a unique cocktail.
She starts with Hornitos Reposado, a nice base tequila, nothing too fancy. But then she adds some Pavan, a new liqueur, at least to these local shelves.
Imagine a mix of orange blossom water and moscato grapes, with an amazingly complex nose. It’s delightful just by itself over ice, so we were curious what would happen with it in a cocktail. But Barrie wasn’t done: She has made up a puree of cilantro and tomatillos. We know, right? That’s salsa! But, ay, dios mio, it works! “Dangerously drinkable” was uttered. “Like an adult popsicle” was also said. “What to have when a margarita is just not doing it,” was another.
Cielito righteously gets packed during this five-day party, and the Verdi Gris may not have made it on the menu by the time you read this. But you can ask for it by name. Tell them Drink of the Week sent you.
VERDI GRIS
1 1/2 ounces reposado tequila (preferably Hornitos)
1 ounce cilantro and tomatillo puree (see note)
1 ounce Pavan liqueur
Shake ingredients over ice and pour into lowball glass. To make puree: Use the ratio of 1 ripe tomatillo to a small handful of cilantro. Adjust batch size accordingly. Keep refrigerated.
Yes, the hotel on the corner of Chapala and Carrillo has changed hands over the last decade like Beyonce changes costumes during a concert. And we’ve been with them through every new incarnation. The interior of the bar has, however, remained pretty stable — serving up very good cocktails — and the combo of happy hour drinks and bites has been nicely affordable.
The new restaurant and bar is Finch & Fork. The focus is still on fresh ingredients and infusions. The cocktail menu is packed with goodness (the happy hour food is also great, and we suggest you order the deviled eggs). The Hawaiian Honey Creeper, named after the finch-like bird, is a variation on the mai tai: two kinds of rum, a mix of juices and orgeat syrup, but topped with green Chartreuse in a hollowed lime shell. Instead of the sweetie-sweetie tropical drink we expected, we got an almost bitter mix, and we loved it! The Figueroa uses fig-infused Buffalo Trace in this version of a simple whiskey cocktail, and anybody who likes a Manhattan should try it. And the Guava Jelly is spicy because of its mix of guava and habanero mixed with tequila.
‘Seen (Detail),’Sanford Biggers Museum of Contemporary Art SB
Miki Garcia knew something was working when Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum (aka CAF, as most locals call it) changed its name to MCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. She was standing outside and heard a couple walk past, on the way from the carpark to the steps leading to the ground floor of Paseo Nuevo. “Oh, there’s a museum here!” said one to the other. Maybe they had passed the Forum many times, maybe this was their first time here, but the point was taken: it’s a museum and everybody knows what that does.
For regular visitors to CAF, the switch may have seemed cosmetic and unheralded. But it’s that couple that Ms. Garcia keeps in mind.
Manhattan has its cocktail, although it may be named after a bar in New York, not the borough. The Bronx has a cocktail, and its infamy is tied to Bill Wilson, whose Bronx binge led to alcoholism and much later Alcoholics Anonymous. And then there’s the Long Island Iced Tea, one of the stronger drinks out there. The Brooklyn cocktail exists, but is as rare as finding a cheap place to rent there, and is like a Manhattan except for Maraschino liqueur used instead of vermouth. However, Staten Island … sorry dudes, you get nothing.
Which leaves us with Queens, which is probably where your hip friend is living now after the big dreams of living in Manhattan fell apart and Williamsburg was too trendy. We learned all about the Queens cocktail when we stopped by Sly’s in Carpinteria the other day. It had been a hot one, and we’d been stuck in traffic coming up from Ventura. It was time for some libations, and the Queens was just what we wanted.
Related to the Bronx, it uses gin. Bartender Jack Chinn, with advice from mixologist and history buff Mandy Huffaker-Chinn, set about making us this drink, using Gordon’s gin, an equal mix of vermouths, and muddled pineapple. It’s the fruit that gives the cocktail its smooth mouthfeel, frothy head and bright color. It’s our Drink of the Week — and our second favorite borough!
Muddle pineapple in shaker. Add gin and vermouths, then ice. Shake and strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with cherry and an extra chunk of fresh pineapple.
‘Homage to Innocents (detail),’ Sue Van Horsen David J. Diamont photo
Greeting visitors to the current exhibition at Arts Fund Gallery, “Specimen,” is a kindly, smiley skeleton placed strategically and without explanation. It seems a combination greeter, sentry and memento mori, all at once, befitting a deliciously bizarre and strangely comforting show about pseudo-science, dead things, decontextualized memories, found objects redirected into the direction of art, and other cultural specimens.
Curator Ted Mills, himself an artist, filmmaker, and also journalist-critic (whose writing is oft-found in the pages of the News-Press) had the notion of collecting left-of-center collectors and assemblage artists. The end result, imposing a bit more weird atmosphere than the Arts Fund Gallery has yet known, is a gathering of radiant junk, artfully constructed “cabinets of curios” and general obsessive oddity, all under one roof.
Artist Jimmy Mirikitani is the subject of “The Cats of Mirikatani,” being presented as part of “Sharing Our Common Ground:The Fourth Annual Asian-American Film Series Mongrel Media photo
Back in the early years of Santa Barbara, the Chinese community and Japanese community lived across the street from each other, a Chinatown and a Japantown, living in perfect harmony on the site where Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens looks out over the Presidio. Those days are long gone, with only a few remnants remaining, but the Asian-American experience continues. That’s the subject of “Sharing Our Common Ground: The Fourth Annual Asian-American Film Series” put on by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation. The three-film series starts tonight and continues until July 26, with screenings at the Alhecama Theatre.
The three films are all documentaries on the Asian-American experience and take in adopted Chinese children, Bruce Lee (born in San Francisco), and a Japanese-American homeless man who has a painful history of the internment camps in sunny California.
James Cromwell, left, and Genevieve Bujold play aging farmers Craig and Irene Morrison in thefilm “Still Mine.” Samuel Goldwyn Films photo
Here’s a movie about building code violations ruining the golden years of a farming couple, which will make this a go-to date for anyone who’s had to go through the Planning Commission. But even for those who haven’t, it’s a sweet drama about an aging couple still very much in love.
Even though the story and its execution are pretty corny, “Still Mine” has at its disposal James Cromwell and Genevieve Bujold as the octogenarians having decide which is worse: old age or bureaucracy. Mr. Cromwell has always been a comforting presence in film. He’s many people’s idea of a farmer based on his role in “Babe” and his kindly face is one of the main reasons he makes such a good villain in films like “L.A. Confidential.”
Here at Drink of the Week HQ downtown in our undisclosed location, it’s officially summer. It’s hot and sometimes humid, and the answer to a lot of our problems is another light and icy cocktail.
We have to pace ourselves, but the other day we got invited to stop by Arnoldi’s for a game of bocci and we realized that, yes, we should probably get some exercise other than lifting glasses to our mouths.
