Where We’re Eating
I’ve often thought about moving to Northern Liberties just for lunch. The ‘hood — and its Fishtown neighbors to the north — is blessed with casual eateries that take their food, but not themselves too seriously. Taco Riendo, Tiffin and Honey’s are all midday favorites.
Now I can add Café Estelle to the list of reasons to relocate. Anchoring a converted loft building on 4th Street, the comfortable café, with its proudly industrial view, tabletops collaged with vintage recipes and waitstaff dressed in housewife aprons, turns out a craveable assortment of omelets, panini and flatbread pizzas. The well-edited (if not well copy-edited) breakfast and lunch menu features both of-the-moment ingredients — applewood-smoked ham, watercress, manchego — and homey, wholesome options like white bean and kale soup.
Image, cafeestelle.com
I’ve often thought about moving to Northern Liberties just for lunch. The ‘hood — and its Fishtown neighbors to the north — is blessed with casual eateries that take their food, but not themselves too seriously. Taco Riendo, Tiffin and Honey’s are all midday favorites.
Now I can add Café Estelle to the list of reasons to relocate. Anchoring a converted loft building on 4th Street, the comfortable café, with its proudly industrial view, tabletops collaged with vintage recipes and waitstaff dressed in housewife aprons, turns out a craveable assortment of omelets, panini and flatbread pizzas. The well-edited (if not well copy-edited) breakfast and lunch menu features both of-the-moment ingredients — applewood-smoked ham, watercress, manchego — and homey, wholesome options like white bean and kale soup.
Image, cafeestelle.com
They said it would be loud. They said another bar would draw more drunks. They said it would hamstring a decade of progress around 50th and Baltimore, where boarded-up houses and abandoned storefronts have gradually given way to occupied apartments and progressive businesses. But after some tense negotiations, the Cedar Park neighborhood agreed: A brewpub could be more than an unsavory watering hole. When 
Thanks to the smashing success of a few huge Australian wineries, American wine drinkers have acquired a taste for the juice from down under. But in recent years, we have seen a growing number of wines arrive from small-scale estate producers. Philip Shaw has one foot on either side of this divide, as the legendary winemaker behind the remarkable Rosemount Estate line and the owner of his small high-altitude vineyard in New South Wales. 
In this, the annual season of denial, we appreciate anyone who defines the word diet as “what you eat” instead of “what you shouldn’t eat.” Smart, intuitive food choices — don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food — were the focus of The Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan’s discussion at the Free Library last week. In addition to reading from his new book In Defense of Food, which suggests a sensible diet of nothing but, well, food, Pollan offered the at-capacity crowd one diet guideline he thought of after penning this “eater’s manifesto”: “You can have as much fried chicken and French fires as you want — as long as you make them yourself,” Pollan said.
Marchesi de Frescobaldi “Nipozzano” Chianti Rufina Riserva 2004 
Forget the vegetarian and white-chicken kinds. We’re talking manly, stick to your ribs stuff, perfect with a beer in the dead of winter. (Don’t be fooled: it is the dead of winter, even if you were dining al fresco yesterday.) Our favorites:
Chateaubriand, beef filet for two drizzled with béarnaise, hasn’t been au courant since Jackie O frequented Le Pavillon. Yet the 
It’s time to make those 
“Eat food.” Seemingly obvious, the first two words of author Michael Pollan’s new book In Defense of Food are actually a startlingly complex directive. Need proof: Try reading the ingredient list on the back of, well, almost anything in your pantry. Then ask yourself if you want to dine on those unpronounceables. For Pollan, whose Ominvore’s Dilemma made him a poster boy for the country’s increasing awareness of food politics, understanding food is an eater’s responsibility. Learn more when he discusses In Defense of Food at the Free Library on Thursday.
Believe it or not, snappy and refreshing Mount Nelson Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand is made by Italy’s most recognized winemaking family, Antinori of chianti classico and super-Tuscan fame. Owned by their Tuscan joint venture, Tenuta Campo di Sasso, the Mount Nelson wine estate sits on some of the most coveted vineyard land in the Marlborough region. Devoted solely to making world-class sauvignon blanc, this marks the family’s first and only foray into New World winemaking.