Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, July 14, 2018

8

FOOD & DRINK

Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 14, 2018 


TABLE FOR TWO by Peter Dills

thechefknows@yahoo.com

BRININGING YOUR OWN 
WINE? PLUS SUMMERTIME’S 
BLUES PARTY AT PACO’S

Recently I dined at a very upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills 
and became friendly with the owner. He told me that he flies 
from coast to coast monthly to take care of his restaurants in 
New York City. Being the curious sort, I asked my new friend 
what is the biggest difference between NYC patrons and Angelenos. 
Without hesitation he said that we ”hometown folk” don’t 
hesitate to bring our own wine into restaurants, whereas in New 
York City it is frowned upon, but he has learned to accept it as a 
part of doing business here in Los Angeles. He said that his food 
costs for a steak can run up as much as 40%, but he can triple the 
price of a bottle and more for wine by the glass.

 My friend Robert Simon owner of Bistro 45 describes it this 
way: There are two schools of thought: there are restaurants that 
take a casual look at their wine list, and there are restaurants that 
you can and should trust to have a great $30 bottle (or wine by 
glass) or a $300 bottle of wine. If you trust the restaurant, order 
from their menu. If it’s a special occasion, then bring a bottle 
and buy a bottle.

 For me, I contend that corkage is generally meant as a courtesy for customers looking to savor a special 
bottle. Unfortunately, this isn’t often what customers do. Instead, people will bring bad wine or argue over 
the fee. Here are a few of my tips on this: 1) Call the restaurant about their policy. I’d feel more comfortable 
taking a bottle to a restaurant where I am considered a regular. 2) Bring only a bottle that is not on their 
menu. If it is, ok, bring one, and also buy one of theirs. 3)Although the restaurant sommelier is almost a 
thing of the past, ask the owner/manager if they’d like a taste. 4) If they have waived the fee, or if the corkage 
is reasonable, you must tip as if you bought the wine at the restaurant

Considering how much I eat out, I don’t bring wines to restaurants that often. Sometimes it’s easier to not 
do all the work. There is, however one place where I wish I could always bring wine: weddings, seems I am 
never happy with the wine selection.

 Attention Party People: Join me at Paco’s on Sunday July 15th at 6 PM for Paco’s Mid-summer Blues 
Party, a mixer like no other !!! Paco’s is Arcadia favorite place to party this Summer.

Tune into Dining w/Dills on KLAA AM 830 at 3 PM for my radio show Sunday, and you can follow me on 
twitter @kingofcuisine

 
STARTING A NEW BUSINESS ? 
FILE YOUR DBA HERE 
Doing Business As, 
Fictitious Business Name Filing 
Obtain Street Address - Business Stationary - Flyers 
Rubber Stamps - Business Cards - Mailing Service 
80 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre 
626-836-6675 
A NEW TELESCOPE EXPANDS BIG BEAR SOLAR OBSERVATORY’S VIEW OF THE SUN


A solar telescope that captures images of the entire 
disk of the Sun, monitoring eruptions taking place 
simultaneously in different magnetic fields in both 
the photosphere and chromosphere, is now being 
installed beside the Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at 
NJIT’s California-based Big Bear Solar Observatory 
(BBSO).

 The telescope, SOLIS (Synoptic Optical Long-
term Investigations of the Sun), collects images 
from three separate instruments over years and 
even decades, rather than minutes or hours, giving 
scientists a comprehensive view of solar activity 
such as flares and coronal mass injections over 
the long-term. It will complement the GST, which 
gathers high-resolution images of individual 
explosions at such detail that researchers are 
beginning to unveil the mechanical operations 
that trigger them.

 “With this important addition, BBSO becomes 
a comprehensive observing site that offers not 
only high-resolution solar observations, but also 
global data of our star,” notes Wenda Cao, an NJIT 
professor of physics and BBSO’s director. “By 
monitoring variations in the Sun on a continuing 
basis for several decades, we will better understand 
the solar activity cycle, sudden energy releases in 
the solar atmosphere, fluxes in solar irradiance, or 
brightness, and their relationship to global change 
on Earth.”

 Earlier this month, BBSO received a $2.3 million 
grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) 
that will fund continuing scientific study of the 
Sun using the 1.6-meter GST at Big Bear, which is 
currently the highest resolution solar telescope in 
the world.

 “GST will continue to play a crucial, leading 
role in advancing solar studies until the end of 
this decade and beyond. We will obtain, analyze 
and interpret the highest resolution solar data ever 
taken, while developing and applying analytical 
tools to attack a number of critical, leading-edge 
problems in solar research,” says Cao, the grant’s 
principal investigator.

 Big Bear Lake is an ideal location, because the 
lake minimizes atmospheric turbulence caused by 
heating thermals, offering exceptional “seeing” for 
long periods per day on its more than 286 sunny 
days per year.

 SOLIS is a suite of three innovative 
instruments that greatly improve ground-based 
synoptic solar observations. The 50-cm vector 
spectromagnetograph is a compact, high-
throughput vector-polarimeter with an active 
secondary mirror, an actively controlled grating 
spectrograph and two high-speed cameras with 
silicon-on-CMOS-multiplexer hybrid focal plane 
arrays. It will measure the magnetic field strength 
and direction over the full solar disk within 15 
minutes.

 “SOLIS continues a 45-year record of data on the 
behavior of the Sun’s magnetic field that originally 
began at Kitt Peak, Arizona. It is also the longest 
consistent provider of data on the direction of the 
magnetic field in the photosphere, stretching back 
to 2003.” says Frank Hill, associate director of the 
NSO.

 Earlier this year, a team of physicists led by NJIT’s 
Gregory Fleishman discovered a phenomenon 
that may begin to untangle what they call “one 
of the greatest challenges for solar modeling”—
determining the physical mechanisms that heat the 
corona, or upper atmosphere, to 1 million degrees 
Fahrenheit and higher.

 Invisible to the human eye except when it appears 
briefly as a fiery halo of plasma during a solar eclipse, 
the corona remains a puzzle even to scientists who 
study it closely. Beginning 1,300 miles from the 
star’s surface and extending millions more in every 
direction, it is more than a hundred times hotter 
than lower layers much closer to the fusion reactor 
at the Sun’s core.

 You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@
MtnViewsNews.com.

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com