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Lifestyles

July 2008

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Vaccines: Too Many? By Jennifer Clark Ledger Columnist

   Vaccines have undoubtedly saved dogs’ lives. But some dog owners are concerned that over-vaccination has been linked to an overactive immune system in canines.
   Rabies is currently the only dog vaccine mandated by law. Other vaccines can be given every three years instead of every year in order not to overwhelm the animal’s immune system.
   With children, if parents are concerned about heavy doses of vaccines, they can chose to spread out the vaccines over time. With dogs, this is challenging as most drug distributors lump multiple vaccines together in one super cocktail. In the rare cases when vaccines are sold separately, they can be quite costly.
   Which leaves only two choices: give the dog the heavy does of vaccines or don’t give them at all. Perhaps what is needed is a bit more moderation. If you’re not planning on taking your dog to dog parks or hiking in Griffith Park, skip the Lyme disease vaccine. If you aren’t going to board your dog, duck out on the kennel cough shot.

The Park Hits the Right Note for Echo Park
By Pat Saperstein, Ledger Restaurant Critic

   Arriving at the Park Restaurant is a bit disorienting: park along a grungy stretch of Sunset Boulevard, enter a former enchilada joint and find a menu board with specials like duck confit.
   The Park strikes the right balance between funky Echo Park and gentrifying Echo Park, although decor verges on the overly minimalist. Empty picture frames are the only decoration on the walls, along with generic overhead lights and a checkerboard tile floor left over from the previous El Autentico. It’s the kind of place where parents with kids can find a hamburger or spaghetti and meatballs, but it’s just as appropriate for a casual date. With free corkage, diners can bring good wine and eat lavishly for around $60 a couple.
   While the menu ambitiously runs the gamut of pastas, Latin-inflected dishes, vegetarian selections and comfort food, it’s remarkably successful for the range it covers.
Don’t miss the mini cornmeal pancakes with seared shrimp as an appetizer; the chipotle butter pairs nicely with the gently sweet pancakes. There’s also fried calamari, clam chowder and a few salads to start. Butter lettuce with walnuts, fennel, beets and blue cheese is fairly restrained but makes a fresh foil to some of the richer dishes.
A special of duck confit is a meltingly tender portion paired with a soft tamale filled with rajas (mild chile strips) and savory onions. The chef pulls off the Southwestern-style dish admirably, and the duck falls away from the bone easily.
   Most entrees, like grilled wild salmon, roast chicken with lemon sauce or hangar steak ($12-$17) come with vegetables, and additional sides include sauteed sugar snap peas, grilled asparagus and garlic noodles.
   Desserts are down-home concoctions like butterscotch pudding tart with caramel almonds, mini chocolate cake with brandied cherries or apple crisp. A peach cobbler special with vanilla ice cream is serviceable but could be more flavorful.
   Service is friendly if a little awkward—one server enthusiastically announces “Ta-da!” each time she presents a dish to the table.

The Park: dinner Wednesday through Sunday evenings, with reservations for six or more only. 1400 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park.
(213) 482-9209.

Title By Chris Rubin, Ledger Contributing Writer

   While some organizations are looking for a few good men, I’m always on the search for a few good bottles of wine. Red, white or rosé, flat or sparkling, estate bottled at a chateau in Bordeaux or from a cooperative in Bulgaria—I will try any and all. They just need to taste good and—ideally – reflect the unique conditions of their places of origin.
Following are a few really good bottles I’ve recently had the opportunity to taste.
   There’s nothing better than a great wine that’s affordable, too, and that’s what you’ll find with the 2006 Pascual Toso Malbec ($8.99) from the Mendoza wine region in Argentina. Malbec is the star grape of this South American wine producer, and I doubt anyone there has previously offered such a powerful, complex wine at such a miniscule price. Malbec is definitely not cabernet, and there’s an exotic smokiness in this bottle you’ll probably not find elsewhere, but this is wine nirvana for red wine lovers on a budget. (If this bottle has sold out, look to K&L Wine in Hollywood for the Reserve from the same producer for about double the price.)
The 2005 Lancaster Estate Cabernet Sauvignon ($70) features 5% malbec, 2% merlot, 2% cabernet franc and 1% petit verdot in a dense and complex blend from the Alexander Valley, an area with Calistoga to the south and Healdsburg to the west. It’s a massive wine, full of dark fruit flavors and a subtle note of bittersweet chocolate, that should age well for years to come but is completely delicious and ready to drink now. The lingering finish will stay with you long after the bottle is empty.
   Tuscan once meant solely the sangiovese grape, but that’s no longer the case. The spectacular 2004 Tenuta di Arceno Arcanum II ($96) completely eschews sangiovese and showcases merlot (90%), with small amounts of cabernet franc (5%) and cabernet sauvignon (5%) in the blend. It’s a soft, silky wine with powerful dark fruit aromas and flavors, and you’ll be wondering when you can afford another bottle as soon as this one is empty.
   From Monterey comes the 2004 Talbott Diamond T Estate Chardonnay ($65), an unusually concentrated white wine owing to extremely low yields (less than one ton) per acre. There’s an intense ripeness to this dense, almost chewy wine that’s nicely balanced by minerality and acidity.

Planets in Action
By Anthony Cook
Griffith Observatory Astronomer

   Jupiter is ideally placed for viewing this month. On July 9th, the giant planet is in opposition—the point in the sky opposite the sun and nearly its closest point to the earth. Jupiter then rises in the southeast at sunset and sets in the southwest at sunset, and is the brightest planet visible this month, third to only the sun and the moon.
   Jupiter now sports three red spots; the familiar giant spot first seen over 300 years ago; a smaller spot discovered by an amateur astronomer in 2005; and a new small spot discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope in May that will be devoured by the large red spot next month–an event eagerly awaited by planetary astronomers.
   Mercury will make a good appearance for early-risers during the first three weeks of July. On the first, use binoculars to find the planet 12 degrees (a little more than a binocular field-of-view) to the right of the slender waning crescent moon. The best time to look is at 5:16 a.m.
   Earth’s elliptical orbit takes us farthest from the sun at 12:41 a.m. P.D.T. on July 4th. At that moment, the center of our planet is 94,513,143 miles from the center of the sun, some 3,111,551 miles farther than we were last January 2nd.
The moon is new on the evening of July 2nd, reaches first quarter phase on the evening of the 9th, is full just as it is highest in the sky on the morning of the 18th and reaches last quarter phase on the morning of the 25th. The following new moon, on August 1st, will cause a total eclipse of the sun through a slice of the Arctic and Asia (while it is night in Los Angeles).